'fJ^M'i:fiMiJH 1 



ilii 



illliil 



mi- '''-'' 




0Q0a07E3'=i5E 






T U t 






.51 



Egotis' 



CONTENTS 



.ODr-^'i^'^- 



HO I. -"3 OF IDLENESS ANDi" OTHER EARLY POEMS. 

Fugitive Pieces. 

(i8p6.).- ; 



.-•a. xg Newstead Abbey 

iio i^ — 

C#n the Death of a Young Lady, 
' Cousin to the Author, and very 

dear to Him 
To D— - 
To Caroline 
To Caroline 
To Em/ma 

-merits of School Exercises: 

: Ti t^e "Prometheus Vinctus" 

■ Esci«f'lus .... 

., = ■.: viitfcn in "Letters of an Ital- 

': . Nun and an English Gentle- 

:ta, by J. J. Rousseau: Founded 

Facte" 

"'■ to the Foregoing, Addressed 

Miss .... 

i Change of Masters at a Great 
tMihlic School .... 
£r u;rh on a Beloved Friend . 
Adrian's Address to his Sovil when 

''ng 

: igment ..... 
"troline . - .- 
"aroline ' . ' . 
711 a DistaTft View of the Village and 
^ School -^f Harrow on the Hill, 1806 
Thouglfts suggested by a College 
ExarAination . . . . 

}^ ^'^'arj', on Receiving Her Picture 
^^i the Death of Mr Fox 
i."o a Lady who Presented to the 

' Author a Lock of Hair Braided 

with his own, and appointed a 



PAGE 

I 



night in December to meet him in 
the Garden 

To a Beautiful Quaker . 

To Lesbia . . . . , 

To Woman .... 

An Occasional Prologue, Deliverec 
by the Author previous to the Per- 
rOrmance oi j. uc wneei <jf For- 
tune" at a Private Theatre 

To Eliza ..... 

The Tear .... 

Reply to some Verses of T. M. B. 
Pigot, Esq., on the Cruelty of hi: 
Mistress 

Granta. A Medley 

To the Sighing Strephon 

The Cornelian 

To M— 

Lines Addressed to a Young Lady 
[As the Author was discharging 
his Pistols in a Garden, Twc 
Ladies passing near the spot wen 
alarmed by the sound of a Bullei 
hissing near them, to one of whon- 
the following stanzas were ad- 
dressed the next morning] . 

Translation from Catullus. Ad Les 
biam . . . . . 

Translation of the Epitaph on Virgi 
and Tibullus, by Domitius Marsu' 

Imitation of Tibullus. Sulpicia a-^ 
Cerinthum . . ■ • 

Translation from Catullus. Lvger 
Vcfiirto Cupidinesque 

Imitated from Catullus. To Ellei 



23 



CONTENTS 



Poems on Var-zous OccAtiioNS. 



{January 1807.) 



io M. S. G. , 

S anzas to a Lady, with the Poems of 
Camoens . . . . . 

io M. S. G 

' ranslation from Horace. Justum et 
ienacem, etc. . . . . 

* he First Kiss of Love . 

.hildish Recollections 

Answer to a Beautiful Poem, Written 
by Montgomery, Author of "The 
Wanderer of Switzerland," etc., 
entitled "The Common Lot" 



PAGE 

24 



34 



Love's Last Adieu . . 

Lines Address.-d to the R>v. J. 
Becher, on his advising th \, ■ 
to mix more with Sf>-.:iety 

Answer to sorn(> EIcj ant V'ei 
by a Friend to Hie Autti 
plaining that 01 n- of his c 
tions was rat hi t too - 
drawn 

Elegy on Newstead .\ - - .,. 



\ 



'o George, Earl Delawarr . . 41 

'amoetas ..... 42 

! o Marion ..... 43 

' scar of Alva . . . ... 43 



Hours of Idleness. 
{June I So 7.) 

Translation from the Me^^ F, 



m 



' ranslation from Anacreon. Ode i 

( rom Anacreon. Ode 3 

' he Episode of Nisus and Euryalus. 

A Paraphrase from the Mneid, 

Lib. 9 . 



50 



ripides {LI. 627-660] . ' . 
Lachin y Gair . . . - 
To Romance ... 
The Death of Calmar and O:); 
Vo Edward Noel Long, Esq. . 
To a Lady .... 



Poems Original and Translated. 
(1808.) 



''hen I Roved a Young Highlander 64 
o the Duke of Dorset ... 66 
o the Earl of Clare ... 68 



I would I were a Careless Child 
Lipes Written beneath an Elm m the 
Churchyard of Harrow 



Early Poems from Various Sources. 



) my dear Mary Anne . . 71 

) Mary Chaworth . . -72 

agment, Written Shortly after the 
Marriage of Miss Chaworth. First 
published in Moore's Letters and 
Tournals of Lord Byron, 1830, i. 56 72 
membrance. First pubHshed in 
Works 0} Lord Byron, iS32,vii. 152 72 
a Lady who presented the Author 
ivith the Velvet Band which bound 
her Tresses. Works, 1832, vii. 

151 

o a Knot of Ungenerous Critics. 
MS. Newstead .... 7^ 
liloquy of a Bard in the Country, 
MS. ISi'wstead . . . ■ ?4 

'Amitie ei>* L' Amour sans Ailes. 
Works, 1832, vii. 161 ... 76 



The Prayer of Nature. Letters and 

Journals, 1830, ;. 106 
Translation from Anacreon. Ode 5. 

MS. Newstead .... 
[Ossian's Address to the Sun in 

"Carthon."] MS- Newstead 
[Pignus Amoris.] '^MS- Newstead 
[A Woman's Hair.] W^R 1832, 

vii. 151 . . . V • 

Stanzas to Jessy. Monthly LitK^y 

Recreations, July, 1807 
The Adieu. Works, 1832, vii. 

To . MS. Newstead 

On the Eyes of Miss A H . 

MS. Newstead .... 
Tn a Vain Lady. Works, 1832, vii. 

^199 

To Anne. Works, 1832, vii. 201 






% 



CONTENTS 



Egotism. A letter to J. T. Becher. 

1 MS. Newstead .... 

ITo Anne. Works, 1832, vii. 202 . 

'To the Author of a Sonnet Beginning, 
"'Sad is my verse,' you say, 'and 
yet no tear.'" Works, 1832, vii. 

(( 202 ...... 

\0a. Finding a Fan. Works, 1832, 



) 203 . 

Farewell to the Muse. 



Works, 1832, 
Works, 



vu. 203 
To an Oak at Newstead. 

1832, vii. 206 .... 

,,On revisiting Harrow. Letters and 

1 Journals, i. 102 .... 

,- Ion. Letters and Jo iini'i^- -'■ 



85 
86 
86 

87 
8S 



iit Thovx weep when lam low ? 
■Urons and Translations, 1809, 

d rat not, Remind me not. 



Imitations and Translations, 1809, 

P- 197 

To a \outhful Friend. Imitations 

and Translations, 1809, p. 185 
Lines Inscribed upon a Cup Formed 

from a Skull. First published, 

Childe Harold, Cantos i., ii. 

(Seventh Edition), 1814 
Weil ! Thou art Happy. Imitations 

and Translations, 1809, p. 192 . 
Inscription on the Monuinti't of a 

Newfound' 1 .. Dog Imitations 

r-fu'^ "ninslntioHS, 1809, p. 190 
io a Lady, On being -asked my 

Reason for quitting England h ^iv 

Spring. ImiWs,':^,iL»^:S'^I' 



*■ } Casuists. i1'?-''i^- Newstead 


f^Q 


freeze of t^e night," etc. 




Murra^' J . . , . 


8q 


irriet - '^■^'5'. Newstead . 


go 


^ff^ a^ a Time, I need not name. 




•falions and Translations, 1809, 





90 



i F 



809 p. 195 
ill the Goblet Again. A 



rSc; 



Imitations a7id Translations, 

n. 204 . . . . 

Stanzas to a Lady, on leaving Eng 

ia^|d. Imiiations and Transla 

tiofki, 1809, p. 227 
English Bards, and Scotch Ri 

VIEWERS .... 

Hints from Horace 
The Curse of Minerva 
The Waltz .... 



Itinerary ..... 

Preface to the First and Second 
Cantos . . . . .166 

To lanthe 168 

Canto the First . . .169 
Notes 188 



Childe Harold's Piixjilixtage 
164 



Canto the Second 
Notes .... 
Canto the Third 
Notes .... 
Dedication to Canto the Fourth 
Canto the Fourth 



Poems 1809-1813. 



I / 



y-^ 



The Girl of Cadiz. First published 
in Works of Lord Byron, 1832, viii. 
56 

Lines written in an Album, at Malta. 
First published, Childe Harold, 
1812 (4to) 

To Florence. First published, Childe 
Harold, 181 2 (4to) 
Stanzas composed during a Thun- 
derstorm. First published, Childe 
Harold, 181 2 (4to) 

Stanzas written in passing the Am- 
bracian Gulf. First pubHshed, 
ChilJ-e Harold, 181 2 (4to) . 

The Spell is broke, the Charm is 
flown ! First published, Childe 
Harold, 181 2 (4to) 



290 



290 



291 



292 



292 



Written after swimming from Sestc 
to Abydos. First published, Chile 
Harold, 181 2 (4to) 

Lines in the Travellers' Book s 
Orchomenus. First publisher 
Travels in Italy, Greece, etc., b 
H. W. Williams, 1820, ii. 290 

Maid of Athens, ere we part. Firs 
published, Childe Harold, iSi 
(4to) 

T ,.igment from the "Monk o 
' \thos." First published Life 0; 

,. Lord Byron, by the Hon. Roden 
Noel, 1890, pp. 206, 207 

Lines written beneath a Picture. 
First published, Childe JIarold. 
181 2 (4to) 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

r'.nslation of the famous Greek 
War Song, AeOre TratSes, k.t.X. 
i'lrst published, Childe Harold, 

^Si2 (4to) 295 

nslation of the Romaic Song, 
lirivu} yuecr' t6 jrepijSoXi^ k.t.X. 
i'irst published, Childe Harold, 

812 (4to) 295 

Parting. First published, Childe 
iarold, 181 2 (4to) . . . 296 
:ewell to Malta. First published, 
^oems on his Domestic Circum- 
tances, by W. Hone (Sixth Edi- 
lion, 1816) ..... 296 
iwstead Abbey. First published, 
Memoir ot^f-v.'P Hodgson, 1878, 

187 - >';^7 

itle to a Friend, in ans^ver to 

>me Lines exhorting the A.uthor 

1 be Cheerful, and to 'banish 

^re." First published. Letters 

n,d Journals, 1830, i. 301, 302 . 298 

Thyrza ["Without a stone," 

tc.]. First published, Childe 

larold, 181 2 (4to) . . _ . 299 

b /nzas ["Away, away," etc.]. First 

published, Childe Harold, 181 2 

(4to) .299 

- Hizas ["One struggle more, etc.]. 
"irst published, Childe Harold, 
812 (4to) . . . • 5^'^ 

hanasia. First published, Childe 
Tarold, i'jI2 (Second Edition) . 301 
izas ["/:nd thou art dead," etc.]. 
' irst published, Childe Harold, 
'S12 (Second Edition) . . . 301 
e'i to a I ady weeping. First pub- 
shedl, Morning Chronicle, March 

18.J2 302 

izas' ["If sometimes," etc.]. 
irst published, Childe Harold, 
)i2 (Second Edition) . . . 303 
a Cornelian Heart which was 
oken. First published, Childe 
avoid, 1 81 2 (Second Edition) . 303 
Chain I gave was Fair to view, 
om the Turkish. First pub- 
hed, Corsair, 1814 (Second Edi- 

• -n) 304 

5 written on a Blank Leaf of The 



Pleasures of Memory. First pub- / 
hshed. Poems, 181 6 
Address, spoken at the Opening of 
Drury-Lane Theatre, Saturday, 
October 10, 1812. First published', 'AC| 
Morning Chronicle, October 12 

1812 '. V ■ 

Parenthetical Address. By Dr ^ 
Plagiary. First published, Morn- \ 

tng Chronicle, October 23, 181 2 3o(J 
Verses found in a Summer-house at 
Hales- Owen. First published, 
Works of Lord Byron, 1832, xvii. 

244 307 

Reniember thee ! Remember thee ! 
First published. Conversations of 
T a, Byr< on, 1824, p. 330 . . 307 

To Time. iMfsi -, Bubhshed, Childe \ 

Harold, 181 4 (SeVv-^nth Edition) 308/ 
Translation of a Romaic - Love Song. 
First published, Childe Harold 
1814 (Seventh Edition) . \ -Qgj 

Stanzas ["Thou art not false," etc.^ "| 1 

First published, Childe Harold, ' |' 

1 81 4 (Seventh Edition) . . 309 *i 
On being asked what was the | 

"Origin of Love." First pub- * 

lished, . Childe Harold, 1814 
(Seventh Edition) . . . 309 ' 

On the Quotation, "And my true 

faith," etc. MS. Murray . . 309 
Stanzas ["Remember him," etc.]. 
First published, Childe Harold, 
1 81 4 (Seventh Edition) . . 310 

Impromptu, in Reply to a Friend. 

First published, Childe Harold, \ 

1814 (Seventh Edition) . . 31X r 

Sonnet. To Genevra ["Thine eyes' , 

blue tenderness," etc.]. First pub- 
lished. Corsair, 181 4 (Second Edi- ^ 

tion) 311 

Sonnet. To Genevra ["Thy cheek 
is pale with thought," etc.]. First 
published. Corsair, 181 4 (Second 
Edition) . . . . : Z^^ 
From the Portuguese ["Tu mi t 
chamas"]. First published, Childe I 
Harold, 181 4 (Seventh Edition). 
"Another Version." First pub- 
lished, 1831 312 



The Giaour: A Fragment of a Turkish Tale. 
rtisement . , . . 312 | The Giaour 

The Bride of Abydos. A Turkish Tale. 
o the First . . . 331 I Canto the Second . 



313 



338. 



CONTENTS 



The Corsair: A Tale, 



Advertisenii 



First 
Napoleon Buonaparte 



Franc 
Canto the First 



PAGE 
349 
351 



Canto the Second 
Canto the Third 



Lara: A Tale. 

. 389 I Canto the Second 



page 
362 
373 

386 



401 



Hebrew Melodies. 



She walks in Beauty 

The Harp the Monarch Minstrel 

swept 
If that High World 
The Wild Gazelle . 
Oh ! weep for those 
On Jordan's Banks 
Jephtha's Daughter 
Oh! snatched away in Beauty's 

Bloom 
My Soul is Dark 
I saw thee weep 
Thy Days are done 
Saul 
Song of Saul before his Last Battle 



412 

412 
413 
413 
413 
414 
414 

414 
415 
415 
415 
415 
416 



"All is Vanity, saith the Preacher" 
When Coldness wraps this suffering 

Clay ....... 

Vision of Belshazzar 
Sun of the Sleepless ! 
Were my Bosom as False as thou 

deem'st it to be . 
Herod's Lament for Mariamne 
On the Day of the Destruction of 

Jerusalem by Titus 
By the Rivers of Babylon we sat 

down and wept . 
"By the Waters of Babylon" . 
The Destruction of Sennacherib 
A Spirit passed before me 



416 

417 
417 

418 

418 
^18 



421. 

420 
420 



Poems 1814-1816. 



Farewell! if ever fondest Prayer. 
First published, Corsair (Second 
Edition, 181 4) . . 

When we Two parted. First pub- 
lished, Poems, 1 81 6 

[Love and Gold.] MS. Murray 

Stanzas for Music ["I speak not, I 
trace not," etc.]. First published. 
Fugitive Pieces, 1829 . 

Address intended to be recited at the 
Caledonian Meeting. First pub- 
hshed, Letters and Journals, 1830, 

i- 559 

Elegiac Stanzas on the Death of Sir 
Peter Parker, Bart. First pub- 
lished, Morning Chronicle, Octo- 
ber 7, 1814 ..... 

JuHan [a Fragment]. MS. M. 

To Belshazzar. First published, 1831 

Stanzas for Music ["There's not a 
joy," etc.]. First published. 
Poems, 1 81 6 

On the Death of the Duke of Dorset. 



421 
421 



42: 



423 



424 
424 
426 



426 



First published, Works, Paris, 
1826, p. 716 .... 427 

Stanzas for Music ["Bright be the 
place of thy soul"]. First pub- 
lished. Examiner, June 4, 181 5 . 427 

Napoleon's Farewell. First pub- 
lished, £.x:amz»er, July 30, 181 5 . 427 

From the French ["Must thou go, 
my glorious Chief?"]. First pub- 
lished. Poems, 1 81 6 . . .428 

Ode from the French ["We do not 
curse thee, Wate^^oo!"]. First 
published, Morning Chronicle, 
March 15, 181 6 . . . . 428 

Stanzas for Music ["There be none 
of Beauty's daughters"]. First 
published. Poems, 181 6 . . 430 

On the Star of "the Legion of 
Honour." First published. Ex- 
aminer, April 7, 181 6 . . . 430 

Stanzas for Music ["They say that 
Hope is happiness"]. First pub- 
lished, Fugitive Pieces, 1829 . 431 



T^Kdvertisement 



The Siege of Corinth. 

. 431 I The Siege of Corinth 



432 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Advertisement 446 



Fare Thee Well 
A Sketch 



Parisina. 

Parisina . 
Poems of the Separation. 



454 

455 



Stanzas to Augusta 



^ub- / 



ig of 
rday, 
shed, 
■ 12, 



The Prisoner of Chillon. 



Sonnet on Chillon 
Advertisement 



457 
457 



The Prisoner of Chillon . 



Poems of July-September, 1816. The Dream. 



The Dream. First published, Pris 
oner of Chillon, etc., 181 6 

Darkness. First published, Prisoner 
of Chillon, etc., 1816 

Churchill's Grave. First published. 
Prisoner of Chillon, etc., 181 6 

Prometheus. First published, Pris- 
oner of Chillon, etc., 181 6 
Fragment. First published. Letters 
a%' Journals, 1830, ii. 36 



464 
468 
469 
470 
471 



Sonnet to Lake Leman. First pub- 
lished. Prisoner of Chillon, etc., 
1816 

Stanzas to Augusta. First published, 
Prisoner of Chillon, etc., 1816 

Epistle to Augusta. First pubhshed. 
Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 38- 
41 

Lines on hearing that Lady Byron 
was III. First published, 1832 



Monody on the Death of the Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan. 

Monody on the Death of the Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan, Spoken at Drury Lane 
Theatre, London 



Manfred 



Manfred: A Dr.\matic Poem. 



Advertisement 



Beppo 



The Lament of Tasso. 

502 I The Lament of Tasso 

Beppo : A Venetian Story, 



Ode on Venice 



Ode on Venice. 



Advertisement 



Mazeppa. 
• 526 I Mazeppa 

The Prophecy of Dante. 



Dedication 53^ 

Preface 537 

The Prophecy of Dante. Canto the 

First 537 



Canto the Second 
Canto the Third 
Canto the Fourth 



54^ 

54' 
54' 



^ 



CONTENTS 



The Morgante Maggiore of Pulci. 



Advertisement 



PAGE 

550 



The Morgante Maggiore. Canto the 
First 551 



Francesca of Rimini. 
Francesca of Rimini 564 



Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice: An Historical Tragedy. 

Preface ...... 565 I Appendix . . . , 

Marino Faliero . . . • 570 | 



Preface 



The Vision of Judgment. 

. 633 I The Vision of Judgment 



Poems 1816-1823. 



A very Mournful Ballad on the Siege 
and Conquest of Alhama. First 
published, Childe Harold, Canto 
IV., 1818 

Translation from Vittorelli. On a 
Nun. First published, Childe 
Harold, Canto IV., 1818 

On the Bust of Helen by Canova. 
First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 61 . 

[Venice. A Fragment.] MS. Murray 

So we'll go no more a-roving. First 
published, Letters and Journals, 
1S30, ii. 79 

[Lord Byron's Verses on Sam 
Rogers.] Question and Answer. 
First published, Fraser's Maga- 
zine, January, 1833, vol. vii. pp. 
82-84 

The Duel. MS. M. . . . 

Stanzas to the Po. First published. 
Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824 

Sonnet on the Nuptials of the Mar- 
quis Antonio Cavalli with the 
Countess Clelia Rasponi of Ra- 
venna. MS. M. ... 



652 



654 



655 
655 



655 



656 
656 

657 



659 



Sonnet to the Prince Regent. On 
the Repeal of Lord Edward Fitz- 
gerald's Forfeiture. First pub- 
lished, Letters and Journals, ii. 234, 
235 

Stanzas. First published. New 
Monthly Magazine, 1832 

Ode to a Lady whose Lover was 
killed by a Ball, which at the same 
time shivered a portrait next his 
heart. MS. M. ... 

The Irish Avatar. First published, 
Paris, September 19, 182 1 . 

Stanzas written on the Road between 
Florence and Pisa. First pub- 
lished. Letters and Journals, 1830, 
ii. 566, note .... 

Stanzas to a Hindoo Air. First pub- 
lished, Works of Lord Byron 

To . First published. New 

Monthly Magazine, 1833 

To the Countess of Blessington. 
First published, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830 ..... 

Aristomenes. Canto First. MS. . 



632 



636 



659 
659 

660 

662 

665 
665 
666 



666 
666 



The Blues: A Literary Eclogue. 
The Blues. Eclogue the First . 667 | Eclogue the Second . . . 670 

Sardanapalus : A Tragedy. 

Dedication 674 I Sardanapalus 676 

Preface 674 I 

The Two Foscari: An Historical Tragedy. 
2^/jj Two Foscari 729 



CONTENTS 



Cain: A Mystery. 



PAGE 



Dedication ..... 767 
Preface 767 



Cain 



PAGE 

769 



Heaven and Earth: A Mystery. 



Heaven and Earth 



802 



Preface 
Werner 



Werner; or, The Inheritance: A Tragedy. 
Werner. [First Draft.] 



824 



. 885 



The Deformed Transformed: A Drama. 



Advertisement 

The Deformed Transformed 



893 
893 



Fragment of the Third Part of The 
Deformed Transformed . .919 



The Age of Bronze; or, Carmen Seculare et Annus Haud Mirabilis. 
The Age of Bronze 92] 



The Island; or. Christian and his Comrades. 



Advertisement 




938 


Canto the Third 


Canto the First . . . . 


938 


Canto the Fourth 


Canto the Second . . . . 


942 








Don J 


UAN. 




Fragment on the Back of the MS. 






Canto VII. 


of Canto I. . . . . 


965 




Canto VIII. 


Dedication to Robert Southey, Esq. 


965 




Canto IX. 


Canto I 


968 




Canto X. 


Canto II. 




lorn'"' 




Canto XI. 


Canto III. 




1034 




Canto XII. 


Canto IV. 




1053 




Canto XIII. 


Canto V. 




1071 




Canto XIV 


Preface to Cantos VI 


, VII., and 






Canto XV. 


VIII. 




1096 




Canto XVI. 


Canto VI. 




1097 




Canto XVII. 



953 
957 



1115 
1129 

1151 
1165 
1178 

"93 
1206 
1224 
1240 
1255 
1274 



JeUX D'EsPRIT AND MiNOR POEMS, 1798-1824. 



Epigram on an Old Lady who had 
some Curious Notions respecting 
the Soul. First published, Letters 
and Journals, 1830, i. 28 . 

Epitaph on John Adams, of South- 
well. First published. Letters and 
Journals, 1830, i. 106 . 

A Version of Ossian's Address to the 
Sun. First published, Atlantic 
Monthly, December, 1898 . . 1277 



1277 



1277 



Lines to Mr Hodgson. Written on 
board the Lisbon Packet. First 
published, Letters and Journals, 
1830, i. 230-232 .... 

[To Dives. A Fragment.] First 
published, Lord Byron's Works, 
1833, xvii. 241 .... 

Farewell Petition to J. C. H., Esqre. 
First published, Murray's Maga- 
zine, 1887, vol. i. pp. 290, 291 . 



278 



1279 



. , I 



CONTENTS 



Th 



Translation of the Nurse's Dole in 
the "Medea" of Euripides. First 
published, Letters and Journals, 
1830, i. 227 1280 

My Epitaph. First pubUshed, Letters 
and Journals, 1S30, i. 240 . . 1280 

Substitute for an Epitaph. First 
published, Lord Byron's Works, 
1832, ix. 4 . . .. . . 1281 

Epitaph for Joseph Blacket, late 
Poet and Shoemaker. First pub- 
lished. Lord Byron's Works, 1832, 
ix. 10 1281 

On Moore's Last Operatic Farce, or 
Farcical Opera. First published, 
Letters and Journals, 1830, i. 295 
{note) 1281 

[R. C. DaUas.] First published. 
Life, Writings, Opinions, e/c.,1825, 
ii. 192 ..... 1281 

An Ode to the Framers of the Frame 
Bill. First pubUshed, Morning 
Chronicle, March 2, 1812 . .1281 

To the Honble Mrs George Lamb. 
First published, The Two Duch- 
esses, by Vere Foster, 1898, p. 374 1282 

[La Revanche.] First published, 1903 1282 

To Thomas Moore. Written the 
Evening before his visit to Mr 
Leigh Hunt in Horsemonger Lane 
Gaol, May 19, 1813. First pub- 
lished, Letters and Journals, 1830, 
i. 401 ...... 1283 

On Lord Thurlow's Poems. First 
published. Letters and Journals, 
1830, i. 396 1283 

To Lord Thurlow. First published. 

Letters and Journals, i8;io,i. ^g J . 1283 

The Devil's Drive. First published 
(Stanzas 1-5, 8, 10-12, 17, 18), 
Letters and Journals, 1830, i. 471- 
474; and (stanzas 6, 7, 9, 13-16, 
19-27), 1903 .... 12S4 

Windsor Poetics. First published. 

Poetical Works, Paris, 1S19, vi. 125 1289 

[Another Version.] On a Royal Visit 
to the Vaults. First published, 
1903 • 1289 

Ich Dien. First published, 1903 . 1289 

Condolatory Address, to Sarah, 
Countess of Jersey. First pub- 
lished, The Champion, July 31, 
1814 1289 

Fragment of an Epistle to Thomas 
Moore. First published. Letters 
and Journals, 1830, i. 561, 562 
(note) . ..... 1290 

Answer to 's Professions of 

Affection. First published, 1903 1291 



On Napoleon's Escape from Elba. 
First pubUshed, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, i. 611 . . . 1291 

Endorsement to the Deed of Separa- 
tion, in the April of 1 816. First 
published, Poetical Works, 183 1, vi. 
475 1291 

[To George Anson Byron ( ?).] First 
published, Nictuic, March 25, 1823 1292 

Song for the Luddites. First pub- 
lished Letters and Journals, 1830, 
ii. 58 . . . . . . 1292 

To Thomas Moore. ("What are 
you doing now?") First pub- 
lished, Letters and Journals, 1830, 
ii- 58, 59 1292 

To Mr Murray ("To hook the 
Reader," etc.). First published. 
Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 91 1292 

Versicles. First published, Letters 
and Journals, 1830, ii. 87 . . 1293 

Quem Deus vult perdere prius de- 
mentat. First published. Letters, 
1900, iv. 93 .... 1293 

To Thomas Moore ("My boat is on 
the shore"). First published, r/i<? 
rmz^e//fr, January 8, 1821 . . 1293 

Epistle from Mr Murray to Dr 
Polidori. First published. Letters 
and Journals, 1830, ii. 139-141 . 1294 

Epistle to Mr Murray. First pub- 
lished, (stanzas i, 2, 4, 7-9), Letters 
and Journals, 1830, ii. 156, 157; 
and (stanzas 3, 5, 6, 10, 11) Letters, 
1900, iv. 191-193 . . . 1295 

On the birth of John William Rizzo 
Hoppner. First published, Letters 
and Journals, 18^0,11. I ;}4. . . 1296 

[E Nihilo Nihil; or, an Epigram 
Bewitched.] First published, 1903 1296 

To Mr Murray. First published. 
Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 
171 1297 

Ballad. To the Tune of "Salley in 
our Alley." First published, 1903 1297 

Another Simple Ballat. First pub- 
Ushed, 1903 .... 1298 

Epigram. From the French of Rul- 
hieres. First pubUshed, Letters 
and Journals, 1830, ii. 235 . . 1299 

Epilogue. First published, in 
Walter HamUton's Parodies, 18'^'^ 



V. 105 . 

On my Wedding-Day. First pub 
lished. Letters and Journals, 1830 
n. 294 .... 

Epitaph for William Pitt. First pub- 
lished. Letters and Journals, 1830. 
u. 295 .... 



1299 
1299 
1299 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Epigram ("In digging up your bones, 
Tom Paine"). First published, 
Letters ajid Journals, 1S30, ii. 295 1300 

Epitaph ("Posterity will ne'er sur- 
vey"). First published. Lord 
Byron's Works, 1833, xvii. 246 . 1300 

Epigram ("The world is a bundle of 
hay"). First published. Letters 
and Journals, iS^o, ii. 4g4 . . 1300 

My Boy Hobbie O. First pub- 
lished, Murray's Magazine, March, 
1887, vol. i. pp. 292, 293 . . 1300 

Lines, Addressed by Lord Byron 
to Mr Hobhouse on his election 
for Westminster. First published, 
Miscellaneous Poems, 1824. . 1301 

A Volume of Nonsense. First pub- 
lished. Letters, 1900, v. 83 . -1301 

Stanzas. First published, Letters and 
Journals, 1830, ii. 377 . . . 1301 

To Penelope. First published, Med- 
win's Conversations, 1824, p. 106 1301 

The Charity Ball. First published, 
Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 540 1301 

Epigram, On the Braziers' Address, 
etc. First published. Letters and 
Journals, 1830, ii. 442 . . 1302 

On my Thirty-third Birthday. First 
published. Letters and Journals, 
1830, ii. 414 .... 1302 

Martial, Lib. I. Epig. I. First pub- 
lished. Lord Byron's Works, 1833, 
xvii. 245 ..... 1302 

Bowles and Campbell. First pub- 
lished, The Liberal, 1823, No. II. 
p. 398 1302 

Elegy. First published, Medwin's 
Conversations, 1824, p. 121 . . 1302 



PAGE 

John Keats. First published. Letters 
and Journals, 1830, ii. 506 . 1302 

From the French (".^gle, beauty 
and poet," etc.). First published. 
The Liberal, 1823, No. II. p. 396 1303 

To Mr Murray ("For Orford," etc.). 
First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 517 . . . 1303 

[Napoleon's Snuff-box.] First pub- 
lished. Conversations of Lord 
Byron, 1824, p. 235 . _ . . 1303 

The New Vicar of Bray. First pub- 
lished. Works (Galignani), 1831, 
p. 116 1303 

Lucietta. A Fragment. First pub- 
lished, 1893 .... 1304 

Epigrams. First published, The 
Liberal, No. I. October 18, 1822, 
p. 164 1304 

The Conquest. First published, 
Lord Byron's Works, 1833, xvii. 
246 _ . 1304 

Impromptu. ("Beneath Blessing- 
ton's eyes.") First published, 
Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 635 1305 

Journal in Cephalonia. First pub- 
lished. Letters, 1901, vi. 238 . 1305 

Song to the Suliotes. First pub- 
lished, 1903 .... 1305 

[Love and Death.] First published, 
Murray's Magazine, February, 
1887, vol. i. pp. 145, 146 . . 1305 

Last Words on Greece. First pub- 
lished, Murray's Magazine, Febru- 
ary, 1887, vol. i. p. 146 . . 1306 

On this day I complete my Thirty- 
sixth Year. First published. Morn- 
ing Chronicle, October 29, 1824 1306 



INTRODUCTION 
BY SIR LESLIE STEPHEN 



George Gordon, sixth Lord Byron, 
was descended from Richard, second 
Lord Byron, who succeeded his brother, 
John, first lord, in 1652. Richard's 
son, William {d. 1695), became third 
lord, and wrote some bad verses. By 
his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Vis- 
count Chaworth, he was father of 
William, fourth lord (1669-1736), gen- 
tleman of the bedchamber to Prince 
George of Denmark. The fourth lord 
was father, by his wife, Frances, 
daughter of Lord Berkeley of Stratton, 
of William, fifth Lord, John, afterwards 
Admiral Byron, and Isabella, wife of 
the fourth and mother of the fifth earl 
of Carlisle. The fifth lord (i 722-1 798) 
quarrelled with his cousin Mr. Chaworth 
(great grandson of Viscount Chaworth) 
at a club dinner of Nottinghamshire 
gentlemen, 26 Jan. 1765, and killed him 
after a confused scuffle in a room to 
which they had retired by themselves 
after dinner. Byron was convicted of 
manslaughter before the House of 
Lords, 16 April 1765, and, though ex- 
empted from punishment by his privi- 
lege as a peer, became a marked man. 
He lived in seclusion at Newstead Abbey, 
ill-treated his wife, was known as the 
"wicked lord," encumbered his estates, 
and made a sale of his property at Roch- 
dale, the disputed legality of which led 
to a prolonged lawsuit. His children 
and his only grandson (son of his son by 
the daughter of his brother, the admiral) 
died before him. 

Admiral Byron had two sons, John 

and George Anson (ancestor of the 

r/^c ""esent peer), and three daughters, one 



of whom became wife of her cousin, son 
of the fifth lord; another of Admiral 
Parker; the third of Colonel Leigh, by 
whom she was mother of another Colonel 
Leigh, who married his cousin, Augusta, 
daughter of John Byron, the admiral's 
eldest son. This John Byron (born 
1756) was educated at Westminster, 
entered the guards, was known as "mad 
Jack," and was a handsome profligate. 
He seduced the Marchioness of Car- 
marthen, who became Baroness Conyers 
on the death of her father, fourth earl of 
Holderness. He married her (June 
1779) after her divorce, and had by her 
in 1782 a daughter, Augusta, married to 
Colonel Leigh in 1807. Lady Conyers's 
death in France, 26 Jan. 1784, deprived 
her husband of an income of ;£40oo a 
year. He soon afterwards met, at Bath, 
a Miss Catherine Gordon of Gicht, with 
a fortune of ;;^23,ooo, doubled by 
rumour. The pair were married at 
St. Michael's Church, Bath, 13 May 
1785.^ John ^ Byron took his second 
wife to France, squandered most of her 
property, and returned to England, 
where their only child, George Gordon, 
was born in Holies Street, London, 
22 Jan. 1788. John Hunter saw the 
boy when he was born, and prescribed 
for the infant's feet.^ A malformation 
was caused, as Byron afterwards said, 
by his mother's "false delicacy." 
Trelawny says that the tendo Achillis 
of each foot was so contracted that 
he could only walk on the balls of the 
toes, the right foot being most distorted 

' Parish register. 

» Mrs. Byron's letters in Add. MS. 31037. 



INTRODUCTION 



and bent inwards. Injudicious treat- 
ment increased the mischief, and 
through hfe the poet could only hobble 
a few paces on foot, though he could at 
times succeed in concealing his in- 
firmity. 

John Byron's creditors became press- 
ing. The daughter, Augusta, was sent 
to her grandmother, the Dowager 
Countess Holderness. Mrs. Byron re- 
tired to Aberdeen, and lived upon ;;^i5o 
a year, the interest of ;^3ooo in the 
hands of trustees, the sole remnant of 
her fortune. She took lodgings in 
Queen Street, Aberdeen, and was fol- 
lowed by her husband, who occupied 
separate lodgings and sometimes petted 
the child, who professed in later years 
to remember him perfectly. With 
money got from his wife or his sister, 
Mrs. Leigh, he escaped to France in 
January 1791, and died at Valenciennes, 
2 Aug. 1791, possibly by his own hand.^ 
Mrs. Byron's income, reduced to £12,$ 
by debts for furniture and by helping 
her husband, was raised to ;^i9o on the 
death of her grandmother, and she 
lived within her means. Capricious and 
passionate by nature, she treated her 
child with alternate excesses of violence 
and tenderness. Scott says that in 1784 
she was seized with an hysterical fit 
during Mrs. Siddons's performance in 
Southern's "Fatal Marriage," and was 
carried out screaming, "Oh, my Biron, 
my Biron !" (the name of a character in 
the play). She was short and fat, and 
would chase her mocking child round 
the room in impotent fury. To the 
frank remark of a schoolfellow, "Your 
mother is a fool," he replied, "I know 
it." Another phrase is said to have 
been the germ of the "Deformed Trans- 
formed." His mother reviling him as 
a "lame beast," he replied, "I was born 
so, mother." The child was passion- 
ately fond of his nurse. May Gray, to 
whom at the final parting he gave a 
watch and his miniature — afterwards 
in the possession of Dr. Ewing of Aber- 

' Jeaffreson, i. 48; Harness, p. 33; Letter 
No. 460 in Moore's Life of Byron implicitly denies 
suicide. 



deen — and by whose teaching he 
acquired a familiarity with the Bible, 
preserved through life by a very reten- 
tive memory. 

At first he went to school to one 
"Bodsy Bowers," and afterwards to a 
clergyman named Ross. The son of 
his shoemaker, Paterson, taught him 
some Latin, and he was at the grammar 
school from 1794 to 1798.^ He was 
regarded as warm-hearted, pugnacious, 
and idle. Visits to his mother's relations 
and an excursion to Ballater for change 
of air in 1796 varied his schooldays. In 
a note to the "Island" (1813) he dates 
his love of mountainous scenery from 
this period; and in a note to "Don 
Juan" (canto x. stanza 18) he recalls 
the delicious horror with which he 
leaned over the bridge of Balgounie, 
destined in an old rhyme to fall with "a 
wife's ae son and a mare's ae foal." An 
infantile passion for a cousin, Mary 
Duff, in his eighth year was so intense 
that he was nearly thrown into convul- 
sions by hearing, when he was sixteen, 
of her marriage to Mr. Robert Cock- 
burn (a well-known wine merchant, 
brother of Lord Cockburn). She died 
10 March 1858.2 

In 1794, by the death of the fifth Lord 
Byron's grandson at the siege of Calvi 
in Corsica, Byron became heir to the 
peerage. A Mr. Ferguson suggested to 
Mrs. Byron that an application to the 
civil list for a pension might be success- 
ful if sanctioned by the actual peer.^ 
The grand-uncle would not help in 
the appeal, but after his death, 19 
May 1798, a pension of ;^3oo was given 
to the new peer's mother (warrant 
dated 2 Oct. 1799). In the autumn 
Mrs. Byron with her boy and May Gray 
left Aberdeen for Newstead. The 
house was ruinous. The Rochdale 
property was only recoverable by a law- 
suit. The actual income of the New- 
stead estate was estimated at £1100 -^ 

' Bain, Life of Arnott, in the papers of the 
Aberdeen Philosophical Society, gives his places 
in the school. 

^ Notes and Queries, 2nd series, iii. 231; she 
is described in Mr. Ruskin's "Praeterita." 

i Letters in Morrison MSS. 



INTRODUCTION 



year, which might be doubled when the 
leases fell in. Byron told Med win 
(p. 40) that it was about £1500 a year. 
Byron was made a ward in Chancery, 
and Lord Carlisle, son of the old lord's 
sister, was appointed his guardian. 

Mrs. Byron settled at Nottingham, 
and sent the boy to be prepared for a 
public school by Mr. Rogers. He was 
tortured by the remedies applied to his 
feet by a quack named Lavender. His 
talent for satire was already shown in a 
lampoon on an old lady and in an ex- 
posure of Lavender's illiteracy. In 
1799 he was taken to London by his 
mother, examined for his lameness by 
Dr. Baillie, and sent to Dr. Glennie's 
school at Delwich, where the treatment 
prescribed by Baillie could be carried 
out. Glennie found him playful, ami- 
able, and intelligent, ill-grounded in 
scholarship, but familiar with scripture 
and a devourer of poetry. At Glennie's 
he read a pamphlet on the shipwreck of 
the Juno in 1795, which ^-as afterwards 
worked up in "Don Juan"; and here, 
about 1800, he wrote his first love poem, 
addressed to his cousin "Margaret 
Parker. Byron speaks of her trans- 
parent and evanescent beauty, and says 
that his passion had its "usual effects" 
of preventing sleep and appetite. She 
died of consumption a year or two later. 
Meanwhile Mrs. Byron's tempers had 
become insupportable to Glennie, whose 
discipline was spoilt by her meddling, 
and to Lord Carlisle, who ceased to see 
her. Her importunity prevailed upon 
the guardian to send the boy to Harrow, 
where (in the summer of 1801) he be- 
came a pupil of the Rev. Joseph 
Drury. 

Drury obtained the respect and affec- 
tion of his pupil. A note to "Childe 
Harold" (canto iv.), upon a message 
in which he describes his repugnance to 
the "daily drug" of classical lessons, 
expresses his enthusiastic regard for 
Drury, and proves that he had not 
profited by Drury's teaching. His 
notes in the books which he gave to 
the school library show that he never 
became a tolerable scholar. He was 



always "idle, in mischief, or at play," 
though reading voraciously by fits. He 
shone in declamation, and Drury tells 
how he quite unconsciously interpolated 
a vigorous passage into a prepared 
composition. Unpopular and un- 
happy at first, he hated Harrow till 
his last year and a half; but he became 
attached to it on rising to be a leader. 
Glennie had noticed that his deformity 
had increased his desire for athletic 
glory. His strength of arm made him 
formidable in spite of his lameness. 
He fought Lord Calthorpe for writing 

"d ^d atheist" under his name. He 

was a cricketer, and the late Lord Strat- 
ford de Redclift'e remembered seeing 
him playing in the match against Eton 
with another boy to run -for him. 
Byron was one of the ringleaders in a 
childish revolt against the appointment 
of Dr. Butler (March 1805) as Drury's 
successor, and in favour of Mark Drury. 
Byron said that he saved the Hall from 
burning by showing to the boys the 
names of their ancestors on the walls 
(Med win, p. 68). He afterwards sati- 
rised Butler as"Pomposus" in "Hours 
of Idleness," but had the sense to 
apologise before his first foreign tour. 
"My school friendships," says Byron, 
"were with me passions." Byron re- 
monstrates with a boyish correspondent 
for calling him "my dear" instead of 
" my dearest Byron." His most famous 
contemporary at Harrow was Sir 
Robert Peel, for whom he offered to 
take half the thrashing inflicted by a 
bully. He protected Harness, his junior 
by two years, who survived till 1869. 
His closest intimates were apparently 
Lords Clare and Dorset and John 
Wingfield. When he met Clare long 
afterwards in Italy, he was agitated to a 
painful degree, and says that he could 
never hear the name without a beating 
of the heart. He had been called at 
Glennie's "the old English baron," 
and some aristocratic vanity perhaps 
appears in his choice of intimates and 
dependents. 

His mother was at Bath in 1802 
(where he appeared in Turkish costume 



INTRODUCTION 



at a masquerade) ; at Nottingham in 
1803; and at Southwell, in a house 
called Burgage Manor, in 1804. Byron 
visited Newstead in 1803, then occupied 
by Lord Grey de Ruthin, who set apart 
a room for his use. He was often at 
Annesley Hall, the seat of his distant 
cousins, the Chaworths. Mary Anne 
Chaworth was fifth in descent from 
Viscount Chaworth, and her grandfather 
was brother to the William Chaworth 
killed by the fifth Lord Byron. A super- 
stitious fancy (duly turned to account 
in the "Siege of Corinth," xxi.) that the 
family portraits would descend from 
their frames to haunt the duellist's 
heir, made him refuse to sleep there; 
till a "bogle" seen on the road to New- 
stead — or some less fanciful motive — 
induced him to stay for the night. He 
had fallen desperately in love with 
Mary Anne Chaworth, two years his 
senior, who naturally declined to take 
him seriously. A year later Miss 
Pigot describes him as a "fat bashful 
boy." In 1804 he found Miss Chaworth 
engaged to John Musters. The mar- 
riage took place in 1805. Moore gives 
a report, probably inaccurate, of Byron's 
agitation on hearing of the wedding. 
He dined with her and her husband in 
1808, and was much affected by seeing 
her infant daughter. Poems addressed 
to her appeared in "Hours of Idleness" 
and Hobhouse's "Miscellany." He 
told Medwin (p. 65) that he had found 
in her "all that his youthful fancy could 
paint of beautiful." Mrs. Musters's 
marriage was unhappy; she was sep- 
arated from her husband; her mind 
became affected, and she died in 1832, 
from a shock caused by riots at Notting- 
ham. This passion seems to have left 
the most permanent traces on Byron's 
life; though it was a year later (if his 
account is accurate) that the news of 
Mary Duff's marriage nearly caused 
convulsions. 

In October 1805, Byron entered 
Trinity College, Cambridge, as a noble- 
man. A youth of "tumultuous pas- 
sions, " in the phrase of his college tutor, 
he was exposed to the temptations of his 



rank, yet hardly within the sphere of its 
legitimate ambition. He rode, shot with 
a pistol, and boxed. He made a friend of 
the famous pugilist, Jackson, paid for 
postchaises to bring "dear Jack" to 
visit him at Brighton, invited him to 
Newstead, and gave him commissions 
about dogs and horses. He was greatest 
at swimming. The pool below the 
sluice at Grantchester is still called by 
his name. Leigh Hunt first saw him 
(Hunt, Byron, &c. p. i.) swimming a 
match in the Thames under Jackson's 
supervision, and in August 1807, he 
boasts to Miss Pigot of a three-mile 
swim through Blackfriars and West- 
minster bridges. He travelled to vari- 
ous resorts with a carriage, a pair of 
horses, a groom and valet, besides a 
bulldog and a Newfoundland. In 
1806 * his mother ended a quarrel by 
throwing a poker and tongs at his head. 
She followed him to his lodgings in 
London, whither he retreated, and there 
another engagement resulted in the 
defeat of the enemy — his mother. On 
a visit to Harrogate in the same summer 
with his friend Pigot he was shy, quiet, 
avoided drinking, and was polite to 
Professor Hailstone, of Trinity. On 
some of his rambles he was accompanied 
by a girl in boy's clothes, whom he 
introduced as his younger brother. He 
tells Miss Pigot that he has played 
hazard for two nights till four in the 
morning; and in a later diary (Moore, 
chap, viii.) says that he loved gambling, 
but left off in time, and played little after 
he was of age. It is not surprising to 
find him confessing in 1808 (Letter 25) 
that he is "cursedly dipped," and will 
owe £9000 or ;;^io,ooo on coming of 
age. The college authorities naturally 
looked askance at him; and Byron 
symbolized his opinion of dons by 
bringing up a bear to college, and 
declaring that the animal should sit 
for a fellowship. 

Byron formed friendships and had 
pursuits of a more intellectual kind. 
He seems to have resided at Cambridge 
for the Michaelmas term 1805, and the 
Lent and Easter terms 1806; he 



INTRODUCTION 



was then absent for nearly a year, and 
returned to keep (probably) the Easter 
term of 1807, the following October 
and Lent terms, and perhaps the Easter 
term of 1808, taking his M.A. degree 
on 4 July 1808.^ In the first period 
of residence, though sulky and solitary, 
he became the admiring friend of W. J. 
Bankes, was intimate with Edward Noel 
Long, and protected a chorister named 
Eddlestone. His friendship with this 
youth, he tells Miss Pigot (July 1807), 
is to eclipse all the classical precedents, 
and Byron means to get a partnership 
for his friend, or to take him as a per- 
manent companion. Eddlestone died 
of consumption in 181 1, and Byron 
then reclaimed from Miss Pigot a 
cornelian which he had originally 
received from Eddlestone, and handed 
on to her. References to this friend- 
ship are in the "Hours of Idleness," and 
probably in the "Cornelian Heart" 
(dated March 18 12). Long entered the 
army, and was drowned in a transport 
in 1809, to Byron's profound affliction. 
He became intimate with two fellows 
of King's — Henry Drury and Francis 
Hodgson, afterwards provost of Eton. 
Byron showed his friendship for Hodg- 
son by a present of ;;^iooo in 1813, when 
Hodgson w-as in embarrassment and 
Byron not over-rich. In his later resi- 
dence a closer "coterie " was formed by 
Byron, Hobhouse, Davies, and C.S. Mat- 
thews. John Cam Hobhouse, afterwards 
Lord Broughton, was his friend through 
life. Scrope Berdmore Davies, a man of 
wit and taste, delighted Byron by his 
"dashing vivacity," and lent him £4800, 
the repayment of which was celebrated 
by a drinking bout at the Cocoa on 
27 March 1814. Hodgson reports that 
when Byron exclaimed melodramatically, 
"I shall go mad," Davies used to sug- 
gest "silly" as a probable emendation. 
Matthews was regarded as the most 
promising of the friends. Byron de- 
scribed his audacity, his swimming and 
boxing, and conversational powers in a 
letter to Murray (20 Nov. 1820), and 

' Information kindly given by Cambridge au- 
thorities 



tells Dallas that he was a "most 
decided" and outspoken "atheist." 

Among these friends Byron varied 
the pursuit of pleasure by literary 
efforts. He boasts in a juvenile letter 
that he has often been compared to "the 
wicked" Lord Lyttelton, and has 
already been held up as "the votary of 
licentiousness and the disciple of in- 
fidelity." A list (dated 30 Nov. 1807) 
shows that he had read or looked through 
many historical books and novels "by 
the thousand." His memory was re- 
markable. Scott, however, found that 
in 1815 his reading did "not appear 
to have been extensive, either in history 
or poetry"; and the list does not imply 
that he had strayed beyond the highways 
of literature. 

At Southwell, in September 1806, he 
took the principal part (Penruddock, 
an "amiable misanthrope") in an 
amateur performance of Cumberland's 
"Wheel of Fortune," and "spun a 
prologue" in a postchaise. About the 
same time he confessed to Miss Pigot, 
who had been reading Burns to him, 
that he too was a poet, and wrote down 
the lines "In thee I fondly hope to 
clasp." In November 1806 Ridge, a 
Newark bookseller, had privately 
printed for him a small volume of 
poems, entitled "Fugitive Pieces." 
His friend, Mr. Becher, a Southwell 
clergyman, remonstrated against the 
license of one poem. Byron immedi- 
ately destroyed the whole impression 
(except one copy in Becher's hands 
and one sent to young Pigot, then study- 
ing medicine at Edinburgh). A hun- 
dred copies, omitting the offensive 
verses, and with some additions, under 
the title "Poems on Various Occa- 
sions," were distributed in January 
1807. Favourable notices came to the 
author from Bankes, Henry Mackenzie 
("The Man of Feeling"), and Lord 
Woodhouselee. In the summer of 1807 
Byron pubUshed a collection called 
"Hours of Idleness, a series of Poems, 
original and translated, by George 
Gordon, Lord Byron, a ininor," from 
which twenty of the privately printed 



INTRODUCTION 



poems were omitted and others added. 
It was praised in the Critical Review 
of September 1807, and abused in the 
first number of the Satirist. A new 
edition, with some additions and with- 
out the prefaces, appeared in March 
1808.^ In January 1808 the famous 
criticism came out in the Edinburgh 
(Byron speaks of this as about to appear 
in a letter dated 26 Feb. 1808). The 
critique has been attributed both to 
Brougham and Jeffrey. Jeffrey seems 
to have denied the authorship, and the 
ponderous legal facetiousness is cer- 
tainly not unlike Brougham, whom 
Byron came to regard as the author. 
The severity was natural enough. 
Scott, indeed, says that he remonstrated 
with Jeffrey, thinking that the poems 
contained "some passages of noble 
promise." But the want of critical 
acumen is less obvious than the needless 
cruelty of the wound inflicted upon a 
boy's harmless vanity. Byron was 
deeply stung. He often boasted after- 
wards that he instantly drank three 
bottles of claret and began a reply. He 
had already in his desk, on 26 Oct. 1807, 
380 lines of his satire, besides 214 pages 
of a novel, 560 lines in blank verse of a 
poem on Bosworth Field, and other 
pieces. He now carefully polished his 
satire, and had it put in type by Ridge. 

On leaving Cambridge he had settled 
at Newstead, given up in ruinous con- 
dition by Lord Grey in the previous 
April, where he had a few rooms made 
habitable, and celebrated his coming of 
age by some meagre approach to the 
usual festivities. A favourable decision 
in the courts had given him hopes of 
Rochdale, and made him, he says, 
;£6o,ooo richer. The suit, however, 
dragged on through his life. Mean- 
while he had to raise money to make 
repa,irs and maintain his establishment 
at Newstead, with which he declares his 
resolution never to part (Letter of 
6 March 1809). The same letter 
announces the death of his friend Lord 

■ See account of these editions in appendix 
to English translation of Elz's Byron (1872), 
p. 446. 



Falkland in a duel. In spite of his own 
difficulties Byron tried to help the 
widow, stood godfather to her infant, 
and left a £^500 note for his godchild in " 
a breakfast cup. In a letter from Mrs. 
Byron ^ this is apparently mentioned as 
a loan to Lady Falkland. On 13 March 
he took his seat in the House of Lords. / 
Lord Carlisle had acknowledged the 
receipt of "Hours of Idleness," the 
second edition of which had been dedi- 
cated to him, in a "tolerably handsome 
letter," but would take no trouble about 
introducing his ward. Byron was 
accompanied to the house by no one 
but Dallas, a small author, whose sister 
was the wife of Byron's uncle, George 
Anson, and who had recently sought 
his acquaintance. Byron felt his isola- 
tion, and sulkily put aside a greeting 
from the chancellor (Eldon). He erased 
a compliment to Carhsle and substi- 
tuted a bitter attack in his satire which 
was now going through the press under 
Dallas's superintendence. "English 
Bards and Scotch Reviewers" appeared 
in the middle of March, and at once 
made its mark. He prepared a second 
edition at the end of April with addi- 
tions and a swaggering prose postscript, 
announcing his departure from England 
and declaring that his motive was not 
fear of his victims' antipathies. The 
satire is vigorously written and more 
carefully polished than Byron's later 
eft'orts; but has not the bitterness, the 
keenness, or the fine workmanship of 
Pope. The retort upon his reviev/ers 
is only part of a long tirade upon the 
other poets of the day. In 1816 Byron 
made some annotations on the poem at 
Geneva, admitting the injustice of many 
lines. A third and fourth edition ap- 
peared in 181 o and 181 1; in the last 
year he prepared a fifth for the press. 
He suppressed it, as many of his adver- 
saries were now on friendly terms with 
him, and destroyed all but one copy, 
from which later editions have been 
printed. He told Murray (23 Oct. 
18 1 7) that he would never consent to 
its republication. 

' Athenaum, 6 Sept. 1884. 



INTRODUCTION 



Byron had for some time contem- 
plated making his "grand tour." In 
the autumn of 1808 he got up a play at 
Newstead; he buried his Newfound- 
land, Boatswain, who died of madness 
18 Nov. 1S08, under a monument with 
a misanthropical inscription ; and in the 
following spring entertained his col- 
lege friends. C. S. Matthews describes 
their amusements in a letter published 
by Moore. They dressed themselves 
in theatrical costumes of monks (with a 
recollection, perhaps, of Medmenham), 
and drank burgundy out of a human 
skull found near the abbey, which 
Byron had fashioned into a cup wnth 
an appropriate inscription. Such revel- 
ries suggested extravagant rumours of 
reckless orgies and "harems" in the 
abbey. Moore assures us that the life 
there was in reality "simple and inex- 
pensive," and the scandal of limited 
application. 

Byron took leave of England by some 
verses to Mrs. Musters about his 
blighted affections, and sailed from 
Falmouth in the Lisbon packet on 2 July 
1809. Hobhouse accompanied him, 
and he took three servants, Fletcher 
(who followed him to the last), Rushton, 
and Joe Murray. From Lisbon he 
rode across Spain to Seville and Cadiz, 
and thence sailed to Gibraltar in the 
Hyperion frigate in the beginning of 
August. He sent home Murray and 
Rushton with instructions for the proper 
education of the latter at his own ex- 
pense. He sailed in the packet for 
Malta on 19 Aug. 1809, in company 
with Gait, who afterwards wrote his 
life, and who was rather amused by the 
affectations of the youthful peer. At 
Malta he fell in with a Mrs. Spencer 
Smith with a romantic history,^ to 
whom he addressed the verses "To 
Florence," "stanzas composed during 
a thunderstorm," and a passage in 
"Childe Harold" (ii. st. 30-3), explain- 
ing that his heart was now past the 
power of loving. From Malta he 
reached Prevesa in the Spider, brig of 

' See Memoirs of the Duchesse d'Abr antes 
(1834), XV. 1-74. 



war, on 19 Sept. 1809. He thence 
visited Ali Pasha at Tepelen, and was 
nearly lost in a Turkish man-of-war on 
his return. In November he travelled 
to Missolonghi (21 Nov.) through 
Acarnania with a guard of Albanians. 
He stayed a fortnight at Patras, and 
thence left for Athens. He reached 
Athens on Christmas eve and lodged 
with Theodora Macri, widow of the 
English vice-consul, who had three 
lovely daughters. The eldest, Theresa, 
celebrated by Byron as the Maid of 
Athens, became Mrs. Black. ^ He 
sailed from Athens for Smyrna in the 
Py lades, sloop of war, on 5 March 1810; 
visited Ephesus; and on 11 April sailed 
in the Salsette frigate for Constanti- 
nople, and visited the Troad. On 3 May 
he repeated Leander's feat of swimming 
from Sestos to Abydos. In February 
182 1 he wrote a long letter to Murray, 
defending his statements against some 
criticisms in W. Turner's "Tour in the 
Levant" (see Appendix to Moore). 

Byron reached Constantinople on 
14 May, and sailed in the Salsette on 
14 July. Hobhouse returned to Eng- 
land, while Byron landed at Zea, with 
Fletcher, two Albanians, and a Tartar, 
and returned to Athens. Here he pro- 
fessed to have met with the adventure 
turned to account in the "Giaour" 
about saving a girl from being drowned 
in a sack. A letter from Lord Sligo, 
who was then at Athens, to Byron, 
proves that some such report was cur- 
rent at Athens a day or two later, and 
may possibly have had some foun- 
dation. Hobhouse ^ says that Byron's 
Turkish servant was the lover of the 
girl. He made a tour in the Morea, 
had a dangerous fever at Patras (which 
left a liability to malaria), and returned 
to Athens, where he passed the winter 
of 1810-11 in the Capuchin convent. 
Here he met Lady Hester Stanhope, 
and formed one of his strong attach- 

' She fell into poverty, and an appeal for her 
support was made in the Times on 23 March 
1872. She died in October 1875 {Times, 21, 
25, 27 Oct. 1875). 

' Westminster Rei'iew, January 1825. 



INTRODUCTION 



ments to a youth called Nicolo Giraud. 
To this lad he gave a sum of money on 
parting, and left him ;£7oo in a will of 
August 1811. From Athens Byron 
went to Malta, and sailed from thence 
for England in the Volage frigate on 
3 June 181 1. He reached Portsmouth 
at the beginning of July, and was met 
by Dallas at Reddish's Hotel, St. James 
Street, on 15 July, 181 1. 

Byron returned to isolation and vexa- 
tion. He had told his mother that, if 
compelled to part with Newstead, he 
should retire to the East. To Hodgson 
he wrote while at sea that he was re- 
turning embarrassed, unsocial, "without 
a hope and almost without a desire." 
His financial difficulties are shown by a 
series of letters published in the Athe- 
nceum} The court of chancery had 
allowed him ;£5oo a year at Cambridge, 
to which his mother had added as much, 
besides incurring a debt of ;^iooo on his 
behalf. He is reduced to his last guinea 
in December 1807, has obtained loans 
from Jews, and expects to end by 
suicide or the marriage of a "golden 
dolly." His mother was put to the 
greatest difficulties during his travels, 
and he seems to have been careless in 
providing for her wants. The bailiffs 
were at Newstead in February 181 o; 
a sale was threatened in June. Byron 
writes from Athens in November refus- 
ing to sell Newstead. While returning 
to England he proposed to join the 
army, and had to borrow money to pay 
for his journey to London. News of his 
mother's illness came to him in London, 
and before he could reach her she died 
(i Aug. 181 1) of a "fit of rage caused 
by reading the upholsterer's bills." 
The loss affected him deeply, and he 
was found sobbing by her remains over 
the loss of his ofve friend in the world. 
The deaths of his school friend Wing- 
field (14 May 181 1), of C. S. Matthews, 
and of Eddlestone were nearly simul- 
taneous blows, and he tells Miss Pigot 
that the last death "made the sixth, 
within four months, of friends and rela- 
tives lost between May and the end of 
I 30 Aug. and 6 Sept. 1884. 



August." In February 181 2 he men- 
tions Eddlestone to Hodgson as the 
"only human being that ever loved him 
in truth and entirely." He adds that 
where death has set his sep,l the im- 
pression can never be broken. The 
phrase recurs in the most impressive 
of the poems to Thyrza, dated in the 
same month. The coincidence seems 
to confirm Moore's statement that 
Thyrza was no more than an imper- 
sonation of Byron's melancholy caused 
by many losses. An apostrophe to a 
" loved and lovely one" at the end of the 
second canto of "Childe Harold" 
(st. 95, 96) belongs to the same series. 
Attempts to identify Thyrza have failed. 
Byron spoke to Trelawny of a passion 
for a cousin who was in a decline when 
he left England, and whom Trelawny 
identifies with Thyrza. No one seems 
to answer to the description. It may 
be added that he speaks of a "violent, 
though pure love and passion" which 
absorbed him w^hile at Cambridge, and 
writes to Dallas (11 Oct. 181 1) of a loss 
about this time which would have pro- 
foundly moved him but that he "has 
supped full of horrors," and that 
Dallas understands him as referring to 
some one who might have made him 
happy as a wife. Byron had sufficient 
elasticity of spirit for a defiance of the 
world, and a vanity keen enough to 
make a boastful exhibition of premature 
cynicism and a blighted heart. 

At the end of October 181 1 he took 
lodgings in St. James Street. He had 
shown to Dallas upon his return to 
England the first two cantos of "Childe 
Harold" and "Hints from Horace," 
a tame paraphrase of the "Ars Poetica." 
According to Dallas, he preferred the 
last, and was unwilling to publish the 
"Childe." Cawthorn, who had pub- 
lished the "English Bards," &c., 
accepted the "Hints" (which did not 
appear till after Byron's death), but 
the pubHcation was delayed, apparently 
for want of a good classical reviser. 
The Longmans had refused the "Eng- 
Ksh Bards," which attacked their 
friends, and Byron told Dallas to offer 



INTRODUCTION 



y^Childe Harold" elsewhere. Miller 
objected to the attack upon Lord 
Elgin (as the despoiler of the Parthe- 
non), for whom he published; and 
it was ultimately accepted by Mur- 
ray, who thus began a permanent 
connection with Byron. "Childe Har- 
old" appeared in March 1812. Byron 
had meanwhile spoken for the first 
time in the House of Lords, 27 Feb. 
181 2, against a bill for suppressing 
riots of Nottingham frameworkers, and 
with considerable success. A second 
and less successful speech against 
catholic disabilities followed on 21 April 
181 2. He made one other short speech 
in presenting a petition from Major 
Cartwright on i June 18 13. Lord 
Holland helped him in providing mate- 
rials for the first, and the speeches indi- 
cate a leaning towards something more 
than whiggism. The first two are of 
rather elaborate rhetoric, and his de- 
livery was criticised as too theatrical 
and sing-song. Any political ambition 
was extinguished by the startling suc- 
cess of "Childe Harold," of which a 
first edition was immediately sold. 
Byron "woke one morning and found 
himself famous." Murray gave ;^6oo 
for the copyright, which Byron handed 
over to Dallas, declaring that he would 
never take money for his poems. 

The two cantos now published are 
admittedly inferior to the continuation 
of the poem; and the affectation of 
which it set the fashion is obsolete. 
Byron tells Murray ^ that he is Hke a 
tiger. If he misses his first spring, he 
goes "grumbling back to the jungle 
again." His poems are all substantially 
impromptus; but the vigour and 
descriptive power, in spite of all blem- 
ishes, are enough to explain the success 
of a poem original in conception and 
setting forth a type of character which 
embodied a prevailing sentiment. 

Byron became the idol of the senti- 
mental part of society. Friends and 
lovers of notoriety gathered round this 
fascinating rebel. Among the first was 
Moore, who had sent him a challenge 
' 3 Nov. 182 1. 



for a passage in "English Bards" 
ridiculing the bloodless duel with Jeffrey. 
Hodgson had suppressed the letter dur- 
ing Byron's absence. Moore now wrote 
a letter ostensibly demanding explana- 
tions, but more hke a request for 
acquaintance. The two met at a dinner 
given by Rogers, where Campbell made 
a fourth. Byron surprised his new 
friends by the distinction of his appear- 
ance and the eccentricity of his diet, 
consisting of potatoes and vinegar 
alone. Moore was surprised at Byron's 
isolation. Dallas, his solicitor, Hanson, 
and three or four college friends were 
at this time (November 181 1) his only 
associates. Moore rapidly became inti- 
mate. Byron liked him as a thorough 
man of the world and as an expert in 
the arts which compensate for in- 
feriority of birth, and which enabled 
Moore to act as an obsequious monitor 
and to smother gentle admonition in 
abundant flattery. In his diary ^ Byron 
says that Moore was the best-hearted 
man he knew and with talents equal to 
his feelings. Byron was now at the 
height of his proverbial beauty. Cole- 
ridge in 18 1 6 speaks enthusiastically of 
the astonishing beauty and expressive- 
ness of his face. Dark brown locks, 
curling over a lofty forehead, grey eyes 
with long dark lashes, a mouth and chin 
of exquisite symmetry, are shown in his 
portraits, and were animated by an 
astonishing mobility of expression, 
varying from apathy to intense passion. 
His head was very small; his nose, 
though well formed, rather too thick; 
looking, says Hunt (i. 150) in a front 
view as if "grafted on the face"; his 
complexion was colourless; he had 
little beard; his height, he says ( iary, 
17 March 1814), 5 ft. 8| in. or a little 
less. He had a broad chest, long 
muscular arms, with white delicate 
hands, and beautiful teeth. A tendency 
to excessive fatness, inherited from his 
mother, was not only disfiguring but 
productive of great discomfort, and 
increased the unwieldiness arising from 
his lameness. To remedy the evil he 
' 10 Dec. 1813. 



INTRODUCTION 



resorted to the injurious system of diet 
often set down to mere affectation. 
Trelawny observes more justly that 
Byron was the only human being he 
knew with self-restraint enough not to 
get fat. In April 1S07 he tells Pigot 
that he has reduced himself by exercise, 
physic, and hot baths from 14 st. 7 lbs. 
to 12 St. 7 lbs; in January 1808 he tells 
Drury that he has got down to 10 st. 7 lbs. 
When last weighed at Genoa he was 
10 St. 9 lbs. He carried on this system 
at intervals through life; at Athens he 
drank vinegar and water, and seldom 
ate more than a little rice; on his return 
he gave up wine and meat. He sparred 
with Jackson for exercise, and took hot 
baths. In 1813 he lived on six biscuits 
a day and tea; in December he fasts for 
forty-eight hours; in 181 6 he lived on a 
thin slice of bread for breakfast and a 
vegetable dinner, drinking green tea 
and seltzer water. He kept down hunger 
by chewing mastic and tobacco. He 
sometimes took laudanum. He tells 
Moore in 182 1 that a dose of salts gave 
him most exhilaration. Occasional in- 
dulgences varied this course. Moore 
describes a supper (19 May 18 14) when 
he finished two or three lobsters, washed 
down by half a dozen glasses of strong 
brandy, with tumblers of hot water. 
He wrote " Don Juan " on gin and water, 
and Medwin speaks of his drinking too 
much wine and nearly a pint of hollands 
every night (in 1822). Trelawny, how- 
ever, declares that the spirits was 
mere "water bewitched." When Hunt 
reached Pisa in 1822, he found Byron 
so fat as to be scarcely recognisable. 
Medwin, two or three months later, 
found him starved into "unnatural 
thinness." Such a diet was no doubt 
injurious in the long run; but the 
starvation seems to have stimulated his 
brain, and Trelawny says that no man 
had brighter eyes or a clearer voice. 

In the spring of 1813 Byron published 
anonymously the "Waltz," and dis- 
owned it on its deserved failure. Vari- 
ous avatars of "Childe Harold," how- 
ever, repeated his previous success. 
The "Giaour" appeared in May 1813; 



the "Bride of Abydos" in December 
1813; the "Corsair" ia January 1814. 
They were all struck off at a white heat. 
The "Giaour" was increased from 400 
lines in the first edition to 1400 in the 
fifth, which appeared in the autumn of 
1813. The first sketch of the "Bride" 
was written in four nights "to distract 
his dreams from . . . ," and afterwards 
increased by 200 lines. The "Corsair," 
written in ten days, or between 18 and 
31 Dec, was hardly touched afterwards. 
He boasted afterwards that 14,000 copies 
of the last were sold in a day. With its 
first edition appeared the impromptu 
lines, "Weep, daughter of a royal line " ; 
the Princess Charlotte having wept, it 
was said, on the inability of the whigs 
to form a cabinet on Perceval's death. 
The lines were the cause of vehement 
attacks upon the author by the govern- 
ment papers. A satire called "Anti- 
Byron," shown to him by Murray in 
March 18 14, indicated the rise of a 
hostile feeling. Byron was annoyed 
by the shift of favour. He had said in 
the dedication of the "Corsair" to 
Moore that he should be silent for some 
years, and on 9 April 1814 tells Moore 
that he has given up rhyming. The 
same letter announces the abdication of 
Napoleon, and next day he composed 
and sent to Murray his ode upon that 
event. On 29 April he tells Murray 
that he has resolved to buy back his 
copyrights and suppress his poetry, 
but he instantly withdrew the resolution 
on Murray's assurance that it would be 
inconvenient. By the middle of June 
he had finished "Lara," which was 
published in the same volume with 
Rogers's " Jacqueline " in August. The 
"Hebrew Melodies," written at the re- 
quest of Kinnaird, appeared with music 
in January 18 15. The "Siege of 
Corinth," begun July 1815 and copied 
by Lady Byron, and "Parisina," writ- 
ten the same autumn, appeared in 
January and February 18 16. Murray 
gave ;i^7oo for "Lara" and 500 guineas 
for each of the others. Dallas wrote 
to the papers in February 18 14, defend- 
ing his noble relative from the charge of 



INTRODUCTION 



ccepting payment ; and stated that the 
money for "Childe Harold" and "The 
Corsair" had been given to himself. 
The sums due for the other two poems 
then pubHshed were still, it seems, in 
the publisher's hands. In the begin- 
ning of 1816 Byron declined to take the 
1000 guineas for "Parisina" and the 
"Siege of Corinth," and it was proposed 
to hand over the money to Godwin, 
Coleridge, and Maturin. The plan 
was dropped at Murray's objection, 
and the poet soon became less scrupu- 
lous. 

These poems were written in the 
thick of many distractions. Byron was 
familiar at Holland, Melbourne, and 
Devonshire Houses. He knew Brum- 
mell and was one of the dandies; he 
was a member of Watier's, then a 
"superb club," and appeared as a 
caloyer in a masquerade given by his 
fellow-members in 1813; of the more 
literary and sober Alfred; of the Union, 
the Pugilistics, and the Owls or "Fly- 
by-nights." He indulged in the pleas- 
ures of his class, with intervals of self- 
contempt and foreboding. Scott and 
Mme. de Stael (like Lady Byron) 
thought that a profound melancholy was 
in reality his dominant mood. He had 
reasons enough in his money embarrass- 
ments and in dangerous entanglements. 
Fashionable women adored the beautiful 
young poet and tried to soothe his 
blighted affections. Lady Morgan de- 
scribes him as "cold, silent, and re- 
served," but doubtless not the less 
fascinating. Dallas observed that his 
coyness speedily vanished, and found 
him in a brown study writing to some 
fine lady whose page was waiting in 
scarlet and a hussar jacket. This may 
have been Lady Caroline Lamb, a 
woman of some talent, but flighty and 
excitable to the verge of insanity. She 
was born 23 Nov. 1785, the daughter 
of the Earl of Bessborough, and, in 
June 1805 married William Lamb, 
afterwards Lord Melbourne. The 
women, as she says, "suffocated him" 
when she first saw him. On her own 
introduction by Lady Westmorland, 



she turned on her heel and wrote in her 
diary that he was "mad, bad, and 
dangerous to know." The acquaint- 
ance was renewed at Lady Holland's, 
and for nine months he almost lived at 
Melbourne House, where he contrived 
to "sweep away" the dancing, in which 
he could take no part. Lady Caroline 
did her best to make her passion notori- 
ous. She "absolutely besieged him," 
says Rogers; told him in her first letter 
that all her jewels were at his service; 
waited at night for Rogers in his garden 
to ask him to reconcile her to Byron; 
and would return from parties in Byron's 
carriage or wait for him in the street 
if not invited. At last, in July 1813, 
it was rumoured in London that after 
a quarrel with Byron at a party Lady 
Caroline had tried to stab herself with 
a knife and then with fragments of a 
glass. ^ Her mother now insisted upon 
her retirement to Ireland. After a 
farewell interview B}Ton wrote her a 
letter ^ which reads like an attempt to 
use the warmest phrases consistent with 
an acceptance of their separation, 
though ending with a statement of his 
readiness to fly with her. She cor- 
responded with Byron from Ireland 
till on the eve of her return she received 
a brutal letter from him,^ saying roundly 
that he was attached to another, and 
telling her to correct her vanity and 
leave him in peace. The letter, 
marked with Lady Oxford's coronet 
and initials, threw Lady Caroline into 
a fit, which involved leeching, bleed- 
ing, and bed for a week. 

Lady Caroline's mother-in-law, Lady 
Melbourne, was sister of Sir R. Mil- 
banke, who, by his wife, Judith Noel, 
daughter of Lord Wentworth, was 
father of an only daughter, Anne Isa- 
bella Milbanke, bom 17 May 1792. 
Miss Milbanke was a woman of in- 
tellectual tastes; fond of theology and 
mathematics, and a writer of poems, 

' The party was on 5 July; Haj'ward, Emi- 
nent Statesmen, i. 350-3. 

" Printed from the original manuscript in 
Jeaffreson, i. 261. 

3 Printed in " Glenarvon," and apparently 
acknowledged by Byron, Medwin, p. 274. 



INTRODUCTION 



one or two of which are published in 
Byron's works.^ Byron described her 
to Medwin as having small and feminine, 
though not regular, features; the fairest 
skin imaginable ; perfect figure and 
temper and modest manners. She was 
on friendly terms with Mrs. Siddons, 
Miss Baillie, Miss Edgeworth, and 
other literary persons who frequented 
her mother's house. A strong sense of 
duty, shown in a rather puritanical pre- 
cision, led unsympathetic observers to re- 
gard her as prudish, pedantic, and frigid. 
Her only certain fortune was ;i(^io,ooo. 
Her father had injured a considerable 
estate by electioneering. Her mother's 
brother, Lord Wentworth, was ap- 
proaching seventy. His estate of some 
;i£7ooo a year was at his own disposal, 
and she was held to be his favourite; 
but he had illegitimate children, and his 
sister. Lady Scarsdale, had sons and a 
daughter. Miss Milbanke was, there- 
fore, an heiress with rather uncertain 
prospects. Byron, from whatever mo- 
tives, made her an offer in 1812, which 
was refused, and afterwards opened a 
correspondence with her ^ which con- 
tinued at intervals for two years. On 
30 Nov. 1813 he notices the oddness of 
the situation in which there is "not a 
spark of love on either side." On 
15 March 1813 he receives a letter from 
her and says that he will be in love 
again if he does not take care. Mean- 
while he and his friends naturally held 
that a marriage might be his salvation. 
Lady Melbourne, whom on her death 
in 1818 he calls the "best, kindest, and 
ablest female" he ever knew, promoted 
a match with her niece, possibly because 
it would effecutally bar the intrigue with 
her daughter-in-law. In September 
18 14 he made an offer to Miss Mil- 
banke in a letter, which, according to a 
story told by Moore, was the result of a 
momentary impulse. Byron may be 
acquitted of simply mercenary motives. 

' Two are given in Madame Belloc's Byron, 
p. 68. 

' Campbell, New Monthly, xxviii. 374, con- 
tradicts, on Lady Byron's authority, Medwin's 
statement (p. 37). that she began the corre- 
spondence. 



He never acted upon calculation, and 
had he wished, he might probably have 
turned his attractions to better account. 
The sense that he was drifting into 
dangerous embarrassments, which sug- 
gests hints of suicide, would no doubt 
recommend a match with unimpeach- 
able propriety, as the lady's vanity was 
equally flattered by the thought of 
effecting such a conversion. Byron 
was pre-eminently a man who combined 
strange infirmity of will with over- 
powering gusts of passion. He drifted 
indolently as long as drifting was pos- 
sible, and then acted impetuously in 
obedience to the uppermost influence. 
Byron's marriage took place 2 Jan. 
1815 at Seaham, Durham, the seat of 
Sir R. Milbanke. The honyemoon was 
passed at Halnaby, another of his houses 
in the same county. The pair returned 
to Seaham 21 Jan.; in March they 
visited Colonel and Mrs. Leigh at Six 
Mile Bottom, Newmarket, on their way 
to London, where they settled 18 March 
18 15, at 13 Piccadilly Terrace for the 
rest of their married life. Byron, in 
"The Dream," chose to declare that 
on his wedding day his thoughts had 
been with Miss Chaworth. He also 
told Medwin that on leaving the house 
he found the lady's-maid placed between 
himself and his bride in the carriage. 
Hobhouse, who had beenhis " best man " 
authoritatively contradicted this, and the 
statement of Mrs. Minns,^ who had 
been Lady Byron's maid at Halnaby, 
and previously, is that Lady Byron 
arrived there in a state "buoyant and 
cheerful"; but that Byron's "irregu- 
larity" began there and caused her 
misery, which she tried to conceal from 
her mother. Lady Byron also wrote 
to Hodgson (15 Feb. 1816) that Byron 
had married her "with the deepest 
determination of revenge, avowed on 
the day of my marriage and executed 
ever since with systematic and increas- 
ing cruelty." ^ The letters written at 

' First published in Newcastle Chronicle, 
23 Sept. 1869. 

= Byron contradicts some report to this effect 
to Medwin, p. 39. 



/ 



INTRODUCTION 



yne 



le time, however, hardly support these 
statements. Byron speaks of his hap- 
piness to Moore, though he is terribly 
bored by his "pious" father-in-law. 
Lady Milbanke speaks of their happi- 
ness at Seaham. Mrs. Leigh tells 
Hodgson that Lady Byron's parents 
were pleased with their son-in-law, and 
reports favourably of the pair on their 
visit to Six Mile Bottom. In April 
Lord Went worth died. The bulk of 
his property was settled upon Lady 
Milbanke (who, with her husband, now 
took the name of Noel) and Lady 
Byron. On 29 July 1815 Byron exe- 
cuted the will proved after his death. 
He left all the property of which he 
could dispose in trust for Mrs. Leigh 
and her children, his wife and any chil- 
dren he might have by her being now 
amply provided for. Lady Byron fully 
approved of this provision, and com- 
municates it in an affectionate letter to 
Mrs. Leigh. 

Harness says that when the Byrons 
first came to London no couple could be 
apparently more devoted; but troubles 
. approached. Byron's expenses were in- 
creased. He had agreed to sell New- 
stead for ;i^i40,ooo in September 181 2; 
but two years later the purchaser with- 
drew, forfeiting ;£|25,ooo, which seems 
to have speedily vanished. In Novem- 
ber 18 1 5 Byron had to sell his library, 
though he still declined Murray's offers 
for his copyrights. Creditors (at whose 
expense this questionable delicacy must 
have been exercised) dunned the hus- 
band of an heiress, and there were nine 
executions in his house within the year. 
He found distractions abroad. He was 
a zealous playgoer; Kean's perform- 
ance of Sir Giles Overreach gave him 
a kind of convulsive fit — a story which 
recalls his mother's at the Edinburgh 
theatre, and of the similar effect after- 
wards, produced on himself by Alheri's 
"Mirra". He became m_ember of the 
committee of management of Drury 
Lane, and was brought into connections 
of which Moore says that they gave no 
real cause of offence, though the circum- 
stances were dangerous to the "steadi- 



ness of married life." We hear, too, 
of parties where all ended in "hiccup 
and happiness"; and it seems that 
Byron's dislike of seeing women eat 
led to a separation at the domestic 
board. The only harsh action to which 
he confessed was that Lady Byron once 
came upon him when he was musing 
over his embarrassments and asked 
"Am I in your way?" To which he 
replied, "Damnably." 

On 10 Dec. 1815 Lady Byron gave 
birth to her only child, Augusta Ada. 
On 6 Jan. 1816 Byron gave directions 
to his wife "in writing" to leave Lon- 
don as soon as she was well enough. 
It was agreed, he told Med win, that she 
should stay with her father till some 
arrangement had been made with the 
creditors. On 8 Jan. Lady Byron 
consulted Dr. Baillie, "with the con- 
currence of his family," that is, appar- 
ently, Mrs. Leigh and his cousin, George 
Byron, with whom she constantly com- 
municated in the following period. Dr. 
Baillie, on her expressing doubts of 
Byron's sanity, advised her absence as 
an "experiment." He told her to cor- 
respond with him on "light and sooth- 
ing" topics. She even believed that a 
sudden excitement might bring on a 
"fatal crisis." She left London on 
15 Jan. 1816, reaching her parents 
at Kirkby Mallory on the i6th. She 
wrote affectionately to her husband on 
starting and arriving. The last letter, 
she says, was circulated to support the 
charge of desertion. It began, as Byron 
told Medwin, "Dear Duck," and was 
signed by her pet name "Pippin." 
She writes to Mrs. Leigh on the same 
day that she has made "the most ex- 
plicit statement " to her parents. They 
are anxious to do everything in their 
power for the "poor sufferer." He was 
to be invited at once to Kirkby Mallory, 
and her mother wrote accordingly on 
the 17th. He would probably drop a 
plan, already formed, for going abroad 
with Hobhouse on her parents' re- 
monstrance. On 18 Jan. she tells Mrs. 
Leigh that she hopes that Byron will 
join her for a time and not leave her 



INTRODUCTION 



till there is a prosepct of an heir. Lady- 
Noel has suggested that Mrs. Leigh 
might dilute a laudanum bottle with 
water without Byron's knowledge. 
She still writes as an affectionate wife, 
hoping that her husband may be cured 
of insanity. An apothecary, Le Mann, 
is to see the patient, and Lady Noel will 
go to London, consult Mrs. Leigh, and 
procure advice. 

The medical advisers could find no 
proof of insanity, though a list of sixteen 
symptoms had been submitted to them. 
The strongest, according to ]\Ioore, was 
the dashing to pieces of a "favourite old 
watch" in an excess of fury. A similar 
anecdote was told of his throwing a jar 
of ink out of window, and his excitement 
at the theatre is also suggested. Lady 
Byron upon hearing the medical opinion 
immediately decided upon separation. 
Dr. Baillie and a lawyer, by Lady Noel's 
desire, ''almost forced themselves upon 
Byron," Medwin, and confirmed Le 
Mann's report. On 25 Jan. 1816 Lady 
Byron tells Mrs. Leigh that she must re- 
sign the right to be her sister, but hopes 
that no difference will be made in their 
feelings. From this time she consist- 
ently adheres to the view finally set 
forth in her statement in 1830. Her 
letters to Mrs. Leigh, to Hodgson, who 
had ventured to intervene, and her last 
letter to Byron (13 Feb. 1816), take the 
same ground. Byron had been guilty 
of conduct inexcusable if he were an 
accountable agent, and therefore mak- 
ing separation a duty when his moral 
responsibility was proved. She tells 
Mrs. Leigh and Hodgson that he mar- 
ried her out of revenge; she tells 
Hodgson (15 Feb.) that her security 
depended on the "total abandonment 
of every moral and religious principle," 
and tells Byron himself that to her 
affectionate remonstrances and fore- 
warnings of consequences he had replied 
by a "determination to be wicked though 
it should break my heart." 

On 2 Feb. 18 16 Sir R. Noel proposed 
an amicable separation to Byron, which 
he at first rejected. Lady Byron went 
to London and saw Dr. Lushington, 



who, with Sir S. Romilly, had been con- 
sulted by Lady Noel, and had then 
spoken of possible reconciliation. Lady 
Byron now informed him of facts 
"utterly unknown," he says, "I have 
no doubt, to Sir R. and Lady Noel." 
His opinion was "entirely changed." 
He thought reconciliation impossible, 
and should it be proposed he could 
take no part, "professionally or other- 
wise, towards effecting it." Mrs. Leigh 
requested an interview soon after, which 
Lady Byron declined "with the greatest 
pain." Lushington had forbidden any 
such interview, as they "might be 
called upon to answer for the most 
private conversation." In a following 
letter (neither dated) Lady Byron begs 
for the interview which she had refused. 
She cannot bear the thought of not 
meeting, and the "grounds of the case 
are in some degree changed." ^ Accord- 
ing to Lady Byron's statements (in 1830), 
Byron consented to the separation upon 
being told that the matter must other- 
wise come into court. We may easily 
believe that, as Mrs. Leigh tells Mr. 
Horton, Byron would be happy to 
"escape the exposure," whatever its 
precise nature. He afterwards threw 
the responsibility for reticence on the 
other side. He gave a paper to Mr. 
Lewis, dated at La Mira in 18 17, say- 
ing that Hobhouse had challenged the 
other side to come into court; that he 
only yielded because Lady Byron had 
claimed a promise that he would consent 
to a separation if she really desired it. 
He declares his ignorance of the charges 
against him, and his desire to meet them 
openly. This paper was apparently 
shown only to a few friends. It was 
first made public in the "Academy" of 
9 Oct. 1869. Hobhouse ^ also said that 
Byron was quite ready to go into court, 
and that Wilmot Horton on Lady 
Byron's part disclaimed all the current 
scandals. It would seem, however, 
Byron could have forced an open state- 
ment had he really chosen to do so. 

' Addit. MS. 31037- ff- 33. 34- 
= See Quarterly Review for October 1869, 
January 1870, and July 1883. 



INTRODUCTION 



but the allusions in the last cantos of 
'Childe Harold" and in "Don Juan" 
were unpardonable. While Byron was 
bemoaning his griefs to even casual 
acquaintance with a strange incon- 
tinence of language, and circulating 
letters and lampoons, his occasional 
conciliatory moods were of Uttle im- 
portance. Lady Blessington remarks 
on his curious forgetfulness of the way 
in which""he had consoled himself when 
he complained of his wife's implaca- 
bility. Her dignified reticence irritated 
and puzzled him, and his prevailing 
tone only illustrates the radical incom- 
patability of their characters. 

Byron sailed for Ostend (24 April 
1816) with a young Italian doctor, 
Polidori, a Swiss and two English 
servants, Rushton and Fletcher, who 
had both started with him in 1809. 
Byron's good nature to his servants was 
an amiable point in his character. 
Harness describes the "hideous old 
woman" who had nursed him in his 
lodgings and followed him through all 
his English establishments, and speaks 
of his kindness to an old butler, Murray, 
at Newstead. Byron travelled in a 
large coach, imitated from Napoleon's, 
carrying bed, library, and kitchen, 
besides a caleche bought at Brussels. 
His expenses were considerable, and his 
scruples about copyright soon vanished. 
In 181 7 he was bargaining sharply with 
Murray. He demanded ;^6oo for the 
"Lament of Tasso" and the last act of 
"Manfred" (9 May 1817). On 4 Sept. 
181 7 he asks ;£25oo instead of £,iSoo 
for the fourth canto of " Childe Harold," 
accepting ultimately 2000 guineas. The 
sums paid by Murray for copyrights to 
the end of 1821 amounted to ;£i5,455, 
including the amounts made over to 
Dallas. He must have received at least 
;;^i 2,500 at this period, and the ;^iioo 
for "Parisina" and the "Siege of 
Corinth" was in Murray's hands. In 
November 181 7 he at last sold Newstead 
for 90,000 guineas. Payment of debts 
and mortgages left the ^60,000 settled 
upon Lady Byron, the income of which 
was payable to Byron during his life. 



He was aggrieved by the refusal of his 
trustees in 1820 to invest this in a 
mortgage on Lord Blessington's estates. 
Hanson, Byron's solicitor, went to 
Venice to obtain his signature to the 
necessary deeds in November 1818. 
Byron declared that he would receive no 
advantage from Lady Byron's property. 
On the death of Lady Noel in 1822, 
however, her fortune of ;£7ooo or ;^8ooo 
a year was divided equally between her 
daughter and Byron by arbitrators 
(Sir F. Burdett and Lord Dacre) ; and 
such a division had, it seems, been pro- 
vided for in the deed of separation. 
Byron then became a rich man for his 
Itahan position, and grew careful of 
money. He spent much time in settling 
his weekly bills and affected avarice as 
a "good old gentlemanly vice." But 
this must be taken as partly humorous, 
and he was still capable of munificence. 
From Brussels Byron visited Water- 
loo, and thence went to Geneva by the 
Rhine, where (June 18 16) he took the 
Villa Diodati, on the Belle Rive, a prom- 
ontory on the south side of the lake.^ 
Here Byron met the Shelleys and Miss 
Clairmont. Miss Clairmont came ex- 
pressly to meet him, but it is authorita- 
tively stated that the Shelleys were not 
in her confidence. The whole party 
became the objects of curiosity and 
scandal. Tourists gazed at Byron 
through telescopes. When he visited 
Mme. de Stael at Cappet, a Mrs. Hervey 
thought proper to faint. Southey was 
in Switzerland this year, and Byron 
believed that he had spread stories in 
England imputing gross immorality to 
the whole party. They amused them- 
selves one rainy week by writing ghost 
stories; Mrs. Shelley began "Franken- 
stein," and Byron a fragment called 
"The Vampire" from which Polidori 
"vamped up," a novel of the same name. 
It passed as Byron's in France and had 
some success. Polidori, a fretful and 
flighty youth, quarrelled with his em- 
ployer, proposed to challenge Shelley, 
and left Byron for Italy. He was sent 

' See Notes and Queries, 5th ser. viii. i, 24, 



INTRODUCTION 



out of Milan for a quarrel with an 
Austrian officer, but afterwards got 
some patients. Byron tried to help him, 
and recommended him to Murray. He 
committed suicide in 182 1. Byron and 
Shelley made a tour of the lake in June 
(described in Shelley's "Six Weeks' 
Tour"), and were nearly lost in a 
storm. Two rainy days at Ouchy pro- 
duced Byron's "Prisoner of Chillon"; 
and about the same time he finished the 
third canto of "Childe Harold." Shel- 
ley, as Byron told Medwin, had dosed 
him with Wordsworth "even to nausea," 
and the influence is apparent in some 
of his "Childe Harold" stanzas.^ In 
September Byron made a tour in the 
Bernese Oberland with Hobhouse, and, 
as his diary shows, worked up his im- 
pressions of the scenery. At the Villa 
Diodati he wrote the stanzas "To 
Augusta," and the verses addressed to 
"My Sweet Sister," which by her desire 
were suppressed till after his death. 
Here, too, he wrote the monody on the 
death of Sheridan, and the striking 
fragment called "Darkness." 

On 29 Aug. the Shelley party left for 
England. In January 181 7 Miss Clair- 
mont gave birth to Allegra, Byron's 
daughter. The infant was sent to him 
at Venice with a Swiss nurse, and 
placed under the care of the Hoppners. 
Byron declined an offer from a Mrs. 
Vavasour to adopt the girl, refusing to 
abdicate his paternal authority as the 
lady desired. He afterwards sent for 
the child to Bologna in August 18 19, 
and kept her with him at Venice and 
Ravenna till April 182 1, when he placed 
her in a convent at Bagna-Cavallo 
(twelve miles from Ravenna), paying 
double fees to insure good treatment. 
He wished her, he said, to be a Roman 
Catholic, and left her ;^5ooo for a mar- 
riage portion. The mother vehemently 
protested against this, but the Shelleys 
approved. The child improved in the 
convent, and is described by Shelley as 
petted and happy. She died of a fever 
20 April 1822. Byron was profoundly 

' See Wordsworth's remarks in Moore's Diary 
(1853), iii- 161. 



agitated by the news, and, as the 
Countess Guiccioli says, would never 
afterwards pronounce her name. He 
directed her to be buried at Harrow, 
and a tablet to be erected in the church, 
at a spot precisely indicated by his 
school recollections. Of the mother he 
spoke with indifference or aversion. 
Byron and Hobhouse crossed the Sim- 
plon, and reached Milan by October, 
At Milan Beyle (Stendhal) saw him at 
the theatre, and has described his im- 
pressions.^ He went by Verona to 
Venice, intending to spend the winter 
in this "the greenst island," as he says, 
"of my imagination." He stayed for 
three years, taking as a summer residence 
a house at La Mira on the Brenta. 
April and May 181 7 were spent in a visit 
to Rome, whence, 5 May, he sent to 
Murray a new third act of "Manfred," 
having heard that the original was 
thought unsatisfactory. 

On arriving at Venice he found that 
his "mind wanted something craggy to 
break upon," and he set to work learn- 
ing Armenian at the monastery. He 
saw something of the literary salon of 
the Countess Albrizzi. Mme. Albrizzi 
wrote a book of portraits, one of which 
is a sketch of Byron, published by Moore, 
and not without interest. He became 
bored with the Venetian "blues," and 
took to the less pretentious salon of the 
Countess Benzoni. He soon plunged 
into worse dissipations. He settled in 
the Palazzo Mocenigo on the Grand 
Canal. And here, in ostentatious de- 
fiance of the world, which tried to take 
the form of contempt, he abandoned 
himself to degrading excesses which in- 
jured his constitution, and afterwards 
produced bitter self-reproach. "I de- 
test every recollection of the place, the 
people, and my pursuits," he said to 
Medwin. Shelley, whose impressions 
of a visit to Byron are given in the 
famous "Julian and Maddalo," says 
afterwards that Byron had almost 
destroyed himself. He could digest no 
food, and was consumed by a hectic 

' See his Letter first published in Mme. 
Belloc's Byron, i. 353, Paris, 1824. 



INTRODUCTION 



fever. Daily rides on the Lido kept 
him from prostration. Moore says that 
Byron would often leave his house in a 
fit of disgust to pass the night in his 
gondola. In the midst of this debasing 
life his intellectual activity continued. 
He began the fourth canto of "Childe 
Harold" by i July 1817, and sent 126 
stanzas (afterwards increased to 16) 
to Murray on 20 July. On 23 Oct. 
he states that "Beppo," in imitation, 
he says, of " Whistlecraft"( J. H. Frere), 
is nearly finished. It was sent to 
Murray 19 Jan. 1819, and published in 
May. This experiment led to his great- 
est performance. On 19 Sept. 1818 he 
has finished the first canto of "Don 
Juan." On 25 Jan. 1819 he tells 
Murray to print fifty copies for private 
distribution. On 6 April he sends the 
second canto. The two were published 
without author's or publisher's name in 
July 18 1 9. The third canto was begun 
in October 18 19. The outcry against 
its predecessors had disconcerted him, 
and he was so put out by hearing that a 
Mr. Saunders had called it "all Grub 
Street," as to lay it aside for a time. 
The third canto was split into the third 
and fourth in February 1820, and 
appeared with the fifth, still anony- 
mously and without the publisher's 
name, in August 1821. 

A new passion had altered his life. 
In April 18 19 he met at the Countess 
Benzoni's Teresa, daughter of Count 
Gamba of Ravenna, recently married at 
the age of sixteen to a rich widower of 
sixty. Count Guiccioli, also of Ravenna, 
Her beauty is described by Aloore, an 
American painter West, who took her 
portrait, Medwin, and Hunt. She had 
regular features, a fine figure, rather too 
short and stout, and was remarkable 
among Italians for her fair complexion, 
golden hair, and blue eyes. She at once 
conceived a passion for Byron, and they 
met daily at Venice. Her husband 
took her back to Ravenna in the same 
month, and she wrote passionate letters 
to Byron. She had fainted three times 
on her first day's journey ; her mother's 
death had deeply affected her; she was 



ill, and threatened by consumption; 
and she told him in May that her rela- 
tions would receive him at Ravenna. 
In spite of heat and irresolution, Byron 
left La Mira on 2 June 18 19, and moved 
slowly, and after some hesitation, to 
Ravenna, writing on the way "River 
that rollest by the ancient walls" (first 
pubUshed by Medwin). Here he found 
the countess really ill. He studied 
medical books, she says, for her benefit, 
and sent for Aglietti, the best physician 
in Venice. As she recovered, Byron 
felt rather awkward under the poUte 
attentions of her husband, though her 
own relations were unfavourable. His 
letters to her, says Moore, show genuine 
passion. His letters to Hoppner show 
a more ambiguous interest. He desired 
at times to escape from an embarrassing 
connection; yet, out of "wilfulness," as 
Moore thinks, when she was to go with 
her husband to Bologna, he asked her 
to fly with him, a step altogether 
desperate according to the code of the 
time. Though shocked by the proposal, 
she suggested a sham death, after the 
Juliet precedent. Byron followed the 
Guicciolis to Bologna, and stayed there 
while they made a tour of their estates. 
Hence (23 Aug.) he sent off to Murray 
his cutting "Letter to my Grand- 
mother's Review." Two days later he 
wrote a curious declaration of love to 
the countess in a volume of "Corinna" 
left in her house. A vehement quarrel 
with a papal captain of dragoons for sel- 
ling him an unsound horse nearly led to 
an impromptu duel like his granduncle's. 
On the return of the Guicciolis the 
count left for Ravenna, leaving his wife 
with Byron at Bologna "on account of 
her health." Her health also made it 
expedient to travel with Byron to Venice 
by way of the Euganean Hills; and at 
Venice the same cause made country 
air desirable, whereupon Byron politely 
"gave up to her his house at La Mira," 
and "came to reside there" himself. 
The whole proceeding was so like an 
elopement, that Venetian society natu- 
rally failed to make a distinction. Moore 
paid a visit to Byron at this time, w^as 



INTRODUCTION 



cordially received at La Mira, and 
lodged in the palace at Venice. Hanson 
had described Byron in the previous 
year as "enormously large," and Moore 
was struck by the deterioration in his 
looks. He found that his friend had 
given up, or been given up by, Vene- 
tian society. English tourists stared 
at him like a wild beast, and annoyed 
him by their occasional rudeness. 

It was at this time that Byron gave 
his memoirs to Moore, stipulating only 
that they should not appear during his 
lifetime. Moore observed that they 
would make a nice legacy for his little 
Tom. Moore was alarmed at Byron's 
position. The Venetians were shocked 
by the presence of his mistress under 
his roof, especially as he had before 
"conducted himself so admirably." A 
proposed trip to Rome, to which Byron 
had almost consented, was abandoned 
by Moore's advice, as it would look like 
a desertion of the countess. The count 
now wrote to his wife proposing that 
Byron should lend him ;£tooo, for 
which he would pay 5 per cent; the 
loan would otherwise be an avviliinento. 
Moore exhorted Byron to take advantage 
of this by placing the lady again under 
her husband's protection, a result which 
would be well worth the money. Byron 
laughingly declared that he would "save 
both the lady and the money." The 
count himself came to Venice at the 
end of October. After a discussion, in 
which Byron declined to interfere, the 
lady agreed to return to her husband 
and break with her lover. Byron, set 
free, almost resolved to return to 
England. Dreams of settling in Vene- 
zuela under Bolivar's new republic oc- 
casionally amused him, and he made 
serious inquiries about the country. 
The return to England, made desirable 
by some business affairs, was apparently 
contemplated as a step towards some 
of these plans, though he also thought a 
year later of settling in London to bring 
out a paper with Moore. In truth, he 
was restless, dissatisfied, and undecided. 
He shrank from any decided action, 
from tearing himself from Italy, *and, 



on the other hand, from such a connec- 
tion with the countess as would cause 
misery to both unless his passion were 
more durable than any one, he least of 
all, could expect. The journey to 
England was nearly settled, however, 
when he was delayed by an illness of 
Allegra, and a touch of malaria in him- 
self. The countess again wrote to him 
that she was seriously ill, and that her 
friends would receive him. While actu- 
ally ready for a start homewards, he 
suddenly declared that if the clock 
struck one before some final preparation 
was ready, he would stay. It struck, 
and he gave up the journey. He wrote 
to the countess that he would obey her, 
though his departure would have been 
best for them all. At Christmas 1819 he 
was back in Ravenna. 

He now subsided into an indolent 
routine, to which he adhered with 
curious pertinacity. Trelawny describes 
the day at Pisa soon afterwards, and 
agrees with Moore, Hunt, Medwin, and 
Gamba. He rose very late, took a cup 
of green tea, had a biscuit and soda- 
water at two, rode out and practised 
shooting, dined most abstemiously, 
visited the Gambas in the evening, and 
returned to read or write till two or 
three in the morning. At Ravenna 
previously and afterwards in Greece he 
kept nearly to the same hours. His 
rate of composition at this period was 
surprising. Medwin says that after 
sitting with Byron till two or three the 
poet would next day produce fresh 
work. He discontinued "Don Juan" 
after the fifth canto in disgust at its 
reception, and in compliance with the 
request of the Countess Guiccioli, who 
was shocked at its cynicism. In Febru- 
ary 1820 he translated the "Morgante 
Maggiore"; in March the "Francesca 
da Rimini" episode. On 4 April he 
began his first drama, the "Marino 
Faliero," finished it 16 July, and copied 
it out by 17 Aug. It was produced at 
Drury Lane the next spring, in spite of 
his remonstrance, and failed, to his great 
annoyance. "Sardanapalus," begun 
13 Jan. 1821, was finished 13 May 



INTRODUCTION 



(the last three acts in a fortnight). 
The "Two Foscari" was written be- 
tween II June and lo July; "Cain," 
begun on 1 6 July, was finished 9 Sept. 
The "Deformed Transformed" was 
written at the end of the same year. 
"Werner," a mere dramatisation of 
Harriet Lee's "Kruitzner" in the 
"Canterbury Tales," was written be- 
tween 18 Dec. 1821 and 20 Jan. 1822. 
The vigorous, though perverse, letters 
to Bowles on the Pope controversy are 
also dated 7 Feb. and 25 March 182 1. 
No literary hack could have written 
more rapidly, and some would have 
written as well. The dramas thus 
poured forth at full speed by a thor- 
oughly undramatic writer, hampered by 
the wish to preserve the "unities," mark 
(with the exception of "Cain") his 
lowest level, and are often mere prose 
broken into apparent verse. 

Count Guiccioli began to give trouble. 
Byron was warned not to ride in the 
forest alone for fear of probable assas- 
sination. Guiccioli's long acquiescence 
had turned public opinion against him, 
and a demand for separation on account 
of his "extraordinary usage" of his 
wife came from her friends. On 
12 July a papal decree pronounced a 
separation accordingly. The countess 
was to receive ;^2oo a year from her 
husband, to live under the paternal 
roof, and only to see Byron under 
restrictions. She retired to a villa of 
the Gambas fifteen miles off, where 
Byron rode out to see her " once or twice 
a month," passing the intervals in "per- 
fect solitude." By January 182 1, how- 
ever, she seems to have been back in 
Ravenna. Byron did all he could to 
prevent her from leaving her husband. 

Political complications were arising. 
Italy -was seething with the Carbonaro 
conspiracies. The Gambas were noted 
liberals. Byron's aristocratic vanity 
was quite consistent with a conviction 
of the corruption and political blindness 
of the class to which he boasted of 
belonging. The cant, the imbecility, 
and immorality of the ruling classes at 
home and abroad were the theme of 



much of his talk, and inspired his most 
powerful writing. His genuine hatred 
of war and pity for human suffering are 
shown, amidst much affectation, in his 
loftiest verse. Though no democrat 
after the fashion of Shelley, he was a 
hearty detester of the system supported 
by. the Holy Alliance. He was ready to 
be a leader in the revolutionary move- 
ments of the time. The walls of 
Ravenna were placarded with " Up with 
the republic!", and "Death to the 
pope!" Young Count Gamba (There- 
sa's brother) soon afterwards returned 
to Ravenna, became intimate with 
Byron, and introduced him to the secret 
societies. On 8 Dec. 1820 the com- 
mandant of the troops in Ravenna was 
mortally wounded in the street. Byron 
had the man carried into his house at the 
point of death, and describes the event 
in "Don Juan" (v. 34). It was due in 
some way to the action of the societies. 
A rising in the Romagna was now ex- 
pected. Byron had offered a subscrip- 
tion of one thousand louis to the con- 
stitutional government, in Naples, to 
which the societies looked for support. 
He had become head of the Americani, 
a section of the Carbonari, and bought 
some arms for them, which during the 
following crisis were suddenly returned 
to him, and had to be concealed in his 
house. An advance of Austrian troops 
caused a collapse of the whole scheme. 
A thousand members of the best families 
in the Roman states were banished, and 
among them the Gambas. Mme. Guic- 
cioli says that the government hoped by 
exiling them to get rid of Byron, whose 
position as an English nobleman made 
it difficult to reach him directly for his 
suspected relations with the Carbonari. 
The countess helped, perhaps was in- 
tentionally worked upon, to dislodge 
him. Her husband requested that she 
should be forced to return to him or 
placed in a convent. Frightened by the 
threat, she escaped to her father and 
brother in Florence. 

A quarrel in which a servant of 
Byron's proposed to stiletto an officer 
made his relations with the authorities 



INTRODUCTION 



very unpleasant. The poor of Ravenna 
petitioned that the charitable English- 
man might be asked to remain, and only 
increased the suspicions of the govern- 
ment. Byron fell into one of his usual 
states of indecision. Shelley, at his 
request, came from Pisa to consult, and 
reports him greatly improved in health 
and morals. He found Byron occupy- 
ing splendid apartments i in the palace 
of Count Guiccioli. Byron had now, 
he says, an income of ;!£40oo a year, and 
devoted ;£iooo to charity (the context 
seems to disprove the variant reading 
;£ioo), an expenditure sufficient to ex- 
plain the feeling at Ravenna mentioned 
by Mme. Guiccioli. Shelley, by Byron's 
desire, wrote to the countess, advising 
her against Switzerland. In reply she 
begged Shelley not to leave Ravenna 
without Byron, and Byron begged him 
to stay and protect him from a relapse 
into his old habits. Byron lingered at 
Ravenna till 29 Oct., still hoping, it 
seems, for a recall of the Gambas. At 
last he got in motion, with many sad 
forebodings, and preceded by his family 
of monkeys, dogs, cats, and peahens. 
He met Lord Clare on the way to 
Bologna, and accompanied Rogers from 
Bologna. Rogers duly celebrated the 
meeting in his poem on Italy; but 
Trelawny tells how Byron grinned 
sardonically when he saw Rogers seated 
upon a cushion under which was con- 
cealed a bitter satire written by Byron 
upon Rogers himself.^ Byron settled in 
the Casa Lafranchi at Pisa, an old ghost- 
haunted palace, which Trelawny con- 
trasted with the cheerful and hospitable 
abode of the Shelleys. The Gambas 
occupied part of the same palace. 
Byron again saw some English society. 
A silly Irishman named Taaffe, author 
of a translation of Dante, for which 
Byron tried to find a publisher, with 
Medwin, Trelawny, Shelley, and Will- 
iams, were his chief associates. Medwin, 
of the 24th light dragoons, was at Pisa 
from 30 Nov. 1821 till 15 March 1822, 
and again for a few days in August. 

' It was afterwards published in Fraser's, 
January 1833. 



Trelawny, who reached Pisa early in 
1822, and was afterwards in constant 
intercourse with Byron, was the keenest 
observer who has described him. 
Trelawny insists upon his own supe- 
riority in swimming, and regards Byron 
as an effeminate pretender to masculine 
qualities. Byron turned his worst side 
to such a man; yet Trelawny admits 
his genuine courage and can do justice 
to his better qualities. 

Mme. Guiccioli had withdrawn her 
prohibition of "Don Juan" on promise 
of better behaviour. On 8 Aug. 1822 
he has finished three more cantos and is 
beginning another. Meanwhile " Cain " 
(published December 182 1) had pro- 
duced hostile reviews and attacks. Scott 
had cordially accepted the dedication. 
Moore's timid remonstrances showed 
the set of public opinion. When Mur- 
ray applied for an injunction to protect 
his property against threatened piracy, 
Eldon refused; holding (9 Feb. 1822) 
that the presumption was not in favour 
of the innocent character of the book. 
Murray had several manuscripts of 
Byron in hand, including the famous 
"Vision of Judgment"; and this ex- 
perience increased his caution. Byron 
began to think of a plan, already sug- 
gested to Moore in 1820, of starting a 
weekly newspaper with a revolutionary 
title, such as "I Carbonari." In Shel- 
ley's society this plan took a new shape. 
It was proposed to get Leigh Hunt for 
an editor. In 1813 Byron had visited 
Hunt when imprisoned for a libel on 
the prince regent. Hunt had taken 
Byron's part in the Examiner in 
18 1 6, and had dedicated to him the 
"Story of Rimini." Shelley and Byron 
now agreed (in spite of Moore's remon- 
strances against association with ill- 
bred cockneys) to bring Leigh Hunt to 
Italy. They assumed that Hunt would 
retain his connection vvith the Exam- 
iner, of which his brother John was 
proprietor. 

Hunt threw up this position without 
their knowledge, and started for Italy 
with his wife and six children. Shelley 
explained to Hunt (26 Aug. 182 1) that 



INTRODUCTION 



he was himself to be "only a sort of 
link," neither partner nor sharer in the 
profits. He sent £1^0, to which Byron, 
taking Shelley's security, added ;;£2oo 
to pay Hunt's expenses. Hunt re- 
proaches Byron as being moved solely 
by an expectation of large profits (not 
in itself an immoral motive). The de- 
sire to have an organ under his own 
command, with all consequent advan- 
tages, is easily intelligible. When Hunt 

' landed at Leghorn at the end of June 
1822, Byron and Shelley found them- 
selves saddled with the whole Hunt 
family, to be supported by the hypo- 
thetical profits of the new journal, 
while Hunt asserted and acted upon the 

I doctrine that he was under no disgrace 
in accepting money obligations. Hunt 
took up his abode on the ground -floor 
of the palace. His children, says 
Trelawny, were untamed, while Hunt 
considers that they behaved admirably 
and were in danger of corruption from 
Byron. Trelawny describes Byron as 
disgusted at the very start and declaring 
that the journal would be an "abortion." 
His reception of Mrs. Hunt, according 
to Williams, was "shameful." Mrs. 
Hunt naturally retorted the dislike, and 
Hunt reported one of her sharp sayings 
to Byron, in order, as he says, to mortify 
him. No men could be less congenial. 
Byron's aristocratic loftiness encoun- 
tered a temper forward to take offence 
at any presumption of inequality. 
Byron had provided Hunt with lodgings, 
furnished them decently, and doled out 
to him about £100 through his steward, 
a proceeding which irritated Hunt, 
who loved a cheerful giver. Shelley's 
death (8 July) left the two men face to 
face in this uncomfortable relation. 

The Liberal so named by Byron, 
survived through four numbers. • It 
made a moderate profit, which Byron 
abandoned to Hunt, but he was dis- 
gusted from the outset, and put no heart 
into the experiment. He told his 
friends, and probably persuaded him- 
self, that he had engaged in the journal 
out of kindness to the Hunts, and to 
help a friend of Shelley's; and takes 



credit for feeling that he could not 
turn the Hunts into the street. His 
chief contributions, the "Vision of 
Judgment" and the letter "To my 
Grandmother's Review," appeared in 
the first number, to the general scandal. 
"Heaven and Earth" appeared in the 
second number, the "Blues" in the 
third, the "Morgante Maggiore" in the 
fourth, and a few epigrams were added. 
Hunt and Hazlitt, who wrote five papers, 
did most of the remainder, which, how- 
ever, had clearly not the seeds of life 
in it. The "Vision of Judgment" was 
the hardest blow struck in a prolonged 
and bitter warfare. Byron had met 
Southey, indeed, at Holland House in 
18 13, and speaks favourably of him, 
calls his prose perfect, and professes to 
envy his personal beauty. His belief 
that Southey had spread scandalous 
stories about the Swiss party in 1816 gave 
special edge to his revived antipathv. 
In 1818 he dedicated "Don Juan" to 
Southey in "good simple savage verse," 
bitterly taunting the poet as a venal 
renegade. In 1821 Southey published 
his "Vision of Judgment," an apotheosis 
of George III, of grotesque (though 
most unintentional) profanity. In the 
preface he alludes to Byron as leader 
of the "Satanic school." Byron in 
return denounced Southey's "calum- 
nies" and "cowardly ferocity." Southey 
retorted in the Courier (11 Jan. 
1822), boasting that he had fastened 
Byron's name "upon the gibbet for re- 
proach and ignominy, so long as it shall 
endure." Medwin describes Byron's 
fury on reading these courtesies. He 
instantly sent off a challenge in a letter 
(6 Feb. 1822) to Douglas Kinnaird, 
who had the sense to suppress it. 
His own "Vision of Judgment," 
written by i Oct. 1821, was already 
in the hands of Murray, now 
troubled by "Cain." Byron now swore 
that it should be published, and it 
was finally transferred by Murray to 
Hunt. 

Byron meanwhile had been uprooted 
from Pisa. A silly squabble took place 
in the street (21 March 1822), in which 



INTRODUCTION 



Byron's servant stabbed an hussar.^ 
Byron spent some weeks in the summer 
at Monte Nero, near Leghorn (where 
he and Mme. GuiccioH sat to the 
American painter West), and returned 
to Pisa in July. About the same time 
the Gambas were ordered to leave 
Tuscan territory. Byron's stay at Pisa 
had been marked by the death of 
Allegra (20 April) and of Shelley 
(8 July). Details of the ghastly cere- 
mony of burning the bodies of Williams 
and Shelley (15 and 16 Aug.) are given 
by Trelawny, with characteristic details 
of Byron's emotion and hysterical affec- 
tation of levity. Shelley, who exagger- 
ated Byron's poetical merits (see his 
enthusiastic eulogy of the fifth canto of 
"Don Juan" on his visit to Pisa), was 
kept at a certain distance by his per- 
ception of Byron's baser qualities. 
Byron had always respected Shelley as 
a man of simple, lofty, and unworldly 
character, and as undeniably a gentle- 
man by birth and breeding. Shelley, 
according to Trelawny, was the only 
man to whom Byron talked seriously 
and confidentially. He told Moore that 
Shelley was "the least selfish and the 
mildest of men," and added to Murray 
that he was "as perfect a gentleman as 
ever crossed a drawing-room." He was, 
however, capable of believing and com- 
municating to Hoppner scandalous 
stories about the Shelleys and Claire, 
and of meanly suppressing Mrs. 
Shelley's confutation of the story.^ 

Trelawny had stimulated the nautical 
tastes of Byron and Shelley. Captain 
Roberts, a naval friend of his at Genoa, 
built an open boat for Shelley, and a 
schooner, called the Bolivar, for Byron. 
Trelawny manned her with five sailors 
and brought her round to Leghorn. 
Byron was annoyed by the cost; knew 
nothing, says Trelawny, of the sea, and 
could never be induced to take a cruise 
in her. When Byron left Pisa, after a 
terrible hubbub of moving his house- 

' See depositions in Medwin. 

^ See Mr. Froude in Nineteenth Century, 
August 1883; and Mr. Jeaffreson's reply in 
the Athenaum, i and 22 Sept. 1883. 



hold and his baggage, Trelawny sailed 
in the Bolivar, Byron's servants follow- 
ing in one felucca, the Hunts in another, 
Byron travelling by land. They met at 
Lerici. Byron with Trelawny swam 
out to the Bolivar, three miles, and back. 
The effort cost him four days' illness. 
On his recovery he went to Genoa and 
settled in the Casa Salucci at Albaro; 
the Gambas occupying part of the same 
house. Trelawny laid up the Bolivar, 
afterwards sold to Lord Blessington for 
four hundred guineas, and early next 
year went off on a ramble to Rome. 
Lord and Lady Blessington, with Count 
d'Orsay, soon afterwards arrived at 
Genoa; and Lady Blessington has 
recorded her conversations with Byron. 
His talk with her was chiefly sentimental 
monologue about himself. Trelawny 
says that he was a spoilt child ; the nick- 
name "Baby Byron" (given to him, 
says Hunt, i. 139, by Mrs. Leigh) 
"fitted him to a T." His wayward- 
ness, his strange incontinence of speech, 
his outbursts of passion, his sensitive- 
ness to all that was said of him, come 
out vividly in these reports. 

His health was clearly enfeebled. 
Residence in the swampy regions of 
Venice and Ravenna had increased his 
liability to malaria. His restlessness 
and indecision grew upon him. His 
passion for Madame Guiccioli had never 
blinded him to its probable dangers for 
both. This experience had made him 
sceptical as to the durability of his 
passions; especially for a girl not yet 
of age, and of no marked force of intel- 
lect or character. Hunt speaks of a 
growing coldness, which affected her 
spirits and which she injudiciously 
resented. Byron's language to Lady 
Blessington shows that the bonds were 
acknowledged but no longer cherished. 
He talked of returning to England, of 
settling in America, of buying a Greek 
island, of imitating Lady Hester Stan- 
hope. He desired to restore his self- 
esteem, wounded by the failure of the 
Liberal. He had long before (28 Feb. 
18 1 7) told Moore that if he lived ten 
years longer he would yet do something, 



INTRODUCTION 



and declared that he did not think 
literature his vocation. He still hoped 
to show himself a man of action instead 
of a mere dreamer and dawdler. The 
Greek committee was formed in London 
in the spring of 1823, and Trelawny 
wrote to one of the members, Blaquiere, 
suggesting Byron's name. Blaquiere 
was soon visiting Greece for informa- 
tion, and called upon Byron in his way. 
The committee had unanimously elected 
him a member. Byron was flattered 
and accepted. His old interest in 
Greece increased his satisfaction at a 
proposal which fell in with his mood. 
He at once told the committee ( 1 2 May) 
that his first wish was to go to the Levant. 
Though the scheme gave Byron an aim 
and excited his imagination, he still 
hesitated, and with reason. Weak 
health and military inexperience were 
bad qualifications for the leader of a 
revolt. Captain Roberts conveyed mes- 
sages and counter messages from Byron 
to Trelawny for a time. At last 
(22 June 1823) Trelawny heard from 
Byron, who had engaged a "collier- 
built tub" of 120 tons, called the 
Hercules, for his expedition and sum- 
moned Trelawny's help. 

Byron had taken leave of the Bless- 
ingtons with farewell presents, fore- 
bodings, and a burst of tears. He took 
10,000 crowns in specie, 40,000 in bills, 
and a large supply of medicine; Tre- 
lawny, young Gamba, Bruno, an 
"unfledged medical student," and 
several servants, including Fletcher. 
He had prepared three helmets with 
his crest, " Crede Byron," for Trelawny, 
Gamba, and himself; and afterwards 
begged from Trelawny a negro servant 
and a smart military jacket. They 
sailed from Genoa on Tuesday, 15 July ; 
a gale forced them to return and repair 
damages. They stayed two days at 
Leghorn, and were joined by Mr. 
Hamilton Browne. Here, too, Byron 
received a copy of verses from Goethe, 
who had inserted a complimentary 
notice of Byron in the "Kunst und 
Alterthum," and to whom Byron had 
dedicated "Werner." By Browne's ad- 



vice they sailed for Cephalonia, where 
Sir C. J. Napier was in command and 
known to sympathise with the Greeks. 
Trelawny says that he was never "on 
shipboard with a better companion." 
Byron's spirits revived at sea; he was 
full -of fun and practical jokes; read 
Scott, Swift, Grimm, Rochefoucauld; 
chatted pleasantly, and talked of de- 
scribing Stromboli in a fifth canto of 
"Childe Harold." On 2 Aug. they 
sighted Cephalonia. They found that 
Napier was away, and that Blaquiere 
had left for England. Byron began to 
fancy that he had been used as a decoy, 
and declared that he must see his way 
plainly before moving. Napier soon 
returned, and the party was M-armly 
received by the residents. Information 
from Greece was scarce and doubtful. 
Trelawny resolved to start with Browne, 
knowing, he says, that Byron, once on 
shore, would again become dawdling 
and shilly-shallying. Byron settled at 
a village called Metaxata, near Argos- 
toli, and remained there till 27 Dec. 

Byron's nerve was evidently shaken. 
He showed a strange irritability and 
nervousness. He wished to hear of 
some agreement among the divided and 
factious Greek chiefs before trusting 
himself among them . The Cephalonian 
Greeks, according to Trelawny, fa- 
voured the election of a foreign king, 
and Trelawny thought that Byron was 
really impressed by the possibility of 
receiving a crown. Byron hinted to 
Parry afterwards of great offers which 
had been made to him. Fancies of this 
kind may have passed through his mind. 
Yet his general judgment of the situa- 
tion was remarkable for its strong sense. 
His cynical tendencies at least kept him, 
free from the enthusiasts' illusions, and 
did not damp his zeal. 

In Cephalonia Byron had some con- 
versations upon religious topics wdth 
Dr. Kennedy, physician of the garrison. 
Kennedy reported them in a book, in 
which he unfortunately thought more of 
expounding his argument than of re- 
porting Byron. Byron had, in fact, no 
settled views. His heterodoxy did not 



INTRODUCTION 



rest upon reasoning, but upon senti- 
ment. He was curiously superstitious 
through Hfe, and seems to have pre- 
ferred cathoHcism to other rehgions. 
Lady Byron told Crabb Robinson 
(5 March 1855) that Byron had been 
made miserable by the gloomy Calvin- 
ism from which, she said, he had never 
freed himself. Some passages in his 
letters, and the early "Prayer to 
Nature" — an imitation of Pope's 
"Universal Prayer" — seem to imply 
a revolt from the doctrines to which 
Lady Byron referred. "Cain," his 
most serious utterance, clearly favours 
the view that the orthodox theology 
gave a repulsive or a nugatory answer 
to the great problems. But, in truth, 
Byron's scepticism was part of his 
quarrel with cant. He hated the re- 
ligious dogma as he hated the political 
creed and the social system of the 
respectable world. He disavowed sym- 
pathy with Shelley's opinions, and 
probably never gave a thought to the 
philosophy in which Shelley was 
interested. 

Trelawny was now with Odysseus 
and the chiefs of Eastern Greece. Prince 
Mavrocordato, the most prominent of 
the Western Greeks, had at last occu- 
pied Missolonghi. Byron sent Colonel 
Stanhope (afterwards Lord Harring- 
ton), a representative of the Greek 
committee, with a letter to Mavrocor- 
dato and another to the general govern- 
ment (2 Dec. and 30 Nov. 1823), in- 
sisting upon the necessity of union; 
and on 28 Dec. sailed himself, on the 
entreaty of Mavrocordato and Stan- 
hope. The voyage was hazardous. 
Gamba's ship was actually seized by a 
Turkish man-of-war, and he owed his 
release to the lucky accident that his 
captain had once saved the Turkish 
captain's life. Byron, in a "mistico," 
took shelter under some rocks called 
the Scrophes. Thence, with some gun- 
boats sent to their aid, they reached 
Missolonghi, in spite of a gale, in which 
Byron showed great coolness. Byron 
was heartily welcomed. Mavrocordato 
was elected governor-general. Attempts 



were made to organise troops. Byron 
took into his pay a body of five hundred 
disorderly Suliotes. He met thickening 
difficulties with unexpected temper, 
firmness, and judgment. Demands for 
money came from all sides; Byron told 
Parry that he had been asked for fifty 
thousand dollars in a day. He raised 
sums on his own credit, and urged the 
Greek committee to provide a loan. 
His indignation when Gamba spent too 
much upon some red cloth was a comic 
exhibition of his usual economy — 
hardly unreasonable under the cir- 
cumstances. 

His first object was an expedition 
against Lepanto, held, it was said, by a 
weak garrison ready to come over. 
At the end of January he was named 
commander-in-chief. His wild troops 
were utterly unprovided with the stores 
required for an assault. The Greek 
committee had sent two mountain guns, 
with ammunition, and some English 
artisans under William Parry, a " rough 
burly fellow," who had been a clerk at 
Woolwich. Parry after a long voyage 
reached Missolonghi on 5 Feb. 1824. 
In the book to which he gave his name, 
and for which he supplied materials, he 
professes to have received Byron's con- 
fidence. Byron called him "old boy," 
laughed at his sea slang, his ridiculous 
accounts of Bentham (one of the Greek 
committee), and played practical jokes 
upon him. Parry landed his stores, set 
his artisans to work, and gave himself 
miHtary airs. The SuHotes became 
mutinous. They demanded commis- 
sions, says Gamba, for 150 out of three 
or four hundred men. Byron, dis- 
gusted, threatened to discharge them 
all, and next day, 15 Feb., they sub- 
mitted. The same day Byron was 
seized with an alarming fit — the doctors 
disputed whether epileptic or apoplectic ; 
but in any case so severe that Byron said 
he should have died in another minute. 
Half an hour later a false report was 
brought that the Suliotes were rising to 
seize the magazine. Next day, while 
Byron was still suff^ering from the dis- 
ease and the leeches applied by the 



INTRODUCTION 



xli 



doctors, who could hardly stop the 
bleeding, a tumultuous mob of Suliotes 
broke into his room. Stanhope says 
that the courage with which he awed 
the mutineers was "truly sublime." 
On the 17th a Turkish brig came ashore, 
and was burned by the Turks after 
Byron had prepared an attack. On the 
19th a quarrel arose between the Suliotes 
and the guards of the arsenal, and a 
Swedish officer, Sasse, was killed. The 
EngUsh artificers, alarmed at discover- 
ing that shooting was, as Byron says, 
a "part of housekeeping" in these parts, 
insisted on leaving for peacable regions. 
The Suliotes became intolerable, and 
were induced to leave the town on re- 
ceiving a month's wages from Byron, 
and part of their arrears from govern- 
ment. All hopes of an expedition to 
Lepanto vanished. 

Parry had brought a printing-press, 
though he had not brought some greatly 
desired rockets. Stanhope, an ardent 
disciple of Bentham's, started a news- 
paper, and talked of Lancasterian 
schools, and other civilising apparatus, 
including a converted blacksmith with 
a cargo of tracts. Byron had many 
discussions with him. Stanhope pro- 
duced Bentham's "Springs of Action" 
as a new publication, when Byron 
"stamped with his lame foot," and said 
that he did not require lessons upon that 
subject. Though Trelawny says that 
Stanhope's free press was of eminent 
service, Byron may be pardoned for 
thinking that the Greeks should be 
freed from the Turks first, and con- 
verted to Benthamism afterwards. He 
was annoyed by articles in the paper, 
which advocated revolutionary prin- 
ciples and a rising in Hungary, thinking 
that an alienation of the European 
powers would destroy the best chance 
of the Greeks. He hoped, he said, that 
the writers' brigade would be ready 
before the soldiers' press. The dis- 
cussions, however, were mutually re- 
spectful, and Byron ended a talk by 
saying to Stanhope, "Give me that 
honest right hand," and begging to be 
judged by his actions, not by his words. 



Other plans were now discussed. 
Stanhope left for Athens at the end of 
February. Odysseus, with whom was 
Trelawny, proposed a conference with 
Mavrocordato and Byron at Salona. 
Byron wrote agreeing to this proposal 
19 March. He had declined to answer 
an offer of the general government to 
appoint him "governor-general of 
Greece" until the meeting should be 
over. The prospects of the loan were 
now favourable. Byron was trying, 
with Parry's help, to fortify Missolonghi 
and get together some kind of force. 
His friends were beginning to be anxious 
about the effects of the place on his 
health. Barff offered him a country- 
house in Cephalonia. Byron replied 
that he felt bound to stay while he 
could. " There is a stake worth millions 
such as I am." Missolonghi, with its 
swamps, meanwhile, was a mere fever- 
trap. The mud, says Gamba, was so 
deep in the gateway that an unopposed 
enemy would have found entrance 
difficult. Byron's departure was hin- 
dered by excessive rains. He starved 
himself as usual. Moore says that he 
measured himself round the wrist and 
waist almost daily, and took a strong 
dose if he thought his size increasing. 
He rode out when he could with his 
body-guard of fifty or sixty Suliotes, 
but complained of frequent weakness 
and dizziness. Parry in vain com- 
mended his panacea, brandy. Tre- 
lawny had started in April with a letter 
from Stanhope, entreating him to leave 
Missolonghi and not sacrifice his health, 
and perhaps his life, in that bog. 

Byron produced his last poem on the 
morning of his birthday, in which the 
hero is struggling to cast off the dandy 
with partial success. He had tried to 
set an example of generous treatment of 
an enemy by freeing some Turkish 
prisoners at Missolonghi. A lively 
little girl called Hato or Hatagee, who 
was amongst them, wished to stay with 
him, and he resolved to adopt her. A 
letter from Mrs. Leigh, found by 
Trelawny among his papers, contained 
a transcript from a letter of Lady 



xlii 



INTRODUCTION 



Byron's to her with an account of Ada's 
health. An unfinished reply from 
Byron (23 Feb. 1824) asked whether 
Lady Byron would permit Hatagee to 
become a companion to Ada. Lady 
Byron, he adds, should be warned of 
Ada's resemblance to himself in his 
infancy, and he suggests that the epilepsy 
may be hereditary. He afterwards 
decided to send Hatagee for the time to 
Dr. Kennedy. 

On 9 April he received news of Mrs. 
Leigh's recovery from an illness and 
good accounts of Ada. On the same 
day he rode out with Gamba, was 
caught in the rain, insisted upon return- 
ing in an open boat, and was seized 
with a shivering fit. His predisposition 
to malaria, aided by his strange system 
of diet, had produced the result antici- 
pated by Stanhope. He rode out next 
day, but the fever continued. The 
doctors had no idea beyond bleeding, to 
which he submittedwith great reluctance, 
and Parry could only suggest brandy. 
The attendants were ignorant of each 
other's language, and seem to have lost 
their heads. On the i8th he was 
delirious. At intervals he was con- 
scious and tried to say something to 
Fletcher about his sister, his wife, and 
daughter. A strong "antispasmodic 
potion " was given to him in the evening. 
About six he said, "Now I shall go to 
sleep," and fell into a slumber which, 
after twenty-four hours, ended in death 
on the evening of ig April. Trelawny 
arrived on the 24th or 25th, having 
heard of the death on his journey. He 
entered the room where the corp.se was 
lying, and, sending Fletcher for a glass 
of water, uncovered the feet. On 
Fletcher's return he wrote upon paper, 
spread on the coffin, the servant's 
account of his master's last illness. 

Byron's body was sent home to 
England, and after lying in state for 
two days was buried at Hucknall 
Torkard.^ The funeral procession was 
accidentally met by Lady Caroline 
Lamb and her husband. She fainted 

' See Edinburgh Review for April 1871, for 
Hobhouse's account of the funeral. 



on being made aware that it was 
Byron's. Her mind became more 
affected; she was separated from her 
husband; and died 26 Jan. 1828, gen- 
erously cared for by him to the last.^ 

Lady Byron afterwards led a retired 
life. Her daughter Ada was married 
to the Earl of Lovelace 8 July 1835, 
and died 29 Nov. 1852. She is said to 
have been a good mathematician. A 
portrait of her is in Bentley's "Mis- 
cellany" for 1853. Lady Byron settled 
ultimately at Brighton, where she be- 
came a warm admirer and friend of 
F. W. Robertson. She took an interest 
in the religious questions of the day, 
and spent a large part of her income 
in charity. Miss Martineau speaks of 
her with warm respect^ and some of 
her letters will be found in Crabb 
Robinson's Diary. Others ^ thought 
her pedantic and overstrict. She died 
16 May i860. Mme. Guiccioli re- 
turned to her husband; she married 
the Marquis de Boissy in 185 1 and 
died at Florence in March 1873. 

The following appears to be a full 
list of original portraits of Byron .^ 
Names of proprietors added : i. Minia- 
ture by Kaye at the age of seven. 
2. Full length in oils by Sanders; en- 
graved in standard edition of Moore's 
life (Lady Dorchester). 3. Miniature 
by same from the preceding (engraving 
destroyed at Byron's request). 4. Half- 
length by Westall, 1814 (Lady Burdett- 
Coutts). 5. Half-length by T. Phillips, 
1814 (Mr. Murray) ; engraved by Agar, 
R. Graves, Lupton, Mote, Warren, 
Edwards, and C. Armstrong. 6. Minia- 
ture by Holmes, 1815 (Mr. A. Morrison) ; 
engraved by R. Graves, Ryall, and 
H. Meyer. 7. Bust in marble by 
Thorwaldsen, 1816 (Lady Dorchester); 
replicas at Milan and elsewhere. 

' For Lady Caroline Lamb see Lady Morgan, 
Memoirs, i. 200-14; Annual Obituary for 1828; 
Mr. Townshend Mayer in Temple Bar for June 
1868; Lord Lytton, Memoirs, vol. i. Paul, 
Life of Godwin, vol. ii. 

* See Howitt's letter in Daily News for Sept. 
i86q. 

3 For fuller details see article by M. R. Edg- 
cumbe and Mr. A. Graves in Notes and Queries, 
6th series, vi. 422, 472, vii. 269. 



INTRODUCTION 



xliii 



8. Half-length by Harlowe, 1817; en- 
graved by H. Meyer, Holl, and Scriven. 

9. Miniature by Prepiani, 18 17, and 
another by the same; given to Mrs. 
Leigh. 10. Miniature in water-colours 
of Byron in college robes by Gilchrist 
about 1807-8; at Newstead. 11. Half- 
length in Albanian dress by F. Phillips, 
R.A. (Lord Lovelace) ; replica in 
National Portrait Gallery; engraved by 
Finden. 12. Pencil sketch by G. Cat- 
termole from memory (Mr. Toome). 
13. Medallion by A. Stothard. 14. Bust 
by Bartolini, 1822 (Lord Malmesbury); 
Lithograph by Fromentin. 15. Half- 
length by West (Mr. Horace Kent); 
engrav^ed by C. Turner, Engelheart, 
and Robinson. 16. Three sketches by 
Count d'Orsay, 1823; one at South 
Kensington. 17. Statue by Thorwald- 
sen, finished 1834. This statue was 
ordered from Thorwaldsen in 1829 by 
Hobhouse in the name of a committee. 
Thorwaldsen produced it for ;^iooo. 
It was . refused by Dean Ireland for 
Westminster Abbey, and lay in the 
custom house vaults till 1842, when it 
was again refused by Dean Finton. 
In 1843 Whewell, having just become 
Master of Trinity, accepted it for the 
college, and it was placed in the library.^ 
18. A silhouette cut in paper by Mrs. 
Leigh Hunt is -prefixed to " Byron and 
some of his Contemporaries." 

Byron's works appeared as follows : i. 
"Hours of Idleness."^ 2. "English 
Bards and Scotch Reviewers" (Gaw- 
thorne).^ 3. "Imitations and Transla- 
tions, together with original poems 
never before published, collected by 
J. C. Hobhouse, Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge" (1809) (contains nine poems by 
Byron, reprinted in works, among "oc- 
casional pieces," 1807-8 and 1808-10. 
4. "Childe Harold, a Romaunt," 4to, 
181 2 (an appendix of twenty poems, in- 
cluding those during his travels and 
those addressed to Thyrza). 5. "The 



' Correspondence in Notes and Queries, 6th 
ser. iv. 421. 

» See above for a notice of first editions. 

3 For full details of editions see Notes and 
Queries, 5th ser. vii. 145, 204, 296, 355. 



Curse of Minerva" (anonymous; pri- 
vately printed in a thin quarto in 18 12 
(Lowndes); at Philadelphia in 1815, 
8vo; Harris (Galignani), i2mo, 18 18; 
and imperfect copies in Hone's " Domes- 
tic Poems," and in later collections). 
6. "The Waltz" (anonymous), 18 13 
(again in Works, 1824). 7. "The 
Giaour, a Fragment of a Turkish Tale," 
1813, 8vo. 8. "The Bride of Abydos, 
a Turkish Tale," 1813, 8vo. 9. "The 
Corsair, a Tale," 1814, 8vo (to this were 
added the lines, "Weep, daughter of a 
royal line," omitted in some copies.) 
10. "Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte" 
(anonymous), 8vo, 1814. 11. "Lara, a 
Tale," 1814, 8vo (originally published 
with Rogers's "Jacqueline"). 12. "He- 
brew Melodies," 1815 (lines on Sir Peter 
Parker appended) ; also with music by 
Braham and Nathan in folio. 13. " Siege 
of Corinth," 1816, 8vo. 14. " Parisina," 
1816, 8vo (this and the last together in 
second edition, 18 16). 15. "Poems by 
Lord Byron" (Murray), 1816, 8vo 
("When all around," "Bright be the 
place of thy soul," "When we two 
parted," "There's not a joy," "There 
be none of Beauty's daughters," "Fare 
thee well" ; poems from the French and 
lines to Rogers). The original of 
"Bright be the place of thy soul," by 
Lady Byron, corrected by Lord Byron, 
is in the Morrison MSS. 16. "Poems 
on his Domestic Circumstances by Lord 
Byron," Hone, 18 16 (includes a 
"Sketch," and in later editions a 
"Farewell to Malta," and "Curse of 
Minerva" (mutilated); a twenty-third 
edition in 1817. It also includes "O 
Shame to thee. Land of the Gaul," 
and "Mme. Lavalette," which, with an 
"Ode to St. Helena," "Farewell to 
England," "On his Daughter's Birth- 
day," and "The Lily of France," are 
disowned by Byron in letter to Murray 
22 July 1816, but are reprinted in some 
later unauthorised editions. 17. "Pris- 
oner of Chillon, and other Poems," 
18 16, 8vo (sonnet to Lake Leman, 
"Though the day of my destiny's 
over," "Darkness," "Churchill's 
Grave," "The Dream," the "Incanta- 



xliv 



INTRODUCTION 






tion" (from Manfred), "Prometheus.") 
i8. "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," 
canto iii., 1816, 8vo. 19. "Monody on 
the Death of Sheridan " (anonymous), 
1816, 8vo. 20. "Manfred, a Dramatic 
Poem," 1817, 8vo. 21. "The Lament 
of Tasso," 8vo. 181 7, 22. "Childe 
Harold's Pilgrimage," canto iv., 1818 
(the Alhama ballad and sonnet from 
Vittorelli appended). 23. "Beppo, a 
Venetian Story" (anonymous in early 
editions), 1818, 8vo. 24. "Suppressed 
Poems" (Galignani), 1818, 8vo ("Eng- 
lish Bards and Scotch Reviewers," 
"Land of the Gaul," "Windsor Poetics, 
a Sketch"). 25. Three Poems not in- 
cluded in the works of Lord Byron 
(Effingham Wilson), 1818, 8vo ("Lines 
to Lady J[ersey] "; "Enigma on H.," 
often erroneously attributed to Byron, 
really by Miss Fanshawe; "Curse of 
Minerva," fragmentary). 26. "Ma- 
zeppa," 1819 (fragment of the "Vam- 
pire" novel appended). 27. "Marino 
Faliero," 1820. 28. "The Prophecy of 
Dante," 1821 (with "Marino Faliero"), 
Svo. 29. " Sardanapalus, a Tragedy"; 
"The Two Foscari, a Tragedy"; 



"Cain, a Mystery" (in one volume, 
8vo), 1821. 30. "Letter ... on the 
Rev. W. L. Bowles's Strictures on Pope," 
1821. 31. "Werner, a Tragedy" (J. 
Hunt), 1822, Svo. 32. "The Liberal" 
(J. Hunt), 1823, Svo (No. I. "Vision of 
Judgment," "Letter to the Editor of 
my Grandmother's Review," " Epigrams 
on Castlereagh." No. II. "Heaven and 
Earth." No. III. "The Blues." 
No. IV. "Morgante Maggiore"). 
2,2,- "The Age of Bronze" (anonymous) 
(J. Hunt), 1823, Svo. 34. '-'The Is- 
land," (J. Hunt), 1823, Svo. 35. "The 
Deformed Transformed" (J. & H. L. 
Hunt), 1824, Svo. 2^. "Don Juan" 
(cantos i. and ii. "printed by Thomas 
Davison," 4to, 1819; cantos iii., iv., 
and V. (Davison), Svo, 1821; cantos vi., 
vii., and viii. (for Hunt and Clarke), Svo, 
1823; cantos ix., x., and xi. (for John 
Hunt), Svo, 1823; cantos xii., xiii., and 
xiv. (John Hunt), Svo, 1823; cantos xv. 
and xvi. (John and H. L. Hunt), Svo, 
1824), all anonymous. A 17th canto 
(1829) is not by Byron; and "twenty 
suppressed stanzas" (1S3S) are also 
spurious. 



THE COMPLETE 
POETICAL WORKS OF LORD BYRON 



POETICAL WORKS OF LORD BYRON 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 
AND OTHER EARLY POEMS. i 



ON LEAVING NEWSTEAD 
ABBEY. 

"Why dost thou build the hall, Son of the 

winged days? Thou lookest from thy tower 

to-day: yet a few years, and the blast of the 

desart comes: it howls in thy empty court." 

— OssiAN. 



Through thy battlements, Newstead,^ 
the hollow winds whistle: 
Thou, the hall of my Fathers, art gone 
to decay; 
In thy once smiling garden, the hemlock 
and thistle 
Have choak'd up the rose which late 
bloom'd in the way. 



Of the mail-cover'd Barons, who, 
proudly, to battle. 
Led their vassals from Europe to 
Palestine's plain. 
The escutcheon and shield, which with 
ev'ry blast rattle, 
Are the only sad vestiges now that re- 
main. 

^ [There were four distinct issues of Byron's 
juvenile poems, (i.) Fugitive Pieces, which was 
printed for private circulation in December, 
1806; (ii.) Poems on Various Occasions, printed 
for private circulation in January, 1807; (iii.) 
Hours of Idleness, published in June, 1807, 
and (iv.) Poems Original and Translated, 
published in 1808. The whole of the first 
issue (the Quarto) was destroyed with the ex- 
ception of two or three copies. In the present 
issue a general heading, "Hours of Idleness, 
and other Early Poems," has been applied to the 
entire collection of Early Poems, i8o2-i8og.] 

2 [The priory of Newstead, or de Novo Loco, 
in Sherwood, was founded about the year 11 70, 
by Henry II. On the dissolution of the mon- 
asteries it was granted (in 1540) by Henry VIII. 
to "Sir John Byron the Little, with the great 
beard." His portrait is still preserved at 
Newstead.] 



No more doth old Robert, with harp- 
stringing numbers. 
Raise a flame, in the breast, for the 
war-laurell'd wreath; 
Near Askalon's towers, John of Horis- 
tan ^ slumbers, 
Unnerv'd is the hand of his minstrel, 
by death. 

4- 
Paul and Hubert too sleep in the valley 
of Cressy; 
For the safety of Edward and Eng- 
land they fell: 
My Fathers ! the tears of your country 
redress ye: 
How you fought ! how you died ! still 
her annals can tell. 



On Marston,^ with Rupert,^ 'gainst trai- 
tors contending, 
Four brothers enrich'd, with their 
blood, the bleak field; 
For the rights of a monarch their country 
defending, 
Till death their attachment to royalty 
seal'd.^ 

1 Horistan Castle, in Derbyshire, an ancient 
seat of the Byron family. 

2 The Battle of Marston Moor, where the ad- 
herents of Charles I. were defeated. 

^ Son of the Elector Palatine, and related to 
Charles I. He afterwards commanded the 
Fleet, in the reign of Charles II. 

* [Sir Nicholas Byron, the great-grandson 
of Sir John Byron the Little, distinguished 
himself in the Civil Wars. He was Governor 
of Carlisle, and afterwards Governor of Chester. 
His nephew and heir-at-law. Sir John Byron, 
of Clayton, K.B. (1509-1652), was raised to 
the peerage as Baron Byron of Rochdale, after 
the Battle of Newbury, October 26, 1643. 
He died childless, and was succeeded by his 
brother Richard, the second lord, from whom 
the poet was descended. Five younger brothers, 
as Richard's monument in the chancel of Huck- 
nall Torkard Church records, "faithfully 
served King Charles the First in the Civil Wars, 
suffered much for their loyaltv, and lost all their 
present fortunes." (See Life of Lord Byron, 
by Karl Elze: Appendix, Note (A), p. 436.)] 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



6. 

Shades of heroes, farewell ! your de- 
scendant departing 
From the seat of his ancestors, bids 
you adieu ! 
Abroad, or at home, your remembrance 
imparting 
New courage, he'll think upon glory 
and you. 

7- 
Though a tear dim his eye at this sad 
separation, 
'Tis nature, not fear, that excites his 
regret ; 
Far distant he goes, with the same emu- 
lation. 
The fame of his fathers he ne'er can 



That fame, and that memory, still will 
he cherish; 
He vows that he ne'er will disgrace 
your renown: 
lake you will he live, or like you will he 
perish; 
When decay 'd, may he mingle his dust 
with your own ! 1803. 

[First printed, December, 1806.] 

TO E .1 

Let Folly smile, to view the names 
Of thee and me, in Friendship twin'd; 

Yet Virtue will have greater claims 
To love, than rank with vice combin'd. 

And though unequal is thy fate, 
Since title deck'd my higher birth; 

Yet envy not this gaudy state, 

Thine is the pride of modest worth. 

Our souls at least congenial meet, 

Nor can thy lot wy rank disgrace; 
Our intercourse is not less sweet, 

Since worth of rank supplies the place. 
November, 1802. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 

1 [E was, according to Moore, a boy 

of Bvron's own age, the son of one of the ten- 
ants at Newstead.] 



ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG 
LADY,^ 

COUSIN TO THE AUTHOR, AND VERY 
DEAR TO HIM. 



Hush'd are the winds, and still the even- 
ing gloom. 
Not e'en a zephyr wanders through 
the grove, 
Whilst I return to view my Margaret's 
tomb. 
And scatter flowers on the dust I love. 



Within this narrow cell reclines her clay, 
That clay, where once such animation 
b-?am'd; 
The King of Terrors seiz'd her as his 
■ prey; 

Not worth, nor beauty, have her life 
redeem'd. 



Oh! could that King of Terrors pity 
feel, 
Or Heaven reverse the dread decree of 
fate, 



1 The author claims the indulgence of the 
reader more for this piece than, perhaps, any 
other in the collection; but as it was written 
at an earlier period than the rest (being com- 
posed at the age of fourteen), and his first 
essay, he preferred submitting it to the indul- 
gence of his friends in its present state, to- 
making either addition or alteration. 

["My first dash into poetry was as early 
as 1800. It was the ebullition of a passion 
for my first cousin, Margaret Parker (daughter 
and granddaughter of the two Admirals Parker), 
one of the most beautiful of evanescent beings. 
I have long forgotten the verse; but it would 
be difficult for me to forget her — her dark 
eyes — her long eye-lashes — her completely 
Greek cast of face and figure ! I was then 
about twelve — she rather older, perhaps a 
year. She died about a year or two after- 
wards. . . . Some years after I made an 
attempt at an elegy — a very dull one." — 
Letters, igoi, v. 449. 

[Margaret Parker was ihe sister of Sir Peter 
Parker, whose death at Baltimore, in 1814, 
Byron celebrated in the "Elegiac Stanzas," 
which were first published in the poems at- 
tached to the tenth edition of Childe Harold 
(1815).] 



TO D- 



— TO CAROLINE 



Not here the mourner would his grief 
reveal, 
Not here the Muse her virtues would 
relate. 

4. 

But wherefore weep? Her matchless 
spirit soars 
Beyond where splendid shines the orb 
of day; 
And weeping angels lead her to those 
bowers, 
Where endless pleasures virtuous 
deeds repay. 



And shall presumptuous mortals Heaven 



arraign 



And, madly. Godlike Providence 
accuse ! 
Ah ! no, far fly from me attempts so 
vain; — 
I'll ne'er submission to mv God refuse. 



Yet is remembrance of those virtues dear, 
Yet fresh the memory of that beaute- 
ous face; 
Still they call forth my warm affection's 
tear, 
Still in my heart retain their wonted 
place. 

1802. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 

TO D } 



In thee, I fondly hop'd to clasp 

A friend, whom death alone could 
sever ; 

Till envy, with malignant grasp, 

Detach'd thee from my breast for 



True, she has forc'd thee from my breast, 
Yet, in my heart, thou keep'st thy seat; 

There, there, thine image still must rest. 
Until that heart shall cease to beat. 

* [George John, 5th Earl Delawarr (1791- 
1869).] 



And, when the grave restores her dead, 

When life again to dust is given. 
On thy dear breast I'll lay my head — 
Without thee! where would be my 
Heaven? February, 1803. 

[First printed, December, 1806.] 

TO CAROLINE. 



Think' ST thou I saw thy beauteous eyes, 
Suffus'd in tears, implore to stay; 

And heard unmov'd thy plenteous sighs, 
Which said far more than words can 
say? 



Though keen the grief thy tears exprest, 
When love and hope lay both o'er- 
thrown ; 
Yet still, my girl, this bleeding breast 
Throbb'd, with deep sorrow, as thine 
own. 



But, when our cheeks with anguish 
glow'd, 
When thy sweet lips were join'd to 
mine; 
The tears that from my eyelids flow'd 
W^ere lost in those which fell from 
thine. 



Thou could' St not feel my burning cheek, 
Thy gushing tears had quench'd its 
flame. 

And, as thy tongue essay'd to speak. 
In sighs alone it breath'd my name. 



And yet, my girl, we weep in vain, 
In vain our fate in sighs deplore; 

Remembrance only can remain, 

But that, will make us weep the more. 



Again, thou best belov'd, adieu ! 

Ah ! if thou canst, o'ercome regret. 
Nor let thy mind past joys review, 

Our only hope is, to forget 1 1805. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



TO CAROLINE. 



You say you love, and yet your eye 
No symptom of that love conveys, 

You say you love, yet know not why. 
Your cheek no sign of love betrays. 



Ah ! did that breast with ardour glow. 
With me alone it joy could know, 
Or feel with me the listless woe. 

Which racks my heart when far from 
thee. 



Whene'er we meet my blushes rise. 
And mantle through my purpled 
cheek. 

But yet no blush to mine replies. 

Nor e'en your eyes your love bespeak. 



Your voice alone declares your flame, 
And though so sweet it breathes my 

name, 
Our passions still are not the same; 
Alas ! you cannot love like me. 



For e'en your lip seems steep'd in snow, 
And though so oft it meets my kiss. 

It burns with no responsive glow, 
Nor melts like mine in dewy bliss. 



Ah ! what are words to love like mine, 
Though utter'd by a voice like thine, 
I still in murmurs must repine. 

And think that love can ne'er be true. 



Which meets me with no joyous sign. 
Without a sigh which bids adieu; 

How different is my love from thine. 
How keen my grief when leaving you ! 

' [These lines, which appear in the Quarto, 
were first published, 1898.] 



8. 

Your image fills my anxious breast, 
Till day declines adown the West, 
And when at night, I sink to rest, 
In dreams your fancied form I view. 



'Tis then your breast, no longer cold, 
With equal ardour seems to burn. 

While close your arms around me fold, 
Your lips my kiss with warmth return. 



Ah ! would these joyous moments last; 
Vain Hope! the gay delusion's past. 
That voice ! — ah ! no, 'tis but the blast. 
Which echoes through the neighbour- 
ing grove. 



But when awake, your lips I seek, 

And clasp enraptur'd all your charms, 

So chill's the pressure of your cheek, 
I fold a statue in my arms. 



If thus, when to my heart embrac'd, 
No pleasure in your eyes is trac'd, 
You may be prudent, fair, and chaste, 
But ah ! my girl, you do not love. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 



TO EMMA. 



Since now the hour is come at last. 
When you must quit your anxious- 
lover; 

Since now, our dream of bliss is past. 
One pang, my girl, and all is over. 



Alas ! that pang will be severe. 

Which bids us part to meet no more: 

Which tears me far from one so dear, 
Departing for a distant shore. 



Well ! we have pass'd some happy hours, 
And joy will mingle with our tears; 



FRAGMENTS OF SCHOOL EXERCISES— LINES 



iWhen thinking on these ancient towers, 
The shelter of our infant years; 



'where from this Gothic casement's 
height, 
We view'd the lake, the park, the dell, 
And still, though tears obstruct our 
sight, 
We lingering look a last farewell, 



O'er fields through which we us'd to 
run. 
And spend the hours in childish play ; 
O'er shades where, when our race was 
done. 
Reposing on my breast you lay; 



Whilst I, admiring, too remiss. 
Forgot to scare the hovering flies, 

Yet envied every fly the kiss. 

It dar'd to give your slumbering 
eyes : 



See still the little painted hark, 

In which I row'd you o'er the lake ; 

See there, high waving o'er the park. 
The elm I clamber'd for your sake. 



These times are past, our joys are gone. 
You leave me, leave this happy vale; 

These scenes, I must retrace alone; 
Without thee, what will they avail? 



Who can conceive, who has not prov'd. 
The anguish of a last embrace ? 

When, torn from all you fondly lov'd, 
You bid a long adieu to peace. 



This is the deepest of our woes. 

For this these tears our cheeks bedew; 
This is of love the final close. 

Oh, God ! the fondest, last adieu ! 

1805. 

[First printed, December, 1806.] 



FRAGMENTS OF SCHOOL 
EXERCISES: 

FROM THE "PROMETHEUS VINCTUS" OF 
^SCHYLUS. 

Mr]ddfx 6 TTOLVTa p^ficov, k.t.X. 

Great Jove! to whose Almighty 
Throne 
Both Gods and mortals homage 
pay. 
Ne'er may my soul thy power disown, 

Thy dread behests ne'er disobey. 
Oft shall the sacred victim fall. 
In sea-girt Ocean's mossy hall; 
My voice shall raise no impious strain, 
'Gainst Him who rules the sky and azure 
main. 



How difi"erent now thy joyless fate, 

Since first Hesione thy bride, 
When plac'd aloft in godlike state, 
The blushing beauty by thy side. 
Thou sat'st, while reverend Ocean 

smil'd, 
And mirthful strains the hours 

beguil'd; 
The Nymphs and Tritons danc'd 
around. 
Nor yet thy doom was fix'd, nor Jove 
relentless frown'd. 
Harrow, December i, 1804. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 

LINES 

written in "letters of an ITALIAN 
NUN AND AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN, 
BY J. J. ROUSSEAU: ^ FOUNDED ON 
FACTS." 

"AW.A.Y, away, — your flattering arts 
May now betray some simpler hearts; 
And you will smile at their believing, 
And they shall weep at your deceiving." 

1 [A second edition of this work, of which 
the title is, Letters, etc., translated from the 
French of Jean Jacques Rousseau, was pub- 
lished in London, in 1784. It is, probably, 
a literary forgery.] 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING, ADDRESSED 
TO MISS . 

Dear simple girl, those flattering arts, 
(From which thou'dst guard frail female 

hearts,) 
Exist but in imagination. 
Mere phantoms of thine own creation; 
For he who views that witching grace, 
That perfect form, that lovely face. 
With eyes admiring, oh ! believe me. 
He never wishes to deceive thee: 
Once in thy polish' d mirror glance 
Thou' It there descry that elegance 
Which from our sex demands such 

praises. 
But envy in the other raises. — 
Then he who tells thee of thy beauty. 
Believe me, only does his duty: 
Ah! fly not from the candid youth; 
It is not flattery, — 'tis truth. 

July, 1804. 

[First printed, December, 1806.] 

ON A CHANGE OF MASTERS AT 
A GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOL.^ 

Where are those honours, Ida ! once 

your own. 
When Probus fiU'd your magisterial 

throne ? 
As ancient Rome, fast falling to disgrace, 
Hail'd a Barbarian in her Caesar's place. 
So you, degenerate, share as hard a fate, 
And seat Pomposus where your Probus 

sate. 
Of narrow brain, yet of a narrower soul, 
Pomposus holds you in his harsh con- 

troul ; 
Pomposus, by no social virtue sway'd, 
With florid jargon, and with vain parade ; 
With noisy nonsense, and new-fangled 

rules, 
(Such as were ne'er before enforc'd in 

schools) . 
Mistaking pedantry for learning's laws, 

1 [In March, 1805, Dr Drury, the Probus 
of the piece, retired from the Head-mastership 
of Harrow School, and was succeeded by Dr 
Butler, the Pomposus. "Dr Drury," said 
Byron, in one of his note-books, "was the best, 
the kindest (and yet strict, too) friend I ever 
had; and I look upon him still as a father."] 



He governs, sanction'd but by self- 
applause; 

With him the same dire fate, attending 
Rome, 

Ill-fated Ida ! soon must stamp your 
doom: 

Like her o'erthrown, for ever lost to 
fame, 

No trace of science left you, but the 
name. Harrow, July, 1805. 

[First printed, December, 1806.] 

EPITAPH ON A BELOVED 
FRIEND. 

A<TT7]p irplp jxev e\a/i7res evl ^woTacp i^os. 
— Plato's Epitaph. 

Oh, Friend ! for ever lov'd, for ever 

dear! 
What fruitless tears have bathed thy 

honour'd bier ! 
What sighs re-echo'd to thy parting 

breath. 
Whilst thou wast struggling in the pangs 

of death ! 
Could tears retard the tyrant in his 

course ; 
Could sighs avert his dart's relentless 

force ; 
Could youth and virtue claim a short 

delay. 
Or beauty charm the spectre from his 

prey; 
Thou still hadst liv'd to bless my aching 

sight, 
Thy comrade's honour and thy friend's 

delight. 
If yet thy gentle spirit hover nigh 
The spot where now thy mouldering 

ashes lie. 
Here wilt thou read, recorded on my 

heart, 
A grief too deep to trust the sculptor's 

art. 
No marble marks thy couch of lowly 

sleep. 
But living statues there are seen to 

weep ; 
Affliction's semblance bends not o'er thy 

tomb, 
Affliction's self deplores thy youthful 

doom. 



ADRIAN'S ADDRESS — A FRAGMENT — TO CAROLINE 



7 



What though thy sire lament his failing 

line, 
A father's sorrows cannot equal mine ! 
Though none, like thee, his dying hour 

will cheer, 
Yet other offspring soothe his anguish 

here: 
But, who with me shall hold thy former 

place? 
Thine image, what new friendship can 

efface ? 
Ah, none ! — a father's tears will cease 

to flow. 
Time will assuage an infant brother's 

woe; 
To all, save one, is consolation known, 
While solitary Friendship sighs alone. 
Harrow, 1803. 

[First printed, December, 1806.] 

ADRIAN'S ADDRESS TO HIS 
SOUL WHEN DYING. 

Animula ! vagula, Blandula, 
Hospes, comesque corporis. 
Qua? nunc abibis in Loca — 
Pallidula, rigida, nudula. 
Nee, ut soles, dabis Jocos? 

TRANSLATION. 

Ah ! gentle, fleeting, wav'ring Sprite, 
Friend and associate of this clay ! 

To what unknown region borne. 
Wilt thou, now, wing thy distant flight ? 
No more with wonted humour gay. 
But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn. 
1806. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 

A FRAGMENT. 

When, to their airy hall, my Father's 
voice 

Shall call my spirit, joyful in their 
choice ; 

When, pois'd upon the gale, my form 
shall ride. 

Or, dark in mist, descend the moun- 
tain's side; 

Oh ! may my shade behold no sculptur'd 
urns. 

To mark the spot where earth to earth 
returns I 



No lengthen'd scroll, no praise-en- 

cumber'd stone; 
My epitaph shall be my name alone: * 
If ihat with honour fail to crown my clay. 
Oh ! may no other fame my deeds repay ! 
Tliat, only that, shall single out the spot; 
By that remember'd, or with that forgot. 

1803. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 

TO CAROLINE. 



Oh ! when shall the grave hide for ever 
my sorrow? 
Oh ! when shall my soul wing her flight 
from this clay? 
The present is hell ! and the coming to- 
morrow 
But brings, with new torture, the curse 
of to-day. 

2. 

From my eye flows no tear, from my lips 
flow no curses, 
I blast not the fiends who have hurl'd 
me from bliss; 
For poor is the soul which, bewailing, 
rehearses 
Its querulous grief, when in anguish 
like this — 



Was my eye, 'stead of tears, with red 
fury flakes bright'ning. 
Would my lips breathe a flame which 
no stream could assuage. 
On our foes should my glance launch in 
vengeance its lightning. 
With transport my tongue give a loose 
to its rage. 



But now tears and curses, alike un- 
availing, 
Would add to the souls of our tyrants 
delight ; 
Could they view us our sad separation 
bewailing, 
Their merciless hearts would rejoice 
at the sight. 

1 [In his will, drawn up in 1811, Byron gave 
directions that "no inscription, save his name 
and age, should be written on his tomb."] 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Yet, still, though we bend with a feign'd 
resignation, 
Life beams not for us with one ray 
that can cheer; 
Love and Hope upon earth bring no 
more consolation. 
In the grave is our hope, for in life is 
our fear. 



Oh! when, my ador'd, in the tomb will 
they place me, 
Since, in life, love and friendship for 
ever are fled ? 
If again in the mansion of death I em- 
brace thee, 
Perhaps they will leave unmolested — 
the dead. i8o5- 

[First printed, December, 1806.] 

TO CAROLINE. 

I. 

When I hear you express an affection so 
warm. 
Ne'er think, my belov'd, that I do not 
believe ; 
For your lip would the soul of suspicion 
disarm, 
And your eye beams a ray which can 
never deceive. 



Yet still, this fond bosom regrets, while 
adoring, 
That love, like the leaf, must fall into 
the sear. 
That Age will come on, when Remem- 
brance, deploring. 
Contemplates the scenes of her youth, 
with a tear; 



That the time must arrive, when, no 
longer retaining 
Their auburn, those locks must wave 
thin to the breeze. 
When a few silver hairs of those tresses 
remaining, 
Prove nature a prey to decay and dis- 
ease. 



'Tis this, my belov'd, which spreads 
gloom o'er my features. 
Though I ne'er shall presume to 
arraign the decree 
Which God has proclaim'd as the fate of 
his creatures. 
In the death which one day will de- 
prive you of me. 



Mistake not, sweet sceptic, the cause of 
emotion, 
No doubt can the mind of your lover 
invade; 
He worships each look with such faith- 
ful devotion, 
A smile can enchant, or a tear can 
dissuade. 

6. 

But as death, my belov'd, soon or late 
shall o'ertake us, 
And our breasts, which alive with such 
sympathy glow. 
Will sleep in the grave, till the blast shall 
awake us. 
When calling the dead, in Earth's 
bosom laid low, 

7- 
Oh ! then let us drain, while we may, 
draughts of pleasure. 
Which from passion, like ours, must 
unceasingly flow; 
Let us pass round the cup of Love's bliss 
in full measure. 
And quaff the contents as our nectar 
below. 1805. 

[First printed, December, 1806.] 

ON A DISTANT VIEW OF THE 
VILLAGE AND SCHOOL OF 
HARROW ON THE HILL, 1806. 

" Oh ! mihi praeteritos referat si Jupiter an- 
nos." — Virgil. 



Ye scenes of my childhood, whose lov'd 
recollection 
Embitters the present, compar'd with 
the past; 



ON A VIEW OF HARROW — A COLLEGE EXAMINATION 



Where science first dawn'd on the powers 

of reflection, 

And friendships were form'd, too 

2li romantic to last: ^ 
T 

^^lere fancy, yet, joys to retrace the 
resemblance 
Of comrades, in friendship and mis- 
chief allied; 
How welcome to me your ne'er fading 
remembrance, 
Which rests in the bosom, though 
hope is deny'd ! 



Again I revisit the hills where we sported, 
The streams where we swam, and the 
fields where we fought; 
The school where, loud warn'd by the 
bell, we resorted. 
To pore o'er the precepts by. Peda- 
gogues taught. 

4- 
Again I behold where for hours I have 
ponder'd, 
As reclining, at eve, on yon tomb- 
stone ^ I lay ; 
Or round the steep brow of the church- 
yard I wander'd 
To catch the last gleam of the sun's 
setting ray. 

S- 
I once more view the room, with spec- 
tators surrounded, 
Where, as Zanga, I trod on Alonzo 
o'erthrown; 
While, to swell my young pride, such 
applauses resounded, 

1 fancied that Mossop ^ himself was 
outshone. 

^ [" My school-friendships were with me 
passions .(for I was always violent), but I do 
not know that there is one which has endured 
(to be sure, some have been cut short by death) 
till now." — Letters, 1801, v. 455.] 

* [A tomb in the churchyard at Harrow was 
so well known to be his favourite resting-place, 
that the boys called it "Byron's Tomb" : 
and here, they say, he used to sit for hours, 
wrapt up in thought. — Life, p. 26. Vide 
post p. 71-] 

2 [Henry Mossop, who performed Zanga in 
Young's Revenge. '\ 



Or, as Lear, I pour'd forth the deep 
imprecation. 
By my daughters of kingdom and 
reason depriv'd; 
Till, fir'd by loud plaudits and self- 
adulation, 
I regarded myself as a Garrick reviv'd. 



Ye dreams of my boyhood, how much I 
regret you ! 
Unfaded your memory dwells in my 
breast ; 
Though sad and deserted, I ne'er can 
forget you: 
Your pleasures may still be in fancy 
possest, 

8. 

To Ida full oft may remembrance restore 
me. 
While Fate shall the shades of the 
future unroll ! 
Since Darkness o'ershadows the pros- 
pect before me. 
More dear is the beam of the past to 
my soul ! 

9- 
But if, through the course of the years 
which await me, 
Some new scene of pleasure should 
open to view, 
I will say, while with rapture the thought 
shall elate me, 
"Oh! such were the days which my 
infancy knew." 1806. 

[First printed, December, 1806.] 

THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY A 
COLLEGE EXAMINATION. 

High in the midst, surrounded by his 

peers, 
Magnus ^ his ample front sublime 

uprears : 

1 No reflection is there intended against the 
person mentioned under the name of Magnus. 
He is merely represented as performing an un- 
avoidable function of his office. Indeed, such 
an attempt could only recoil upon myself; as 
that gentleman is now as much distinguished 
by his eloquence, and the dignified propriety 
with which he fills his situation, as he was in 



lo 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Plac'd on his chair of state, he seems a 
God, 

While Sophs ^ and Freshmen tremble at 
his nod; 

As all around sit wrapt in speechless 
gloom, 

His voice, in thunder, shakes the sound- 
ing dome; 

Denouncing dire reproach to luckless 
fools, 

Unskill'd to plod in mathematic rules. 

Happy the youth ! in Euclid's 

axioms tried. 
Though little vers'd in any art beside; 
Who, scarcely skill'd an English line to 

pen. 
Scans Attic metres with a critic's ken. 
What ! though he knows not how his 

fathers bled. 
When civil discord pil'd the fields with 

dead. 
When Edward bade his conquering 

bands advance, 
Or Henry trampled on the crest of 

France : 
Though marvelling at the name of 

Magna Charta, 
Yet well he recollects the laws of Sparta; 
Can tell, what edicts sage Lycurgus 

made, 
While Blackstone's on the shelf, neg- 
lected laid; 
Of Grecian dramas vaunts the deathless 

fame. 
Of Avon's hard, rememb'ring scarce the 

name. 

Such is the youth whose scientific pate 
Class-honours, medals, fellowships, 

await ; 
Or even, perhaps, the declamation prize. 
If to such glorious height, he lifts his 

eyes. 
But lo ! no common orator can hope 
The envied silver cup within his scope: 
Not that our heads much eloquence re- 
quire, 

his younger days for wit and conviviality. 
[Dr William Lort Mansel (17.=; 3- 1820) was, 
in 1798, appointed Master of Trinity College, 
Cambridge, by Pitt.] 

1 [Undergraduates of the second and third 
year.] 



Th' Athenian's ^ glowing style, or 

Tully's fire. , 

A manner clear or warm is useless, since 
We do not try by speaking to convin ce, 
Be other orators of pleasing proud, - 
We speak to please ourselves, not ^^ ,£ 

the crowd: *^J 

Our gravity prefers the muttering tone, 
A proper mixture of the squeak and 

groan : 
No borrowed grace of action must be 

seen. 
The slightest motion would displease the 

Dean; 
Whilst every staring Graduate would 

prate. 
Against what — he could never imitate. 

The man, who hopes t'obtain the 

promis'd cup. 
Must in one posture stand, and ne'er 

look up; 
Nor stop, but rattle over every word — 
No matter what, so it can not be heard : 
Thus let him hurry on, nor think to rest: 
Who speaks the fastest' s sure to speak 

the best; 
Who utters most within the shortest 

space. 
May, safely, hope to win the wordy race. 

The Sons of Science these, who, thus 

repaid, 
Linger in ease in Granta's sluggish 

shade; 
Where on Cam's sedgy banks, supine, 

they lie. 
Unknown, unhonour'd live — unwept 

for die: 
Dull as the pictures, which adorn their 

halls, 
They think all learning fix'd within their 

walls: 
In manners rude, in foolish forms pre- 
cise. 
All modern arts affecting to despise; 
Yet prizing Bentley's, Brunck's, or 

Person's ^ note, 

1 Demosthenes. 

2 The present Greek professor at Trinity 
College, Cambridge; a man whose powers of 
mind and writings may, perhaps, justify their 
preference. [Richard Person (1759-1808).] 



TO MARY— ON THE DEATH OF MR. FOX 



More than the verse on which the critic 

-wrote : 
Vain as their honours, heavy as their Ale, 
Sad as their wit, and tedious as their tale ; 
To friendship dead, though not un- 
taught to feel, 
When Self and Church demand a Bigot 

zeal. 
With eager haste they court the lord of 

power, 
(Whether 'tis Pitt or Petty ' rules the 

hour;) 
To him, with suppliant smiles, they bend 

the head, 
While distant mitres to their eyes are 

spread ; 
But should a storm o'erwhelm him with 

disgrace, 
They'd fly to seek the next, who fill'd his 

place. 
Such are the men who learning's treas- 
ures guard ! 
Such is their practice, such is their 

reward ! 
This much, at least, we may presume to 

say — 
The premium can't exceed the price they 

pay. 1806. 

[First printed, December, 1806.] 

TO MARY, 

ON RECEIVING HER PICTURE.^ 



This faint resemblance of thy charms, 
(Though strong as mortal art could 
give,) 

My constant heart of fear disarms. 
Revives my hopes, and bids me live. 

1 Since this was written, Lord Henry Petty 
has lost his place, and subsequently (I had 
almost said consequently) the honour of repre- 
senting the University. A fact so glaring 
requires no comment. [Lord Henry Petty 
(1780-1863), M.P. for the University of Cam- 
bridge, was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 
1805. In 1809 he succeeded his brother as 
Marauis of Lansdowne.] 

2 [This "Mary" is not to be confounded 
with the heiress of Anneslev, or " Mary " of 
Aberdeen. She was of "humble station in hfe." 
Byron used to show a lock of her light golden 
hair, as well as her picture, among his friends. 
(See Lije, p. 41, note.)'] 



Here I can trace the locks of gold 
Which round thy snowy forehead 
wave ; 
The cheeks which sprung from Beauty's 
mould; 
The lips, which made me Beauty^s 
slave. 



Here I can trace — ah, no ! that eye, 
Whose azure floats in liquid fire, 

Must all the painter's art defy. 
And bid him from the task retire. 



Here I behold its beauteous hue; 

But where' s the beam so sweetly stray- 
ing, 
Which gave a lustre to its blue. 

Like Luna o'er the ocean playing? 

5- 
Sweet copy ! far more dear to me, 

Lifeless, unfeeling as thou art. 
Than all the living forms could be, 
Save her who plac'd thee next my 
heart. 



She plac'd it, sad, with needless fear, 
Lest time might shake my wavering 
soul, 

Unconscious that her image there 
Held every sense in fast controul. 

7- 
Thro' hours, thro' years, thro' time, 
'twill cheer — 
My hope, in gloomy moments, raise; 
In life's last conflict 'twill appear, 
And meet my fond, expiring gaze. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 



ON THE DEATH OF MR. FOX, 

THE FOLLOWING ILLIBERAL IMPROMPTU 
APPEARED IN THE "MORNING POST." 

"Our Nation's foes lament on Fox's 

death, 
But bless the hour, when Pitt resign'd 

his breath: 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



These feelings wide, let Sense and 

Truth undue, 
We give the palm, where Justice points 

its due." 

TO WHICH THE AUTHOR OF THESE 
PIECES SENT THE FOLLOWING RE- 
PLY ^ FOR INSERTION IN THE 
"morning CHRONICLE." 

Oh, factious viper ! whose envenom'd 

tooth 
Would mangle, still, the dead, pervert- 
ing truth; 
What, though our "nation's foes" 

lament the fate. 
With generous feeling, of the good and 

great ; 
Shall dastard tongues essay to blast the 

name 
Of him, whose meed exists in endless 

fame? 
When Pitt expir'd in plenitude of 

power, 
Though ill success obscur'd his dying 

hour. 
Pity her dewy wings before him spread, 
For noble spirits "war not with the 

dead": 
His friends in tears, a last sad requiem 

gave, 
As all his errors slumber'd in the grave; 
He sunk, an Atlas bending 'neath the 

weight 
Of cares o'erwhelming our conflicting 

state. 
When, lo! a Hercules, in Fox, appear'd. 
Who for a time the ruin'd fabric rear'd: 
He, too, is fall'n, who Britain's loss sup- 
plied. 
With him, our fast reviving hopes have 

died ; 
Not one great people, only, raise his urn, 
All Europe's far-extended regions 

mourn. 
"These feelings wide, let Sense and 

Truth undue, 
To give the palm where Justice points its 

due;" 
Yet, let not canker'd Calumny assail. 
Or round her statesman wind her 

gloomy veil. 

1 [September 26, 1806.] 



Fox! o'er whose corse a mourning 

world must weep. 
Whose dear remains in honour'd marble 

sleep; 
For whom, at last, e'en hostile nations 

groan. 
While friends and foes, alike, his talents 

own. — 
Fox ! shall, in Britain's future annals, 

shine. 
Nor e'en to Pitt, the patriot's palm 

resign ; 
Which Envy, wearing Candour's sacred 

mask. 
For Pitt, and Pitt alone, has dar'd to 

ask. 

Southwell, October, 1806.] 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 

TO A LADY^ 

WHO PRESENTED TO THE AUTHOR A 
LOCK OF HAIR BRAIDED W'lTH HIS 
OWN, AND APPOINTED A NIGHT IN 
DECEMBER TO MEET HIM IN THE 
GARDEN. 

These locks, which fondly thus entwine. 
In firmer chains our hearts confine. 
Than all th' unmeaning protestations 
Which swell with nonsense, love orations. 
Our love is fix'd, I think we've prov'd it; 
Nor time, nor place, nor art have mov'd 

Then wherefore should we sigh and 

whine, 
With groundless jealousy repine; 
With silly whims, and fancies frantic, 
Merely to make our love romantic? 
Why should you weep, like Lydia 

Languish, 
And fret with self-created anguish? 
Or doom the lover you have chosen, 
On winter nights to sigh half frozen; 
In leafless shades, to sue for pardon, 
Only because the scene's a garden? 
For gardens seem, by one consent, 
(Since Shakespeare set the precedent; 
Since Juliet first declar'd her passion) 
To form the place of assignation. 

^ [These lines are addressed to the same 
Mary referred to in the lines beginning, "This 
faint resemblance of thy charms."] 



TO A BEAUTIFUL QUAKER 



13 



Oh ! would some modern muse inspire, 
And seat her by a sea-coal fire ; 
Or had the bard at Christmas written, 
And laid the scene of love in Britain; 
He, surely, in commiseration, 
Had chang'd the place of declaration. 
In Italy, I've no objection. 
Warm nights are proper for reflection; 
But here our climate is so rigid. 
That love itself, is rather frigid: 
Think on our chilly situation. 
And curb this rage for imitation. 
Then let us meet, as oft we've done, 
Beneath the influence of the sun ; 
Or, if at midnight I must meet you. 
Within your mansion let me greet you: 
There, we can love for hours together, 
Much better, in such snowy weather. 
Than plac'd in all th' Arcadian groves. 
That ever witness'd rural loves; 
Then, if my passion fail to please, 
Next night I'll be content to freeze; 
No more I'll give a loose to laughter. 
But curse my fate, for ever after. ^ 

[First printed, December, 1806.] 

TO A BEAUTIFUL QUAKER.^ 

Sweet girl ! though only once we met, 
That meeting I shall ne'er forget; 

^ In the above little piece the author has been 
accused by some candid readers of introducing 
the name of a lady [JuUa Leacroft] from whom 
he was some hundred miles distant at the time 
this was written; and poor Juliet, who has slept 
so long in "the tomb of all the Capulets," has 
been converted, with a trifling alteration of her 
name, into an English damsel, walking in a 
garden of their own creation during the month 
of December, in a village where the author never 
passed a winter. Such has been the candour 
of some ingenious critics. We would advise 
these liberal commentators on taste and arbiters 
of decorum to read Shakespeare. 

Having heard that a very severe and in- 
delicate censure has been passed on the above 
poem. I beg leave to reply in a quotation from 
an admired work, Carr's Stranger in France. 

— [Ed. 1803, cap. xvi., p. 171.] "As we were 
contemplating a painting on a large scale, in 
which, among other figures, is the uncovered 
whole length of a warrior, a prudish-looking 
lady, who seemed to have touched the age of 
desperation, after having attentively surveyed 
it through her glass, observed to her party that 
there was a great deal of indecorum in that 
picture. Madame S. shrewdly whispered in 
my ear ' that the indecorum was in the remark.' ' ' 

2 ["Whom the author saw at Harrowgate." 

— MS. Note.'] 



And though we ne'er may meet again, 
Remembrance will thy form retain; 
I would not say, "I love," but still, 
My senses struggle with my will: 
In vain to drive thee from my breast. 
My thoughts are more and more represt; 
In vain I check the rising sighs. 
Another to the last replies: 
Perhaps, this is not love, but yet, 
Our meeting I can ne'er forget. 

What, though we never silence broke, 
Our eyes a sweeter language spoke; 
The tongue in flattering falsehood deals, 
And tells a tale it never feels; 
Deceit, the guilty lips impart. 
And hush the mandates of the heart; 
But soul's interpreters, the eyes, 
Spurn such restraint, and scorn disguise. 
As thus our glances oft convers'd, 
And all our bosoms felt rehears'd, 
No spirit, from within, reprov'd us. 
Say rather, " 'twas the spirit mov'd us." 
Though, what they utter'd, I repress, 
Yet I conceive thou' It partly guess; 
For as on thee, my memory ponders. 
Perchance to me, thine also wanders. 
This, for myself, at least, I'll say. 
Thy form appears through night, 

through day; 
Awake, with it my fancy teems, 
In sleep, it smiles in fleeting dreams; 
The vision charms the hours away. 
And bids me curse Aurora's ray 
For breaking slumbers of delight, 
Which make me wish for endless night. 
Since, oh ! whate'er my future fate. 
Shall joy or woe my steps await; 
Tempted by love, by storms beset, 
Thine image, I can ne'er forget. 

Alas ! again no more we meet, 
No more our former looks repeat; 
Then, let me breathe this parting prayer, 
The dictate of my boeom's care: 
''May Heaven so guard my lovely 

quaker, 
That anguish never can o'ertake her; 
That peace and virtue ne'er forsake her, 
But bliss be aye her heart's partaker I 
Oh ! may the happy mortal, fated 
To be, by dearest ties, related. 
For her, each hour, new joys discover, 



M 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



And lose the husband in the lover ! 
May that fair bosom never know 
What 'tis to feel the restless woe, 
Which stings the soul, with vain regret, 
Of him, who never can forget ! " 1806. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 

TO LESBIA.^ 



Lesbia ! since far from you I've rang'd, 
Our souls with fond affection glow not; 

You say, 'tis I, not yoii, have chang'd, 
I'd tell you why, — but yet I know 
not. 



Your polish'd brow no cares have crost ; 

And Lesbia ! we are not much older. 
Since, trembling, first my heart I lost, 

Or told my love, with hope grown 
bolder. 



Sixteen was then our utmost age. 
Two years have lingering pass'd away, 
love! 
And now new thoughts our minds en- 
gage. 
At least, I feel dispos'd to stray, love ! 

4- 
'Tis I that am alone to blame, 

/, that am guilty of love's treason; 
Since your sweet breast is still the same, 

Caprice must be my only reason. 



I do not, love ! suspect your truth. 
With jealous doubt my bosom heaves 
not; 

Warm was the passion of my youth, 
One trace of dark deceit it leaves not. 



No, no, my flame was not pretended; 

For, oh! I lov'd you most sincerely; 
And — though our dream at last is 
ended — 

My bosom still esteems you dearly. 

^ ["The lady's name was Julia Leacroft" 
(Note by Miss E. Pigot).] 



No more we meet in yonder bowers; 

Absence has made me prone to roving 
But older, firmer hearts than ours 

Have found monotony in loving. 



Your cheek's soft bloom is unimpair'd, 
New beauties, still, are daily bright- 
ning, 

Your eye, for conquest beams prepar'd. 
The forge of love's resistless lightning. 



Arm'd thus, to make their bosoms bleed, 
Many will throng, to sigh like me, 
love ! 
More constant they may prove, indeed; 
Fonder, alas ! they ne'er can be, love I 
1806. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 

TO WOMAN. 

Woman ! experience might have told me 
That all must love thee, who behold 

thee: 
Surely experience might have taught 
Thy firmest promises are nought; 
But, plac'd in all thy charms before me. 
All I forget, but to adore thee. 
Oh memory ! thou choicest blessing. 
When join'd with hope, when still pos- 
sessing ; 
But how much curst by every lover 
When hope is fled, and passion's over. 
Woman, that fair and fond deceiver, 
How prompt are striplings to believe her. 
How throbs the pulse, when first we view 
The eye that rolls in glossv blue, 
Or sparkles black, or mildly throws 
A beam from under hazel brows ! 
How quick we credit everv oath, 
And hear her plight the willing troth ! 
Fondly we hope 'twill last for aye. 
When, lo ! she changes in a day. 
This record will for ever stand, 
"Woman, thy vows are trac'd in sand." *' 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 

1 The last tine is almost a literal translation 
from a Spanish proverb. 

[The last line is not "almost a literal trans- 



.TJ-TVCC ASTON AL PROLOGUE— TO ELIZA 



^.CCASIONAL PROLOGUE, 

DELIVERED BY THE AUTHOR PREVIOUS 
TO THE PERFORMANCE OF "THE 
WHEEL OF fortune" AT A PRIVATE 
THEATRE.^ 

Since the refinement of this polish'd age 
Has swept immoral raillery from the 

stage ; 
Since taste has now expung'd licentious 

wit, 
Which stamp'd disgrace on all an author 

writ; 
Since, now, to please with purer scenes 

we seek. 
Nor dare to call the blush from Beauty's 

cheek ; 
Oh ! let the modest Muse some pity 

claim, 
And meet indulgence — though she find 

not fame. 
Still, not for her alone, we wish respect, 
Others appear more conscious of defect: 
To-night no vef'ran Roscii you behold, 
In all the arts of scenic action old; 
No Cooke, no Kemble, can salute you 

here. 
No SiDDONS draw the sympathetic tear; 
To-night you throng to witness the dehiit 
Of embryo Actors, to the Drama new: 
Here, then, our almost unfledg'd wings 

we try; 
Clip not our pinions, ere the birds can 

. .fJy ■ 

Failing in this our first attempt to soar. 
Drooping, alas ! we fall to rise no more. 

lation from a Spanish proverb." but an ad- 
aptation of part of a stanza from the Diana of 
Joree de Montemajor. 

[Southey, in his Letters from Spain, 1707, 
pp. 87-91, gives a specimen of the Diana, and 
renders the lines in question thus — 

"And Love beheld us from his secret stand, | 

And mark'd his triumph, laughing, to behold i 

me, ' 

To see me trust a vpriting traced in sand, 
To see me credit what a woman told me."] | 

^["I enacted Penruddock, in The Wheel of ' 
Fortune, and Tristram Fickle, in Allins:ham's 
farce of The Weathercock, for three nights, in 
some private theatricals at Southwell, in 1806, 
with great applause. The occasional prologue 
for our volunteer plav was also of my com- 
position." — ie/<er.r, 1801, v. 455.] 



Not one poor trembler, only, fear betrays, 

Who hopes, yet almost dreads to meet 
your praise; 

But all our Dramatis Personae wait, 

In fond suspense this crisis of their fate. 

No venal views our progress can retard, 

Your generous plaudits are our sole 
reward ; 

For these, each Hero all his power dis- 
plays. 

Each timid Heroine shrinks before your 
gaze: 

Surely the last will some protection find ! 

None, to the softer sex, can prove un- 
kind: 

While Youth and Beauty form the 
female shield, 

The sternest Censor to the fair must 
yield. 

Yet, should our feeble efforts nought 
avail, 

Should, after all, our best endeavours fail ; 

Still, let some mercy in your bosoms live, 

And, if you can't applaud, at least 
forgive. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 

TO ELIZA. 



Eliza ! what fools are the Mussulman 
sect, 
Who, to w^oman, deny the soul's 
future existence; 
Could they see thee, Eliza ! they'd own 
their defect. 
And this doctrine would meet with a 
general resistance. 



Had their Prophet possess'd half an 
atom of sense. 
He ne'er would have woman from 
Paradise driven; 
Instead of his Houris, a flimsy pretence, 
With woman alone he had peopled his 
Heaven. 



Yet, still, to increase your calamities 
more, 
Not content with depriving your 
bodies of spirit, 



i6 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



He allots one poor husband to share 
amongst four ! — 
With souls you'd dispense; but, this 
last, who could bear it? 



His religion to please neither party is 
made; 
On husbands 'tis hard, to the wives 
most uncivil; 
Still I can't contradict, what so oft has 
been said, 
"Though women are angels, yet wed- 
lock's the devil." 



This terrible truth, even Scripture has 
told, 
Ye Benedicks! hear me, and listen 
with rapture; 
If a glimpse of redemption you wish to 
behold, 
Of St Matt. — read the second and 
twentieth chapter. 



'Tis surely enough upon earth to be 
vex'd, 
With wives who eternal confusion are 
spreading; 
"But in Heaven," (so runs the Evan- 
gelist's Text,) 
"We neither have giving in marriage, 
or wedding." 



From this we suppose, (as indeed well we 
may,) 
That should Saints after death, with 
their spouses put up more. 
And wives, as in life, aim at absolute 
sway. 
All Heaven would ring with the con- 
jugal uproar. 



Distraction and Discord would follow in 
course. 
Nor Matthew, nor Mark, nor St 
Paul, can deny it. 
The only expedient is general divorce. 
To prevent universal disturbance and 



But though husband and wife Sirs; 
length be disjoin'd. 
Yet woman and man ne'er were meant 
to dissever. 
Our chains once dissolv'd, and our 
hearts unconfin'd. 
We'll love without bonds, but we'll 
love you for ever. 



Though souls are denied you by fools 
and by rakes, 
Should you own it yourselves, I would 
even then doubt you, 
Your nature so much of celestial par- 
takes, 
The Garden of Eden would wither 
without you. 

Southwell, October 9, 1806, 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 

THE TEAR. 

" O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros 
Ducentium ortus ex animo; quater 
Felix ! in imo qui scatentem 
Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit." 

— Gray, Alcaic Fragment. 

I. 

When Friendship or Love 

Our sympathies move; 
When Truth, in a glance, should appear, 

The lips may beguile, 

With a dimple or smile, 
But the test of affection's a Tear. 



Too oft is a smile 

But the hypocrite's wile, 

To mask detestation, or fear; 
Give me the soft sigh, 
Whilst the soul-telling eye 

Is dimm'd, for a time, with a Tear. 



Mild Charity's glow, 

To us mortals below. 
Shows the soul from barbarity clear; 

Compassion will melt, 

Where this virtue is felt. 
And its dew is diffused in a Tear. 



THE TEAR — REPLY TO SOME VERSES 



17 



The man, doom'd to sail 
With the blast of the gale, 

Through billows Atlantic to steer. 
As he bends o'er the wave 
Which may soon be his grave, 

The green sparkles bright with a Tear. 



The Soldier braves death 

For a fanciful wreath 
In Glory's romantic career; 

But he raises the foe 

When in battle laid low, 
And bathes everv wound with a Tear. 



If, wnth high-bounding pride, 

He return to his bride, 
Renouncing the gore-crimson'd spear; 

All his toils are repaid 

When, embracing the maid, 
From her eyelid he kisses the Tear. 



Sweet scene of my youth ! 
Seat of Friendship and Truth, 
Where Love chas'd each fast-fleeting 
year; 
Loth to leave thee, I mourn'd. 
For a last look I turn'd, 
But thy spire was scarce seen through a 
Tear. 



Though my vows I can pour, 

To my Mary no more, 
My Mary, to Love once so dear, 

In the shade of her bow'r, 

I remember the hour, 
She rewarded those vows with a Tear. 



By another possest,^ 

May she live ever blest ! 
Her name still my heart must revere: 

With a sigh I resign, 

What I once thought was mine. 
And forgive her deceit with a Tear. 

^ [Mary Chaworth was married in 1805.] 
C 



Ye friends of my heart. 

Ere from you I depart. 
This hope to my breast is most near: 

If again we shall meet, 

In this rural retreat. 
May we meet, as we part, with a 
Tear. 



When my soul wings her flight 

To the regions of night. 
And my corse shall recline on its 
bier; 

As ye pass by the tomb. 

Where my ashes consume, 
Oh ! moisten their dust with a Tear. 



May no marble bestow 
The splendour of woe. 
Which the children of Vanity rear; 
No fiction of fame 
Shall blazon my name. 
All I ask, all I wish, is a Tear. 

October 26, 1806. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 



REPLY TO SOME VERSES OF 
J. M. B. PIGOT, Esq., 

ON THE CRUELTY OF HIS MISTRESS. 



Why, Pigot, complain 
Of this damsel's disdain. 

Why thus in despair do you fret ? 
For months you may try, 
Yet, believe me, a sigh 

Will never obtain a coquette. 



Would you teach her to love? 

For a time seem to rove; 
At first she vaa.y frotvn in a pet; 

But leave her awhile. 

She shortly will smile. 
And then you may kiss your coqtiette. 



i8 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



3- 
For such are the airs 


GRANTA. A MEDLEY. 


Of these fanciful fairs. 




They think all our homage a debt: 


'Apyvp^ais X67xaio-t fxdxov Kal iravra 


Yet a partial neglect 


KpaT-^(T€L$.^ 


Soon takes an effect, 


I. 


And humbles the proudest coquette. 


Oh ! could Le Sage's ^ demon's gift 




Be realis'd at my desire. 


A- 


This night my trembling form he'd lift 


Dissemble your pain, 


To place it on St Mary's spire. 


And lengthen your chain, 




And seem her hauteur to regret; 


2. 


If again you shall sigh, 
She no more will deny, 


Then would, unroof 'd, old Granta's halls 


Pedantic inmates full display; 
Fellows who dream on lawn or stalls, 


That yours is the rosy coquette. 


5- 


The price of venal votes to pay. 



If still, from false pride, 

Your pangs she deride, 
This whimsical virgin forget; 

Some other admire. 

Who will melt with your fire, 
And laugh at the little coquette. 



For me, I adore 

Some twenty or more, 
And love them most dearly; but yet, 

Though my heart they enthral, 

I'd abandon them all. 
Did they act like your blooming coquette. 



No longer repine, 

Adopt this design. 
And break through her slight-woven 
net! 

Away with despair, 

No longer forbear 
To fly from the captious coquette. 



Then quit her, my friend ! 
Your bosom defend, 
Ere quite with her snares you're beset: 
Lest your deep-wounded heart, 
When incens'd by the smart 
Should lead you to curse the coquette. 
October 27, 1806. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 



Then would I view each rival wight, 
Petty and Palmerston survey; 

Who canvass there, with all their might. 
Against the next elective day.^ 



Lo ! candidates and voters lie 

All luU'd in sleep, a goodly number! 

A race renown'd for piety. 

Whose conscience won't disturb their 
slumber. 



Lord H ,"* indeed, may not demur; 

Fellows are sage, reflecting men: 
They know preferment can occur. 

But very seldom, — now and then. 



6. 

They know the Chancellor has got 
Some pretty livings in disposal: 

1 ["Fight with silver spears" {i.e. with bribes), 
"and thou shalt prevail in all things." Reply of 
the Pvthian Oracle to Philip of Macedon.] 

2 The Diable Boitcux of Le Sage, where 
Asmodeus, the demon, places Don Cleofas on an 
elevated situation, and unroofs the houses for 
inspection. [Don Cleofas, clinging to the cloak 
of Asmodeus, is carried through the air to the 
summit of S. Salvador.] 

3 [On the death of Pitt, in January, 1806, Lord 
Henry Petty beat Lord Palmerston in the_ con- 
test for the representation of the University of 
Cambridge in Parliament.] 

4 [Probably Lord Henry Petty.] 



GRANT A. A MEDLEY 



19 



Each hopes that one may be his lot, 
And, therefore, smiles on his pro- 
posal. 

7. 
Now from the soporific scene 

I'll turn mine eye, as night grows 
later, 
To view, unheeded and unseen, 
The studious sons of Alma Mater. 



There, in apartments small and damp. 
The candidate for college prizes, 

Sits poring by the midnight lamp; 
Goes late to bed, yet early rises. 



He surely well deserves to gain them. 
With all the honours of his college, 

Who, striving hardly to obtain them. 
Thus seeks unprofitable knowledge: 



Who sacrifices hours of rest. 
To scan precisely metres Attic; 

Or agitates his anxious breast. 
In solving problems mathematic: 



Who reads false quantities in Seale,^ 
Or puzzles o'er the deep triangle; 

Depriv'd of many a wholesome meal; 
In barbarous Latin ^ doom'd to wran- 
gle: 



Renouncing every pleasing page, 
From authors of historic use; 

Preferring to the letter' d sage. 
The square of the hypothenuse.^ 

1 Seale's publication on Greek Metres dis- 
plays considerable talent and ingenuity, but, as 
might be expected in so difficult a work, is not 
remarkable for acciu-acy. [An Analysis of the 
Greek Metres; for the use of Students at the 
University of Cambridge. By John Barlow 
Seale (1764), 8vo.] 

2 The Latin of the schools is of the canine 
species, and not very intelligible. 

^ The discovery of Pythagoras, that the square 
of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares of the 
other two sides of a right-angled triangle. 



13- 
Still, harmless are these occupations. 
That hurt none but the hapless stu- 
dent, 
Compar'd with other recreations, 
Which bring together the impru- 
dent; 



14. 

Whose daring revels shock the sight, 
When vice and infamy combine. 

When Drunkenness and dice invite, 
As every sense is steep'd in wine. 



IS- 

Not so the methodistic crew, 
Who plans of reformation lay: 

In humble attitude they sue, 
And for the sins of others pray: 

16. 

Forgetting that their pride of spirit, 
Their exultation in their trial. 

Detracts most largely from the merit 
Of all their boasted self-denial. 



17. 
'Tis morn : — from these I turn my 
sight: 
What scene is this which meets the 
eye? 
A numerous crowd array'd in white,^ 
Across the green in numbers fly. 



I^oud rings in air the chapel bell ; 

'Tis hush'd: — what sounds are these 
I hear? 
The organ's soft celestial swell 

Rolls deeply on the listening ear. 



19. 

To this is join'd the sacred song. 

The royal minstrel's hallow'd strain; 

Though he who hears the music long, 
Will never wish to hear again. 

1 On a saint's day the students wear surplices 
in chapel. 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Our choir would scarcely be excus'd 
E'en as a band of raw beginners; 

All mercy, now, must be refus'd 
To such a set of croaking sinners. 



If David, when his toils were ended, 
Had heard these blockheads sing 
before him, 

To us his psalms had ne'er descended, — 
In furious mood he would have tore 



The luckless Israelites, when taken 
By some inhuman tyrant's order, 

Were ask'd to sing, by joy forsaken, 
On Babylonian river's border. 

23- 
Oh ! had they sung in notes like these, 

Inspir'd by stratagem or fear, 
They might have set their hearts at 
ease. 
The devil a soul had stay'd to hear. 

24. 

But if I scribble longer now. 

The deuce a soul will stay to read; 

My pen is blunt, my ink is low; 
'Tis almost time to stop, indeed. 

25- 
Therefore, farewell, old Granta's spires ! 

No more, like Cleofas, I fly; 
No more thy theme my Muse inspires: 
The reader's tir'd, and so am I. 

October 28, 1806. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 



TO THE SIGHING STREPHON. 



Your pardon, my friend. 

If my rhymes did offend, 
Your pardon, a thousand times o'er; 

From friendship I strove. 

Your pangs to remove. 
But, I swear, I will do so no more. 



Since your beautiful maid, 
Your flame has repaid. 

No more I your folly regret; 
She's now most divine, 
And I bow at the shrine, 

Of this quickly reformed coquette. 



Yet still, I must own, 

I should never have known, 
From your verses, what else she deserv'd; 

Your pain seem'd so great, 

I pitied your fate, 
As your fair was so dev'lish reserv'd. 



Since the balm-breathing kiss 

Of this magical Miss, 
Can such wonderful transports produce; 

Since the ''world you forget, 

When your lips once have met,^' 
My counsel will get but abuse. 



You say, "When I rove," 
"I know nothing of love;" 

'Tis true, I am given to range; 
If I rightly remember, 
I've lov'd a good number; 

Yet there's pleasure, at least, in a change. 



I will not advance. 

By the rules of romance. 

To humour a whimsical fair; 

Though a smile may delight. 
Yet a, frown will affright, 

Or drive me to dreadful despair. 



While my blood is thus warm, 

I ne'er shall reform, 
To mix in the Platonists' school; 

Of this I am sure, 

Was my Passion so pure. 
Thy Mistress would think me a fool. 



And if I should shun. 
Every woman for one, 



THE CORNELIAN — TO M- 



Whose image must fill my whole breast ; 

Whom I must prefer, 

And sigh but for her, 
What an insult 'twould be to the rest! 



Now, Strephon, good-bye; 

I cannot deny, 
Your passion appears most absurd; 

Such love as you plead, 

Is pure love, indeed. 
For it only consists in the word. 

[First printed, December, 1806.] 

THE CORNELIAN.! 



No specious splendour of this stone 
Endears it to my memory ever; 

With lustre only once it shone, 
And blushes modest as the giver. 



Some, who can sneer at friendship's ties, 
Have for my weakness, oft reprov'd me; 

Yet still the simple gift I prize, 
For I am sure the giver lov'd me. 



He offer' d it with downcast look, 
Ks fearful that I might refuse it; 

I told him, when the gift I took. 
My only fear should be, to lose it. 



This pledge attentively I view'd, 
And sparkling as I held it near, 

Methought one drop the stone bedew' d 
And, ever since, Fve lov'd a tear. 



Still, to adorn his humble youth, 

Nor wealth nor birth their treasures 
yield; 

But he, who seeks the flowers of truth. 
Must quit the garden, for the field. 

_ ^ [The cornelian was a present from his 
friend Edleston, a Cambridge chorister, after- 
wards a clerk in a mercantile house in London. 
Edleston died of consumption, May n, 181 1. 
Their acquaintance began by Byron saving him 
from drowning.] 



'Tis not the plant uprear'd in sloth, 
Which beauty shows, and sheds per- 
fume; 
The flowers, which yield the most of 
both, 
In Nature's wild luxuriance bloom. 



Had Fortune aided Nature's care, 
For once forgetting to be blind. 

His would have been an ample share, 
If well proportioned to his mind. 



But had the Goddess clearly seen, 

His form had fix'd her fickle breast; 
Her countless hoards would his have 
been. 
And none remain'd to give the rest. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 



Oh ! did those eyes, instead of fire. 
With bright, but mild affection shine : 

Though they might kindle less desire, 
Love, more than mortal, would be 
thine. 



For thou art form'd so heavenly fair, 
However those orbs may wildly beam, 

We must admire, but still despair; 
That fatal glance forbids esteem. 



When Nature stamp'd thy beauteous 
birth. 
So much perfection in thee shone, 
She fear'd that, too divine for earth. 
The skies might claim thee for their 
own. 



Therefore, to guard her dearest work, 
Lest angels might dispute the prize, 

She bade a secret lightning lurk. 
Within those once celestial eyes. 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



These might the boldest Sylph appall, 
When gleaming with meridian blaze; 

Thy beauty must enrapture all; 

But who can dare thine ardent gaze ? 



'Tis said that Berenice's hair, 

In stars adorns the vault of heaven; 

But they would ne'er permit thee there, 
Thou would' st so far outshine the 



For did those eyes as planets roll, 

Thy sister-lights would scarce appear: 
E'en suns, which systems now controul, 
Would twinkle dimly through their 
sphere.^ 

Friday, November 7, 1806. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 



LINES ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG 
LADY. 

[as the author was discharging his 
pistols in a garden, two ladies 
passing near the spot were 
alarmed by the sound of a 
bullet hissing near them, to 
one of whom the following 
stanzas were addressed the 
next morning.] ^ 

I. 

Doubtless, sweet girl ! the hissing lead. 
Wafting destruction o'er thy charms 

And hurtling ^ o'er thy lovely head, 
Has fiU'd that breast with fond alarms. 

i"Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, 
Having some business, do intreat her eyes 
To twinkle in their spheres till they return." 
— Shakespeare. 

2 [The lady to whom the lines were addressed, 
is also commemorated in the verses "To a Vain 
Lady" and "To Anne." She was the daughter 
of the Rev. Henry Houson of Southwell, and 
married the Rev. Luke Jackson. She died on 
Christmas Day, 1821, and her monument may 
be seen in Hucknall Torkard Church.] 

3 This word is used by Gray in his poem to 
the Fatal Sisters: — 

"Iron-s'eet of arrowy shower 
Hurtles in the darken'd air." 



Surely some envious Demon's force, 
Vex'd to behold such beauty here, 

Impell'd the bullet's viewless course. 
Diverted from its first career. 



Yes ! in that nearly fatal hour, 

The ball obey'd some hell-born guide; 

But Heaven, with interposing power. 
In pity turn'd the death aside. 



Yet, as perchance one trembling tear 
Upon that thrilling bosom fell; 

Which /, th' unconscious cause of fear, 
Extracted from its glistening cell; — 



Say, what dire penance can atone 
For such an outrage, done to thee? 

Arraign'd before thy beauty's throne. 
What punishment wilt thou decree? 

6. 

Might I perform the Judge's part, 
The sentence I should scarce deplore; 

It only would restore a heart. 

Which but belong'd to thee before. 

7- 
The least atonement I can make 

Is to become no longer free; 
Henceforth, I breathe but for thy sake. 

Thou shalt be all in all to me. 



But thou, perhaps, may'st now reject 
Such expiation of my guilt; 

Come then — some other mode elect; 
Let it be death — or what thou wilt. 



Choose, then, relentless ! and I swear 
Nought shall thy dread decree pre- 
vent ; 
Yet hold — one little word forbear ! 
Let it be ought but banishment. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 



TRANSLATED AND IMITATED FROM CATULLUS 



23 



TRANSLATION FROM 
CATULLUS. 

AD LESBIAM. 

Equal to Jove that youth must be — 
Greater than Jove he seems to me — 
Who, free from Jealousy's alarms, 
Securely views thy matchless charms; 
That cheek, which ever dimpling glows. 
That mouth, from whence such music 

flows. 
To him, alike, are always known, 
Reserv'd for him, and him alone. 
Ah ! Lesbia ! though 'tis death to me, 
I cannot choose but look on thee; 
But, at the sight, my senses fly, 
I needs must gaze, but, gazing, die; 
Whilst trembling with a thousand 

fears 
Parch' d to the throat my tongue ad- 
heres, 
My pulse beats quick, my breath heaves 

short. 
My limbs deny their slight support. 
Cold dews my pallid face o'erspread. 
With deadly languor droops my head, 
My ears with tingling echoes ring. 
And life itself is on the wing; 
My eyes refuse the cheering light, 
Their orbs are veil'd in starless night: 
Such pangs my nature sinks beneath. 
And feels a temporary death. 

[First printed, December, 1806.] 



TRANSLATION OF THE EPI- 
TAPH ON VIRGIL AND 
TIBULLUS. 

BY DOMITIUS MARSUS. 

He who, sublime, in epic numbers roU'd, 
And he who struck the softer lyre of 
Love, 
By Death's unequal ^ hand alike con- 
troul'd, 
Fit comrades in Elysian regions move ! 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 

1 The hand of Death is said to be unjust or 
unequal, as Virgil was considerably older than 
TibuUus at his decease. 



IMITATION OF TIBULLUS. 

SULPICIA AD CERINTHUM LIB. QUART. 

Cruel Cerinthus ! does the fell disease 
Which racks my breast your fickle bosom 

please ? 
Alas ! I wish'd but to o'ercome the pain, 
That I might live for love and you again; 
But, now, I scarcely shall bewail my fate : 
By death alone I can avoid your hate. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 

TRANSLATION FROM 
CATULLUS. 

■ LUGETE VENERES CUPIDINESQUE 
(CARM. III.). 

Ye cupids, droop each little head. 
Nor let your wings with joy be spread. 
My Lesbia's favourite bird is dead. 

Whom dearer than her eyes she lov'd: 
For he was gentle, and so true, 
Obedient to her call he flew. 
No fear, no wild alarm he knew. 

But lightly o'er her bosom mov'd: 

And softly fluttering here and there, 
He never sought to cleave the air. 
He chirrup'd oft, and, free from care, 

Tun'd to her ear his grateful strain. 
Now having pass'd the gloomy bourn. 
From whence he never can return. 
His death, and Lesbia's grief I mourn, 

Who sighs, alas ! but sighs in vain. 

Oh ! curst be thou, devouring grave ! 
Whose jaws eternal victims crave, 
From whom no earthly power can save. 

For thou hast ta'en the bird away: 
From thee my Lesbia's eyes o'erflow, 
Her swollen cheeks with weeping glow; 
Thou art the cause of all her woe. 

Receptacle of life's decay. 

[First printed, December, 1806.] 

IMITATED FROM CATULLUS. 

TO ELLEN. 

Oh ! might I kiss those eyes of fire, 
A million scarce would quench desire: 



24 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Still would I steep my lips in bliss, 
And dwell an age on every kiss: 
Nor then my soul should sated be, 
Still would 1 kiss and cling to thee: 
Nought should my kiss from thine dis- 
sever, 
Still would we kiss and kiss for ever; 
E'en though the numbers did exceed 
The yellow harvest's countless seed. 
To part would be a vain endeavour: 
Could I desist ? — ah ! never — never I 
November i6, 1806. 
[First printed, December, 1806.] 

TO M. S. G. 



Whene'er I view those lips of thine, 
Their hue invites my fervent kiss; 

Yet, I forego that bliss divine, 
Alas ! it were — unhallow'd bliss. 



Whene'er T dream of that pure breast. 
How could I dwell upon its snows ! 

Yet, is the daring wish represt, 

For that, — would banish its repose. 

3- 
A glance from thy soul-searching eye 

Can raise with hope, depress with fear ; 
Yet, I conceal my love, — and why ? 

I would not force a painful tear. 



I ne'er have told my love, yet thou 
Hast seen my ardent flame too well ; 

And shall I plead my passion now. 
To make thy bosom's heaven a hell? 

5- 
No! for thou never canst be mine. 

United by the priest's clccree: 
By any ties but those divine, 

Mine, my belov'd, thou ne'er shalt be. 



Then let the secret fire consume, 

Let it consume, thou shalt not know: 

With joy I court a certain doom. 
Rather than spread its guilty gKnv. 



I will not ease my tortur'd heart, 

By driving dove-ey'd peace from thine ; 

Rather than such a sting impart. 

Each thought presumptuous I resign. 



Yes ! yield those lips, for which I'd brave 
More than I here shall dare to tell; 

Thy innocence and mine to save, — 
I bid thee now a last farewell. 



Yes! yield that breast, to seek despair. 
And hope no more thy soft embrace; 

Which to obtain, my soul would dare 
All, all reproach, but thy disgrace. 



At least from guilt shalt thou be free, 
No matron shall thy shame reprove; 

Though cureless pangs may prey on me, 
No martyr shalt thou be to love. 
[First printed, January, 1807.] 

STANZAS TO A LADY 

WITH THE POEMS OF CAMOENS. 



This votive pledge of fond esteem, 
Perhaps, dear girl ! for me thou'lt prize; 

It sings of Love's enchanting dream, 
A theme we never can despise. 



Who blames it but the envious fool, 
The old and disapjpointed maid; 

Or pupil of the prudish .school, 
In single sorrow doom'd to fade? 

3- 
Then read, dear Girl ! with feeling read, 

For thou wilt ne'er be one of those; 
To thee, in vain, I shall not plead 

In pity for the Poet's woes. 



He was, in sooth, a genuine Bard; 

His was no faint, fictitious flame: 
Like his, may Love be thy reward, 

But not thy hapless fate the same. 
[First printed, January, 1807.] 



TO M. S. G. — THE FIRST KISS OF LOVE 



25 



TO M. S. G. 



When I dream that you love me, you'll 
surely forgive; 
Extend not your anger to sleep; 
For in visions alone your affection can 
live, — 
I rise, and it leaves me to weep. 



Then, Morpheus ! envelop mv faculties 
fast. 
Shed o'er me your languor benign; 
Should the dream of to-night but re- 
semble the last, 
What rapture celestial is mine ! 



They tell us that slumber, the sister of 
death. 
Mortality's emblem is given; 
To fate how I long to resign my frail 
breath. 
If this be a foretaste of Heaven ! 



Ah ! frown not, sweet Lady, unbend 
your soft brow, 

Nor deem me too happy in this; 
If I sin in my dream, I atone for it now, 

Thus doom'd, but to gaze upon bliss. 



Though in visions, sweet Lady, per- 
haps you may smile, 
Oh ! think not my penance de6cient ! 
When dreams of your presence my 
slumbers beguile, 
To awake, will be torture sutTuicnt. 
[First printed, January, 1S07.] 

TRANSLATION FROM HORACE. 

["Justuni et tenacem prnpiisiti virutn." 

— HoR. Odes, iii. j. t-l 



The man of tirm and nolile soul 
No factious clamours can controul; 
No threatening tyrant's darkling brow 
Can swerve him from his just intent : 



Gales the warring waves which plough, 

By Auster on the billows spent, 
To curb the .\driatic main. 
Would awe his tix'd, determin'd mind in 
vain. 



.\yc. and the red right arm of Jove, 
Hurtling his lightnings from above. 
With all his terrors there unfurl'd, 
He would, unmov'd, unaw'd, be- 
hold. 
The tlames of an expiring world, 
.\gain in crashing chaos roU'd, 
In vast promiscuous ruin hurl'd, 
Might light his glorious funeral pile: 
Still dauntless 'midst the wreck of earth 
he'd smile. 
[First printed. January, 1S07.] 

THE FIRST KISS OF LOVE. 

'A fSdp^iTOi S^ xopSais 
EpwTa iJ.oC'vov i)x**« 

— An.\creon [OJf i]. 



.\WAY with your fictions of flimsy ro- 
mance. 
Those tissues of falsehood which Folly 
has wove; 

Give me the mild beam of the soul- 
breathing glance. 

Or the rapture which dwells on the first 
kiss of love. 



Ve rhvmers, whose bosoms with fantasy 
glow. 
Whose pastoral passions are made for 
the grove; 
From what blest inspiration your son- 
nets would fiow. 
Could you ever have tasted the first 
kiss of love 1 



If .\pollo should e'er his assistance refuse. 
Or the Nine be dispos'd from your 
service to rove, 
Invoke them no more, bid adieu to the 
Muse, 
And try the etTcct of the first kiss of 
love. 



26 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



I hate you, ye cold compositions of art, 
Though prudes may condemn me, 
and bigots reprove; 
I court the etTusions that spring from the 
heart. 
Which throbs, with delight, to the 
hrst kiss of love. 



Your shepherds, your flocks, those fan- 
tastical themes. 
Perhaps may amuse, yet they never 
can move: 
Arcadia displays but a region of dreams; 
What are visions like these, to the lirst 
kiss of love? 



Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his 
birth. 
From Adam, till now, has with wretch- 
edness strove; 
Some portion of Paradise still is on 
earth. 
And Eden revives, in the lirst kiss of 
love. 



When age chills the blood, when our 
pleasures are past — 
For years fleet away with the wings of 
the dove — 
The dearest remembrance will still be 
the last. 
Our sweetest memorial, the first kiss 
of love. December 23, 1806. 

[First printed, January, 1807.] 

CHILDISH RECOLLECTIONS. 

"I cannot but remember such things were, 
And were most dear to me." — Macbeth. 

W^HEX slow Disease, with all her host of 

pains. 
Chills the warm tide, which Hows along 

the veins; 
When Health, aflrighted, spreads her 

rosy wing, 
flies V 

spring; 



Not to the aching frame alone confin'd, 
l^nyielding pangs assail the drcxiping 

mind: 
What grisly forms, the spectre-train of 

woe, 
Bid shuddering Nature shrink beneath 

the blow, 
With Resignation wage relentless strife, 
While Hope retires appallM, and clings 

to life ! I o 

Yet less the pang when, through the 

tedious hour. 
Remembrance sheds around her genial 

power. 
Calls back the vanish'd days to rapture 

given, 
When Love was l>liss, and Beauty 

form'd our heaven; 
Or, dear to youth, pourtrays each 

childish scene. 
Those fairy bowers, where all in turn 

have been. 
As when, through clouds that pour the 

summer storm. 
The orb of day unveils his distant form, 
Gilds with faint beams the crystal dews 

of rain 
And dimly twinkles o'er the watery 

plain; 20 

Thus, while the future dark and cheer- 
less gleams. 
The Sun of IMemory, glowing through 

my dreams, 
Though sunk the radiance of his former 

blaze. 
To scenes far distant points his paler 

rays, 
Still rules my senses with unbounded 

sway. 
The past confounding with the present 

day. 

Oft does my heart indulge the rising 
thought. 

Which still recurs, unlook'd for and un- 
sought ; 

jMy soul to Fancy's fond suggestion 
yields, 

And roams romantic o'er her airy 
fields. 30 

Scenes of my youth, develop'd, crowd to 
view. 

To which I long have bade a last adieu ! 



CHILDISH RECOLLECTIONS 



27 



Seats of delight, inspiring youthful 

themes; 
Friends lost to me, for aye, except in 

dreams; 
Some, who in marble prematurely sleep, 
Whose forms I now remember, but to 

weep; 
Some, who yet urge the same scholastic 

course 
Of early science, future fame the source; 
Who, still contending in the studious 

race. 
In quick rotation, fill the senior place ! 40 
These, with a thousand visions, now 

unite, 
To dazzle, though they please, my ach- 
ing sight. 

Ida ! blest spot, where Science holds 

her reign, 
How joyous, once, I join'd thy youthful 

train ! 
Bright, in idea, gleams thy lofty spire. 
Again, I mingle with thy playful quire; 
Our tricks of mischief,^ every childish 

game, 
Unchang'd by time or distance, seem the 

same; 
Through winding paths, along the glade 

I trace 
The social smile of every welcome face; 
My wonted haunts, my scenes of joy or 

woe, 51 

Each early boyish friend, or youthful foe, 
Our feuds dissolv'd, but not my friend- 
ship past, — 
I bless the former, and forgive the last. 

^ [Newton Hanson relates that on one oc- 
casion he accompanied his father to Harrow 
on Speech Day to see his brother, Hargreaves 
Hansfjn, and Byron. "On our arrival at Har- 
row, we set out in search of Hargreaves and 
Byron, but the latter was not at his tutor's. 
Three or four lads, hearing my father's inquiries, 
set off at full speed to find him. They sfxm 
discovered him, and, laughing most heartily, 
called out, 'Hallo, Byron! here's a gentleman 
wants you.' And what do you think? He 
had got on Drury's hat. I can still remember 
the arch cock of Byron's eye at the hat, and 
then at my father, and the fun and merriment it 
caused him and all of us whilst, during the day, 
he was perambulating the highways and bye- 
ways of Ida with the hat on. 'Harrow SjXiech 
Day and the Governor's Hat ' was one of the 
standing rallying-p<jints for Lord Byron ever 
after."] 



Hours of my youth ! when, nurtur'd in 

my brea.st, 
To Love a stranger. Friendship made 

me blest, — 
Friendship, the dear peculiar bond of 

youth, 
When every artless bosom throbs with 

truth; 
Untaught by worldly wisdom how to 

feign. 
And check each impulse with prudential 

rein ; 60 

When, all we feel, our honest souls dis- 
close. 
In love to friends, in open hate to 

foes; 
No varnish'd tales the lips of youth re- 
peat, 
No dear-bought knowledge purchas'd 

by deceit; 
Hypocrisy, the gift of lengthen'd years, 
Matur'd by age, the garb of Prudence 

wears : 
When, now, the Boy is ripen'd into Man, 
His careful Sire chalks forth some wary 

plan; 
Instructs his Son from Candour's path 

to shrink. 
Smoothly to speak, and cautiously to 

think; 70 

Still to assent, and never to deny — 
A patron's praise can well reward the 

lie: 
And who, when Fortune's warning voice 

is heard. 
Would lose his opening prospects for a 

word? 
Although, against that word, his heart 

rebel. 
And Truth, indignant, all his bosom 

swell. 

Away with themes like this ! not mine 
the task. 

From flattering friends to tear the hate- 
ful mask; 

Let keener bards delight in Satire's 
sting, 

My Fancy soars not on Detraction's 
wing: 80 

Once, and but once, she aim'd a deadly 
blow, 

To hurl Defiance on a secret Foe; 



28 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



But when that foe, from feeling or from 

shame, 
The cause unknown, yet still to me the 

same, 
Warn'd by some friendly hint, per- 
chance, retir'd, 
With this submission all her rage 

expir'd. 
From dreaded pangs that feeble Foe to 

save. 
She hush'd her young resentment, and 

forgave. 
Or, if my Muse a Pedant's portrait 

drew, 
PoMPOSUs' ^ virtues are but known to 

few: 90 

I never fear'd the young usurper's nod. 
And he who wields must, sometimes, 

feel the rod. 
If since on Granta's failings, known to 

all 
Who share the converse of a college 

hall. 
She sometimes trifled in a lighter strain, 
'Tis past, and thus she will not sin 

again; 
Soon must her early song for ever cease, 
And, all may rail, when I shall rest in 

peace. 

Here, first remember'd be the joyous 
band, 

Who hail'd me chief, obedient to com- 
mand; 100 

Who join'd with me, in every boyish 
sport. 

Their first adviser, and their last resort; 

Nor shrunk beneath the upstart pedant's 
frown, 

Or all the sable glories of his gown ; 

Who, thus, transplanted from his 
father's school, 

Unfit to govern, ignorant of rule — 

Succeeded him, whom all unite to praise, 

The dear preceptor of my early days, 

1 [Dr Butler, then headmaster of Harrow. 
Had Byron published another edition of these 
poems, it was his intention to replace these four 
lines by the four which follow : — 
"// once my muse a harsher portrait dreiv, 
Warm with her wrongs, and d^em'd the likeness 

true. 
By cooler judgment taught, her fault she owns, — 
With noble minds a fault confess'd, atones."] 



Probus,^ the pride of science, and the 

boast — 
To Ida now, alas! for ever lost! no 
With him, for years, we search'd the 

classic page, 
And fear'd the Master, though we lov'd 

the Sage: 
Retir'd at last, his small yet peaceful seat 
From learning's labour is the blest re- 
treat. 
PoMPOSUS fills his magisterial chair; 
PoMPOSUS governs, — but, my Muse, 

forbear: 
Contempt, in silence, be the pedant's 

lot. 
His name and precepts be alike forgot; 
No more his mention shall my verse 

degrade, — - 
To him my tribute is already paid.^ 120 

High, through those elms with hoary 

branches crown'd. 
Fair Ida's bower adorns the landscape 

round ; 
There Science, from her favour'd seat, 

surveys 
The vale where rural Nature claims her 

praise ; 
To her awhile resigns her youthful train. 
Who move in joy, and dance along the 

plain ; 

1 Dr Drury. This most able and excellent 
man retired from his situation in March, 1805, 
after having resided thirty-five years at Harrow; 
the last twenty as headmaster; an office he held 
with equal honour to himself, and advantage 
to the very extensive school over which he pre- 
sided. Panegyric would here be superfluous; 
it would be useless to enumerate qualifications 
which were never doubted. A considerable 
contest took place between three rival candi- 
dates for his vacant chair: of this I can only 
say — 

Si mea cum vestris valuissent vota, Pelasgi! 

Non foret ambiguus tanti certaminis hares. 

- This alludes to a character printed in a 
former private edition [Poems on Various Oc- 
casions'] for the perusal of some friends, which, 
with many other pieces, is withheld from the 
present volume. To draw the attention of the 
public to insignificance would be deservedly rep- 
robated; and another reason, though not of 
equal consequence, may be given in the follow- 
ing couplet: — 

"Satire or sense, alas ! can Sporus feel? 
Who breaks a Butterfly upon a wheel?" 
— Pope, Prologue to the Satires. 
[See the lines "On a Change of Masters at a 
Great Public School," p. 6.] 



CHILDISH RECOLLECTIONS 



29 



In scatter'd groups, each favour'd haunt 

pursue, 
Repeat old pastimes, and discover 

new; 
Flush'd with his rays, beneath the noon- 
tide Sun, 
In rival bands, between the wickets run, 
Drive o'er the sward the ball with active 

force, 131 

Or chase with nimble feet its rapid 

course. 
But these with slower steps direct their 

way. 
Where Brent's cool waves in limpid 

currents stray, 
While yonder few search out some green 

retreat, 
And arbours shade them from the sum- 
mer heat: 
Others, again, a pert and lively crew. 
Some rough and thoughtless stranger 

plac'd in view. 
With frolic quaint their antic jests 

expose, 
And tease the grumbling rustic as he 

goes; 140 

Nor rest with this, but many a passing 

fray 
Tradition treasures for a future day: 
"'Twas here the gather'd swains for 

vengeance fought, 
And here we earn'd the conquest dearly 

bought ; 
Here have we fled before superior might, 
And here renew' d the wild tumultuous 

fight." 
While thus our souls with early passions 

swell. 
In lingering tones resounds the distant 

bell; 
Th' allotted hour of daily sport is o'er, 
And Learning beckons from her temple's 

door. 150 

No splendid tablets grace her simple 

hall, 
But ruder records fill the dusky wall: 
There, deeply carv'd, behold ! each 

Tyro's name 
Secures its owner's academic fame; 
Here mingling view the names of Sire 

and Son, 
The one long grav'd, the other just 
begun: 



These shall survive alike when Son and 

Sire, 
Beneath one common stroke of fate 

expire; ^ 
Perhaps, their last memorial these alone. 
Denied, in death, a monumental stone. 
Whilst to the gale in mournful cadence 

wave 161 

The sighing weeds, that hide their 

nameless grave. 
And, here, my name, and many an early 

friend's 
Along the wall in lengthen'd line ex- 
tends. 
Though, still, our deeds amuse the 

youthful race. 
Who tread our steps, and fill our former 

place, 
Who young obey'd their lords in silent 

awe, 
Whose nod commanded, and whose 

voice was law; 
And now, in turn, possess the reins of 

power, 
To rule, the little Tyrants of an hour; 
Though sometimes, with the Tales of 

ancient day, 171 

They pass the dreary Winter's eve away; 
"And thus our former rulers stemm'd 

the tide, 
And thus they dealt the combat side by 

side; 
Just in this place, the mouldering walls 

they scaled. 
Nor bolts, nor bars, against their 

strength avail'd; 
Here Probus came, the rising fray to 

quell. 
And here he falter'd forth his last fare- 
well; 
And, here, one night abroad they dared 

to roam, 
While bold Pomposus bravely staid at 

home;" 180 

While thus they speak, the hour must 

soon arrive, 
When names of these, like ours, alone 

survive : 

1 [During a rebellion at Harrow, the poet 

prevented the schoolroom from being burnt 

down, " by pointing out to the boys the names of 

their fathers and grandfathers on the walls." 

I — Medwin's Conversations (1824), p. 85.] 



30 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Yet a few years, one general wreck will 

whelm 
The faint remembrance of our fairy 

realm. 

Dear honest race ! though now we 

meet no more, 
One last long look on what we were 

before — 
Our first kind greetings, and our last 

adieu — 
Drew tears from eyes unus'd to weep 

with you. 
Through splendid circles, Fashion's 

gaudy world. 
Where Folly's glaring standard waves 

unfurl'd, 190 

I plung'd to drown in noise my fond^ 

regret. 
And all I sought or hop'd was to 

forget : 
Vain wish ! if, chance, some well- 

remember'd face, 
Some old companion of my early 

race, 
Advanc'd to claim his friend with honest 

joy, 

My eyes, my heart, proclaim'd me still 

a boy; 
The glittering scene, the fluttering 

groups around, 
Were quite forgotten when my friend 

was found; 
The smiles of Beauty, (for, alas! I've 

known 
What 'tis to bend before Love's mighty 

throne;) 200 

The smiles of Beauty, though those 

smiles were dear, 
Could hardly charm me, when that friend 

was near: 
My thoughts bewilder'd in the fond sur- 
prise, 
The woods of Ida danc'd before my 

eyes; 
I saw the sprightly wand'rers pour 

along, 
I saw, and join'd again the joyous 

throng ; 
Panting, again I trac'd her lofty 

grove, 
And Friendship's feelings triumph'd 

over Love, 



Yet, why should I alone with such 

delight 
Retrace the circuit of my former flight? 
Is there no cause beyond the common 

claim, 211 

Endear'd to all in childhood's very 

name? 
Ah ! sure some stronger impulse vibrates 

here. 
Which whispers friendship will be 

doubly dear 
To one, who thus for kindred hearts 

must roam, 
And seek abroad, the love denied at 

home. 
Those hearts, dear Ida, have I found in 

thee, 
A home, a world, a paradise to me. 
Stern Death forbade my orphan youth 

to share 
The tender guidance of a Father's care; 
Can Rank, or e'en a Guardian's name 

supply 221 

The love, which glistens in a Father's 

eye? 
For this, can Wealth, or Title's sound 

atone. 
Made, by a Parent's early loss, my 

own? 
What Brother springs a Brother's love 

to seek? 
What Sister's gentle kiss has prest my 

cheek? 
For me, how dull the vacant moments 

rise, 
To no fond bosom link'd by kindred 

ties ! 
Oft, in the progress of some fleeting 

dream. 
Fraternal smiles, collected round me 

seem ; 230 

While still the visions to my heart are 

prest. 
The voice of Love will murmur in my 

rest: 
I hear — I wake — and in the sound 

rejoice ! 
I hear again, but, ah ! no Brother's 

voice. 
A Hermit, 'midst of crowds, I fain must 

stray 
Alone, though thousand pilgrims fill the 

way; 



CHILDISH RECOLLECTIONS 



31 



While these a thousand kindred wreaths 

entwine, 
I cannot call one single blossom mine: 
What then remains? in solitude to 

groan, 
To mix in friendship, or to sigh alone — 
Thus, must I cling to some endearing 

hand, 241 

And none more dear, than Ida's social 

band. 

Alonzo ! ^ best and dearest of my 

friends. 
Thy name ennobles him, who thus com- 
mends: 
From this fond tribute thou canst gain 

no praise; 
The praise is his, who now that tribute 

pays. 
Oh ! in the promise of thy early 

youth. 
If Hope anticipate the words of Truth ! 
Some loftier bard shall sing thy glorious 

name, 
To build his own, upon thy deathless 

fame: 250 

Friend of my heart, and foremost of the 

list 
Of those with whom I lived supremely 

blest; 
Oft have we drain'd the font of ancient 

lore. 
Though drinking deeply, thirsting still 

the more; 
Yet, when Confinement's lingering hour 

was done, 
Our sports, our studies, and our souls 

were one: 
Together we impell'd the flying ball. 
Together waited in our tutor's hall; 
Together join'd in cricket's manly 

toil. 
Or shar'd the produce of the river's 

spoil; 260 

Or plunging from the green declining 

shore, 
Our pliant limbs the buoyant billows 

bore: 
In every element, unchang'd, the 

same. 
All, all that brothers should be, but the 

name. 

1 Lord Clare. 



Nor, yet, are you forgot, my jocund 

Boy! 
Davus,^ the harbinger of childish joy; 
For ever foremost in the ranks of fun. 
The laughing herald of the harmless 

pun; 
Yet, with a breast of such materials 

made, 
Anxious to please, of pleasing half 

afraid; 270 

Candid and liberal, with a heart of steel 
In Danger's path, though not untaught 

to feel. 
Still, I remember, in the factious strife, 
The rustic's musket aim'd against my 

life:''' 
High pois'd in' air the massy weapon 

hung, 
A cry of horror burst from every tongue : 
Whilst I, in combat with another foe, 
Fought on, unconscious of th' impending 

blow; 
Your arm, brave Boy, arrested his 

career — 
Forward you sprung, insensible to fear; 
Disarm'd, and baffled by your con- 
quering hand, 281 
The grovelling Savage roll'd upon the 

sand: 
An act like this, can simple thanks 

repay ? 
Or all the labours of a grateful lay ? 
Oh no ! whene'er my breast forgets the 

deed. 
That instant, Davus, it deserves to 

bleed. 

Lycus ! ^ on me thy claims are justly 
great": 
Thy milder virtues could my Muse 
relate, 

i[The Rev. John Cecil Tattersall, B.A., of 
Christ Church, Oxford, who died December 8, 
1812, at Hall's Place, Kent, aged twenty-three.] 

2 [The "factious strife" was brought on by 
the breaking up of school, and the dismissal of 
some volunteers from drill, both happening at 
the same hour. The butt-end of a musket was 
aimed at Byron's head, and would have felled 
him to the ground, but for the interposition of 
Tattersall. — Life, p. 25.] 

3 [John Fitzgibbon, second Earl of Clare 
(1792-185 1 ), afterwards Governor of Bombay, 
of whom Byron said, in 1822, "I have always 
loved him better than any male thing in the 
world." — "I never," was his language in 1821, 



32 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



To thee, alone, unrivall'd, would belong 
The feeble efforts of my lengthen'd 

song. 290 

Well canst thou boast, to lead in senates 

fit, 
A Spartan firmness, with Athenian wit: 
Though yet, in embryo, these perfec- 
tions shine, 
Lycus ! thy father's fame ^ will soon be 

thine. 
Where Learning nurtures the superior 

mind. 
What may we hope, from genius thus 

refin'd; 
When time, at length, matures thy 

growing years. 
How wilt thou tower above thy fellow 

peers ! 
Prudence and sense, a spirit bold and 

free. 
With Honour's soul, united beam in 

thee. 300 

Shall fair Euryalus,^ pass by un- 
sung? 
From ancient lineage, not unworthy, 

sprung : 
What, though one sad dissension bade 

us part, 
That name is yet embalm'd within my 

heart, ^ 
Yet, at the mention, does that heart 

rebound. 
And palpitate, responsive to the sound; 
Envy dissolved our ties, and not our 

will: 
We once were friends, — I'll think, we 

are so still. 
A form unmatch'd in Nature's partial 

mould, 
A heart untainted, we, in thee, behold: 
Yet, not the Senate's thunder thou shalt 

wield, 311 

Nor seek for glory, in the tented field: 



"hear the word 'Clare' without a beating of 
the heart even now; and I write it with the 
feelings of 1803-4-5, <^'^ infinitum."] 

1 [John Fitzgibbon, First Earl of Clare (1749 
-1802), became Attorney-General and Lord 
Chancellor of Ireland.] 

2 [George John, fifth Earl of Delawarr.] 

3 [See letter to Lord Clare, February 6, 1807, 
and lines "To George, Eari Delawarr," post, 
p. 41.] 



To minds of ruder texture, these be 

given — 
Thy soul shall nearer soar its native 

heaven. 
Haply, in polish' d courts might be thy 

seat. 
But that thy tongue could never forge 

deceit : 
The courtier's supple bow, and sneering 

smile. 
The flow of compliment, the slippery 

wile. 
Would make that breast with indigna- 
tion, burn, 
And all the glittering snares to tempt 

thee spurn. 320 

Domestic happiness will stamp thy fate, 
Sacred to love, unclouded e'er by hate; 
The world admire thee, and thy friends 

adore; — 
Ambition's slave, alone, would toil for 



Now last, but nearest, of the social 

band, 
See honest, open, generous Cleon ^ 

stand ; 
With scarce one speck, to cloud the 

pleasing scene. 
No vice degrades that purest soul serene. 
On the same day, our studious race 

begun. 
On the same day, our studious race was 

run; 330 

Thus, side by side, we pass'd our first 

career, 
Thus, side by side, we strove for many 

a year; 
At last, concluded our scholastic life. 
We neither conquer'd in the classic 

strife : 
As Speakers,^ each supports an equal 

name, 
And crowds allow to both a partial fame: 
To soothe a youthful Rival's early pride, 
Though Cleon's candour would the palm 

divide, 

^ [Edward Noel Long, who was drowned by 
the foundering of a transport on the voyage to 
Lisbon with his regiment in 1809. (See lines 
"To Edward Noel Long, Esq.," post, p. 62.)] 

2 This alludes to the public speeches de- 
livered at the school where the author was 
educated. 



CHILDISH RECOLLECTIONS 



2,^ 



Yet Candour's self compels me now to 

own. 
Justice awards it to my Friend alone. 

Oh ! Friends regretted, Scenes for 

ever dear, 341 

Remembrance hails you with her warm- 
est tear ! 
Drooping, she bends o'er pensive Fancy's 

urn. 
To trace the hours, which never can 

return ; 
Yet, with the retrospection loves to 

dwell. 
And soothe the sorrows of her last fare- 
well ! 
Yet greets the triumph of my boyish 

mind. 
As infant laurels round my head were 

twin'd; 
When Probus' praise repaid my lyric 

song. 
Or plac'd me higher in the studious 

throng; 350 

Or when my first harangue receiv'd 

applause, 
His sage instruction the primeval cause. 
What gratitude, to him, my soul possest, 
While hope of dawning honours fiU'd my 

breast ! 
For all my humble fame, to him 

alone. 
The praise is due, who made that fame 

my own. 
Oh ! could I soar above these feeble 

lays, 
These young effusions of my early days. 
To him my Muse her noblest strain 

would give. 
The song might perish, but the theme 

might live. 360 

Yet, why for him the needless verse 

essay ? 
His honour' d name requires no vain 

display: 
By every son of grateful Ida blest. 
It finds an echo in each youthful breast; 
A fame beyond the glories of the proud. 
Or all the plaudits of the venal crowd. 

Ida ! not yet exhausted is the theme, 
Nor clos'd the progress of my youthful 
dream. 



How many a friend deserves the grateful 

strain ! 
What scenes of childhood still unsung 



remain ! 



370 



Yet let me hush this echo of the past, 
This parting song, the dearest and the 

last; 
And brood in secret o'er those hours of 

joy. 

To me a silent and a sweet employ, 

While, future hope and fear alike un- 
known, 

I think with pleasure on the past alone; 

Yes, to the past alone, my heart con- 
fine. 

And chase the phantom of what once 
was mine. 

Ida ! still o'er thy hills in joy preside, 
And proudly steer through Time's 

eventful tide: 380 

Still may thy blooming Sons thy name 

revere, 
Smile in thy Bower, but quit thee with 

a tear; — 
That tear, perhaps, the fondest which 

will flow. 
O'er their last scene of happiness below: 
Tell me, ye hoary few, who glide along. 
The feeble Veterans of some former 

throng. 
Whose friends, like Autumn leaves by 

tempests whirl'd. 
Are swept for ever from this busy world ; 
Revolve the fleeting moments of your 

youth. 
While Care has yet withheld her venom'd 

tooth; 390 

Say, if Remembrance days like these 

endears 
Beyond the rapture of succeeding years? 
Say, can Ambition's fever'd dream 

bestow 
So sweet a balm to soothe your hours of 

w^oe? 
Can Treasures hoarded for some thank- 
less Son, 
Can Royal Smiles, or Wreaths by 

slaughter won. 
Can Stars or Ermine, Man's maturer 

Toys, 
(For glittering baubles are not left to 

Boys,) 



34 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Recall one scene so much belov'd to 

view, 
As those where Youth her garland twin'd 

for you? 400 

Ah, no ! amid the gloomy calm of age 
You turn with faltering hand life's 

varied page, 
Peruse the record of your days on earth. 
Unsullied only where it marks your birth ; 
Still, lingering, pause above each 

chequer' d leaf. 
And blot with Tears the sable lines of 

Grief; 
Where Passion o'er the theme her mantle 

threw. 
Or weeping Virtue sigh'd a faint adieu; 
But bless the scroll which fairer words 

adorn, 
Trac'd by the rosy finger of the Morn; 
When Friendship bow'd before the 

shrine of Truth, 411 

And Love, without his pinion,^ smil'd on 

Youth. 
[First printed, January, 1807.] 

ANSWER TO A BEAUTIFUL 
POEM, 

WRITTEN BY MONTGOMERY, AUTHOR OF 
"the V^^ANDERER of SWITZERLAND," 
ETC., ENTITLED "THE COMMON LOT." ^ 



Montgomery! true, the common lot 
Of mortals lies in Lethe's wave; 

Yet some shall never be forgot. 
Some shall exist beyond the grave. 



"Unknown the region of his birth," 
The hero ^ rolls the tide of war; 

Yet not unknown his martial worth, 
Which glares a meteor from afar. 

i"L'Amitie est 1' Amour sans ailes," is a 
French proverb. 

2 [James Montgomery (1771-1854), poet and 
hymn-writer]. 

3 No particular hero is here alluded to. The 
exploits of Bayard, Nemours, Edward the Black 
Prince, and, in more modern times, the fame of 
Marlborough, Frederick the Great, Count Saxe, 
Charles of Sweden, etc., are familiar to every 
historical reader, but the exact places of their 
birth are known to a very small proportion of 
their admirers. 



His joy or grief, his weal or woe. 

Perchance may 'scape the page of 
fame; 

Yet nations, now unborn, will know 
The record of his deathless name. 



The Patriot's and the Poet's frame 
Must share the common tomb of all: 

Their glory will not sleep the same; 
That will arise, though Empires fall. 



The lustre of a Beauty's eye 

Assumes the ghastly stare of death; 
The fair, the brave, the good must die, 

And sink the yawning grave beneath. 



Once more, the speaking eye revives. 
Still beaming through the lover's 
strain ; 

For Petrarch's Laura still survives: 
She died, but ne'er will die again. 



The rolling seasons pass away, 

And Time, untiring, waves his wing; 

Whilst Honour's laurels ne'er decay. 
But bloom in fresh, unfading spring. 



All, all must sleep in grim repose, 
Collected in the silent tomb; 

The old, the young, with friends and 
foes, 
Fest'ring alike in shrouds, consume. 



The mouldering marble lasts its day, 
Yet falls at length an useless fane; 

To Ruin's ruthless fangs a prey. 

The wrecks of pillar'd Pride remain. 



What, though the sculpture be destroy'd, 
From dark Oblivion meant to guard; 

A bright renown shall be enjoy'd. 
By those whose virtues claim re\yard, 



LOVE'S LAST ADIEU 



35 



Then do not say the common lot 

Of all lies deep in Lethe's wave; 
Some few who ne'er will be forgot 
Shall burst the bondage of the grave. 
1806. 
[First printed, January, 1807.] 



LOVE'S LAST ADIEU. 

'Aei 5' dei fxe (pevyei. — [PsEUD.] Anac- 
REON [Ei's xpuo-ov]. 



The roses of Love glad the garden of 
life, 
Though nurtur'd 'mid weeds drop- 
ping pestilent dew, 
Till Time crops the leaves with un- 
merciful knife, 
Or prunes them for ever, in Love's 
last adieu! 



In vain, with endearments we soothe the 
sad heart. 
In vain do we vow for an age to be 
true ; 
The chance of an hour may command us 
to part, 
Or Death disunite us, in Love's last 
adieu ! 



Still Hope, breathing peace through the 
grief-swollen breast. 
Will whisper, "Our meeting we yet 
may renew:" 
With this dream of deceit half our sor- 
row's represt, 
Nor taste we the poison, of Love's 
last adieu ! 



Oh! mark you yon pair: in the sun- 
shine of youth 
Love twin'd round their childhood his 
flowers as they grew; 
They flourish awhile in the season of 
truth. 
Till chill'd by the winter of Love's 
last adieu ! 



5. 
Sweet lady ! why thus doth a tear steal 
its way 
Down a cheek which outrivals thy 
bosom in hue? 
Yet why do I ask ? — to distraction a 
prey, 
Thy reason has perish'd, with Love's 
last adieu ! 



6. 

Oh ! who is yon Misanthrope, shunning 
mankind ? 
From cities to caves of the forest he 
flew: 
There, raving, he howls his complaint to 
the wind; 
The mountains reverberate Love's last 
adieu ! 



7. 
Now Hate rules a heart which in Love's 
easy chains 
Once Passion's tumultuous blandish- 
ments knew; 
Despair now inflames the dark tide of 
his veins; 
He -ponders, in frenzy, on Love's last 
adieu ! 



8. 
How he envies the wretch with a soul 
wrapt in steel! 
His pleasures are scarce, yet his 
troubles are few, 
Who laughs at the pang that he never 
can feel. 
And dreads not the anguish of Love's 
last adieu ! 



Youth flies, life decays, even hope is 
o'ercast; 
No more, with Love's former devo- 
tion, we sue: 
He spreads his young wing, he retires 
with the blast; 
The shroud of affection is Love's last 
adieu ! 



36 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



In this life of probation, for rapture 
divine, 
Astrea ^ declares that some penance 
is due; 
From him, who has worshipp'd at 
Love's gentle shrine, 
The atonement is ample, in Love's 
last adieu ! 



Who kneels to the God, on his altar of 
light 
Must myrtle and cypress alternately 
strew : 
His myrtle, an emblem of purest de- 
light — 
His cypress, the garland of Love's 
last adieu ! 
[First printed, January, 1807.] 

LINES 

ADDRESSED TO THE REV. J. T. BECHI^R,^ 
ON HIS ADVISING THE AUTHOR TO 
MIX MORE WITH SOCIETY. 



Dear Becher, you tell me to mix with 

mankind ; 

I cannot deny such a precept is wise; 

But retirement accords with the tone of 

my mind: 

I will not descend to a world I despise. 



Did the Senate or Camp my exertions 
require, 
Ambition might prompt me, at once, 
to go forth; 
When Infancy's years of probation ex- 
pire. 
Perchance, I may strive to distinguish 
my birth. 

1 The Goddess of Justice. 

2 [The Rev. John Thomas Becher (1770- 
1848) was Vicar of Rympton and Midsomer 
Norton, Somers., and made the acquaintance 
of Byron at Southwell. To him was sub- 
mitted an early copy of the Quarto, and on his 
remonstrance at the tone of some of the verses, 
the whole edition (save one or two copies) was 
burnt.] 



The fire, in the cavern of Etna, con- 
ceal'd. 
Still mantles unseen in its secret 
recess; 
At length, in a volume terrific, reveal'd, 
No torrent can quench it, no bounds 
can repress. 

4- 
Oh ! thus, the desire, in my bosom, for 
fame 
Bids me live, but to hope for pos- 
terity's praise. 
Could I soar with the phoenix on pinions 
of flame. 
With him I would wish to expire in the 
blaze. 

5- 
For the life of a Fox, of a Chatham the 
death. 
What censure, what danger, what woe 
would I brave ! 
Their lives did not end, when they 
yielded their breath; 
Their glory illumines the gloom of 
their grave. 

6. 

Yet why should I mingle in Fashion's 
full herd? 
Why crouch to her leaders, or cringe 
to her rules? 
Why bend to the proud, or applaud the 
absurd ? 
Why search for delight, in the friend- 
ship of fools? 



I have tasted the sweets, and the bitters, 
of love: 
In friendship I early was taught to 
believe; 
My passion the matrons of prudence 
reprove, 
I have found that a friend may pro- 
fess, vet deceive. 



To me what is wealth ? — it may pass in 
an hour. 
If Tyrants prevail, or if Fortune 
should frown: 



ANSWER TO SOME ELEGANT VERSES 



37 



To me what is title ? — the phantom of 
power ; 
To me what is fashion ? — I seek but 



9- 
Deceit is a stranger, as yet, to my soul: 
I, still, am unpractised to varnish the 
truth: 
Then, why should I live in a hateful 
controul ? 
Why waste, upon folly, the days of 
my youth? 1806. 

[First printed, January, 1807.] 

ANSWER TO SOME ELEGANT 
VERSES 

SENT BY A FRIEND TO THE AUTHOR, 
COMPLAINING THAT ONE OF HIS 
DESCRIPTIONS WAS RATHER TOO 
WARMLY DRAWN, 

"But if any old Lady, Knight, Priest, or 
Physician, 
Should condemn me for printing a second 

edition; 
If good Madam Squintum my work should 

abuse. 
May I venture to give her a smack of my muse ?" 
— Anstey's NewsBalh Guide, p. 169. 

Candour compels me, Becher! to 

commend 
The verse, which blends the censor with 

the friend; 
Your strong yet just reproof extorts 

applause 
From me, the heedless and imprudent 

cause ; 
For this wild error, which pervades my 

strain, 
I sue for pardon, — must I sue in 

vain? 
The wise sometimes from Wisdom's 

ways depart; 
Can youth then hush the dictates of the 

heart ? 
Precepts of prudence curb, but can't 

controul. 
The fierce emotions of the flowing 

soul. 
When Love's delirium haunts the glow- 
ing mind, 11 
Limping Decorum lingers far behind; 



Vainly the dotard mends her prudish 

pace, 
Outstript and vanquish'd in the mental 

chase. 
The young, the old, have worn the chains 

of love; 
Let those, they ne'er confin'd, my lay 

reprove ; 
Let those, whose souls contemn the 

pleasing power, 
Their censures on the hapless victim 

shower. 
Oh ! how I hate the nerveless, frigid 

song, 
The ceaseless echo of the rhyming 

throng, 20 

Whose labour'd lines, in chilling num- 
bers flow. 
To paint a pang the author ne'er can 

know! 
The artless Helicon, I boast, is youth; — 
My Lyre, the Heart — my Muse, the 

simple Truth. 
Far be't from me the "virgin's mind" to 

"taint"; 
Seduction's dread is here no slight 

restraint: 
The maid whose virgin breast is void of 

guile, 
Whose wishes dimple in a modest 

smile. 
Whose downcast eye disdains the wan- 
ton leer, 
Firm in her virtue's strength, yet not 

severe ; 30 

She, whom a conscious grace shall thus 

refine, 
Will ne'er be "tainted" by a strain of 

mine. 
But, for the nymph whose premature 

desires 
Torment her bosom with unholy fires, 
No net to snare her willing heart is 

spread ; 
She would have fallen, though she ne'er 

had read. 
For me. I fain would please the chosen 

few. 
Whose souls, to feeling and to nature 

true, 
Will spare the childish verse, and not 

destroy 
The light effusions of a heedless boy. 40 



38 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



I seek not glory from the senseless 

crowd ; 
Of fancied laurels, I shall ne'er be 

proud ; 
Their warmest plaudits I would scarcely 

prize, 
Their sneers or censures, I alike despise. 
November 26, 1806. 
[First printed, January, 1807.] 



ELEGY ON NEWSTEAD 
ABBEY.i 

"It is the voice of years, that are gone ! they 
roll before me with all their deeds." — Ossian. 



Newstead! fast-falling, once-resplen- 
dent dome ! 
Religion's shrine ! repentant Henry's ^ 
pride ! 
Of Warriors, Monks, and Dames the 
cloister'd tomb, 
Whose pensive shades around thy 
ruins glide, 



Hail to thy pile ! more honour' d in thy 
fall, 
Than modern mansions, in their 
pillar'd state; 
Proudly majestic frowns thy vaulted 
hall, 
Scowling defiance on the blasts of fate. 



No mail-clad Serfs,^ obedient to their 
Lord, 
In grim array, the crimson cross* 
demand; 
Or gay assemble round the festive 
board. 
Their chief's retainers, an immortal 
band. 

1 As one poem on this subject is_ already 
printed, the author had, originally, no intention 
of inserting the following. It is now added at 
the particular request of some friends. 

2 Henry II. founded Newstead soon after the 
murder of Thomas a Becket. , 

3 This word is used by Walter Scott, m his 
poem, The Wild Huntsman, as synonymous 
with "vassal." , , , ^ , 

* The red cross was the badge of the Crusaders. 



Else might inspiring Fancy's magic eye 
Retrace their progress, through the 
lapse of time; 
Marking each ardent youth, ordain'd to 
die, 
A votive pilgrim, in Judea's clime. 

5- 
But not from thee, dark pile! departs 
the Chief; 
His feudal realm in other regions lay: 
In thee the wounded conscience courts 
relief, 
Retiring from the garish blaze of day. 



Yes, in thy gloomy cells and shades pro- 
found. 
The monk abjur'd a world, he ne'er 
could view; 
Or blood-stain'd Guilt, repenting, solace 
found. 
Or Innocence from stern Oppression 
flew. 



A monarch bade thee, from that wild, 
arise, 
Where Sherwood's outlaws, once, were 
wont to prowl: 
And Superstition's crimes of various 
dyes, 
Sought shelter in the priest's protect- 
ing cowl. 



Where, now, the grass exhales a murky 
dew, 
The humid pall of life-extinguish' d 
clay. 
In sainted fame the sacred fathers grew, 
Nor raised their pious voices, but to 
pray. 

9- 
Where, now, the bats their wavering 
wings extend. 
Soon as the gloaming^ spreads her 
waning shade; 

lAs "gloaming," the Scottish word for twi- 
light, is far more poetical, and has been recom- 



ELEGY ON NEW STEAD ABBEY 



39 



The choir did, oft, their mingling vespers 
blend, 
Or matin orisons to Mary ^ paid. 



Years roll on years; to ages, ages yield; 

Abbots to Abbots, in a line, succeed: 
Religion's charter their protecting shield. 

Till royal sacrilege their doom de- 
creed. 



One holy Heney rear'd the Gothic 
walls. 
And bade the pious inmates rest in 
peace ; 
Another Henry ^ the kind gift recalls. 
And bids Devotion's hallow'd echoes 
cease. 



Vain is each threat, or supplicating 
prayer ; 
He drives them exiles from their blest 
abode. 
To roam a dreary world in deep 
despair — 
No friend, no home, no refuge, but 
their God.^ 

13- 
Hark ! how the hall, resounding to the 
strain, . 
Shakes with the martial music's novel 
din ! 
The heralds of a warrior's haughty 
reign. 
High crested banners wave thy walls 
within. 



mended by many eminent literary men, particu- 
larly by Dr Moore in his Letters to Burns, I 
have ventured to use it on account of its har- 
mony. 

1 The priory was dedicated to the Virgin. 

^ At the dissolution of the monasteries, 
Henry VIII. bestowed Newstead Abbey on Sir 
John Byron. 

3 [During the lifetime of Lord Byron's prede- 
cessor in the title there was found in the lake 
a large brass eagle, in the body of which were 
concealed a number of ancient deeds and docu- 
ments. This eagle is supposed to have been 
thrown into the lake by the retreating monks. — 
Life, p. 2, twle. It is now a lectern in Southwell 
Minster.] 



14. 

Of changing sentinels the distant hum, 
The mirth of feasts, the clang of 
burnish'd arms. 
The braying trumpet, and the hoarser 
drum. 
Unite in concert with increas'd 
alarms. 

15- 
An abbey once, a regal fortress ^ now, 
Encircled by insulting rebel powers; 
War's dread machines o'erhang thy 
threat'ning brow. 
And dart destruction, in sulphureous 
showers. 

16. 

Ah ! vain defence ! the hostile traitor's 
siege. 
Though oft repuls'd, by guile o'er- 
comes the brave; 
His thronging foes oppress the faithful 
Liege, 
Rebellion's reeking standards o'er him 
wave. 

17- 
Not unaveng'd the raging Baron yields; 
The blood of traitors smears the 
purple plain; 
Unconquer'd still, his falchion there he 
wields, 
And days of glory yet for him remain. 

18. 

Still, in that hour, the warrior wish'd to 
strew 
Self-gathered laurels on a self-sought 
grave ; 
But Charles' protecting genius hither 
flew. 
The monarch's friend, the monarch's 
hope, to save. 

19. 

Trembling, she snatch'd him,^ from th' 
unequal strife. 
In other fields the torrent to repel; 

1 Newstead sustained a considerable siege in 
the war between Charles I. and his Parliament. 

2 Lord Byron and his brother Sir William 
held high commands in the royal army. The 



40 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



For nobler combats, here reserv'd his 
life, 
To lead the band, where godlike 
Falkland ^ fell. 



From thee, poor pile! to lawless plun- 
der given, 
While dying groans their painful 
requiem sound. 
Far different incense, now, ascends to 
Heaven, 
Such victims wallow on the gory 
ground. 



There many a pale and ruthless Rob- 
ber's corse. 
Noisome and ghast, defiles thy sacred 
sod; 
O'er mingUng man, and horse com- 
mix'd with horse. 
Corruption's heap, the savage spoilers 
trod. 



Graves, long with rank and sighing 
weeds o'erspread, 
Ransack'd resign, perforce, their 
mortal mould: 
From rufl&an fangs, escape not e'en the 
dead, 
Racked from repose, in search for 
buried gold. 

23- 

Hush'd is the harp, unstrung the war- 
like lyre. 
The minstrel's palsied hand reclines 
in death; 
No more he strikes the quivering chords 
with fire. 
Or sings the glories of the martial 
wreath. 



former was General-in-Chief in Ireland, Lieu- 
tenant of the Tower, and Governor to James, 
Duke of York, afterwards the unhappy James 
II.; the latter had a principal share in many 
actions. 

1 Lucius Gary, Lord Viscount Falkland, the 
most accomplished man of his age, was killed at 
the battle of Newbury, charging in the ranks of 
Lord Byron's regiment of cavaky. 



24. 

At length the sated murderers, gorged 

with prey. 

Retire : the clamour of the fight is o'er ; 

Silence again resumes her awful sway. 

And sable Horror guards the massy 

door. 

25- 
Here, Desolation holds her dreary court: 
What satellites declare her dismal 
reign ! 
Shrieking their dirge, ill-omen'd birds 
resort, 
To flit their vigils, in the hoary fane. 

26. 

Soon a new Morn's restoring beams 
dispel 
The clouds of Anarchy from Britain's 
skies; 
The fierce Usurper seeks his native hell, 
And Nature triumphs, as the Tyrant 
dies. 

27. 
With storms she welcomes his expiring 
groans; 
Whirlwinds, responsive, greet his 
labouring breath; 
Earth shudders, as her caves receive his 
bones. 
Loathing ^ the offering of so dark a 
death. 

28. 

The legal Ruler ^ now resumes the 
helm. 
He guides through gentle seas, the 
prow of state; 
Hope cheers, with wonted smiles, the 
peaceful realm. 
And heals the bleeding wounds of 
wearied Hate. 

^This is an Historical fact. A violent tem- 
pest occurred immediately subsequent to the 
death or interment of Cromwell, which oc- 
casioned many disputes between his partisans 
and the cavaliers: both interpreted the cir- 
cumstance into divine interposition; but whether 
as approbation or condemnation, we leave to 
the casuists of that age to decide. I have made 
such use of the occurrence as suited the subject 
of my poem. ^ Charles II. 



TO GEORGE, EARL DELAWARR 



41 



29. 

The gloomy tenants, Newstead ! of thy 

cells, 

Howling, resign their violated nest; 

Again, the Master on his tenure dwells, 

Enjoy'd, from absence, with en- 

raptur'd zest. 

30. 
Vassals, within thy hospitable pale, 
Loudly carousing, bless their Lord's 
return ; 
Culture, again, adorns the gladdening 
vale. 
And matrons, once lamenting, cease 
to mourn. 

31- 
A thousand songs, on tuneful echo, 
float. 
Unwonted foliage mantles o'er the 
trees; 
And, hark ! the horns proclaim a 
mellow note, 
The hunters' cry hangs lengthening 
on the breeze. 



Beneath their coursers' hoofs the 
valleys shake; 
What fears ! what anxious hopes ! 
attend the chase ! 
The dying stag seeks refuge in the lake; 
Exulting shouts announce the finish'd 
race. 

33- 
Ah happy days ! too happy to endure ! 
Such simple sports our plain fore- 
fathers knew : 
No splendid vices glitter'd to allure; 
Their joys were many, as their cares 
were few. 

34. 
From these descending. Sons to Sires 
succeed; 
Time steals along, and Death uprears 
his dart; 
Another Chief impels the foaming steed. 
Another Crowd pursue the panting 
hart. 



35. 
Newstead ! what saddening change of 
scene is thine ! 
Thy yawning arch betokens slow 
decay ; 
The last and youngest of a noble line, 
Now holds thy mouldering turrets in 
his sway. 

36. 
Deserted now, he scans thy grey worn 
towers; 
Thy vaults, where dead of feudal 
ages sleep; 
Thy cloisters, pervious to the wintry 
showers; 
These, these he views, and views 
them but to weep. 

37- 
Yet are his tears no emblem of regret: 
Cherish'd Affection only bids them 
flow; 
Pride, Hope, and Love forbid him to 
forget. 
But warm his bosom with impassion'd 
glow. 

38- 
Yet he prefers thee to the gilded domes, 
Or gewgaw grottos, of the vainly 
great ; 
Yet lingers 'mid thy damp and mossy 
tombs. 
Nor breathes a murmur 'gainst the 
will of Fate. 

39- 
Haply thy sun, emerging yet may shine. 
Thee to irradiate with meridian ray; 
Hours, splendid as the past, may still 
be thine. 
And bless thy future as thy former 
day. 
[First printed, January, 1807.] 

TO GEORGE, EARL DELAWARR. 



Oh ! yes, I will own we were dear to 
each other; 
The friendships of childhood, though 
fleeting, are true; 



42 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



The love which you felt was the love of 
a brother, 
Nor less the affection I cherish'd for 
you. 

2. 

But Friendship can vary her gentle 
dominion; 
The attachment of years, in a moment 
expires: 
Like Love, too, she moves on a swift- 
waving pinion, 
But glows not, Uke Love, with un- 
quenchable fires. 

3- 
Full oft have we wander'd through Ida 
together. 
And blest were the scenes of our 
youth, I allow: 
In the spring of our life, how serene is 
the weather ! 
But winter's rude tempests are 
gathering now. 



No more with Affection shall Memory 
blending. 
The wonted delights of our child- 
hood retrace: 
When Pride steels the bosom, the 
heart is unbending. 
And what would be Justice appears 
a disgrace. 

5- 
However, dear George, for I still must 
esteem you — 
The few, whom I love, I can never 
upbraid ; 
The chance, which has lost, may in 
future redeem you, 
Repentance will cancel the vow you 
have made. 

6. 

I will not complain, and though chill'd 
is affection. 
With me no corroding resentment 
shall live: 
My bosom is calm'd by the simple 
reflection. 
That both may be wrong, and that 
both should forgive. 



You knew, that my soul, that my heart, 
my existence, 
If danger demanded, were wholly 
your own; 
You knew me unalter'd, by years or 
by distance, 
Devoted to love and to friendship 
alone. 



You knew, — but away with the vain 
retrospection ! 
The bond of affection no longer 
endures; 
Too late you may droop o'er the fond 
recollection. 
And sigh for the friend, who was 
formerly yours. 



For the present, we part, — I will hope 
not for ever; ^ 
For time and regret will restore you 
at last: 
To forget our dissension we both should 
endeavour, 
I ask no atonement, but days like the 
past. 

[First published, June, 1807.] 



DAMCETAS. 

In law an infant,^ and in years a boy, 
In mind a slave to every vicious joy; 
From every sense of shame and virtue 

wean'd. 
In lies an adept, in deceit a fiend; 
Vers'd in hypocrisy, while yet a child; 
Fickle as wind, of inclinations wild; 
Woman his dupe, his heedless friend a 

tool; 
Old in the world, though scarcely broke 

from school; 
Damoetas ran through all the maze of 

sin, 
And found the goal, when others just 

begin : 

^ [See Byron's Letter to Lord Clare of Febru- 
ary 6, 1807.] 

2 In law, every person is an infant who has 
not attained the age of twenty-one. 



TO MARION — OSCAR OF ALVA 



43 



Ev'n still conflicting passions shake his 
soul, 

And bid him drain the dregs of Pleas- 
ure's bowl; 

But, pall'd with vice, he breaks his 
former chain, 

And what was once his bliss appears his 
bane. . 

[First published, June, 1807.] 



TO MARION.^ 

Marion ! why that pensive brow ? 
What disgust to life hast thou? 
Change that discontented air; 
Frowns become not one so fair. 
'Tis not Love disturbs thy rest. 
Love's a stranger to thy breast: 
He, in dimpling smiles, appears. 
Or mourns in sweetly timid tears; 
Or bends the languid eyelid down. 
But shuns the cold forbidding frown. 
Then resume thy former fire, 
Some will love, and all admire ! 
While that icy aspect chills us. 
Nought but cool Indiff'rence thrills us. 
Would'st thou wand'ring hearts beguile. 
Smile, at least, or seem to smile; 
Eyes like thine were never meant 
To hide their orbs in dark restraint; 
Spite of all thou fain would'st say, 
Still in truant beams they play. 
Thy lips — but here my modest Muse 
Her impulse chaste must needs refuse: 
She blushes, curfsies, frowns, — in 

short She 
Dreads lest the Subject should trans- 
port me; 
And flying off, in search of Reason, 
Brings Prudence back in proper season. 
All 1 shall, therefore, say (whate'er 
I think, is neither here nor there,) 
Is, that such lips, of looks endearing, 
Were form'd for better things than 
sneering. 

^ [The MS. of this poem is preserved at New- 
stead. "This was to Harriet Maltby, after- 
wards Mrs. Nichols, wTitten upon her meeting 
Byron, and "being cold, silent, and reserved to 
him, by the advice of a Lady with whom she was 
staving; quite foreign to her usual manner, 
which was gay, livelv, and full of flirtation." — 
{Note by Miss E. Pigot.)] 



Of soothing compliments divested, 
Advice at least's disinterested; 
Such is my artless song to thee, 
From all the flow of Flatt'ry free; 
Counsel like mine is as a brother's, 
My heart is given to some others; 
That is to say, unskill'd to cozen, 
It shares itself among a dozen. 

Marion, adieu ! oh, pr'ythee slight 

not 
This warning, though it may delight 

not; 
And, lest my precepts be displeasing, 
To those who think remonstrance 

teasing. 
At once I'll tell thee our opinion. 
Concerning Woman's soft Dominion: 
Howe'er we gaze, with admiration. 
On eyes of blue or lips carnation; 
Howe'er the flowing locks attract us, 
Howe'er those beauties may distract us; 
Still fickle, we are prone to rove, 
These cannot fix our souls to love; 
It is not too severe a stricture. 
To say they form a pretty picture; 
But would'st thou see the secret chain. 
Which binds us in your humble train, 
To hail you Queens of all Creation, 
Know, in a word, His Animation. 

Byron, January 10, 1807. 
[First published, June, 1807.] 



OSCAR OF ALVA. 



How sweetly shines, through azure 
skies, 

The lamp of Heaven on Lora's shore; 
Where Alva's hoary turrets rise, 

And hear the din of arms no more! 



But often has yon rolling moon, 
On Alva's casques of silver play'd; 

And view'd, at midnight's silent noon. 
Her chiefs in gleaming mail array'd: 

1 The catastrophy of this tale was suggested 
by the story of "Jeronymo and Lorenzo," in 
the first volume of Schiller's Armenian, or the 
Ghost-Seer. It also bears some resemblance to 
a scene in the third act of Macbeth. 



44 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



And, on the crimson'd rocks beneath, 
Which scowl o'er Ocean's sullen 
flow, 

Pale in the scatter'd ranks of death, 
She saw the gasping warrior low; 



While many an eye, which ne'er again 
Could mark the rising orb of day, 

Turn'd feebly from the gory plain, 
Beheld in death her fading ray. 



Once, to those eyes the lamp of Love, 
They blest her dear propitious light; 

But, now, she glimmer'd from above, 
A sad, funereal torch of night. 



Faded is Alva's noble race, 

And grey her towers are seen afar; 
No more her heroes urge the chase. 

Or roll the crimson tide of war. 



But, who was last of Alva's clan? 

Why grows the moss on Alva's 
stone ? 
Her towers resound no steps of man. 

They echo to the gale alone. 



And, when that gale is fierce and high, 
A sound is heard in yonder hall; 

It rises hoarsely through the sky, 
And vibrates o'er the mould'ring wall. 



Yes, when the eddying tempest sighs. 
It shakes the shield of Oscar brave; 

But, there, no more his banners rise. 
No more his plumes of sable wave. 



Fair shone the sun on Oscar's birth. 
When Angus hail'd his eldest born; 

The vassals round their chieftain's 
hearth 
Crowd to applaud the happy morn. 



They feast upon the mountain deer, 
The Pibroch rais'd its piercing note,^ 

To gladden more their Highland cheer, 
The strains in martial numbers float. 



And they who heard the war-notes wild, 
Hop'd that, one day, the Pibroch's 
strain 

Should play before the Hero's child. 
While he should lead the Tartan 



13- 
Another year is quickly past, 

And Angus hails another son; 
His natal day is like the last. 

Nor soon the jocund feast was done. 

14. 

Taught by their sire to bend the bow, 
On Alva's dusky hills of wind, 

The boys in childhood chas'd the roe. 
And left their hounds in speed 
behind. 

15- 
But ere their years of youth are o'er, 

They mingle in the ranks of war; 
They lightly wheel the bright clay- 
more. 
And send the whistling arrow far. 

16. 

Dark was the flow of Oscar's hair. 
Wildly it stream'd along the gale; 

But Allan's locks were bright and fair, 
And pensive seem'd his cheek, and 
pale. 

17- 
But Oscar own'd a hero's soul. 
His dark eye shone through beams of 
truth; 
Allan had early learn'd controul, 
And smooth his words had been from 
youth. 

1 [It is evident that Byron here confused the 
pibroch, the air, with the bagpipe, the instrument. 
Jeifrey noted the blunder in the famous article in 
the Edinburgh Review, January, 1808.] 



OSCAR OF ALVA 



45 



Both, both were brave ; the Saxon 
spear 

Was shiver'd oft beneath their steel; 
And Oscar's bosom scorn'd to fear, 

But Oscar's bosom knew to feei; 



19. 

While Allan's soul belied his form, 
Unworthy with such charms to dwell; 

Keen as the lightning of the storm, 
On foes his deadly vengeance fell. 



From high Southannon's distant tower 

Arrived a young and noble dame; 
With Kenneth's lands to form her 
dower, 
Glenalvon's blue-eyed daughter 
came. 



And Oscar claim'd the beauteous bride. 
And Angus on his Oscar smil'd: 

It soothed the father's feudal pride 
Thus to obtain Glenalvon's child. 



Hark! to the Pibroch's pleasing note, 
Hark! to the swelling nuptial song; 

In joyous strains the voices float, 
And, still, the choral peal prolong. 

23- 
See how the Hero's blood-red plumes 

Assembled wave in Alva's hall; 
Each youth his varied plaid assumes, 

Attending on their chieftain's call. 

24. 

It is not war their aid demands, 
The Pibroch plays the song of 
peace ; 

To Oscar's nuptials throng the bands, 
Nor yet the sounds of pleasure cease. 

25- 
But where is Oscar? sure 'tis late: 

Is this a bridegroom's ardent flame? 
While thronging guests and ladies wait. 

Nor Oscar nor his brother came. 



26. 

At length young Allan join'd the bride; 

"Why comes not Oscar?" Angus 

said: 

"Is he not here?" the Youth replied; 

"With me he rov'd not o'er the 

glade : 



"Perchance, forgetful of the day, 
'Tis his to chase the bounding roe; 

Or Ocean's wave prolong his stay; 
Yet, Oscar's bark is seldom slow." 

28. 

"Oh, no!" the anguish'd Sire re- 
join' d, 
"Nor chase, nor wave, my Boy delay; 
Would he to Mora seem unkind ? 
Would aught to her impede his 
way? 

29. 

"Oh, search, ye Chiefs! oh, search 
around ! 

Allan, with these, through Alva fly; 
Till Oscar, till my son is found. 

Haste, haste, nor dare attempt reply." 

30- 

All is confusion — through the vale. 
The name of Oscar hoarsely rings; 

It rises on the murm'ring gale. 

Till night expands her dusky wings. 

31- 
It breaks the stillness of the night, 
But echoes through her shades in 
vain; 
It sounds through morning's misty 
light, 
But Oscar comes not o'er the plain. 

32. 
Three days, three sleepless nights, the 
Chief 
For Oscar search'd each mountain 
cave ; 
Then hope is lost; in boundless grief, 
His locks in grey-torn ringlets 
wave. 



46 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Z2>- 
" Oscar ! my son ! — thou God of 
Heav'n, 
Restore the prop of sinking age ! 
Or, if that hope no more is given, 
Yield his assassin to my rage. 

34- 
"Yes, on some desert rocky shore 
My Oscar's whiten'd bones must 
lie; 
Then grant, thou God ! I ask no more, 
With him his frantic Sire may die! 

35- 
"Yet he may live, — away despair! 

Be calm, my soul! he yet may live; 
T' arraign my fate, my voice forbear! 

God ! my impious prayer forgive. 

36. 

"What, if he live for me no more, 

1 sink forgotten in the dust. 
The hope of Alva's age is o'er: 

Alas! can pangs like these be just?" 

37- 
Thus did the hapless Parent mourn. 

Till Time, who soothes severest woe. 
Had bade serenity return. 

And made the tear-drop cease to flow. 

38. 
For, still, some latent hope surviv'd 

That Oscar might once more appear; 
His hope now droop' d and now reviv'd. 

Till time had told a tedious year. 

39. 
Days roU'd along, the orb of light 

Again had run his destin'd race; 
No Oscar bless'd his father's sight. 

And Sorrow left a fainter trace. 



40. 

For youthful Allan still remain'd. 
And, now, his father's only joy: 

And Mora's heart was quickly gain'd, 
For Beauty crown'd the fair-hair'd 
boy. 



41. 

She thought that Oscar low was laid, 
And Allan's face was wondrous fair; 

If Oscar liv'd, some other maid 
Had claim'd his faithless bosom's 
care. 

42. 

And Angus said, if one year more 
In fruitless hope was pass'd away, 

His fondest scruples should be o'er. 
And he would name their nuptial day. 

43- 
Slow roU'd the moons, but blest at last 

Arriv'd the dearly destin'd morn: * 
The year of anxious trembling past. 

What smiles the lovers' cheeks adorn ! 

44. 
Hark to the Pibroch's pleasing note ! 

Hark to the swelling nuptial song ! 
In joyous strains the voices float. 

And, still, the choral peal prolong. 

45- 
Again the clan, in festive crowd. 
Throng through the gate of Alva's 
hall; 
The sounds of mirth re-echo loud, 
And all their former joy recall. 

46. 

But who is he, whose darken'd brow 
Glooms in the midst of general mirth ? 

Before his eyes' far fiercer glow 
The blue flames curdle o'er the 
hearth. 

47- 
Dark is the robe which wraps his form. 

And tall his plume of gory red; 
His voice is like the rising storm. 

But light and trackless is his tread. 

48. 

'Tis noon of night, the pledge goes 

round, 

The bridegroom's health is deeply 

quaff'd; 

With shouts the vaulted roofs resound, 

And all combine to hail the draught. 



OSCAR OF ALVA 



47 



49- 
Sudden the stranger-chief arose, 

And all the clamorous crowd are 
hush'd, 
And Angus' cheek with wonder glows, 
And Mora's tender bosom blush'd, 

50. 
"Old man!" he cried, "this pledge is 
done, 
Thou saw'st 'twas truly drunk by 
me; 
It hail'd the nuptials of thy son : 

Now will I claim a pledge from 
thee. 

51- 
"While all around is mirth and joy. 

To bless thy Allan's happy lot, 
Say, had'st thou ne'er another boy? 

Say, why should Oscar be forgot?" 



"Alas!" the hapless Sire replied. 
The big tear starting as he spoke, 

"When Oscar left my hall, or died. 
This aged heart was almost broke. 

53- 
"Thrice has the earth revolv'd her 
course 
Since Oscar's form has bless'd my 
sight ; 
And Allan is my last resource, 

Since martial Oscar's death or flight." 

54. 
"'Tis well," replied the stranger stern, 

And fiercely fiash'd his rolling eye; 
"Thy Oscar's fate I fain w^ould learn; 

Perhaps the Hero did not die. 

55- 
"Perchance, if those, whom most he 
lov'd, 
Would call, thy Oscar might return; 
Perchance, the chief has only rov'd; 
For him thy Beltane, yet, may burn.^ 

^ Beltane Tree, in a Highland festival on the 
first of May, held near fires lighted for the 
occasion. 



56. 
"Fill high the bowl the table round. 
We will not claim the pledge by 
stealth; 
With wine let every cup be crown'd; 
Pledge me departed Oscar's health." 

57- 
"With all my soul," old Angus said, 

And fill'd his goblet to the brim: 
"Here's to my boy! alive or dead, 

I ne'er shall find a son like him." 

58. 
"Bravely, old man, this health has sped: 

But why does Allan trembling stand ? 
Come, drink remembrance of the dead, 

And raise thy cup with firmer hand." 

59- 
The crimson glow of Allan's face 

Was turn'd at once to gha.stly hue; 
The drops of death each other chase, 

Adown in agonising dew. 

60. 

Thrice did he raise the goblet high, 
And thrice his lips refused to taste; 

For thrice he caught the stranger's eye 
On his with deadly fury plac'd. 

61. 

"And is it thus a brother hails 

A brother's fond remembrance here? 

If thus Affection's strength prevails, 
What might we not expect from 
fear?" 

62. 

Rous'd by the sneer, he rais'd the bowl, 
"Would Oscar now could share our 
mirth!" 
Internal fear appall'd his soul; 

He said, and dash'd the cup to 
earth. 

63. 
" 'Tis he ! I hear my murderer's voice ! " 

Loud shrieks a darkly gleaming Form. 
" A murderer's voice ! " the roof replies, 

And deeply swells the bursting storm. 



48 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



64. 
The tapers wink, the chieftains shrink, 
The stranger's gone, — amidst the 
crew 
A Form was seen, in tartan green, 
And tall the shade terrific grew. 

65- 
His waist was bound with a broad belt 
round. 
His plume of sable stream'd on high; 
But his breast was bare, with the red 
wounds there. 
And fix'd was the glare of his glassy 
eye. 

66. 

And thrice he smil'd, with his eye so 
wild, 
On Angus bending low the knee ; 
And thrice he frown'd, on a Chief on the 
ground. 
Whom shivering crowds with horror 
see. 

67. 
The bolts loud roll from pole to pole, 
And thunders through the welkin 
ring, 
And the gleaming form, through the 
mist of the storm, 
Was borne on high, by the whirl- 
wind's wing. 

68. 

Cold was the feast, the revel ceas'd. 

Who lies upon the stony floor? 
Oblivion press'd old Angus' breast, 

At length his life-pulse throbs once 
more. 

69. 
"Away, away! let the leech essay 

To pour the light on Allan's eyes:" 
His sand is done, — his race is run; 

Oh I never more shall Allan rise ! 



70. 

But Oscar's breast is cold as clay, 
His locks are lifted by the gale; 

And Allan's barbed arrow lay 

With him in dark Glentanar's vale. 



71- 

And whence the dreadful stranger 
came. 

Or who, no mortal wight can tell; 
But no one doubts the form of flame, 

For Alva's sons knew Oscar well. 



72. 

Ambition nerv'd young Allan's hand, 
Exulting demons wing'd his dart; 

While Envy wav'd her burning brand. 
And pour'd her venom round his 
heart. 

73- 
Swift is the shaft from Allan's bow; 
Whose streaming life-blood stains his 
side? 
Dark Oscar's sable crest is low. 
The dart has drunk his vital tide. 

74- 
And Mora's eye could Allan move. 

She bade his wounded pride rebel: 
Alas! that eyes, which beam'd with 
love. 
Should urge the soul to deeds of 
Hell. 

75- 
Lo ! see'st thou not a lonely tomb. 
Which rises o'er a warrior dead? 
It glimmers through the twilight 
gloom ; 
Oh! that is Allan's nuptial bed. 

76. 

Far, distant far, the noble grave 

Which held his clan's great ashes 
stood ; 
And o'er his corse no banners wave. 
For they were stain'd with kindred 
blood. 

77. 
What minstrel grey, what hoary bard. 
Shall Allan's deeds on harp-strings 
raise ? 
The song is Glory's chief reward. 
But who can strike a murd'rer's 
praise ? 



TRANSLATIONS FROM ANACREON 



49 



78. 

Unstrung, untouch'd, the harp must 
stand, 
No minstrel dare the theme awake; 
Guilt would benumb his palsied hand, 
His harp in shuddering chords would 
break. 

79- 
No lyre of fame, no hallow'd verse, 

Shall sound his glories high in air: 
A dying father's bitter curse, 

A brother's death-groan echoes there. 
[First pubUshed, June, 1807.] 



TRANSLATION FROM 
ANACREON. 

8Aw XeycLv 'Arpei'Sas, k.t.X. 

ODE I. 

TO HIS LYRE. 

I WISH to tune my quivering lyre, 
To deeds of fame, and notes of fire; 
To echo, from its rising swell 
How heroes fought and nations fell, 
When Atreus' sons advanc'd to war. 
Or Tyrian Cadmus rov'd afar; 
But still to martial strains unknown, 
My lyre recurs to Love alone. 
Fir'd with the hope of future fame, 
I seek some nobler Hero's name; 10 
The dying chords are strung anew, 
To war, to war, my harp is due; 
With glowing strings, the Epic strain 
To Jove's great son I raise again; 
Alcides and his glorious deeds, 
Beneath whose arm the Hydra bleeds; 
All, all in vain; my wayward lyre 
Wakes silver notes of soft Desire. 
Adieu, ye Chiefs renown'd in arms ! 
Adieu the clang of War's alarms ! 20 
To other deeds my soul is strung. 
And sweeter notes shall now be sung; 
My harp shall all its powers reveal, 
To tell the tale my heart must feel; 
Love, Love alone, my lyre shall claim. 
In songs of bliss and sighs of flame. 
[First published, June, 1807.] 



FROM ANACREON. 

MeaOVVKTlOiS TTod' WpaiS, K.T.X. 

ODE ni. 

'TwAS now the hour when Night had 

driven 
Her car half round yon sable heaven; 
Bootes, only, seem'd to roll 
His Arctic charge around the Pole; 
While mortals, lost in gentle sleep, 
Forgot to smile, or ceas'd to weep: 
At this lone hour the Paphian boy, 
Descending from the realms of joy, 
Quick to my gate directs his course, 
And knocks with all his little force; 10 
My visions fled, alarm'd I rose, — 
"What stranger breaks my blest re- 
pose?" 
"Alas!" replies the wily child 
In faltering accents sweetly mild; 
"A hapless Infant here I roam. 
Far from my dear maternal home. 
Oh ! shield me from the wintry blast ! 
The nightly storm is pouring fast. 
No prowling robber lingers here; 
A wandering baby who can fear?" 20 
I heard his seeming artless tale, 
I heard his sighs upon the gale: 
My breast was never pity's foe, 
But felt for all the baby's woe. 
I drew the bar, and by the light 
Young Love, the Infant, met my 

sight; 
His bow across his shoulders flung. 
And thence his fatal quiver hung 
(Ah ! little did I think the dart 
Would rankle soon within my heart). 
With care I tend my weary guest, 31 
His little fingers chill my breast; 
His glossy curls, his azure wing. 
Which droop with nightly showers I 

wring; 
His shivering limbs the embers warm; 
And now reviving from the storm. 
Scarce had he felt his wonted glow. 
Than swift he seiz'd his slender bow: — 
"I fain would know, my gentle host," 
He cried, "if this its strength has 
lost ; 40 

I fear, relax'd with midnight dews, 
The strings their former aid refuse." 



so 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Vv^ith poison tipt, his arrow flies, 
Deep in my tortur'd heart it lies: 
Then loud the joyous urchin laugh'd: — 
"My bow can still impel the shaft: 
'Tis firmly fix'd, thy sighs reveal it; 
Say, courteous host, canst thou not feel 
it?" 

[First published, June, 1807.] 



THE EPISODE OF NISUS AND 
EURYALUS. 

A PARAPHRASE FROM THE ".^NEID," 
LIB. IX. 

Nisus, the guardian of the portal, stood, 
Eager to gild his arms with hostile 

blood; 
Well skill'd, in fight, the quivering lance 

to wield. 
Or pour his arrows thro' th' embattled 

field: 
From Ida torn, he left his sylvan cave, 
And sought a foreign home, a distant 

grave. 
To watch the movements of the Daunian 

host. 
With him Euryalus sustains the post; 
No lovelier mien adorn'd the ranks of 

Troy, 
And beardless bloom yet grac'd the 

gallant boy; 10 

Though few the seasons of his youthful 

life. 
As yet a novice in the martial strife, 
'Twas his, with beauty. Valour's gifts to 

share — 
A soul heroic, as his form was fair: 
These burn with one pure flame of 

generous love; 
In peace, in war, united still they move; 
Friendship and Glory form their joint 

reward ; 
And now combin'd they hold their 

nightly guard. 

"What God," exclaim'd the first, 

"instils this fire? 
Or, in itself a God, what great desire? 
My lab'ring soul, with anxious thought 

oppress'd, 21 

Abhors this station of inglorious rest; | 



The love of fame with this can ill accord, 
Be't mine to seek for glory with my 

sword. 
See'st thou yon camp, with torches 

twinkling dim, 
Where drunken slumbers wrap each 

lazy limb? 
Where confidence and ease the watch 

disdain, 
And drowsy Silence holds her sable 

reign ? 
Then hear my thought: — In deep and 

sullen grief 
Our troops and leaders mourn their 

absent chief: 30 

Now could the gifts and promised prize 

be thine, 
(The deed, the danger, and the fame be 

mine,) 
Were this decreed, beneath yon rising 

mound, 
Methinks, an easy path, perchance, were 

found; 
Which past, I speed my way to Pallas' 

walls. 
And lead JEnea,s from Evander's halls." 

With equal ardour fir'd, and warlike 

joy, _ 
His glowing friend address'd the Dardan 

boy: — 
"These deeds, my Nisus, shalt thou dare 

alone ? 
Must all the fame, the peril, be thine 

own ? 40 

Am I by thee despis'd, and left afar. 
As one unfit to share the toils of war? 
Not thus his son the great Opheltes 

taught : 
Not thus my sire in Argive combats 

fought; 
Not thus, when Ilion fell by heavenly 

hate, 
I track' d ^Eneas through the walks of 

fate: 
Thou know' St my deeds, my breast de- 
void of fear. 
And hostile life-drops dim my gory 

spear. 
Here is a soul with hope immortal 

burns. 
And life, ignoble life, for Glory 

spurns. 50 



THE EPISODE OF NISUS AND EURYALUS 



5^ 



Fame, fame, is cheaply earn'd by fleet- 
ing breath: 

The price of honour is the sleep of 
death." 

Then Nisus: — "Calm thy bosom's 

fond alarms: 
Thy heart beats fiercely to the din of 

arms. 
More dear thy worth, and valour than 

my own, 
I swear by him, who fills Olympus' 

throne ! 
So may I triumph, as I speak the truth. 
And clasp again the comrade of my 

youth ! 
But should I fall, — and he, who dares 

advance 
Through hostile legions, must abide by 

chance, — 60 

If some Rutulian arm, with adverse 

blow. 
Should lay the friend, who ever lov'd 

thee, low, 
Live thou — such beauties I would fain 

preserve — 
Thy budding years a lengthen'd term 

' deserve ; 
When humbled in the dust, let some 

one be, 
Whose gentle eyes will shed one tear for 

me, 
Whose manly arm may snatch me back 

by force. 
Or wealth redeem, from foes, my cap- 
tive corse; 
Or, if my destiny these last deny, 
If, in the spoiler's power, my ashes 

lie; 70 

Thy pious care may raise a simple tomb, 
To mark thy love, and signalise my 

doom. 
Why should thy doating wretched 

mother weep 
Her only boy, reclin'd in endless sleep? 
Who, for thy sake, the tempest's fury 

dar'd. 
Who, for thy sake, war's deadly peril 

shar'd; 
Who brav'd what woman never brav'd 

before. 
And left her native, for the Latian 

shore." 



"In vain you damp the ardour of my 

soul," 
Replied Euryalus; "it scorns controul! 
Hence, let us haste!" — their brother 

guards arose, 81 

Rous'd by their call, nor court again 

repose ; 
The pair, buoy'd up on Hope's exulting 

wing, 
Their stations leave, and speed to seek 

the king. 

Now, o'er the earth a solemn stillness 
ran. 

And lull'd alike the cares of brute and 
man; 

Save where the Dardan leaders, nightly, 
hold 

Alternate converse, and their plans un- 
fold. 

On one great point the council are 
agreed. 

An instant message to their prince 
decreed ; 90 

Each lean'd upon the lance he wxU could 
wield. 

And pois'd with easy arm his ancient 
shield; 

When Nisus and his friend their leave 
request. 

To offer something to their high 
behest. 

With anxious tremors, yet unaw'd by 
fear. 

The faithful pair before the throne ap- 
pear; 

lulus greets them; at his kind com- 
mand. 

The elder, first, address'd the hoary 
band. 

"With patience" (thus Hyrtacides 

began) 
"Attend, nor judge, from youth, our 

humble plan. 100 

Where yonder beacons half-expiring 

beam, 
Our slumbering foes of future conquest 

dream. 
Nor heed that we a secret path have 

trac'd, 
Between the ocean and the portal 

plac'd; 



52 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Beneath the covert of the blackening 
smoke, 

Whose shade, securely, our design will 
cloak ! 

If you, ye Chiefs, and Fortune will allow. 

We'll bend our course to yonder moun- 
tain's brow. 

Where Pallas' walls, at distance, meet 
the sight. 

Seen o'er the glade, when not obscur'd 
by night: no 

Then shall ^neas in his pride return. 

While hostile matrons raise their off- 
spring's urn; 

And Latian spoils, and purpled heaps 
of dead 

Shall mark the havoc of our Hero's 
tread ; 

Such is our purpose, not unknown the 
way. 

Where yonder torrent's devious waters 
stray ; 

Oft have we seen, when hunting by the 
stream, 

The distant spires above the valleys 
gleam." 

Mature in years, for sober wisdom 

fam'd, 
Mov'd by the speech, Alethes here 

exclaim'd, — 120 

" Ye parent gods ! who rule the fate of 

Troy, 
Still dwells the Dardan spirit in the boy ; 
When minds, like these, in striplings 

thus ye raise, 
Yours is the godUke act, be yours- the 

praise ; 
In gallant youth, my fainting hopes re- 
vive. 
And Ilion's wonted glories still survive." 
Then in his warm embrace the boys he 

press'd. 
And, quivering, strain'd them to his 

aged breast; 
With tears the burning cheek of each 

bedew'd, 
And, sobbing, thus his first discourse 

renew'd: — 130 

"What gift, my countrymen, what 

martial prize. 
Can we bestow, which you may not 

despise ? 



Our Deities the first best boon have 

given • — ■ 
Internal virtues are the gift of Heaven. 
What poor rewards can bless your deeds 

on earth, 
Doubtless await such young, exalted 

worth ; 
i^neas and Ascanius shall combine 
To yield applause far, far surpassing 

mine." 

lulus then: — "By all the powers 

above ! 
By those Penates, who my country 

love! 140 

By hoary Vesta's sacred Fane, I swear, 
My hopes are all in you, ye generous 

pair! 
Restore my father, to my grateful sight, 
And all my sorrows yield to one delight. 
Nisus ! two silver goblets are thine 

own, 
Sav'd from Arisba's stately domes 

o'erthrown ; 
My sire secured them on that fatal 

day. 
Nor left such bowls an Argive robber's 

prey. 
Two massy tripods, also, shall be thine, 
Two talents poUsh'd from the glittering 

mine; 150 

An ancient cup, which Tyrian Dido 

gave. 
While yet our vessels press'd the Punic 

wave : 
But when the hostile chiefs at length bow 

down. 
When great ^neas wears Hesperia's 

crown, 
The casque, the buckler, and the fiery 

steed 
Which Turnus guides with more than 

mortal speed, 
Are thine; no envious lots shall then be 

cast, 
I pledge my word, irrevocably past: 
Nay more, twelve slaves, and twice six 

captive dames. 
To soothe thy softer hours with amorous 

flames, 160 

And all the realms, which now the 

Latins sway. 
The labours of to-night shall well repay. 



THE EPISODE OF NISUS AND EURYALUS 



53 



But thou, my generous youth, whose ten- 
der years 

Are near my own, whose worth my heart 
reveres, 

Henceforth affection, sweetly thus be- 
gun, 

Shall join our bosoms and our souls in 
one; 

Without thy aid, no glory shall be mine. 

Without thy dear advice, no great de- 
sign; 

Alike, through life, esteem'd, thou god- 
like boy, 

In war my bulwark, and in peace my 
joy." 170 

To him Euryalus: — "No day shall 
shame 

The rising glories which from this I 
claim. 

Fortune may favour, or the skies may 
frown. 

But valour, spite of fate, obtains renown. 

Yet, ere from hence our eager steps 
depart. 

One boon I beg, the nearest to my heart; 

My mother, sprung from Priam's royal 
line, 

Like thine ennobled, hardly less divine. 

Nor Troy nor king Acestes' realms 
restrain 

Her feeble age from dangers of the 
main; 180 

Alone she came, all selfish fears above, 

A bright example of maternal love. 

Unknown, the secret enterprise I brave, 

Lest grief should bend my parent to the 
grave ; 

From this alone no fond adieus I seek. 

No fainting mother's lips have press'd 
my cheek; 

By gloomy Night and thy right hand I 
vow, 

Her parting tears would shake my pur- 
pose now: 

Do thou, my prince, her failing age sus- 
tain, 

In thee her much-lov'd child may live 
again; 190 

Her dying hours with pious conduct 
bless. 

Assist her wants, relieve her fond dis- 
tress: 



So dear a hope must all my soul enflame, 
To rise in glory, or to fall in fame." 
Struck with a filial care so deeply felt, 
In tears at once the Trojan warriors 

melt; 
Faster than all, lulus' eyes o'erflow! 
Such love was his, and such had been 

his woe. 
''AH thou hast ask'd, receive," the Prince 

replied; 
*'Nor this alone, but many a gift beside. 
To,cheer thy mother's years shall be my 

aim, 201 

Creusa's ^ style but wanting to the dame; 
Fortune an adverse wayward course may 

run. 
But bless' d thy mother in so dear a son. 
Now, by my life ! — my Sire's most 

sacred oath — 
To thee I pledge my full, my firmest 

troth. 
All the rewards which once to thee were 

vow'd. 
If thou should'st fall, on her shall be 

bestow'd." 
Thus spoke the weeping Prince, then 

forth to view 
A gleaming falchion from the sheath he 

drew; 210 

Lycaon's utmost skill had grac'd the 

steel. 
For friends to envy and for foes to 

feel; 
A tawny hide, the Moorish lion's spoil. 
Slain 'midst the forest in the hunter's 

toil, 
Mnestheus to guard the elder youth 

bestows, 
And old Alethes' casque defends his 

brows ; 
Arm'd, thence they go, while all th' 

assembl'd train. 
To aid their cause, implore the gods in 

vain. 
More than a boy, in wisdom and in 

grace, 
lulus holds amidst the chiefs his place: 
His prayer he sends; but what can 

prayers avail, 221 

Lost in the murmurs of the sighing 

gale? 

1 The mother of lulus, lost on the night when 
Troy was taken. 



54 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



The trench is pass'd, and favour'd by 

the night, 
Through sleeping foes, they wheel their 

wary iiight. 
When shall the sleep of many a foe be 

o'er? 
Alas! some slumber, who shall wake 

no more ! 
Chariots and bridles, mix'd with arms, 

are seen. 
And flowing flasks, and scatter'd troops 

between : 
Bacchus and Mars, to rule the camp, 

combine; 
A mingled Chaos this of war and 

wine. 
"Now," cries the first, for deeds of 

blood prepare, 231 

With me the conquest and the labour 

share : 
Here hes our path; lest any hand 

arise. 
Watch thou, while many a dreaming 

chieftain dies; 
I'll carve our passage, through the heed- 
less foe, 
And clear thy road, with many a deadly 

blow." 
His whispering accents then the youth 

repress'd, 
And pierced proud Rhamnes through 

his panting breast: 
Stretch'd at his ease, th' incautious king 

repos'd; 
Debauch, and not fatigue, his eyes had 

clos'd; 240 

To Turnus dear, a prophet and a prince, 
His omens more than augur's skill 

evince; 
But he, who thus foretold the fate 

of all. 
Could not avert his own untimely fall. 
Next Remus' armour-bearer, hapless, 

fell. 
And three unhappy slaves the carnage 

swell; 
The charioteer along his courser's sides 
Expires, the steel his sever'd neck di- 
vides; 
And, last, his Lord is number'd with the 

dead: 
Bounding convulsive, flies the gasping 

head; 250 



From the swol'n veins the blackening 

torrents pour; 
Stain'd is the couch and earth with 

clotting gore. 
Young Lamyrus and Lamus next ex- 
pire. 
And gay Serranus, fill'd with youthful 

fire; 
Half the long night in childish games 

was pass'd; 
LuU'd by the potent grape, he slept at 

last: 
Ah ! happier far, had he the morn 

survey 'd. 
And, till Aurora's dawn, his skill dis- 

play'd. 

In slaughter'd folds, the keepers lost 

in sleep. 
His hungry fangs a lion thus may 

steep; 260 

'Mid the sad flock, at dead of night he 

prowls, 
With murder glutted, and in carnage 

rolls: 
Insatiate still, through teeming herds he 

roams ; 
In seas of gore the lordly tyrant foams. 

Nor less the other's deadly vengeance 
came. 

But falls on feeble crowds without a 
name; 

His wound unconscious Fadus scarce 
can feel, 

Yet wakeful Rhaesus sees the threaten- 
ing steel; 

His coward breast behind a jar he 
hides. 

And, vainly, in the weak defence con- 
fides; 270 

Full in his heart, the falchion search'd 
his veins, 

The reeking weapon bears alternate 
stains; 

Through wine and blood, commingling 
as they flow. 

One feeble spirit seeks the shades 
below. 

Now where Messapus dwelt they bend 
their way, 

Whose fires emit a faint and trembling 
ray; 



THE EPISODE OF NISUS AND EURYALUS 



55 



There, unconfin'd, laehold each grazing 

steed, 
Unwatch'd, unheeded, on the herbage 

feed: 
Brave Nisus here arrests his comrade's 

arm, 
Too flush'd with carnage, and with con- 
quest warm: 280 
"Hence let us haste, the dangerous path 

is pass'd; 

foes enoug 

their last: 
Soon will the Day those Eastern clouds 

adorn ; 
Now let us speed, nor tempt the rising 

morn." 

What silver arms, with various art 

emboss'd, 
What bowls and mantles, in confusion 

toss'd. 
They leave regardless ! yet one glittering 

prize 
Attracts the younger Hero's wandering 

eyes ; 
The gilded harness Rhamnes' coursers 

felt, 
The gems which stud the monarch's 

golden belt: 290 

This from the pallid corse was quickly 

torn, 
Once by a line of former chieftains worn. 
Th' exulting boy the studded girdle 

wears, 
Messapus' helm his head, in triumph, 

bears ; 
Then from the tents their cautious steps 

they bend, 
To seek the vale, where safer paths 

extend. 

Just at this hour, a band of Latian 

horse 
To Turnus' camp pursue their destin'd 

course : 
While the slow foot their tardy march 

delay, 
The knights, impatient, spur along the 

way: 300 

Three hundred mail-clad men, by 

Volscens led, 
To Turnus with their master's promise 

sped: 



Now they approach the trench, and 

view the walls. 
When, on the left, a light reflection falls; 
The plunder'd helmet, through the 

waning night, 
Sheds forth a silver radiance, glancing 

bright; 
Volscens, with question loud, the pair 

alarms: — 
"Stand, Stragglers! stand! why early 

thus in arms? 
From whence? to whom?" — He 

meets with no reply; 
Trusting the covert of the night, they 

fly: 310 

The thicket's depth, with hurried pace, 

they tread, 
While round the wood the hostile 

squadron spread. 

With brakes entangled, scarce a path 

between. 
Dreary and dark appears the sylvan 

scene : 
Euryalus his heavy spoils impede. 
The boughs and winding turns his steps 

mislead; 
But Nisus scours along the forest's 

maze. 
To where Latinus' steeds in safety 

graze. 
Then backward o'er the plain his eyes 

■ extend, 
On every side they seek his absent 

friend. 320 

"O God! my boy," he cries, "of me 

bereft, 
In what impending perils art thou left ! " 
Listening he runs — above the waving 

trees. 
Tumultuous voices swell the passing 

breeze ; 
The war-cry rises, thundering hoofs 

around 
Wake the dark echoes of the trembling 

ground. 
Again he turns — of footsteps hears the 

noise — 
The sound elates — the sight his hope 

destroys: 
The hapless boy a ruffian train surround. 
While lengthening shades his weary 

way confound; 330 



56 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Him, with loud shouts, the furious 

Ivnights pursue. 
Struggling in vain, a captive to the crew. 
What can his friend 'gainst thronging 

numbers dare? 
Ah ! must he rush, his comrade's fate 

to share? 
What force, what aid, what stratagem 

essay, 
Back to redeem the Latian spoiler's 

prey? 
His life a votive ransom nobly give. 
Or die with him, for whom he wish'd 

to live? 
Poising with strength his lifted lance on 

high, 
On Luna's orb he cast his frenzied 

eye:— . 340 

"Goddess serene, transcending every 

star! 
Queen of the sky, whose beams are seen 

afar ! 
By night Heaven owns thy sway, by day 

the grove. 
When, as chaste Dian, here thou deign'st 

to rove; 
If e'er myself, or Sire, have sought to 

grace 
Thine altars, with the produce of the 

chase, 
Speed, speed my dart to pierce yon 

vaunting crowd. 
To free my friend, and scatter far the 

proud." 
Thus having said, the hissing dart he 

flung; 
Through parted shades the hurtling 

weapon sung; 350 

The thirsty point in Sulmo's entrails lay, 
Transfix'd his heart, and stretch'd him 

on the clay: 
He sobs, he dies, — the troop in wild 

amaze, 
Unconscious whence the death, with 

horror gaze; 
While pale they stare, thro' Tagus' 

temples riven, 
A second shaft, with equal force is 

driven : 
Fierce Volscens rolls around his lower- 
ing eyes; 
Veil'd by the night, secure the Trojan 

lies. 



Burning with wrath, he view'd his 

soldiers fall. 
"Thou youth accurst, thy life shall pay 

for all !" 360 

Quick from the sheath his flaming glaive 

he drew. 
And, raging, on the boy defenceless flew, 
Nisus, no more the blackening shade 

conceals, 
Forth, forth he starts, and all his love 

reveals; 
Aghast, confus'd, his fears to madness 

rise. 
And pour these accents, shrieking as he 

flies; 
"Me, me, — your vengeance hurl on 

me alone; 
Here sheathe the steel, my blood is all 

your own; 
Ye starry Spheres! thou conscious 

Heaven ! attest ! 
He could not — durst not — lo ! the 

guile confest ! 370 

All, all was mine, — his early fate sus- 
pend; 
He only lov'd, too well, his hapless friend : 
Spare, spare, ye Chiefs ! from him your 

rage remove; 
His fault was friendship, all his crime 

was love." 
He pray'd in vain; the dark assassin's 

sword 
Pierc'd the fair side, the snowy bosom 

gor'd; 
Lowly to earth incUnes his plume-clad 

crest. 
And sanguine torrents mantle o'er his 

breast: 
As some young rose whose blossom 

scents the air. 
Languid in death, expires beneath the 

share; 380 

Or crimson poppy, sinking with the 

shower. 
Declining gently, falls a fading flower; 
Thus, sweetly drooping, bends his 

lovely head, 
And lingering Beauty hovers round the 

dead. 

But fiery Nisus stems the battle's tide, 
Revenge his leader, and Despair his 
guide; 



TRANSLATION FROM THE ''MEDEA 



57 



Volscens he seeks amidst the gathering 

host, 
Volscens must soon appease his com- 
rade's ghost; 
Steel, flashing, pours on steel, foe crowds 

on foe; 
Rage nerves his arm. Fate gleams in 

every blow; 390 

In vain beneath unnumber'd wounds he 

bleeds. 
Nor wounds, nor death, distracted Nisus 

heeds; 
In viewless circles wheel'd his falchion 

flies. 
Nor quits the hero's grasp till Volscens 

dies; 
Deep in his throat its end the weapon 

found. 
The tyrant's soul fled groaning through 

the wound. 
Thus Nisus all his fond affection 

prov'd — 
Dying, revenged the fate of him he lov'd; 
Then on his bosom sought his wonted 

place. 
And death was heavenly, in his friend's 

embrace ! 400 

Celestial pair ! if aught my verse can 

claim. 
Wafted on Time's broad pinion, yours 

is fame ! 
Ages on ages shall your fate admire, 
No future day shall see your names 

expire, 
While stands the Capitol, immortal 

dome! 
And vanquish'd millions hail their 

Empress, Rome ! 

[First published, June, 1807.] 



TRANSLATION FROM THE 
"MEDEA" OF EURIPIDES 

[11. 627-660]. 

Epwres i^Trep jxkv dyav, k.t.\. 



When fierce conflicting passions urge 
The breast where love is wont to glow, 

What mind can stem the stormy surge 
Which rolls the tide of human woe ? 



The hope of praise, the dread of shame. 
Can rouse the tortur'd breast no more; 

The wild desire, the guilty flame. 
Absorbs each wish it felt before. 



But if Affection gently thrills 

The soul, by purer dreams possest, 
The pleasing balm of mortal ills 

In love can sooth the aching breast: 
If thus thou comest in disguise. 

Fair Venus ! from thy native heaven, 
What heart, unfeeling, would despise 

The sweetest boon the Gods have 
given ? 



But, never from thy golden bow. 

May I beneath the shaft expire ! 
Whose creeping venom, sure and slow, 

Awakes an all-consuming fire: 
Ye racking doubts ! ye jealous fears ! 

With others wage internal war; 
Repentance ! source of future tears, 

From me be ever distant far ! 



May no distracting thoughts destroy 

The holy calm of sacred love ! 
May all the hours be winged with joy, 

Which hover faithful hearts above ! 
Fair Venus ! on thy myrtle shrine 

May I with some fond lover sigh ! 
Whose heart may mingle pure with mine, 

With me to live, with me to die ! 



My native soil ! belov'd before, 

Now dearer, as my peaceful home, 
Ne'er may I quit thy rocky shore, 

A hapless banish'd wretch to roam! 
This very day, this very hour, 

May I resign this fleeting breath ! 
Nor quit my silent humble bower — 

A doom, to me, far worse than death. 

6. 

Have I not heard the exile's sigh. 

And seen the exile's silent tear, 
Through distant climes condemn'd to 

fly, . 

A pensive, weary wanderer here ? 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Ah ! hapless dame ! ^ no sire bewails, 
No friend thy wretched fate deplores, 

No kindred voice with rapture hails 
Thy steps within a stranger's doors. 



Perish the fiend ! whose iron heart 

To fair Affection's truth unknown, 
Bids her he fondly lov'd depart, 

Unpitied, helpless, and alone; 
Who ne'er unlocks with silver key,^ 

The milder treasures of his soul; 
May such a friend be far from me, 

And Ocean's storms between us roll ! 
[First published, June, 1807.] 

LACHIN Y GAIR.3 



Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of 
roses ! 
In you let the minions of luxury rove ; 
Restore me the rocks, where the snow- 
flake reposes, 
Though still they are sacred to free- 
dom and love: 
Yet, Caledonia, belov'd are thy moun- 
tains, 
Round their white summits though 
elements war; 
Though cataracts foam 'stead of smooth- 
flowing fountains, 
I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na 
Garr. 

1 Medea, who accompanied Jason to Corinth, 
was deserted by him for the daughter of Creon, 
king of that city. The chorus, from which this 
is taken, here addresses Medea; though a con- 
siderable liberty is taken with the original, by 
expanding the idea, as also in some other parts 
of the translation. 

^ The original is KaOapav kvoi^avra K\fjSa 
(f>pei'coi', literally "disclosing the bright key of 
the mind." 

3 Lachin y Gair, or, as it is pronounced in the 
Erse, Loch na Garr, towers proudly pre-eminent 
in the Northern Highlands, near Invercauld. 
Oye of our modern tourists mentions it as the 
highest mountain, perhaps, in Great Britain. 
Be this as it may, it is certainly one of the most 
sublime and picturesque amongst our "Cale- 
donian Alps." Its appearance is of a dusky hue, 
but the summit is the seat of eternal snows. 
Near Lachin y Gair I spent some of the early 
part of my life, the recollection of which has 
given birth to the following stanzas. [Prefixed 
to the poem in Hours of Idleness and Poems 
Original and Translated.} 



Ah ! there my young footsteps in infancy 
wander'd: 
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was 
the plaid; ^ 
On chieftains, long perish'd, my memory 
ponder'd. 
As daily I strode through the pine- 
cover' d glade; 
I sought not my home, till the day's 
dying glory 
Gave place to the rays of the bright 
polar star; 
For fancy was cheer'd by traditional story, 
Disclos'd by the natives of dark Loch 
na Garr. 



"Shades of the dead ! have I not heard 
your voices 
Rise on the night-roUing breath of the 
gale?" 
Surely, the soul of the hero rejoices. 
And rides on the wind, o'er his own 
Highland vale ! 
Round Loch na Garr, while the stormy 
mist gathers. 
Winter presides in his cold icy car: 
Clouds, there, encircle the forms of my 
Fathers; 
They dwell in the tempests of dark 
Loch na Garr. 



"Ill starr'd,^ though brave, did no 
visions foreboding 
Tell you that fate had forsaken your 
cause?" 
Ah ! were you destin'd to die at Cullo- 
den,^ 
Victory crown' d not your fall with 
applause : 

^ This word is erroneously pronounced plad; 
the proper pronunciation (according to the 
Scotch) is shown by the orthography. 

- 1 allude here to my maternal ancestors, "the 
Gordons," many of whom fought for the unfor- 
tunate Prince Charles, better known by the 
name of the Pretender. This branch was 
nearly allied by blood, as well as attachment, 
to the Stuarts. George, the second Earl of 
Huntly, married the Princess Annabella Stuart, 
daughter of James I. of Scotland. By her he 
left four sons: the third, Sir William Gordon, I 
have the honour to claim as one of my progenitors. 

2 Whether any perished in the Battle of Cullo- 



LACHIN Y GAIR — TO ROMANCE 



59 



Still were you happy, in Death's earthy 
slumber, 
You rest with your clan, in the caves 
of Braemar; ^ 
The Pibroch resounds, to the piper's 
loud number. 
Your deeds, on the echoes of dark 
Loch na Garr. 



Years have roll'd on, Loch na Garr, 
since I left you, 
pSj Years must elapse, ere I tread you 
' again : 

•'STature of verdure and flowers has 
bereft you. 
Yet still are you dearer than Albion's 
plain: 
England! thy beauties are tame and 
domestic. 
To one who has rov'd on the moun- 
tains afar: 
Oh! for the crags that are wild and 
majestic. 
The steep, frowning glories of dark 
Loch na Garr.^ 

[First pubhshed, June, 1807.] 



TO ROMANCE. 



Parent of golden dreams, Romance ! 

Auspicious Queen of childish joys, 
Who lead'st along, in airy dance, 

Thy votive train of girls and boys; 
At length, in spells no longer bound, 

I break the fetters of my youth; 
No more I tread thy mystic round. 

But leave thy realms for those of 
Truth. 



den, I am not certain; but as many fell in the 
insurrection, I have used the name of the princi- 
pal action, "pars pro toto." 

1 A tract of the Highlands so called. There 
is also a Castle of Braemar. 

- [The love of mountains to the last made 
Byron 

"Hail in each crag a friend's familiar 

face," . . , 
And Loch-na-gar with Ida looked o'er 
Troy." 
— The Island (1823); Canto II. st. xii.] 



And yet 'tis hard to quit the dreams 

Which haunt the unsuspicious soul, 
Where every nymph a goddess seems. 

Whose eyes through rays immortal roll ; 
While Fancy holds her boundless reign, 

And all assume a varied hue; 
When Virgins seem no longer vain, 

And even Woman's smiles are true. 



And must we own thee, but a name. 

And from thy hall of clouds descend ? 
Nor find a Sylph in every dame, 

A Pylades ^ in every friend ? 
But leave, at once, thy realms of air 

To mingling bands of fairy elves; 
Confess that Woman's false as fair. 

And friends have feeling for — them- 
selves ? 



With shame, I own, I've felt thy sway; 

Repentant, now thy reign is o'er; 
No more thy precepts I obey, 

No more on fancied pinions soar; 
Fond fool ! to love a sparkling eye, 

And think that eye to truth was dear; 
To trust a passing wanton's sigh. 

And melt beneath a wanton's tear I 



Romance ! disgusted with deceit, 

Far from thy motley court I fly, 
Where Affectation holds her seat, 

And sickly Sensibility; 
Whose silly tears can never flow 

For any pangs excepting thine; 
Who turns aside from real woe. 

To steep in dew thy gaudy shrine. 

6. 

Now join with sable Sympathy, 

With cypress crown'd, array'd in 
weeds. 

Who heaves with thee her simple sigh. 
Whose breast for every bosom bleeds; 

1 It is hardly necessary to add, that Pylades 
was the companion of Orestes, and a partner in 
one of those friendships which, with those of 
Achilles and Patroclus, Nisus and Euryalus, 
Damon and Pythias, have been- handed down to 
posterity as remarkable instances of attachments, 



6o 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



And call thy sylvan female choir, 
To mourn a Swain for ever gone, 

Who once could glow with equal fire. 
But bends not now before thy throne. 

7- 
Ye genial Nymphs, whose ready tears 

On all occasions swiftly flow; 
Whose bosoms heave with fancied fears, 

With fancied flames and phrenzy glow ; 
Say, will you mourn my absent name. 

Apostate from your gentle train? 
An infant Bard, at least, may claim 

From you a sympathetic strain. 



Adieu, fond race ! a long adieu ! 

The hour of fate is hovering nigh; 
E'en now the gulf appears in view, 

Where unlamented you must lie : 
Oblivion's blackening lake is seen, 

Convuls'd by gales you cannot 
weather. 
Where you, and eke your gentle queen, 

Alas ! must perish altogether. 

[First published, June, 1807.] 



THE DEATH OF CALMAR AND 
ORLA. 

AN IMITATION OF MACPHERSON'S 
"OSSIAN." ^ 

Dear are the days of youth ! Age 
dwells on their remembrance through 
the mist of time. In the twilight he 
recalls the sunny hours of morn. He 
lifts his spear with trembling hand. 
"Not thus feebly did I raise the steel 
before my fathers!" Past is the race 
of heroes! But their fame rises on the 
harp; their souls ride on the wings of 
the wind; they hear the sound through 
the sighs of the. storm, and rejoice in 
their hall of clouds. Such, is Calmar. 

which in all probability never existed beyond the 
irnagination of the poet, or the page of an 
historian, or modern novelist. 

1 It may be necessary to observe that the 
story, though considerably varied in the catas- 
trophy, is taken from "Nisus and Euryalus," 
of which episode a translation is already given 
in the present volume. 



The grey stone marks his narrow 
house. He looks down from eddying 
tempests: he rolls his form in the whirl- 
wind, and hovers on the blast of the 
mountain. 

In Morven dwelt the Chief; a beam 
of war to Fingal, His steps in the field 
were marked in blood. LochUn's sons 
had fled before his angry spear; but mild 
was the eye of Calmar; soft was the flow 
of his yellow locks: they streamed like 
the meteor of the night. No maid was 
the sigh of his soul: his thoughts were 
given to friendship, — to dark-haired 
Orla, destroyer of heroes ! Equal were 
their swords in battle; but fierce was 
the pride of Orla: — gentle alone to 
Calmar. Together they dwelt in the 
cave of Oithona. 

From Lochlin, Swaran bounded o'er 
the blue waves. Erin's sons fell be- 
neath his might. Fingal roused his 
chiefs to combat. Their ships cover 
the ocean ! Their hosts throng on the 
green hills. They come to the aid of 
Erin. 

Night rose in clouds. Darkness veils 
the armies. But the blazing oaks gleam 
through the valley. The sons of Loch- 
lin slept: their dreams were of blood. 
They lift the spear in thought, and Fin- 
gal flies. Not so the Host of Morven. 
To watch was the post of Orla. Calmar 
stood by his side. Their spears were in 
their hands. Fingal called his chiefs: 
they stood around. The king was in the 
midst. Grey were his locks, but strong 
was the arm of the king. Age withered 
not his powers. "Sons of Morven," 
said the hero, "to-morrow we meet the 
foe. But where is Cuthullin, the shield 
of Erin ? He rests in the halls of Tura; 
he knows not of our coming. Who will 
speed through Lochlin, to the hero, and 
call the Chief to arms ? The path is by 
the swords of foes; but many are my 
heroes. They are thunderbolts of war. 
Speak, ye chiefs ! Who will arise?" 

"Son of Trenmor ! mine be the deed," 
said dark-haired Orla, "and mine 
alone. What is death to me? I love 
the sleep of the mighty, but little is the 
danger. The sons of Lochlin dream. 



THE DEATH OF CALMAR AND ORLA 



6i 



I will seek car-borne Cuthullin. If I 
fall, raise the song of bards; and lay me 
by the stream of Lubar." — "And shalt 
thou fall alone?" said fair-haired 
Calmar. "Wilt thou leave thy friend 
afar? Chief of Oithona ! not feeble is 
my arm in fight. Could I see thee die, 
and not lift the spear ? No, Orla ! ours 
has been the chase of the roebuck, and 
the feast of shells; ours be the path of 
danger: ours has been the cave of 
Oithona; ours be the narrow dwelling 
on the banks of Lubar." — "Calmar," 
said the Chief of Oithona, "why should 
thy yellow locks be darkened in the dust 
of Erin ? Let me fall alone. My father 
dwells in his hall of air: he will rejoice 
in his boy; but the blue-eyed Mora 
spreads the feast for her Son in Morven. 
She listens to the steps of the hunter on 
the heath, and thinks it is the tread of 
Calmar. Let her not say, 'Calmar has 
fallen by the steel of Lochlin: he died 
with gloomy Orla, the chief of the dark 
brow.' Why should tears dim the 
azure eye of Mora? Why should her 
voice curse Orla, the destroyer of Cal- 
mar ? Live, Calmar ! Live to raise my 
stone of moss; live to revenge me in the 
blood of LochUn. Join the song of 
bards above my grave. Sweet will be 
the song of Death to Orla, from the 
voice of Calmar. My ghost shall smile 
on the notes of Praise." — "Orla/' said 
the son of Mora, "could I raise the song 
of Death to my friend? Could I give 
his fame to the winds? No, my heart 
would speak in sighs: faint and broken 
are the sounds of sorrow. Orla! our 
souls shall hear the song together. One 
cloud shall be ours on high: the bards 
will mingle the names of Orla and 
Calmar." 

They quit the circle of the Chiefs. 
Their steps are to the Host of Lochlin. 
The dying blaze of oak dim-twinkles. 
through the night. The northern star 
points the path to Tura. Swaran, the 
Eling, rests on his lonely hill. Here the 
troops are mixed: they frown in sleep; 
their shields beneath their heads. 
Their swords gleam, at distance in heaps. 
The fires are faint; their embers fail in 



smoke. All is hushed; but the gale 
sighs on the rocks above. Lightly 
wheel the Heroes through the slumber- 
ing band. Half the journey is past, 
when Mathon, resting on his shield, 
meets the eye of Orla. It rolls in flame, 
and glistens through the shade. His 
spear is raised on high. "Why dost 
thou bend thy brow. Chief of Oithona?" 
said fair-haired Calmar: "we are in the 
midst of foes. Is this a time for delay ? " 
— "It is a time for vengeance," said 
Orla of the gloomy brow. "Mathon 
of Lochlin sleeps: seest thou his spear? 
Its point is dim with the gore of my 
father. The blood of Mathon shall 
reek on mine: but shall I slay him 
sleeping. Son of Mora? No! he shall 
feel his wound: my fame shall not soar 
on the blood of slumber. Rise, Mathon, 
rise! The Son of Conna calls; thy 
life is his; rise to combat." Mathon 
starts from sleep: but did he rise alone? 
No: the gathering Chiefs bound on the 
plain. " Fly I Calmar, fly ! " said dark- 
haired Orla. "Mathon is mine. I 
shall die in joy: but LochHn crowds 
around. Fly through the shade of 
night." Orla turns. The helm of 
Mathon is cleft; his shield falls from 
his arm : he shudders in his blood. He 
rolls by the side of the blazing oak. 
Strumon sees him fall: his wrath rises: 
his weapon glitters on the head of Orla: 
but a spear pierced his eye. His brain 
gushes through the wound, and foams 
on the spear of Calmar. As roll the 
waves of the Ocean on two mighty 
barks of the North, so pour the men of 
Lochlin on the Chiefs. As, breaking 
the surge in foam, proudly steer the 
barks of the North, so rise the Chiefs of 
Morven on the scattered crests of Loch- 
lin. The din of arms came to the ear 
of Fingal. He strikes his shield; his 
sons throng around; the people pour 
along the heath. Ryno bounds in joy. 
Ossian stalks in his arms. Oscar shakes 
the spear. The eagle wing of Fillan 
floats on the wind. Dreadful is the 
clang of death ! many are the Widows 
of Lochlin. Morven prevails in its 
strength. 



62 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Morn glimmers on the hills: no living 
foe is seen; but the sleepers are many; 
grim they lie on Erin. The breeze of 
Ocean lifts their locks; yet they do not 
awake. The hawks scream above their 
prey. 

Whose yellow locks wave o'er the 
breast of a chief? Bright as the gold 
of the stranger, they mingle with the 
dark hair of his friend. 'Tis Calmar: 
he lies on the bosom of Orla. Theirs 
is one stream of blood. Fierce is the 
look of the gloomy Orla. He breathes 
not; but his eye is still a fiame. It 
glares in death unclosed. His hand is 
grasped in Calmar's; but Calmar lives! 
he lives, though low. "Rise," said the 
king, "rise, son of Mora: 'tis mine to 
heal the wounds of Heroes. Calmar 
may yet bound on the hills of Morven." 

"Never more shall Calmar chase the 
deer of Morven with Orla," said the 
Hero. "What were the chase to me 
alone? Who would share the spoils of 
battle with Calmar? Orla is at rest! 
Rough was thy soul, Orla ! yet soft to 
me as the dew of morn. It glared on 
others in lightning: to me a silver beam 
of night. Bear my sword to blue-eyed 
Mora; let it hang in my empty hall. 
It is not pure from blood: but it could 
not save Orla. Lay me with my friend: 
raise the song when I am dark ! " 

They are laid by the stream of Lubar. 
Four grey stones mark the dwelling of 
Orla and Calmar. When Swaran was 
bound, our sails rose on the blue waves. 
The winds gave our barks to Morven: — 
the bards raised the song. 

What Form rises on the roar of 
clouds? Whose dark Ghost gleams on 
the red streams of tempests? His 
voice rolls on the thunder. 'Tis Orla, 
the brown Chief of Oithona. He was 
unmatched in war. Peace to thy soul, 
Orla ! thy fame will not perish. Nor 
thine, Calmar ! Lovely wast thou, son 
of blue-eyed Mora; but not harmless 
was thy sword. It hangs in thy c^ve. 
The Ghosts of Lochlin shriek around 
its steel. Hear thy praise, Calmar ! It 
dwells on the voice of the mighty. Thy 
name shakes on the echoes of Morven. 



Then raise thy fair locks, son of Mora. 
Spread them on the arch of the rainbow, 
and smile through the tears of the 
storm. ^ 

[First published, January, 1807.] 



TO EDWARD NOEL LONG, Esq.^ 

"Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico." — 
Horace. 

Dear Long, in this sequester'd scene, 

While all. around in slumber lie, 
The joyous days, which ours have been, 

Come rolling fresh on Fancy's eye; 
Thus, if, amidst the gathering storm, 
While clouds the darken'd noon de- 
form 
Yon heaven assumes a varied glow, 
I hail the sky's celestial bow. 
Which spreads the sign of future peace, 
And bids the war of tempests cease. 10 
Ah ! though the present brings but 

pain, 
I think those days may come again; 
Or if, in melancholy mood. 
Some lurking envious fear intrude. 
To check my bosom's fondest thought. 

And interrupt the golden dream, 
I crush the fiend with malice fraught, 

And, still, indulge my wonted theme. 

1 1 fear Laing's late edition has completely 
overthrown every hope that Macpherson's 
Ossian might prove the translation of a series 
of poems complete in themselves; but, while the 
imposture is discovered, the merit of the work 
remains undisputed, though not without faults 
— particularly, in some parts, turgid and bom- 
bastic diction. — The present humble imitation 
will be pardoned by the admirers of the original 
as an attempt, however inferior, which evinces 
an attachment to their favourite author. [Mal- 
colm Laing (1762-1818) published, in 1802, 
a History of Scotland, etc., with a dissertation 
"on the supposed authenticity of Ossian's 
Poems," and, in 1805, a work entitled The 
Poems of Ossian, etc., containing the Poetical 
Works of James Macpherson, Esq., in Prose and 
.Rhyme, with Notes afid I lliis rations.] 

2 [The MS. of these verses is at Newstead. 
Long was with Byron at Harrow, and was the 
only one of his intimate friends who went up at 
the same time as he did to Cambridge, where 
both were noted for feats of swimming and 
diving. Long entered the Guards, and served 
in the expedition to Copenhagen. He was 
drowned early in 1809, when on his way to join 
the army in the Peninsula.] 



TO EDWARD NOEL LONG, ESQ. 



63 



Although we ne'er again can trace, 

In Granta's vale, the pedant's lore, 20 
Nor through the groves of Ida chase 
Our raptured visions, as before; 
Though Youth has flown on rosy pinion, 
And Manhood claims his stern domin- 
ion. 
Age will not every hope destroy. 
But yield some hours of sober joy. 

Yes, I will hope that Time's broad 
wing 
Will shed around some dews of spring: 
But, if his scythe must sweep the flowers 
Which bloom among the fairy bowers, 30 
Where smiling Youth delights to dwell, 
And hearts with early rapture swell; 
If frowning Age, with cold controul, 
Confines the current of the soul, 
Congeals the tear of Pity's eye. 
Or checks the sympathetic sigh. 
Or hears, unmov'd. Misfortune's groan. 
And bids me feel for self alone; 
Oh ! may my bosom never learn 

To soothe its wonted heedless flow; 40 
Still, still, despise the censor stern. 

But ne'er forget another's v»-oe. 
Yes, as you knew me in the days. 
O'er which Remembrance yet delays, 
Still may I rove untutor'd, wild. 
And, even in age, at heart a child. 

Though, now, on airy visions borne. 

To you my soul is still the same, — 
Oft has it been my fate to mourn. 

And all my former joys are tame : 50 
But, hence ! ye hours of sable hue ! 

Your frowns are gone, my sorrows 
o'er: 
By every bliss my childhood knew, 

I'll think upon your shade no more. 
Thus, when the whirlwind's rage is past. 

And caves their sullen roar enclose. 
We heed no more the wintry blast. 

When luU'd by zephyr to repose. 

Full often has my infant Muse, 

Attun'd to love her languid lyre; 60 

But, now, without a theme to choose. 
The strains in stolen sighs expire. 

My youthful nymphs, alas! are flown; 
"E^ is a wife, and C a mother, 

.And Carolina sghs alone, 



And Mary's given to another; 
And Cora's eye, which roU'd on me. 

Can now no more my love recall — 
In truth, dear Long, 'twas time to flee — 

For Cora's eye will shine on all. 70 

And though the Sun, with genial rays, 
His beams alike to all displays. 
And every lady's eye's a sun, 
These last should be confin'd to one. 
The soul's meridian don't become her, 
Whose Sun displays a general summer I 
Thus faint is every former flame. 
And Passion's self is now a name; 
As, when the ebbing flames are low, 

The aid which once improv'd their 

light, 80 

And bade them burn with fiercer glow. 

Now quenches all their sparks in 
night ; 
Thus has it been with Passion's fires. 

As many a boy and girl remembers. 
While all the force of love expires, 

Extinguish'd with the dying embers. 

But now, dear Long, 'tis midnight's 
noon. 
And clouds obscure the Vv^atery moon. 
Whose beauties I shall not rehearse, 
Describ'd in every stripling's verse; 90 
For why should I the path go o'er 
Which every bard has trod before ? 
Yet ere yon silver lamp of night 

Has thrice perform'd her stated round, 
Has thrice retrac'd her path of light. 
And chas'd away the gloom pro- 
found, 
I trust, that we, my gentle Friend, 
Shall see her rolling orbit wend. 
Above the dear-lov'd peaceful seat. 
Which once contain'd our youth's re- 
treat; 100 
And, then, with those our childhood 

knew. 
We'll mingle in the festive crew; 
While many a tale of former day 
Shall wing the laughing hours away; 
And all the flow of souls shall pour 
The sacred intellectual shower. 
Nor cease, till Luna's waning horn. 
Scarce glimmers through the mist of 
Morn. 

[First published, June, 1807.] 



64 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



TO A LADY. 



Oh! had my Fate been join'd with 

thine/ 

As once this pledge appear'd a token, 

These folUes had not, then, been mine, 

For, then, my peace had not been 

broken. 



To thee, these early faults I owe, 
To thee, the wise and old reproving: 

They know my sins, but do not know 
'Twas thine to break the bonds of 
loving. 



For once my soul, like thine, was pure, 
And all its rising fires could smother; 

But, now, thy vows no more endure, 
Bestow'd by thee upon another. 



Perhaps, his peace I could destroy, 
And spoil the blisses that await him; 

Yet let my Rival smile in joy, 

For thy dear sake, I cannot hate him. 



Ah ! since thy angel form is gone, 
Mv heart no more can rest with any; 

But what it sought in thee alone. 
Attempts, alas ! to find in many. 



Then, fare thee well, deceitful Maid ! 

'Twere vain and fruitless to regret 
thee; 
Nor Hope, nor Memory yield their aid, 

But Pride may teach me to forget thee. 

1 [These verses were addressed to Mrs 
Chaworth Musters. Byron wrote in 1822 : 
"Our meetings were stolen ones. ... A gate 
leading from Mr Chaworth's grounds to those 
of my mother was the place of our interviews. 
The ardour was all on my side. I was serious; 
she was volatile: she liked me as a younger 
brother, and treated and laughed at me as a boy; 
she, however, gave me her picture, and that was 
something to make verses upon. Had I married 
her, perhaps the whole tenour of my life would 
have been different." — Medwin's Conversa- 
tions, 1824, p. 81.] 



Yet all this giddy waste of years. 

This tiresome round of palling pleas- 
ures; 
These varied loves, these matrons' fears, 
These thoughtless strains to Passion's 
measures — 



If thou wert mine, had all been 
hush'd: — 

This cheek, now pale from early riot, 
With Passion's hectic ne'er had fiush'd, 

But bloom' d in calm domestic quiet. 



Yes, once the rural Scene was sweet, 
For Nature seem'd to smile before 
thee ; 

And once my Breast abhorr'd deceit, — 
For then it beat but to adore thee. 



But, now, I seek for other joys — 
To think, would drive my soul to mad- 
ness; 
In thoughtless throngs, and empty 
noise, 
I conquer half my Bosom's sadness. 



Yet, even in these, a thought will 
steal. 
In spite of every vain endeavour; 
And fiends might pity what I feel — 
To know that thou art lost for ever. 
[First pubUshed, June, 1807.] 



WHEN I ROVED A YOUNG 
HIGHLANDER. 



When I rov'd a young Highlander o'er 
the dark heath. 
And cUmb'd thy steep summit, oh 
Morven of snow ! ^ 



1 Morven, a lofty mountain in Aberdeenshire. 
"Gormal of snow" is an expression frequently 
to be found in Ossian. 



WHEN I ROVED A YOUNG HIGHLANDER 



65 



To gaze on the torrent that thunder'd 
beneath, 
Or the mist of the tempest that 
gather'd below; ^ 
Untutor'd by science, a stranger to fear, 
And rude as the rocks, where my 
infancy grew, 
No feeling, save one, to my bosom was 
dear; 
Need I say, my sweet Mary,^ 'twas 
centred in you? 

2. 

Yet it could not be Love, for I knew not 
the name, — 
What passion can dwell in the heart 
of a child? 
But, still, I perceive an emotion the 
same 
As I felt, when a boy, on the crag- 
cover'd wild: 
One image, alone, on my bosom im- 
press'd, 
I lov'd my bleak regions, nor panted 
for new; 
And few were my wants, for my wishes 
were bless'd. 
And pure were my thoughts, for my 
soul was with you. 

1 This will not appear extraordinary to those 
who have been accustomed to the mountains. 
It is by no means uncommon, on attaining the 
top of Ben-e-vis, Ben-y-bourd, etc., to perceive, 
between the summit and the valley, clouds pour- 
ing down rain, and occasionally accompanied by 
lightning, while the spectator literally looks down 
upon the storm, perfectly secure from its effects. 

2 [Byron, in early youth, was "unco' wastefu'" 
of Marys. There was his distant cousin, Mary 
Duff (afterwards Mrs Robert Cockburn), who 
hved not far from the "Plain-Stanes" at Aber- 
deen. Her "brown, dark hair, and hazel eyes 
■ — her very dress," were long years after "a per- 
fect image" in his memory {Lije, p. g). Sec- 
ondly, there was the Mary of these stanzas, 
"with long-flowing ringlets of gold," the " High- 
land Mary" of local tradition. She was (writes 
the Rev. J. Michie, of The Manse, Dinnet) the 
daughter of James Robertson, of the farmhouse 
of Ballatrich on Deeside, where Byron used to 
spend his summer holidays (1796-98). She 
was of gentle birth, and through her mother, the 
daughter of Captain Macdonald of Rineton, 
traced her descent to the Lord of the Isles. " She 
died at Aberdeen, March 2, 1867, aged eighty- 
five years." A third Mary (see "Lines to 
Mary," etc., p. 11) flits through the early poems, 
evanescent but unspiritual. Last of all, there 
was Mary Anne Chavvorth, of Annesley (see "To 
a Lady," p. 64, "A Fragment," p. 72, etc.), 



I arose with the dawn, with my dog as 
my guide. 
From mountain to mountain I 
bounded along; 
I breasted ^ the billows of Dee's ^ rushing 
tide, 
And heard at a distance the High- 
lander's song: 
At eve, on my heath-cover'd couch of 
repose. 
No dreams, save of Mary, were spread 
to my view; 
And warm to the skies my devotions 
arose. 
For the first of my prayers was a 
blessing on you. 



I left my bleak home, and my visions 
are gone; 
The mountains are vanish'd, my 
youth is no more; 
As the last of my race, I must wither 
alone, 
And delight but in days, I have wit- 
ness'd before: 
Ah ! splendour has rais'd, but embitter'd 
my lot; 
More dear were the scenes which my 
infancy knew: 
Though my hopes may have fail'd, yet 
they are not forgot. 
Though cold is my heart, still it 
lingers with you. 

5- 
When I see some dark hill point its 
crest to the sky, 
I think of the rocks that o'ershadow 
Colbleen;3 
When I see the soft blue of a love- 
speaking eye, 

1 think of those eyes that endear'd 
the rude scene; 

whose marriage, in 1805, "threw him out again 
— alone on a wide, wide sea" {Lije, p. 85).] 
1" Breasting the lofty surge." 

— Shakespeare. 

2 The Dee is a beautiful river, which rises near 
Mar Lodge, and falls into the sea at New 
Aberdeen. 

^ Colbleen is a mountain near the verge of the 
Highlands, not far from the ruins of Dee Castle. 



66 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



When, haply, some light-waving locks 
I behold, 
That faintly resemble my Mary's in 
hue, 
I think on the long flowing ringlets of 
gold. 
The locks that were sacred to beauty, 
and you. 



Yet the day may arrive, when the 
mountains once more 
Shall rise to my sight, in their mantles 
of snow; 
But while these soar above me, un- 
chang'd as before. 
Will Mary be there to receive me ? — 
ah, no ! 
Adieu, then, ye hills, where my child- 
hood was bred ! 
Thou sweet flowing Dee, to thy w^aters 
adieu ! 
No home in the forest shall shelter my 
head, — 
Ah ! Mary, what home could be 
mine, but with you? 

[First published, 1808.] 



TO THE DUKE OF DORSET.^ 

Dorset ! whose early steps with mine 

have stray'd, 
Exploring every path of Ida's glade; 
Whom, still. Affection taught me to 

defend. 
And made me less a tyrant than a 

friend, 

1 In looking over my papers to select a few 
additional poems for this second edition, I found 
the above lines, which I had totally forgotten, 
composed, in the summer of 1805, a short time 
previous to my departure from H[arrow]. They 
were addressed to a young schoolfellow of high 
rank, who had been my frequent companion in 
some rambles through the neighbouring country : 
however, he never saw the lines, and most pro- 
bably never will. As, on a re-perusal, I found 
them not worse than some other pieces in the 
collection, I have now published them, for the 
first time, after a slight revision. [The fore- 
going note was prefixed to the poem in Poems 
Original and Translated. George John Fred- 
erick, 4th Duke of Dorset, born 1793, was 
killed by a fall from his horse when hunting, in 
181 5, while on a visit to his step-father the Earl 
of Whitworth, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.] 



Though the harsh custom of our youth- 
ful band 

Bade thee obey, and gave me to com- 
mand; ^ 

Thee, on whose head a few short years 
will shower 

The gift of riches, and the pride of 
power; 

E'en now a name illustrious is thine own 

Renown'd in rank, not far beneath the 
throne. 10 

Yet, Dorset, let not this seduce thy soul 

To shun fair science, or evade controul; 

Though passive tutors,^ fearful to dis- 
praise 

The titled child, whose future breath 
may raise. 

View ducal errors with indulgent eyes, 

And wink at faults they tremble to 
chastise. 
When youthful parasites, who bend 
the knee 

To wealth, their golden idol, not to 
thee, — 

And even in simple boyhood's opening 
dawn 

Some slaves are found to flatter and to 
fawn, — 20 

When these declare, "that pomp alone 
should wait 

On one by birth predestin'd to be great; 

That books were only meant for drudg- 
ing fools. 

That gallant spirits scorn the common 
rules;" 

Believe them not, — they point the path 
to shame. 

And seek to blast the honours of thy 
name: 

Turn to the few in Ida's early throng, 

Whose souls disdain not to condemn the 
wrong; 

Or if, amidst the comrades of thy youth, 

None dar'd to raise the sterner voice of 
truth, 30 



1 At every public school the junior boys are 
completely subservient to the upper forms till 
they attain a seat in the higher classes. From 
this state of probation, very properly, no rank is 
exempt; but after a certain period, they com- 
mand in turn those who succeed. 

- Allow me to disclaim any personal allusions, 
even the most distant. I merely mention gener- 
ally what is too often the weakness of preceptors. 



TO THE DUKE OF DORSET 



67 



Ask thine own heart — 'twill bid thee, 

boy, forbear ! 
For well I know that virtue Ungers 

there. 
Yes! I have mark'd thee many a 

passing day, 
But now new scenes invite me far away; 
Yes ! I have mark'd within that generous 

mind 
A soul, if well matur'd, to bless man- 
kind; 
Ah ! though myself, by nature, haughty, 

wild. 
Whom Indiscretion hail'd her favourite 

child; 
Though every error stamps me for her 

own. 
And dooms my fall, I fain would fall 

alone; 40 

Though my proud heart no precept, 

now, can tame, 
I love the virtues which I cannot claim. 
'Tis not enough, with other sons of 

power, 
To gleam the lambent meteor of an 

hour; 
To swell some peerage page in feeble 

pride, 
With long-drawn names that grace no 

page beside; 
Then share with titled crowds the com- 
mon lot — 
In life just gaz'd at, in the grave 

forgot ; 
While nought divides thee from the 

vulgar dead. 
Except the dull cold stone that hides thy 

head, 50 

The mouldering 'scutcheon or the 

Herald's roll. 
That well-emblazon'd but neglected 

scroll. 
Where Lords, unhonour'd, in the tomb 

may find 
One spot, to leave a worthless name 

behind. 
There sleep, unnotic'd as the gloomy 

vaults 
That veil their dust, their follies, and 

their faults, 
A race, with old armorial lists o'er- 

spread. 
In records destin'd never to be read. 



Fain would I view thee, with prophetic 

eyes. 
Exalted more among the good and wise; 
A glorious and a long career pursue, 61 
As first in Rank, the first in Talent too : 
Spurn every vice, each little meanness 

shun; 
Not Fortune's minion, but her noblest 

son. 
Turn to the annals of a former day; 
Bright are the deeds thine earher Sires 

display; 
One, though a courtier, Hv'd a man of 

worth. 
And call'd, proud boast ! the British 

drama forth.^ 
Another view ! not less renown'd for 

Wit; 
Alike for courts, and camps, or senates 

fit; 70 

Bold in the field, and favour'd by the 

Nine; 
In every splendid part ordain'd to shine; 
Far, far distinguish'd from the glittering 

throng — 
The pride of Princes, and the boast of 

Song.2 
Such were thy Fathers; thus preserve 

their name. 
Not heir to titles only, but to Fame. 
The hour draws nigh, a few brief days 

will close. 
To me, this little scene of joys and woes; 

1 ["Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, was 
born in 1527. While a student of the Inner 
Temple, he wrote his tragedy of Gorboduc, which 
was played before Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall, 
in 1 56 1. This tragedy, and his contribution of 
the Induction and legend of the Duke of Buck- 
ingham to the Mirrour for Magistrayles, com- 
pose the poetical history of Sackville. The rest 
of it was political. In 1604, he was created 
Earl of Dorset by James I. He died suddenly 
at the council-table, in consequence of a dropsy 
on the brain." — Specimens of the British Poets, 
by Thomas Campbell, London, 1819, ii. 134, 
sq.] 

2 Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset [1637- 
1706], esteemed the most accomplished man of 
his day, was alike distinguished in the voluptu- 
ous court of Charles II. and the gloomy one of 
William III. He behaved with great gallantry 
in the sea-fight with the Dutch in 1665; on the 
day previous to which he composed his celebrated 
soiig ['To all you Ladies now at Land"]. His 
character has been drawn in the highest colours 
by Dryden, Pope, Prior, and Congreve. {Vide 
Anderson's British Poets (1793). vi. 107, 108.) 



68 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Each knell of Time now warns me to 
resign 

Shades where Hope, Peace, and Friend- 
ship all were mine : 80 

Hope, that could vary like the rainbow's 
hue, 

And gild their pinions, as the moments 
flew; 

Peace, that Reflection never frown'd 
away. 

By dreams of ill to cloud some future 
day; 

Friendship, whose truth let Childhood 
only tell; 

Alas ! they love not long, who love so 
well. 

To these adieu ! nor let me linger o'er 

Scenes hail'd, as exiles hail their native 
shore. 

Receding slowly, through the dark-blue 
deep. 

Beheld by eyes that mourn, yet cannot 
weep. 90 

Dorset, farewell ! I will not ask one 
part 

Of sad remembrance in so young a 
heart; 

The coming morrow from thy youthful 
mind 

Will sweep my name, nor leave a trace 
behind. 

And, yet, perhaps, in some maturer 
year, 

Since chance has thrown us in the self- 
same sphere. 

Since the same Senate, nay, the same 
debate. 

May one day claim our suffrage for the 
state, 

We hence may meet, and pass each other 
by 

With faint regard, or cold and distant 
eye. 100 

For me, in future, neither friend nor 
foe, 

A stranger to thyself, thy weal or woe — 

With thee no more again I hope to trace 

The recollection of our early race; 

No more, as once, in social hours re- 
joice, 

Or hear, unless in crowds, thy well- 
known voice; 

Still, if the wishes of a heart untaught 



To veil those feelings, which, perchance 

it ought. 
If these, — but let me cease the length- 

en'd strain, — 
Oh ! if these wishes are not breath'd in 

vain, no 

The Guardian Seraph who directs thy 

fate 
Will leave thee glorious, as he found 

thee great. 1805. 

[First published, 1808.] 



TO THE EARL OF CLARE. 

"Tu semper amoris 
Sis memor, et cari comitis ne abscedat imago." 
— Val. Flag. Argonaut, iv. 36. 



Friend of my youth ! when young we 

rov'd, 
Like striplings, mutually belov'd. 
With Friendship's purest glow; 
The bliss, which wing'd those rosy 

hours. 
Was such as Pleasure seldom showers 
On mortals here below. 



The recollection seems, alone, 
Dearer than all the joys I've known, 

When distant far from you: 
Though pain, 'tis still a pleasing pain, 
To trace those days and hours again, 

And sigh again, adieu ! 



My pensive mem'ry lingers o'er 
Those scenes to be enjoy'd no more. 

Those scenes regretted ever; 
The measure of our youth is full. 
Life's evening dream is dark and dull, 

And we may meet — ah ! never ! 



As when one parent spring supplies 
Two streams, which from one fountain 
rise. 

Together join'd in vain; 
How soon, diverging from their source. 
Each, murmuring, seeks another course, 

Till mingled in the Main ! 



TO THE EARL OF CLARE 



69 



5- 
Our vital streams of weal or woe, 
Though near, alas ! distinctly flow, 

Nor mingle as before: 
Now swift or slow, now black or clear, 
Till Death's unfathom'd gulph appear. 

And both shall quit the shore. 



Our souls, my Friend ! which once sup- 
plied 
One wish, nor breath'd a thought beside, 

Now flow in different channels: 
Disdaining humbler rural sports, 
'Tis yours to mix in polish'd courts, 

And shine in Fashion's annals; 



'Tis mine to waste on love my time. 
Or vent my reveries in rhyme. 

Without the aid of Reason; 
For Sense and Reason (critics know it) 
Have quited every amorous Poet, 

Nor left a thought to seize on. 



Poor Little ! sweet, melodious bard ! 
Of late esteem'd it monstrous hard 

That he, who sang before all; 
He who the lore of love expanded, 
By dire Reviewers should be branded. 

As void of wit and moral.^ 

9- 

And yet, while Beauty's praise is thine, 
Harmonious favourite of the Nine, 

Repine not at thy lot. 
Thy soothing lays may still be read, 
When Persecution's arm is dead. 

And critics a,re forgot. 



Still I must yield those worthies merit 
Who chasten, with unsparing spirit, 
Bad rhymes, and those who write 
them: 



1 These stanzas were written soon after the 
appearance of a severe critique in a northern 
review, on a new publication of the British 
Anacreon. [Byron refers to the article in the 
Edinburgh Review, of July, 1807, on ''Epistles, 
Odes, and otlier Poems, by Thomas Little, Esq."] 



And though myself may be the next 
By critic sarcasm to be vext, 
I really will not fight them.^ 



Perhaps they would do quite as well 
To break the rudely sounding shell 
' Of such a young beginner: 
He who offends at pert nineteen, 
Ere thirty may become, I ween, 
A very harden'd sinner. 



Now, Clare, I must return to you; 
And, sure, apologies are due: 

Accept, then, my concession. 
In truth, dear Clare, in Fancy's flight 
I soar along from left to right; 

My Muse admires digression. 

13- 
I think I said 'twould be your fate 
To add one star to royal state ; — 

May regal smiles attend you ! 
And should a noble monarch reign, 
You will not seek his smiles in vain, 

If worth can recommend you. 

14. 

Yet since in danger courts abound, 
Where specious rivals glitter round. 
From snares may Saints preserve 
you; 
And grant your love or friendship 

ne'er 
From any claim a kindred care, 
But those who best deserve you ! 

IS- 
Not for a moment may you stray 
From Truth's secure, unerring way ! 

May no delights decoy ! 
O'er roses may your footsteps move. 
Your smiles be ever smiles of love. 

Your tears be tears of joy ! 

1 A bard [Moore] {Horresco referens) defied 
his reviewer [Jeffrey] to mortal combat. If this 
example becomes prevalent, our Periodical 
Censors must be dipped in the river Styx : for 
what else can secure them from the numerous 
host of their enraged assailants? [Cf. English 
Bards, 1. 466, note, 3.] 



70 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



i6. 

Oh ! if you wish that happiness 

Your coming days and years may bless, 

And virtues crown your brow; 
Be still as you were wont to be, 
Spotless as you've been known to me, — 

Be still as you are now> 

17- 
And though some trifling share of praise. 
To cheer my last declining days, 

To me were doubly dear; 
Whilst blessing your beloved name, 
I'd waive at once a Poet's fame. 

To prove a Prophet here. 1807. 

[First published, 1808.] 



I WOULD I WERE A CARELESS 
CHILD. 



I v^'OULD I were a careless child, 

Still dwelling in my Highland cave. 
Or roaming through the dusky wild, 

Or bounding o'er the dark blue wave; 
The cumbrous pomp of Saxon ^ pride. 

Accords not with the freeborn soul. 
Which loves the mountain's craggy side. 

And seeks the rocks where billows 
roll. 

2. 

Fortune ! take back these cultur'd lands, 

Take back this name of splendid 
sound ! 
I hate the touch of servile hands, 

I hate the slaves that cringe around: 
Place me among the rocks 1 love. 

Which sound to Ocean's wildest roar; 
I ask but this — again to rove 

Through scenes my youth hath known 
before. 

i["Of all I have ever known, Clare has 
always been the least altered in everything from 
the excellent qualities and kind affections which 
attached me to him so strongly at school. I 
should hardly have thought it possible for society 
(or the world, as it is called) to leave a being 
wdth so little of the leaven of bad passions. I 
do not speak from personal experience only, but 
from all I have ever heard of him from others, 
during absence and distance." — Detached 
TJwughts, Nov. 5, 1 821; Ltjc, p. 5:40.] 

^ Sassenach, or Saxon, a Gaelic word, signify- 
ing either Lowland or English. 



Few are my years, and yet I feel 

The World was ne'er design'd for me: 
Ah! why do dark'ning shades conceal 

The hour when man must cease to be ? 
Once I beheld a splendid dream, 

A visionary scene of bliss: 
Truth ! — wherefore did thy hated beam 

Awake me to a world like this? 



1 lov'd — but those I lov'd are gone; 
Had friends — my early friends are 
fled: 
How cheerless feels the heart alone, 

When all its former hopes are dead ! 
Though gay companions, o'er the bowl 

Dispel awhile the sense of ill ; 
Though Pleasure stirs the maddening 
soul, 
The heart — the heart — is lonely 
still. 



How dull ! to hear the voice of those 

Whom Rank or Chance, whom 
Wealth or Power, 
Have made, though neither friends nor 
foes, 

Associates of the festive hour. 
Give me again a faithful few. 

In years and feelings still the same, 
And I will fly the midnight crew. 

Where boist'rous Joy is but a name. 

6. 

And Woman, lovely Woman ! thou, 

My hope, my comforter, my all ! 
How cold must be my bosom now, 

When e'en thy smiles begin to pall ! 
Without a sigh would I resign. 

This busy scene of splendid Woe, 
To make that calm contentment mine, 

Which Virtue knows, or seems to 
know. 



Fain would I fly the haunts of men ^ — 
I seek to shun, not hate mankind ; 

1 [Shyness was a family characteristic of the 
Bvrons. The poet continued in later years to 
have a horror of being observed bv unaccustomed 
eyes, and in the country would, if possible, avoid 
meeting strangers on the road.l 



LINES WRITTEN IN THE CHURCHYARD OF HARROW 71 



My breast requires the sullen glen, 
Whose gloom may suit a darkened 
mind. 
Oh ! that to me the wings were given, 

Which bear the turtle to her nest ! 
Then would I cleave the vault of 
Heaven, 
To flee away, and be at rest.^ 

[First published, 1808.] 

LINES WRITTEN BENEATH AN 
ELM IN THE CHURCHYARD 
OF HARROW. 3 

Spot of my youth ! whose hoary 

branches sigh, 
Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloud- 
less sky ; 
Where now alone I muse, who oft have 

trod, 
With those I lov'd, thy soft and 

verdant sod; 
With those who, scatter'd far, perchance 

deplore. 
Like me, the happy scenes they knew 

before : 
Oh ! as I trace again thy winding hill, 
Mine eves admire, my heart adores thee 

still. 
Thou drooping Elm ! beneath whose 

boughs I lay, 
And frequent mus'd the twilight hours 

away; 
Where, as they once were wont, my 

limbs recline, 
But, ah! without the thoughts which 

then were mine: ~~- 

1 " And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove, 
for then would I flyaway, and be at rest." — 
Psalm Iv. 6. This verse also constitutes a part 
of the most beautiful anthem in our language. 

2_[On the death of his daughter, AUegra, in 
April, 1822, Byron sent her remains to be buried 
at Harrow, "where," he says, in a letter to 
Murray, "I once hoped to have laid my own." 
"There is," he wrote. May 26, "a spot in the 
churchyarcf, near the footpath, on the brow of 
the hill looking towards Windsor, and a tomb 
under a large tree (bearing the name of Peachie, 
or Peachey), where I used to sit for hours and 
hours when a boy. This was my favourite spot; 
but as I wish to erect a tablet to her memory, the 
body had better be deposited in the chtirch." 
No tablet was, however, erected, and Allegra 
sleeps in her unmarked grave inside the church, 
a few feet to the right of the entrance.] 



How do thy branches, moaning to the 

blast. 
Invite the bosom to recall the past, 
And seem to whisper, as they gently 

swell, 
"Take, while thou canst, a lingering, 

last farewell!" 

When Fate shall chill, at length, this 

fever'd breast, 
And calm its cares and passions into rest. 
Oft have I thought, 'twould soothe my 

dying hour, — 
If aught may soothe, when Life resigns 

her power, — 
To know some humbler grave, some 

narrow cell. 
Would hide my bosom where it lov'd to 

dwell; 
With this fond dream, methinks 'twere 

sweet to die — 
And here it linger'd, here my heart 

might lie; 
Here might I sleep where all my hopes 

arose. 
Scene of my youth, and couch of my 

repose ; 
For ever stretch'd beneath this mantling 

shade, 
Press'd by the turf where once my child- 
hood play'd; 
Wrapt by the soil that veils the spot I 

lov'd, 
Mix'd with the earth o'er which my 

footsteps mov'd; 
Blest by the tongues that charm'd my 

youthful ear, 
Mourn'd by the few my soul acknow- 
ledged here; 
Deplor'd by those in early days allied, 
And unremember'd by the world beside. 
September 2, 1807. 
[First published, 1808.] 

TO MY DEAR MARY ANNE. 



Adieu, to sweet Mary for ever. 

From her I must quickly depart; 
Though the fates us from each other 
sever. 
Still her image will dwell in my 
Heart. 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



The flame that within my heart burns, 
Is unlike what in Lovers' hearts glows, 

The Love which for Mary I feel 
Is far purer than Cupid bestows. 



I wish not your peace to disturb, 
I wish not your joy to molest; 

Mistake not my passion for Love, 
'Tis your friendship alone I request. 



Not ten thousand Lovers could feel 

The friendship my bosom contains; 
It will ever within my Heart dwell, 

While the warm blood flows through 
my veins. 

5- 
May the Ruler of Heaven look down. 

And my Mary from evil defend; 
May she ne'er know Adversity's frown, 

May her Happiness ne'er have an end. 



Once more my sweet Girl, Adieu ! 
Farewell, I with anguish repeat. 
For ever I'll think upon you. 

While the Heart in my bosom shall 
beat. 1804. 

[First published, Paris, 183 1.] 



TO MARY CHAWORTH. 



Ah, Memory torture me no more, 
The present's all o'ercast; 

My hopes of future bliss are o'er, 
In Mercy veil the past. 



Why bring these Images to view 

I henceforth must resign? 
Ah, why those happy hours I'enew, 

That never can be mine? 

3- 
Past pleasure doubles present pain, 

To Sorrow adds regret: 
Regret and Hope are both in vain, 
I ask but — to Forget. 1804. 

[First published, Paris, 183 1.] 



FRAGMENT. 

WRITTEN SHORTLY AFTER THE MARRIAGE 
OF MISS CHAV^ORTH.^ 



Hills of Annesley, Bleak and Barren, 
Where my thoughtless Childhood 
stray'd. 

How the northern Tempests, warring, 
Howl above thy tufted Shade ! 



Now no more, the Hours beguiling, 

Former favourite Haunts I see; 
Now no more my Mary smiling. 
Makes ye seem a Heaven to Me. 
1805. 
[First published, 1830.] 



REMEMBRANCE. 

'Tis done ! — I saw it in my dreams: 
No more with Hope the future beams ; 

My days of happiness are few: 
Chill'd by Misfortune's wintry blast, 
My dawn of Life is overcast; 

Love, Hope, and Joy, alike adieu ! 
Would I could add Remembrance too ! 
1806. 
[First published, 1832.] 

1 [Miss Chaworth was married to John 
Musters, Esq., in August, 1805. 

The original MS. of "The Fragment" (which 
is in the possession of Mrs Chaworth Musters) 
formerly belonged to Miss E. B. Pigot, accord- 
ing to whom they "were written by Lord Byron 
in 1804." "We were reading Burns' Farewell 
to Ayrshire — 

"'Scenes of woe and Scenes of pleasure, 
Scenes that former thoughts renew ! 
Scenes of woe and scenes of pleasure, 
Now a sad and last adieu,' etc. 
when he said, 'I like that metre; let me try it,' 
and taking up a pencil, wrote those on the other 
side in an instant. I read them to Moore, and at 
his particular request I copied them for him." 
— E. B. Pigot, 1859. 

On the fly-leaf of the same volume {Poetry of 
Robert Burns, vol. iv. Third Edition, 1802), 
containing the Farewell to Ayrshire, Byron wrote 
in pencil the two stanzas "Oh! little lock of 
golden hue," in 1806 itnde post, p. 80). 

It may be noted that the verses quoted, though 
included until recently among his poems, were 
not written bv Burns, but by Richard Gall, 
who died in 1801, aged 25.] 



TO A LADY— TO A KNOT OF UNGENEROUS CRITICS 



73 



TO A LADY. 

WHO PRESENTED THE AUTHOR WITH 
THE VELVET BAND WHICH BOUND 
HER TRESSES. 



This Band, which bound thy yellow 
hair 
Is mine, sweet Girl ! thy pledge of 
love; 
It claims my warmest, dearest care, 
Like relics left of saints above. 



Oh ! I will wear it next my heart; 

'Twill bind my soul in bonds to thee: 
From me again 'twill ne'er depart, 

But mingle in the grave with me. 



The dew I gather from thy lip 
Is not so dear to me as this; 

That I but for a moment sip. 

And banquet on a transient bliss: 



This will recall each youthful scene. 

E'en when our lives are on the wane; 
The leaves of Love will still be green, 
When Memory bids them bud again. 
1806. 
[First published, 1832.] 



TO A KNOT OF UNGENEROUS 
CRITICS.^ 

Rail on. Rail on, ye heartless crew ! 
My strains were never meant for you; 
Remorseless Rancour still reveal. 
And damn the verse you cannot feel. 

1 [There can be little doubt that these verses 
were called forth by the criticisms passed on the 
Fugitive Pieces by certain ladies of Southwell, 
concerning whom, Byron wrote to Mr Pigot 
(Jan. 13, 1807), on sending him an early copy of 
the poems, "That unlucky poem to my poor 
Mary has been the cause of some animadversion 
from ladies in years. I have not printed it in 
this collection in consequence of my being pro- 
ne unced a most profligate sinner, in short a 
'young Moore.'" — Letters, 1898, i. 112, 113.] 



Invoke those kindred passions' aid, 
Whose baleful stings your breasts per- 
vade ; 
Crush, if you can, the hopes of youth, 
Trampling regardless on the Truth: 
Truth's Records you consult in vain, 
She will not blast her native strain; 
She will assist her votary's cause. 
His will at least be her applause. 
Your prayer the gentle Power will 

spurn: 
To Fiction's motley altar turn, 
Who joyful in the fond address 
Her favour'd worshippers will bless: 
And lo ! she holds a magic glass, 
Where Images reflected pass; 
Bent on your knees the Boon receive — 
This will assist you to deceive — 
The glittering gift was made for you, 
Now hold it up to public view; 
Lest evil unforeseen betide, 
A Mask each canker'd brow shall hide, 
(Whilst Truth my sole desire is nigh, 
Prepar'd the danger to defy,) 
"There is the Maid's perverted name, 
"And there the Poet's guilty Flame, 
"Gloaming a deep phosphoric fire, 
"Threatening — but, ere it spreads, 

retire." 
Says Truth, "Up Virgins, do not fear! 
"The Comet rolls its Influence here; 
"'Tis Scandal's Mirror you perceive, 
"These dazzling Meteors but deceive — 
"Approach and touch — Nay, do not 

turn, 
"It blazes there, but will not burn." — 
At once the shivering Mirror flies. 
Teeming no more with varnished 

Lies; 
The baffled friends of Fiction start, 
Too late desiring to depart — 
Truth poising high Ithuriel's spear 
Bids every Fiend unmask'd appear. 
The vizard tears from every face, 
And dooms them to a dire disgrace. 
For e'er they compass their escape. 
Each takes perforce a native shape — 
The Leader of the wrathful Band, 
Behold a portly Female stand ! 
She raves, impell'd by private pique, 
This mean unjust revenge to seek; 
From vice to save this virtuous Age, 
Thus does she vent indecent rage ! 



74 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



What child has she of promise fair, 
Who claims a fostering mother's care? 
Whose Innocence requires defence, 
Or forms at least a smooth pretence, 
Thus to disturb a harmless Boy, 
His humble hope, and peace annoy? 
She need not fear the amorous rhyme. 
Love will not tempt her future time. 
For her his wings have ceas'd to spread. 
No more he flutters round her head; 
Her day's Meridian now is past. 
The clouds of Age her Sun o'ercast; 
To her the strain was never sent. 
For feeling Souls alone 'twas meant — 
The verse she seiz'd, unask'd, unbade. 
And damn'd, ere yet the whole was read ! 
Yes! for one single erring verse, 
Pronounc'd an unrelenting Curse; 
Yes ! at a first and transient view, 
Condemn'd a heart she never knew. — 
Can such a verdict then decide. 
Which springs from disappointed pride ? 
Without a wondrous share of Wit, 
To judge is such a Matron fit? 
The rest of the censorious throng 
Who to this zealous Band belong, 
To her a general homage pay, 
And right or wrong her wish obey: 
Why should I point my pen of steel 
To break "such flies upon the wheel?" 
With minds to Truth and Sense un- 
known. 
Who dare not call their words their own. 
Rail on, Rail on, ye heartless Crew ! 
Your Leader's grand design pursue: 
Secure behind her ample shield, 
Yours is the harvest of the field. — 
My path with thorns you cannot strev^, 
Nay more, my warmest thanks are 

due; 
When such as you revile my Name, 
Bright beams the rising Sun of Fame, 
Chasing the shades of envious night. 
Outshining every critic Light. — 
Such, such as you will serve to show 
Each radiant tint with higher glow. 
Vain is the feeble cheerless toil, 
Your efforts on yourselves recoil; 
Then Glory still for me you raise. 
Yours is the Censure, mine the Praise. 
— Byron, 

December i, 1806. 
[First published, 1898. 



SOLILOQUY OF A BARD IN THE 
COUNTRY. 

'Tw^AS now the noon of night, and all 
was still. 

Except a hapless Rhymer and his quill. 

In vain he calls each Muse in order 
down. 

Like other females, these will sometimes 
frown ; 

He frets, he fumes, and ceasing to in- 
voke 

The Nine, in anguish'd accents thus he 
spoke : 

Ah, what avails it thus to waste my 
time, 

To roll in Epic, or to rave in Rhyme ? 

What worth is some few partial readers' 
praise, 

If ancient Virgins croaking censures 
raise! 10 

Where few attend, 'tis useless to in- 
dite; 

Where few can read, 'tis folly sure to 
write ; 

Where none but girls and striplings dare 
admire, 

And Critics rise in every country 
Squire — 

But yet this last my candid Muse ad- 
mits, 

When Peers are Poets, Squires may well 
be Wits; 

When schoolboys vent their amorous 
flames in verse, 

Matrons may sure their characters 
asperse ; 

And if a Httle parson joins the train. 

And echoes back his Patron's voice 
again — 20 

Though not delighted, yet I must for- 
give. 

Parsons as well as other folks must 
live: — 

From rage he rails not, rather say from 
dread. 

He does not speak for Virtue, but for 
bread; 

And this we know is in his Patron's 
giving, 

For Parsons cannot eat without a 
Living. 



SOLILOQUY OF A BARD IN THE COUNTRY 



75 



The Matron knows I love the Sex too 

well, 
Even unprovoked aggression to repel. 
What though from private pique her 

anger grew, 
And bade her blast a heart she never 

knew ? 30 

What though, she said, for one light 

heedless line, 
That Wilmot's ^ verse was far more 

pure than mine ! 
In wars like these, I neither fight nor fly, 
When dames accuse 'tis bootless to deny; 
Hers be the harvest of the martial field, 
I can't attack, where Beauty forms the 

shield. 
But when a pert Physician loudly cries. 
Who hunts for scandal, and who lives by 

lies, 
A walking register of daily news 
Train'd to invent, and skilful to abuse — 
For arts like these at bounteous tables 

fed, 41 

When S condemns a book he never 

read, 
Declaring with a coxcomb's native air, 
The moral's shocking, though the 

rhymes are fair. 
Ah ! must he rise unpunish'd from the 

feast. 
Nor lash'd by vengeance into truth at 

least ? 
Such lenity were more than Man's in- 
deed ! 
Those who condemn, should surely 

deign to read. 
Yet must I spare — nor thus my pen 

degrade, 
I quite forgot that scandal was his trade. 
For food and raiment thus the coxcomb 

rails, 51 

For those who fear his physic, like his 

tales. 
Why should his harmless censure seem 

offence ? 
Still let him eat, although at my expense, 
And join the herd to Sense and Truth 

unknown, 
Who dare not call their very thoughts 

their own, 

^ [John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647- 
1680). His Poems were published in the year of 
his death.! 



And share with these applause, a god- 
like bribe, 

In short, do anything, except pre- 
scribe : — 

For though in garb of Galen he 
appears, 

His practice is not equal to his years. 60 

Without improvement since he first 
began, 

A young Physician though an ancient 
Man — 

Now let me cease — Physician, Panson, 
Dame, 

Still urge your task, and if you can, de- 
fame. 

The humble offerings of my Muse 
destroy. 

And crush, oh ! noble conquest ! crush 
a Boy. 

What though some silly girls have lov'd 
the strain. 

And kindly bade me tune my Lyre 
again ; 

What though some feeling, or some 
partial few. 

Nay, Men of Taste and Reputation, too. 

Have deign'd to praise the firstlings of 
my Muse — 71 

If you your sanction to the theme re- 
fuse, 

If you your great protection still with- 
draw. 

Whose Praise is Glory, and whose Voice 
is law ! 

Soon must I fall an unresisting foe, 

A hapless victim yielding to the blow. — 

Thus Pope by Curl and Dennis was 
destroyed. 

Thus Gray and Mason yield to furious 
Lloyd; 1 

From Dryden . Milbourne ^ tears the 
palm away. 

And thus I fall, though meaner far than 
they: 80 

As in the field of combat, side by side, 

A Fabius and some noble Roman 
died. 

December, 1806. 
[First published, 1898.] 

1 [Robert Lloyd (1733-1764).] 

2 [The Rev. Luke Milbourne (died 1720) 
published, in 1698, his Notes on Dryden's Virgil, 
containing a venomous attack on Dryden.] 



76 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



L'AMITIE EST L' AMOUR 
SANS AILES. 



Why should my anxious breast repine, 

Because my youth is fled? 
Days of delight may still be mine; 

Affection is not dead. 
In tracing back the years of youth, 
One firm record, one lasting truth 

Celestial consolation brings; 
Bear it, ye breezes, to the seat. 
Where first my heart responsive beat, — 

"Friendship is Love without his 
wings!" 



Through few, but deeply chequer'd 
years. 
What moments have been mine ! 
Now half obscured by clouds of tears, 

Now bright in rays divine; 
Howe'er my future doom be cast. 
My soul, enraptur'd with the past, 

To one idea fondly clings; 
Friendship ! that thought is all thine 

own. 
Worth worlds of bliss, that thought 
alone — 
"Friendship is Love without his 



wings ! ' 



3- 



Where yonder yew-trees lightly wave 

Their branches on the gale, 
Unheeded heaves a simple grave, 

Which tells the common tale; 
Round this unconscious schoolboys 

strav, 
Till the dull knell of childish play 

From yonder studious mansion rings; 
But here, whene'er my footsteps move, 
My silent tears too plainly prove, 

"Friendship is Love without his 
wings ! " 

4- 
Oh, Love, before thy glowing shrine. 

My early vows were paid; 
My hopes, my dreams, my heart was 
thine, 
But these are now decay'd; 



For thine are pinions like the wind, 
No trace of thee remains behind. 

Except, alas ! thy jealous stings. 
Away, away ! delusive power, 
Thou shalt not haunt my coming 
hour; 

Unless, indeed, without thy wings. 



Seat of my youth ! thy distant spire 

Recalls each scene of joy ; 
My bosom glows with former fire, — 

In mind again a boy. 
Thy grove of elms, thy verdant hill. 
Thy every path delights me still. 

Each flower a double fragrance flings; 
Again, as once, in converse gay. 
Each dear associate seems to say, 

"Friendship is Love without his 



My Lycus ! ^ ■ wherefore dost thou weep ? 

Thy falling tears restrain; 
Affection for a time may sleep. 

But, oh, 'twill wake again. 
Think, think, my friend, when next we 

meet. 
Our long-wish'd interview, how sweet ! 
From this my hope of rapture 
springs; 
While youthful hearts thus fondly 

swell. 
Absence, my friend, can only tell, 

"Friendship is Love without his 
wings!" 



In one, and one alone deceiv'd, 

Did I my error mourn? 
No — from oppressive bonds reliev'd, 

I left the wretch to scorn. 
I turn'd to those my childhood knew, 
With feelings warm, with bosoms true, 



^ [Lord Clare had written to Byron, "I think 
by your last letter that you are very much piqued 
with most of your friends, and, if I am not much 
mistaken, you are a little piqued with me. In 
one part you say, 'There is little or no doubt a 
few years or months will render us as politely in- 
different to each other, as if we had never passed 
a portion of our time together.' Indeed, Byron, 
you wrong me ; and I have no doubt — at least, 
I hope, you wrong yourself." — Life, p. 25.] 



THE PRAYER OF NATURE 



77 



Twin'd with my heart's according 
strings; 
And till those vital chords shall break, 
For none but these my breast shall wake 

Friendship, the power deprived of 



wmgs 



Ye few ! my soul, my life is yours. 

My memory and my hope; 
Your worth a lasting love insures, 

Unfetter'd in its scope; 
From smooth deceit and terror sprung, 
With aspect fair and honey'd tongue, 

Let Adulation wait on kings; 
With joy elate, by snares beset. 
We, we, my friends, can ne'er forget, 

"Friendship is Love without his 
• wings!" 

9- 
Fictions and dreams inspire the bard. 

Who rolls the epic song; 
Friendship and truth be my reward — 

To me no bays belong; 
If laurell'd Fame but dwells with lies. 
Me the Enchantress ever flies, 

Whose heart and not whose fancy 
sings; 
Simple and young, I dare not feign; 
Mine be the rude yet heartfelt strain, 

"Friendship is Love without his 
wings!" December 29, 1806. 

[First published, 1832.] 

THE PRAYER OF NATURE. 



Father of Light ! great God of Heaven ! 

Hear'st thou the accents of despair? 
Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven? 

Can vice atone for crimes by prayer ? 



Father of Light, on thee I call ! 

Thou see'st my soul is dark within; 
Thou, who canst mark the sparrow's fall. 

Avert from me the death of sin. 



No shrine I seek, to sects unknown; 

Oh, point to me the path of truth ! 
Thy dread Omnipotence I own; 

Spare, yet amend, the faults of youth. 



Let bigots rear a gloomy fane, 
Let Superstition hail the pile. 

Let priests, to spread their sable reign, 
With tales of mystic rites beguile. 



Shall man confine his Maker's sway 
To Gothic domes of mouldering 
stone ? 
Thy temple is the face of day; 

Earth, Ocean, Heaven thy boundless 
throne. 

6. 

Shall man condemn his race to Hell, 
Unless they bend in pompous form? 

Tell us that all, for one who fell. 
Must perish in the mingling storm? 

7- 
Shall each pretend to reach the skies, 

Yet doom his brother to expire, 
Whose soul a different hope supplies, 

Or doctrines less severe inspire? 

8. 

Shall these, by creeds they can't ex- 
pound. 

Prepare a fancied bliss or woe? 
Shall reptiles, grovelUng on the ground. 

Their great Creator's purpose know ? 



Shall those, who live for self alone. 
Whose years float on in daily crime — 

Shall they, by Faith, for guilt atone. 
And live beyond the bounds of Time ? 



Father ! no prophet's laws I seek, — 
Thy laws in Nature's works appear ;- 

I own myself corrupt and weak. 
Yet will I pray, for thou wilt hear ! 



Thou, who canst guide the wandering 
star. 
Through trackless realms of aether's 
space; 
Who calm'st the elemental war. 

Whose hand from pole to pole I trace: 



78 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Thou, who in wisdom plac'd me here, 
Who, when thou wilt, canst take me 
hence. 

Ah! whilst I tread this earthly sphere. 
Extend to me thy wide defence. 

13- 
To Thee, my God, to Thee I call ! 

Whatever weal or woe betide. 
By thy command I rise or fall, 

In thy protection I confide. 

14. 

If, when this dust to dust's restor'd. 
My soul shall float on airy wing, 

How shall thy glorious Name ador'd 
Inspire her feeble voice to sing ! 

15- 
But, if this fleeting spirit share 

With clay the Grave's eternal bed. 
While Life yet throbs I raise my prayer, 
Though doom'd no more to quit the 
dead. 

16. 

To Thee I breathe my humble strain, 

Grateful for all thy mercies past, 
And hope, my God, to thee again 
This erring life may fly at last. 

December 29, 1806. 
[First published, 1830.] 



TRANSLATION FROM 
ANACREON. 



Eis p65ov. 



ODE V. 



Mingle with the genial bowl 
The Rose, the flow' rei of the Soul, 
The Rose and Grape together quaff' d. 
How doubly sweet will be the draught ! 
With Roses crown our jovial brows, 
While every cheek with Laughter glows; 
While Smiles and Songs, with Wine 

incite, 
To wing our moments with Delight. 
Rose by far the fairest birth, . 
Which Spring and Nature cull from 

Earth — 



Rose whose sweetest perfume given, 
Breathes our thoughts from Earth to 

Heaven. 
Rose whom the Deities above. 
From Jove to Hebe, dearly love, 
When Cytherea's blooming Boy, 
Flies lightly through the dance of Joy, 
With him the Graces then combine. 
And rosy wreaths their locks entwine. 
Then will I sing divinely crown'd. 
With dusky leaves my temples bound — 
Lyseus ! in thy bowers of pleasure, 
I'll wake a wildly thrilling measure. 
There will my gentle Girl and I, 
Along the mazes sportive fly, 
Will bend before thy potent throne — 
Rose, Wine, and Beauty, all mv own. 

'1805. 
[First published, 1898.] 



[OSSIAN'S ADDRESS TO THE SUN 
IN 'XARTHON."] 

Oh ! thou that roll'st above thy glorious 

Fire, 
Round as the shield which grac'd my 

godlike Sire, 
Whence are the beams, O Sun ! thy 

endless blaze. 
Which far eclipse each minor Glory's 

rays? 
Forth in thy Beauty here thou deign'st 

to shine ! 
Night quits her car, the twinkling stars 

decline; 
Pallid and cold the Moon descends to 

cave 
Her sinking beams beneath the Western 

wave; 
But thou still mov'st alone, of light the 

Source — 
Who can o'ertake thee in thy fiery 

' course? 
Oaks of the mountains fall, the rocks 

decay. 
Weighed down with years the hills dis- 
solve away. 
A certain space to yonder Moon is 

given, 
She rises, smiles, and then is lost in 

Heaven. 



OSSIAN'S ADDRESS — PIGN US A MORIS 



79 



Ocean in sullen murmurs ebbs and flows, 
But thy bright beam unchanged for ever 

glows ! 
When Earth is darken'd with tempestu- 
ous skies, 
When Thunder shakes the sphere and 

Lightning flies, 
Thy face, O Sun, no rolling blasts de- 
form, 
Thou look'st from clouds and laughest 

at the Storm. 
To Ossian, Orb of Light ! thou look'st 

in vain. 
Nor canst thou glad his aged eyes again, 
Whether thy locks in Orient Beauty 

stream. 
Or glimmer through the West with 

fainter gleam — 
But thou, perhaps, like me with age 

must bend; 
Thy season o'er, thy days will find their 

end. 
No more yon azure vault with rays 

adorn, 
LuU'd in the clouds, nor hear the voice 

of Morn. 
Exult, O Sun, in all thy youthful 

strength ! 
Age, dark unlovely Age, appears at 

length, 
As gleams the moonbeam through the 

broken cloud 
While mountain vapours spread their 

misty shroud — 
The Northern tempest howls along at 

last, 
And wayworn strangers shrink amid the 

blast. 
Thou rolling Sun who gild'st those ris- 
ing towers. 
Fair didst thou shine upon my earlier 

hours ! 
I hail'd with smiles the cheering rays of 

Morn, 
My breast by no tumultuous Passion 

torn — 
Now hateful are thy beams which wake 

no more 
The sense of joy which thrill' d my breast 

before ; 
Welcome, thou cloudy veil of nightly 

skies. 
To thy bright canopy the mourner flies: 



Once bright, thy Silence luU'd my frame 

to rest. 
And Sleep my soul with gentle visions 

blest ; 
Now wakeful Grief disdains her mild 

controul. 
Dark is the night, but darker is my Soul. 
Ye warring Winds of Heav'n your fury 

urge. 
To me congenial sounds your wintry 

Dirge : 
Swift as your wings my happier days 

have past. 
Keen as your storms is Sorrow's chilling 

blast; 
To Tempests thus expos'd my Fate has 

been. 
Piercing like yours, like yours, alas! 

unseen. 1805. 

[First published, 1898.] 

[PIGNUS AMORIS.] 



As by the fix'd decrees of Heaven, 
'Tis vain to hope that Joy can last; 

The dearest boon that Life has given, 
To me is — visions of the past. 



For these this toy of blushing hue 
I prize with zeal before unknown, 

It tells me of a Friend I knew. 
Who lov'd me for myself alone. 



It tells me what how few can say 
Though all the social tie commend; 

Recorded in my heart 'twill lay,^ 
It tells me mine was once a Friend. 



Through many a weary day gone by, 
With time the gift is dearer grown ; 

And still I view in Memory's eye 

That teardrop sparkle through my 



1 [For the irregular use of "lay" for "lie," 
compare "The Adieu" (st. 10, 1. 4, p. 82), and 
the much-disputed line, "And dashest him 
again to earth — there let him lay" {Childe 
Harold, Canto IV. st. clxxx.).] 



So 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



And heartless Age perhaps will smile, 
Or wonder whence those feelings 
sprung; 
Yet let not sterner souls revile, 

For Both were open, Both were 
young. 

6. 

And Youth is sure the only time, 

When Pleasure blends no base 
alloy; 

When Life is blest without a crime. 
And Innocence resides with Joy. 



Let those reprove my feeble Soul, 
Who laugh to scorn Affection's 
name; 

While these impose a harsh controul. 
All will forgive who feel the same. 



Then still I wear my simple toy, 

With pious care from wreck I'll save 
it; 
And this will form a dear employ. 
For dear I was to him who gave it. 
? 1806. 
[First published, 1898.] 



[A WOMAN'S HAIR.i] 

Oh ! Httle lock of golden hue 

In gently waving ringlet curl'd. 
By the dear head on which you grew, 

I would not lose you for a world. 
Not though a thousand more adorn 
The polish' d brow where once you 
shone, 
Like rays which gild a cloudless morn 
Beneath Columbia's fervid zone. 
1806. 
[First published, 1832.] 

1 [These lines are preserved in MS. at New- 
stead, with the following memorandum in Miss 
Pigot's handwriting: "Copied from the fly-leaf 
in a vol. of my Burns' books, which is written in 
pencil by himself." They have hitherto been 
printed as stanzas 5 and 6 of the lines "To a 
Lady," etc., p. 73.] 



STANZAS TO JESSY.^ 
I. 

There is a mystic thread of life 
So dearly wreath'd with mine alone, 

That Destiny's relentless knife 

At once must sever both, or none. 



There is a Form on which these eyes 
Have fondly gaz'd with such de- 
light — 
By day, that Form their joy suppUes, 
And Dreams restore it, through the 
night. 

3- 
There is a Voice whose tones inspire 
Such soften'd feelings in my breast, 
I would not hear a Seraph Choir, 
Unless that voice could join the rest. 



There is a Face whose Blushes tell 

Affection's tale upon the cheek. 
But pallid at our fond farewell 

Proclaims more love than words can 
speak. 

5- 
There is a Lip, which mine has prest, 

But none had ever prest before; 
It vowed to make me sweetly blest, 

That mine alone should press it more. 

6. 

There is a Bosom all my own, 

Has pillow'd oft this aching head, 

A Mouth which smiles on me alone, 
An Eye, whose tears with mine are 
shed. 

1 ["Stanzas to Jessy" have often been printed, 
but were never acknowledged by Byron, or in- 
cluded in any authorised edition of his works. 
They are, however, unquestionably genuine. 
They appeared first in Monthly Literary Rec- 
reations (July, 1807), a magazine published by 
B. Crosby & Co., Stationers' Court. Crosby 
was London agent for Ridge, the Newark book- 
seller, and, with Longman and others, "sold" 
the recently issued Hours of Idleness. The 
hnes are headed "Stanzas to Jessy," and are 
signed "George Gordon, Lord Byron." They 
were republished in 1824, by Knight and Lacy, 
and again in the same year by John Bumpus 
and A. Griffin, in their Miscellaneous Poems, 
etc.] 



STANZAS TO JESSY— THE ADIEU 



81 



There are two Hearts whose movements 
thrill 
In unison so closely sweet, 
That, Pulse to Pulse responsive, still, 
They Both must heave, or cease to 
beat. 



There are two Souls, whose equal flow 

In gentle stream so calmly run. 
That when they part — they part ? — 
ah no! 
They cannot part — those Souls are 

One. 
[George Gordon, Lord] Byron. 
[First published, 1807.] 



THE ADIEU. 

WRITTEN UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT 
THE AUTHOR WOULD SOON DIE. 



Adieu, thou Hill ! where early joy 

Spread roses o'er my brow; 
When Science seeks each loitering boy 

With knowledge to endow. 
Adieu, my youthful friends or foes, 
Partners of former bliss or woes; 

No more through Ida's paths we 
stray ; 
Soon must I share the gloomy cell. 
Whose ever-slumbering inmates dwell 

Unconscious of the day. 



Adieu, ye hoary Regal Fanes, 

Ye spires of Granta's vale, 
Where Learning robed in sable reigns. 

And Melancholy pale. 
Ye comrades of the jovial hour, 
Ye tenants of the classic bower. 

On Cama's verdant margin plac'd. 
Adieu ! while memory still is mine. 
For offerings on Oblivion's shrine. 

These scenes must be eff'ac'd. 



Adieu, ye mountains of the clime 
Where grew my youthful years; 
G 



Where Loch na Garr in snow sublime 

His giant summit rears. 
Why did my childhood wander forth 
From you, ye regions of the North, 

With sons of Pride to roam? 
Why did I quit my Highland cave, 
Mar's dusky heath, and Dee's clear 
wave. 

To seek a Sotheron home? 



Hall of my Sires ! a long farewell — 

Yet why to thee adieu? 
Thy vaults will echo back my knell. 

Thy towers my tomb will view: 
The faltering tongue which sung thy 

fall, 
And former glories of thy Hall, 

Forgets its wonted simple note — 
But yet the Lyre retains the strings. 
And, sometimes, on ^olian wings, 

In dying strains may float. 



Fields, which surround yon rustic cot,^ 

While yet I Hnger here, 
Adieu ! you are not now forgot, 

To retrospection dear. 
Streamlet ! ^ along whose rippling surge 
My youthful limbs were wont to urge. 

At noontide heat, their pUant course; 
Plunging with ardour from the shore. 
Thy springs will lave these limbs no 
more, 

Deprived of active force. 

6. 

And shall I here forget the scene, 

Still nearest to my breast? 
Rocks rise and rivers roll between 

The spot which passion blest; 
Yet, Mary,^ all thy beauties seem 
Fresh as in Love's bewitching dream, 

To me in smiles display'd; 
Till slow disease resigns his prey 
To Death, the parent of decay, 

Thine image cannot fade. 



[Mrs Pigot's cottage.] 

[The river Grete, at Southwell.] 

[Mary Chaworth.] 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



7- 
And thou, my Friend ! whose gentle 
love 
Yet thrills my bosom's chords, 
How much thy friendship was above 

Description's power of words ! 
Still near my breast thy gift I wear 
Which sparkled once with Feeling's 
tear, 
Of Love the pure, the sacred gem: 
Our souls were equal, and our lot 
In that dear moment quite forgot; 
Let Pride alone condemn ! 

8. 

All, all is dark and cheerless now ! 

No smile of Love's deceit 
Can warm my veins with wonted 
glow, 

Can bid Life's pulses beat: 
Not e'en the' hope of future fame 
Can wake my faint, exhausted frame. 

Or crown with fancied wreaths my 
head. 
Mine is a short inglorious race, — 
To humble in the dust my face, 

And mingle with the dead. 



Oh Fame! thou goddess of my heart; 

On him who gains thy praise. 
Pointless must fall the Spectre's dart, 

Consum'd in Glory's blaze; 
But me she beckons from the earth, 
My name obscure, unmark'd my 
birth. 

My life a short and vulgar dream: 
Lost in the dull, ignoble crowd. 
My hopes recline within a shroud, 

My fate is Lethe's stream. 



When I repose beneath the sod. 

Unheeded in the clay, 
Where once my playful footsteps trod. 

Where now my head must lay. 
The meed of Pity will be shed 
In dew-drops o'er my narrow bed. 

By nightly skies, and storms alone; 
No mortal eye will deign to steep 
With tears the dark sepulchral deep 

Which hides a name unknown. 



Forget this world, my restless sprite. 

Turn, turn thy thoughts to Heaven: 
There must thou soon direct thy flight. 

If errors are forgiven. 
To bigots and to sects unknown. 
Bow down beneath the Almighty's 
Throne; 

To Him address thy trembling prayer: 
He, who is merciful and just. 
Will not reject a child of dust, 

Although His meanest care. 



Father of Light! to Thee I call; 

My soul is dark within: 
Thou who canst mark the sparrow's fall. 

Avert the death of sin. 
Thou, who canst guide the wandering 

star. 
Who calm'st the elemental war, 

Whose mantle is yon boundless sky, 
My thoughts, my words, my crimes for- 
give; 
And, since I soon must cease to live, 
Instruct me how to die. 1807. 

[First published, 1832.] 

TO . 



Oh ! well I know your subtle Sex, 
Frail daughters of the wanton Eve, — 

While jealous pangs our Souls perplex, 
No passion prompts you to relieve. 



From Love, or Pity ne'er you fall, 
By you, no mutual Flame is felt, 

'Tis Vanity, which rules you all, 
Desire alone which makes you melt. 



I will not say no souls are yours. 

Aye, ye have Souls, and dark ones too. 

Souls to contrive those smiling lures. 
To snare our simple hearts for you. 



Yet shall you never bind me fast, 
Long to adore such brittle toys, 

I'll rove along, from first to last, 

And change whene'er my fancy cloVi,. 



ON THE EYES OF MISS A- 



H- 



— TO ANNE 



83 



Oh ! I should be a baby fool, 

To sigh the dupe of female art — 
Woman ! perhaps thou hast a Soul, 
But where have Demons hid thy 
Heart? January, 1807. 

[First published, 1898.] 



ON THE EYES OF MISS A 

H K 

Anne's Eye is liken'd to the Sun, 
From it such Beams of Beauty fall; 

And this can be denied by none, 
For Uke the Sun — it shines on All. 

Then do not admiration smother, 
Or say these glances don't become 
her; 
To you, or /, or any other, 

Her Sun displays perpetual Summer. 
January 14, 1807. 
[First published, 1898.] 

TO A VAIN LADY. 
I. 

Ah, heedless girl ! why thus disclose 
What ne'er was meant for other ears ; 

Why thus destroy thine own repose. 
And dig the source of future tears ? 



Oh, thou wilt weep, imprudent maid. 
While lurking envious foes will smile. 

For all the follies thou hast said 
Of those who spoke but to beguile. 



Vain girl I thy ling'ring woes are nigh, 
If thou believ'st what striplings say: 

Oh, from the deep temptation fly, 
Nor fall the specious spoiler's prey. 



Dost thou repeat, in childish boast, 
The words man utters to deceive? 

Thy peace, thy hope, thy all is lost, 
If thou canst venture to believe. 

^ [Miss Anne Houson.] 



While now amongst thy female peers 
Thou tell'st again the soothing tale, 

Canst thou not mark the rising sneers 
DupHcity in vain would veil? 



These tales in secret silence hush. 

Nor make thyself the public gaze: 
What modest maid without a blush 

Recounts a flattering coxcomb's 
praise ? 

7- 
Will not the laughing boy despise 

Her who relates each fond conceit — 
Who, thinking Heaven is in her eyes, 

Yet cannot see the slight deceit? 



For she who takes a soft delight 

These amorous nothings in revealing, 

Must credit all we say or write, 
While vanity prevents concealing. 



Cease, if you prize your Beauty's reign! 

No jealousy bids me reprove: 
One, who is thus from nature vain, 
I pity, but I cannot love. 

January 15, 1807. 
[First published, 1832.] 



TO ANNE.i 



Oh, Anne, your off^ences to me have been 
grievous: 
I thought from my wrath no atone- 
ment could save you; 
But Woman is made to command and 
deceive us — 
I look'd in your face, and I almost 
forgave you. 



I vow'd I could ne'er for a moment 
respect you. 
Yet thought that a day's separation 
was long; 

^ [Miss Anne Houson.] 



84 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



When we met, I determined again to 
suspect you — 
Your smile soon convinced me, sus- 
picion was wrong. 



I swore, in a transport of young indig- 
nation, 
With fervent contempt evermore to 
disdain you: 
I saw you — my anger became admira- 
tion; 
And now, all my wish, all my hope's 
to regain you. 



With beauty like yours, oh, how vain 
the contention ! 
Thus lowly I sue for forgiveness be- 
fore you ; — 
At once to conclude such a fruitless 
dissension, 
Be false, my sweet Anne, when I 
cease to adore you ! 

January i6, 1807. 
[First published, 1832.] 



EGOTISM. A LETTER TO J. T. 
BECHER. 



''EtavTov Bupojj' aetSet. 



If Fate should seal my Death to-morrow, 
(Though much / hope she will post- 
pone it,) 

I've held a share of Joy and Sorrow, 
Enough for Ten; and here I own it. 



I've liv'd as many other men live. 
And yet, I think, with more enjoy- 
ment; 
For could I through my days again live, 
I'd pass them in the same employ- 
ment. 

3- 
That is to say, with some exception, 

For though I will not make confession, 
I've seen too much of man's deception 
Ever again to trust profession. 



Some sage Mammas with gesture 
haughty, 
Pronounce me quite a youthful Sin- 
ner — 
But Daughters say, "although he's 
naughty. 
You must not check a Young Begin- 
ner 1" 

5- 
I've lov'd, and many damsels know 
it — 
But whom I don't intend to mention, 
As certain stanzas also show it, 
Some say deserving Reprehension. 



Some ancient Dames, of virtue fiery, 
(Unless Report does much belie 
them,) 
Have lately made a sharp Enquiry, 
And much it grieves me tq deny 
them. 



Two whom I lov'd had eyes of Blue, 
To which I hope you've no objec- 
tion; 
The Rest had eyes of darker Htie — 
Each Nymph, of course, was all 
perfection. 

8. 

But here I'll close my chaste Description, 
Nor say the deeds of animosity; 

For silence is the best prescription, 
To physic idle curiosity. 



Of Friends I've known a goodly Hun- 
dred — 
For finding one in each acquaintance, 
By some deceived, by others plunder'd. 
Friendship, to me, was not Re- 
pentance. 



At School I thought like other Children ; 

Instead of Brains, a fine Ingredient, 
Romance, my youthful Head bewilder- 
ing, 

To Sense had made me disobedient. 



EGOTISM— TO ANNE— TO THE AUTHOR OF A SONNET 85 



A victim, nearly from affection, 

To certain very precious scheming, 
The still remaining recollection 

Has cured my boyish soul of Dream- 
ing. 

12. 

By Heaven ! I rather w^ould forswear 
The Earth, and all the joys reserv'd 
me, 
Than dare again the specious Snare, 
From which my Fate and Heaven 
preserved me. 

13- 
Still I possess some Friends who love 
me — 
In each a much-esteem'd and true one; 
The Wealth of Worlds shall never move 
me 
To quit their Friendship, for a new one. 

14. 

But, Becher! you're a reverend pastor, 
Now take it in consideration, 

Whether for penance I should fast, or 
Pray for my sins in expiation. 

IS- 
I own myself the child of Folly, 

But not so wicked as they make me — 
I soon must die of melancholy, 

If Female smiles should e'er forsake 
me. 

16. 

Philosophers have never doubted. 

That Ladies' Lips were made for 
kisses ! 

For Love ! I could not live without it. 
For such a cursed place as This is. 



Say, Becher, I shall be forgiven ! 

If you don't warrant my salvation, 
I must resign all Hopes of Heaven J 
For, Faith, I can't withstand Tempta- 
tion. 
P. S. — These were written between 
one and two, after midnight. I have 
not corrected, or revised. Yours, 

Byron. 
[First published, 1898.] 



TO ANNE. 



Oh say not, sweet Anne, that the Fates 
have decreed 
The heart which adores you should 
wish to dissever; 
Such Fates were to me most unkind 
ones indeed, — 
To bear me from Love and from 
Beauty for ever. 



Your frowns, lovely girl are the Fates 
which alone 
Could bid me from fond admiration 
refrain ; 
By these, every hope, every wish were 
o'erthrown. 
Till smiles should restore me to rapture 
again. 

3- 
As the ivy and oak, in the forest en- 
twin'd. 
The rage of the tempest united must 
weather; 
My love and my life were by nature 
design'd 
To flourish alike, or to perish together. 

4. 
Then say not, sweet Anne, that the 
Fates have decreed 
Your lover should bid you a lasting 
adieu: 
Till Fate can ordain that his bosom shall 
bleed, 
His Soul, his Existence, are centred in 
you. 1807. 

[First published, .: 83 2.] 



TO THE AUTHOR OF A SONNET 

BEGINNING " ' SAD IS MY VERSE,' YOU 
SAY, 'and yet no tear.'" 

I. 

Thy verse is "sad" enough, no doubt: 
A devilish deal more sad than witty ! 

Why we should weep I can't find out, 
Unless for thee we weep in pity. 
1 [Miss Anne Houson.] 



86 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Yet there is one I pity more; 

And much, alas! I think he needs it: 
For he, I'm sure, will suffer sore, 

Who, to his own misfortune, reads it. 

3- 
Thy rhymes, without the aid of magic. 

May once be read — but never after: 
Yet their effect's by no means tragic, 

Although by far too dull for laughter. 



But would you make our bosoms 
bleed. 
And of no common pang complain — 
If you would make us weep indeed. 
Tell us, you'll read them o'er again. 
March 8, 1807. 
[First published, 1832.] 



ON FINDING A FAN. 



In one who felt as once he felt, 

This might, perhaps, have fann'd the 
flame ; 

But now his heart no more will melt. 
Because that heart is not the same. 



As when the ebbing flames are low, 
The aid which once improv'd their 
light, 

And bade them burn with fiercer glow. 
Now quenches all their blaze in night. 



Thus has it been with Passion's fires — 
As many a boy and girl remembers — 

While every hope of love expires, 
Extinguish'd with the dying embers. 

4- 
The first, though not a spark survive, 
Some careful hand may teach to 
burn ; 
The last, alas! can ne'er survive; 
No touch can bid its warmth return. 



5- 
Or, if it chance to wake again. 

Not always doom d its heat to 
smother. 
It sheds (so wayward fates ordain) 
Its former warmth around another. 
1807. 
[First published, 1832.] 



FAREWELL TO THE MUSE. 



Thou Power ! who hast ruled me 
through Infancy's days, 
Young offspring of Fancy, 'tis time 
we should part; 
Then rise on the gale this the last of 
my lays, 
The coldest effusion which springs 
from my heart. 



This bosom, responsive to rapture no 
more, 
Shall hush thy wild notes, nor implore 
thee to sing; 
The feelings of childhood, which taught 
thee to soar, 
Are wafted far distant on Apathy's 
wing. 



Though simple the themes of my rude 
flowing Lyre, 
Yet even these themes are departed 
for ever; 
No more beam the eyes which my dream 
could inspire, 
My visions are flown, to return, — 
alas, never ! 



When drain'd is the nectar which glad- 
dens the bowl, 
How vain is the effort delight to 
prolong ! 
When cold is the beauty which dwelt in 
my soul. 
What magic of Fancy can lengthen 
my song? 



TO AN OAK AT NEWSTEAD 



87 



Can the lips sing of Love in the desert 
alone, 
Of kisses and smiles which they now 
must resign? 
Or dwell with delight on the hours that 
are flown? 
Ah, no ! for those hours can no longer 
be mine. 



Can they speak of the friends that I 
liv'd but to* love ? 
Ah, surely Affection ennobles the 
strain ! 
But how can my numbers in sympathy 
move, 
When I scarcely can hope to behold 
them again? 



7- 
Can I sing of the deeds which my 
Fathers have done, 
And raise my loud harp to the fame 
of my Sires? 
For glories like theirs, oh, how faint is 
my tone ! 
For Heroes' exploits how unequal my 
fires ! 



8. 

Untouch'd, then, my Lyre shall reply 
to the blast — 
'Tis hushed; and my feeble endeav- 
ours are o'er ; 
And those who have heard it will pardon 
the past, . 
When they know that its murmurs 
shall vibrate no more. 



And soon shall its wild erring notes be 
forgot, 
Since early afi"ection and love is 
o'ercast: 
Oh ! blest had my Fate been, and happy 
my lot. 
Had the first strain of love been the 
dearest, the last. 



Farewell, my young Muse I since we 
now can ne'er meet; 
If our songs have been languid, they 
surely are few : 
Let us hope that the present at least will 
be sweet — 
The present — which seals our eternal 
Adieu. 1807. 

[First pubhshed, 1832.] 



TO AN OAK AT NEWSTEAD. ^ 

I. 

Young Oak ! when I planted thee deep 
in the grounti, 
I hoped that thy days would be longer 
than mine; 
That thy dark-waving branches would 
flourish around. 
And ivy thy trunk with its mantle 
entwine. 

2. 

Such, such was my hope, when in 
Infancy's years. 
On the land of my Fathers I rear'd 
thee with pride; 
They are past, and I water thy stem with 
my tears, — 
Thy decay, not the weeds that sur- 
round thee can hide. 



I left thee, my Oak, and, since that fatal 
hour, 
A stranger has dwelt in the hall of my 
Sire; 
Till Manhood shall crown me, not mine 
is the power. 
But his, whose neglect may have bade 
thee expire. 

1 [There is no heading to the original MS., 
but on the blank leaf at the end of the poem is 
written, "To an oak in the garden of Newstead 
Abbey, planted by the author in the gth year of 
fhis] age; this tree at his last visit was in a state 
of decay, though perhaps not irrecoverable." 
On arriving at Newstead, in 1798, Byron, then in 
his eleventh year, planted an oak, and cherished 
the fancy, that as the tree flourished so should he. 
On revisiting the abbey, he found the oak choked 
up by weeds and almost destroyed; — hence 
these lines. It may still be seen, a fine and 
flourishing tree.] 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Oh ! hardy thou wert — even now little 
care 
Might revive thy young head, and thy 
wounds gently heal: 
But thou wert not fated affection to 
share — 
For who could suppose that a Stranger 
would feel? 



5- 
Ah, droop not, my Oak! lift thy head 
for a while; 
Ere twice round yon Glory this planet 
shall run, 
The hand of thy Master will teach thee 
' to smile. 

When Infancy's years of probation 
are done. 



Oh, live then, my Oak ! tow'r aloft from 
the weeds. 
That clog thy young growth, and 
assist thy decay, 
For still in thy bosom are Life's early 
seeds. 
And still may thy branches their 
beauty display. 



Oh ! yet, if Maturity's years may be 
thine. 
Though / shall lie low in the cavern 
of Death, 
On thy leaves yet the day-beam of ages 
may shine, 
Uninjur'd by Time, or the rude 
Winter's breath. 



For centuries still may thy boughs 
lightly wave 
O'er the corse of thy Lord in thy 
canopy laid; 
While the branches thus gratefully 
shelter his grave. 
The Chief who survives may recline in 
thy shade. 



And as he, with his boys, shall revisit 
this spot. 
He will tell them in whispers more 
softly to tread. 
Oh ! surely, by these I shall ne'er be 
forgot; 
Remembrance still hallows the dust 
of the dead. 



And here, will they say, when in Life's 
glowing prime. 
Perhaps he has pour'd forth his young 
simple lay, 
And here must he sleep, till the moments 
of Time 
Are lost in the hours of Eternity's day. 
1807. 
[First published, 1832.] 



ON REVISITING HARROW.^ 



Here once engaged the stranger's view 
Young Friendship's record simply 
trac'd; 
Few were her words, — but yet, though 
few, 
Resentment's hand the line defac'd. 



Deeply she cut — but not eras'd — - 
The characters were still so plain. 

That Friendship once return'd, and 
gaz'd, — 
Till Memory hail'd the words again. 



Repentance plar'd them as before; 

Forgiveness join'd her gentle name; 
So fair the inscription seem'd once more, 

That Friendship thought it still the 
same. 

.^["Some years ago, when at Harrow, a 
friend of the author engraved on a particular 
spot the names of both, with a few additional 
words, as a memorial. Afterwards, on receiv- 
ing some real or imaginary injury, the author 
destroyed the frail record before he left Harrow. 
On revisiting the place in 1807, he wrote under 
it these stanzas." — Moore's Life, p. 50.] 



TO MY SON — QUERIES TO CASUISTS — SONG 



Thus might the record now have been ; 
But, ah, in spite of Hope's endeavour. 
Or Friendship's tears, Pride rush'd 
between. 
And blotted out the line for ever. 

September, 1807. 
[First published, 1830.] 



TO MY SON.^ 



Those flaxen locks, those eyes of blue 
Bright as thy mother's in their hue; 
Those rosy lips, whose dimples play 
And smile to steal the heart away, 
Recall a scene of former joy, 
And touch thy father's heart, my Boy ! 



And thou canst lisp a father's name — 
Ah, William, were thine own the same, — 
No self-reproach — but, let me cease — 
My care for thee shall purchase peace; 
Thy mother's shade shall smile in joy. 
And pardon all the past, my Boy! 



Her lowly grave the turf has prest, 
And thou . hast known a stranger's 

breast ; 
Derision sneers upon thy birth. 
And yields thee scarce a name on earth; 
Yet shall not these one hope destroy, — 
A Father's heart is thine, my Boy ! 



Why, let the world unfeeling frown: 
Must I fond Nature's claims disown? 
Ah, no — though moraHsts reprove, 
I hail thee, dearest child of Love, 
Fair cherub, pledge of youth and joy — 
A Father guards thy birth, my Boy ! 



Oh, 'twill be sweet in thee to trace. 
Ere Age has wrinkled o'er my face, 

^ [For a reminiscence of what was, possibly, 
an actual event, see Don Juan, Canto XVI. st. 
Ixi. Byron told his wife that he had two natural 
children, whom he should provide for.] 



Ere half my glass of life is run, 
At once a brother and a son; 
And all my wane of years employ 
In justice done to thee, my Boy ! 

6. 

Although so young thy heedless sire, 
Youth will not damp parental fire; 
And, wert thou still less dear to me, 
While Helen's form revives in thee, 
The breast, which beat to former joy, 
Will ne'er desert its pledge, my Boy ! 

1807. 
[First pubUshed, 1830.] 



QUERIES TO CASUISTS. 

The Moralists tell us that Loving is 
Sinning, 
And always are prating about and 
about it, 
But as Love of Existence itself's the 
beginning. 
Say, what would Existence itself be 
without it? 

They argue the point with much furious 
Invective, 
Though perhaps 'twere no difficult 
task to confute it; 
But if Venus and Hymen should once 
prove defective. 
Pray who would there be to defend or 
dispute it ? — Byron. 

[First published, 1898.] 



SONG. 



Breeze of the night, in gentler sighs, 

More softly murmur o'er the billow; 
For Slumber seals my Fanny's eyes, 
And Peace must never shun her pil- 
low. 

2. 

Or breathe those sweet ^Eolian strains 
Stolen from celestial spheres above, 

To charm her ear while some remains. 
And soothe her soul to dreams of 
love. 



9° 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



But Breeze of night again forbear, 
In softest murmurs only sigh; 

Let not a Zephyr's pinion dare 
To lift those auburn locks on high. 



Chill is thy Breath, thou breeze of night ! 

Oh! ruffle not those lids of Snow; 
For only Morning's cheering Ught 

May wake the bearn that lurks below. 



Blest be that lip and azure eye ! 

Sweet Fanny, hallow'd be thy Sleep! 
Those lips shall never vent a sigh, 
Those eyes may never wake to weep. 
February 23, 1808. 
[First published, 1898.] 

TO HARRIET. 

I. 

Harriet ! to see such Circumspection, 
In Ladies I have no objection, 

Concerning what they read; 
An ancient Maid's a sage adviser, 
Like her, you will be much the wiser. 

In word, as well as Deed. 



But Harriet, I don't wish to flatter. 
And really think 'twould make the mat- 
ter 
More perfect if not quite. 
If other Ladies when they preach, 
Would certain Damsels also teach 
More cautiously to write. 

[First published, 1898.] 

THERE WAS A TIME, I NEED 

NOT NAME.i 



There was a time, I need not name, 
Since it will ne'er forgotten be, 

1 [This copy of verses, with eight others, 
originally appeared in a volume published in 
1809 by J. C. Hobhouse, under the title of Imita- 
tions and Translations, From the Ancient and 
Modern Classics, Together with Original Poems 
never before published.} 



When all our feelings were the same 
As still my soul hath been to thee. 



And from that hour when first thy 

tongue 

Confess'd a love which equall'd mine. 

Though many a grief my heart hath 

wrung, 

Unknown, and thus unfelt, by thine, 



None, none hath sunk so deep as this — 
To think how all that love hath flown, 

Transient as every faithless kiss, 
But transient in thy breast alone. 



And yet my heart some solace knew, 
When late I heard thy lips declare, 

In accents once imagin'd true. 

Remembrance of the days that were. 



Yes ! my ador'd, yet most unkind ! 

Though thou wilt never love again, 
To me 'tis doubly sweet to find 

Remembrance of that love remain. 



Yes ! 'tis a glorious thought to me, . 

No longer shall my soul repine, 
Whate'er thou art or e'er shalt be. 
Thou hast been dearly, solely mine. 
June 10, 1808. 
[First published, 1809.] 

AND WILT THOU WEEP WHEN 

I AM LOW? 

r. 

And wilt thou weep when I am low? 

Sweet lady ! speak those words again: 
Yet if they grieve thee, say not so — 

I would' not give that bosom pain. 



My heart is sad, my hopes are gone, 
My blood runs coldly through my 
breast ; 

And when I perish, thou alone 
Wilt sigh above my place of rest. 



REMIND ME NOT— TO A YOUTHFUL FRIEND 



91 



And yet, methinks, a gleam of peace 
Doth through my cloud of anguish 
shine : 
And for a while my sorrows cease, 
To know thy heart hath felt for 
mine. 



O lady ! blessed be that tear — 

It falls for one who cannot weep ; 
Such precious drops are doubly dear 
To those whose eyes no tear may 
steep. 

5- 
Sweet lady ! once my heart was warm 

With every feeling soft as thine; 
But Beauty's self hath ceas'd to 
charm 
A wretch created to repine. 



Yet wilt thou weep when I am low? 

Sweet lady ! speak those words again: 

Yet if they grieve thee, say not so — 

I would not give that bosom pain. 

August 12, 1808. 

[First published, 1809.] 



REMIND ME NOT, REMIND ME 
NOT. 



Remind me not, remind me not. 

Of those belov'd, those vanish'd 
hours. 

When all my soul was given to thee; 

Hours that may never be forgot, 

Till Time unnerves our vital powers, 

And thou and I shall cease to be. 



Can I forget — canst thou forget. 
When playing with thy golden hair, 
How quick thy fluttering heart did 
move? 
Oh! by my soul, I see thee yet. 

With eyes so languid, breast so fair. 
And lips, though silent, breathing 
love. 



When thus reclining on my breast, 
Those eyes threw back a glance so 
sweet. 
As half reproach' d yet rais'd desire, 
And still we near and nearer prest, 
And still our glowing lips would meet, 
As if in kisses to expire. 

4- 
And then those pensive eyes would close 
And bid their lids each other seek, 
Veiling the azure orbs below; 
While their long lashes' darken'd gloss 
Seem'd steaUng o'er thy brilliant 
cheek. 
Like raven's plumage smooth'd on 
snow. 

5- 
I dreamt last night our love return'd. 
And, sooth to say, that very dream 
Was sweeter in its phantasy, 
Than if for other hearts I burn'd, 
For eyes that ne'er Uke thine could 
beam 
In Rapture's wild reality. 



Then tell me not, remind me not, 

Of hours which, though for ever gone. 
Can still a pleasing dream restroe, 
Till thou and I shall be forgot. 

And senseless, as the mouldering 
• stone 
Which tells that we shall be no 
more. August 13, 1808. 

[First published, 1809.] 



TO A YOUTHFUL FRIEND. 



Few years have pass'd since thou and I 
Were firmest friends, at least in name. 

And Childhood's gay sincerity 

Preserv'd our feelings long the same. 



But now, like me, too well thou know'st 
What trifles oft the heart recall; 

And those who once have lov'd the most 
Too soon forget they lov'd at all. 



92 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



And such the change the heart displays, 
So frail is early friendship's reign, 

A month's brief lapse, perhaps a day's, 
Will view thy mind estrang'd again. 



If so, it never shall be mine 

To mourn the loss of such a heart; 

The fault was Nature's fault, not thine, 
Which made thee fickle as thou art. 



As rolls the Ocean's changing tide, 
So human feelings ebb and flow; 

-4-nd who would in a breast confide 
Where stormy passions ever glow? 

6. 

It boots not that, together bred, 

Our childish days were days of joy: 

My spring of life has quickly fled; 
Thou, too, hast ceas'd to be a boy, 

7- 
And when we bid adieu to youth, 
Slaves to the specious World's con- 
troul. 
We sigh a long farewell to truth; 

That World corrupts the noblest soul. 



Ah ! joyous season ! when the mind 
Dares all things boldly but to lie; 

When Thought ere spoke is unconfin'd, 
And sparkles in the placid eye. 



Not so in Man's maturer years. 
When Man himself is but a tool; 

When Interest sways our hopes and 
fears. 
And all must love and hate by rule. 



With fools in kindred vice the same. 
We learn at length our faults to blend; 

And those, and those alone, may claim 
The prostituted name of friend. 



Such is the common lot of man: 

Can we then 'scape from folly free? 

Can we reverse the general plan. 
Nor be what all in turn must be? 



No; for myself, so dark my fate 

Through every turn of life hath been; 

Man and the World so much I hate, 
I care not when I quit the scene. 

13- 

But thou, with spirit frail and light, 

Wilt shine awhile, and pass away; 

As glow-worms sparkle through the 

night, 

But dare not stand the test of day. 

14. 

Alas ! whenever Folly calls 

Where parasites and princes meet, 
(For cherish'd first in royal halls 

The welcome vices kindly greet,) 

IS- 
Ev'n now thou'rt nightly seen to add 

One insect to the fluttering crowd; 
And still thy trifling heart is glad 

To join the vain and court the proud. 

16. 

There dost thou glide from fair to fair, 

Still simpering on with eager haste, 
As flies, along the gay parterre, 

That taint the flowers they scarcely 
taste. 

17- 
But say, what nymph will prize the 
flame 
Which seems, as marshy vapours 
move. 
To flit along from dame to dame, 
An ignis-f atuus gleam of love ? 



What friend for thee, howe'er inclin'd, 
Will deign to own a kindred care? 

Who will debase his manly mind 

For friendship every fool may share? 



LINES INSCRIBED UPON A CUP — WELL/ THOU ART HAPPY 



03 



19. 

In time forbear; amidst the throng 
No more so base a thing be seen; 
No more so idly pass along; 

Be something, any thing, but — mean. 
August 20, 1808. 
[First pubUshed, 1809.] 

LINES INSCRIBED UPON A CUP 
FORMED FROM A SKULL.^ 



Start not — nor deem my spirit fled : 
In me behold the only skull, 

From which, unlike a living head, 
Whatever flows is never dull. 



1 liv'd, I lov'd, I quaff 'd, like thee: 
I died: let earth my bones resign; 

Fill up — thou canst not injure me ; 
The worm hath fouler lips than thine. 



Better to hold the sparkling grape, 
Than nurse the earth-worm's slimy 
brood ; 

And circle in the goblet's shape 

The drink of Gods, than reptiles' food. 

4- 

Where once my wit, perchance, hath 

shone. 

In aid of others' let me shine; 

And when, alas! our brains are gone, 

What nobler substitute than wine? 

5- 

Quaff while thou canst: another race. 

When thou and thine, like me, are 

sped, 

May rescue thee from Earth's embrace, 

And rhyme and revel with the dead. 

^ [Byron gave Medwin the following account 
of this cup: — "The gardener in digging [dis- 
covered] a skull that had probably belonged to 
some jolly friar or monk of the abbey, about the 
time It was dis-monasteried. Observing it to 
be of giant size, and in a perfect state of pres- 
ervation, a strange fancy seized me of having 
it set and mounted as a drinking-cup. I ac- 
cordingly sent it to town, and it returned with 
a very high polish, and of a mottled colour like 
tortoisesheli." — Medwin's Conversations, 1824, 
p. 87.1 



Why not? since through life's little day 
Our heads such sad effects produce'; 
Redeem'd from worms and wasting clay, 
This chance is theirs, to be of use. 
Newstead Abbey, 1808. 
[First published, 1814.] 

WELL! THOU ART HAPPY.^ 



Well ! thou art happy, and I feel 
That I should thus be happy too; 

For still my heart regards thy weal 
Warmly, as it was wont to do. 



Thy husband's blest — and 'twill im- 
part 

Some pangs to view his happier lot: 
But let them pass — Oh ! how my heart 

Would hate him if he lov'd thee not ! 



When late I saw thy favourite child, 
I thought my jealous heart would 
break; 

But when the unconscious infant smil'd, 
I kiss'd it for its mother's sake. 



I kiss'd it, — and repress'd my sighs 
Its father in its face to see; 

But then it had its mother's eyes, 
And they were all to love and me. 



Mary, adieu ! I must away : 

While thou art blest I'll not repine; 
But near thee I can never stay; 

My heart would soon again be thine. 

6. 

I deem'd that Time, I deem'd that Pride, 
Had quench'd at length my boyish 
flame; 
Nor knew, till seated by thy side. 
My heart in all, — save hope, — the 
same. 

^ [These lines were written after dining at 
Annesley with Mr and Mrs Chaworth Musters.] 



94 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Yet was I calm: I knew the time 
My breast would thrill before thy 
look ; 

But now to tremble were a crime — 
We met, — and not a nerve was shook. 



I saw thee gaze upon my face, 

Yet meet with no confusion there: 

One only feeling could'st thou trace; 
The sullen calmness of despair. 



Away ! away ! my early dream, 

Remembrance never must awake : 

Oh ! where is Lethe's fabled stream ? 

My foolish heart be still, or break. 

November 2, 1808. 

[First published, 1809.] 



INSCRIPTION ON THE MONU- 
MENT OF A NEWFOUND- 
LAND DOG.^ 

When some proud son of man returns 

to earth. 
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth, 
The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of 

woe 
And storied urns record who rest below: 

^ [This monument is placed in the garden of 
Newstead. A prose inscription precedes the 
verses: — 

" Near this spot 

Are deposited the Remains of one 

Who possessed Beauty without Vanity, 

Strength without Insolence, 

Courage without Ferocity, 

And all the Virtues of Man without his Vices. 

This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery 

If inscribed over human ashes, • 

Is but a just tribute to the Memory of 

BOATSWAIN, a Dog, 

Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803, 

And died at Newstead Abbey, Nov. 18, 1808." 

Byron thus announced the death of his fa- 
vourite to his friend Hodgson: — "Boatswain is 
dead ! — • he expired in a state of madness on the 
i8th after suffering much, yet retaining all the 
gentleness of his nature to the last; never at- 
tempting to do the least injury to any one near 
him. I have now lost everything except old 
Murray." In the will which the poet executed 



When all is done, upon the tomb is 

seen. 
Not what he was, but what he should 

have been: 
But the poor dog, in life the firmest 

friend. 
The first to welcome, foremost to de- 
fend. 
Whose honest heart is still his master's 

own, 
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for 

him alone, 
Unhonour'd falls unnotic'd all his 

worth — 
Denied in heaven the soul he held on 

earth: 
While Man, vain insect ! hopes to be 

forgiven. 
And claims himself a sole exclusive 

Heaven. 
Oh Man ! thou feeble tenant of an 

hour, 
Debas'd by slavery, or corrupt by 

power. 
Who knows thee well must quit thee 

with disgust, 
Degraded mass of animated dust ! 
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a 

cheat. 
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit ! 
By nature vile, ennobled but by 

name. 
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush 

for shame. 
Ye ! who perchance behold its simple 

urn. 
Pass on — it honours none you wish to 

mourn: 
To mark a Friend's remains these stones 

arise ; 
I never knew but one — and here he 

lies. 

Newstead Abbey, October 30, 1808. 
[First published, 1809.] 



in 181 1, he desired to be buried in the vault with 
his dog, and Joe Murray was to have the honour 
of making one of the party. When the poet was 
on his travels, a gentleman, to whom Murray 
showed the tomb, said, "Well, old boy, you will 
take your place here some twenty years hence." 
"I don't know that, sir," replied Joe; "if I was 
sure his lordship would come here I should like 
it well enough, but I should not like to lie alone 
with the dog." — Lije, pp. 73, 131.] 



TO A LADY — FILL THE GOBLET AGAIN 



95 



TO A LADY, 

ON BEING ASKED MY REASON FOR 
QUITTING ENGLAND IN THE SPRING. 



When Man, expell'd from Eden's 
bowers, 

A moment linger'd near the gate, 
Each scene recall'd the vanish'd hours, 

And bade him curse his future fate. 



But, wandering on through distant 
climes. 

He learnt to bear his load of grief; 
Just gave a sigh to other times, 

And found in busier scenes relief. 



Thus, Lady ! will it be with me. 

And I must view thy charms no more; 

For, while I linger near to thee, 
I sigh for all I knew before. 



In flight I shall be surely wise, 

Escaping from temptation's snare; 
I cannot view my Paradise 

Without the wish of dwelling there. 

December 2, 1808. 

[First published, 1809.] 

FILL THE GOBLET AGAIN. 

A SONG. 
I. 

Fill the goblet again ! for I never be- 
fore 

Felt the glow which now gladdens my 
heart to its core; 

Let us drink ! — who would not ? — 
since, through life's varied round, 

In the goblet alone no deception is 
found. 

2. 

I have tried in its turn all that life can 

supply; 
I have bask'd in the beam of a dark 

rolling eye; 



I have lov'd!— "who has not? — but 

what heart can declare 
That Pleasure existed while Passion 

was there? 



In the days of my youth, when the heart's 

in its spring. 
And dreams that Affection can never 

take wing, 
I had friends ! — who has not ? — but 

what tongue will avow, 
That friends, rosy wine ! are so faithful 

as thou? 



The heart of a mistress some boy may 

estrange, 
Friendship shifts with the sunbeam — 

thou never canst change; 
Thou grow'st old — who does not? — 

but on earth what appears, 
Whose virtues, like thine, still increase 

with its years? 

5- 
Yet if blest to the utmost that Love can 

bestow, 
Should a rival bow down to our idol 

below, 
We are jealous ! — who's not ? — thou 

hast no such alloy; 
For the more that enjoy thee, the more 

we enjoy. 



Then the season of youth and its vani- 
ties past, 

For refuge we fly to the goblet at last; 

There we find — do we not ? — in the 
flow of the soul, 

That truth, as of yore, is confined to the 
bowl. 



When the box of Pandora was open'd on 

" earth, 
And Misery's triumph commenc'd over 

Mirth, 
Hope was left, — was she not ? — but 

the goblet we kiss, 
And care not for Hope, who are certain 

of bliss. 



96 



HOURS OF IDLENESS 



Long life to the grape ! for when sum- 
mer is flown, 

The age of our nectar shall gladden our 
own : 

We must die — who shall not ? — May 
our sins be forgiven, 

And Hebe shall never be idle in Heaven. 
[First published, 1809.] 



STANZAS TO A LADY, 

ON LEAVING ENGLAND. 



'Tis done — and shivering in the gale 
The bark unfurls her snowy sail; 
And whistling o'er the bending mast, 
Loud sings on high the fresh' ning blast; 
And I must from this land be gone. 
Because I cannot love but one. 



But could I be what I have been. 
And could I see what I have seen — 
Could I repose upon the breast 
Which once my warmest wishes blest 
I should not seek another zone, 
Because I cannot love but one. 



'Tis long since I beheld that eye 
Which gave me bliss or misery ; 
And I have striven, but in vain. 
Never to think of it again: 
For though I fly from Albion, 
I still can only love but one. 



As some lone bird, without a mate, 
My weary heart is desolate; 
I look around, and cannot trace 
One friendly smile or welcome face. 
And ev'n in crowds am still alone. 
Because I cannot love but one. 



And I will cross the whitening foam, 
And I will seek a foreign home; 
Till I forget a false fair face, 
I ne'er shall find a resting-place; 
My own dark thoughts I cannot shun, 
But ever love, and love but one. 



The poorest, veriest wretch on earth 
Still finds some hospitable hearth, 
Where Friendship's or Love's softer 

glow 
May smile in joy or soothe in woe; 
But friend or leman I have none, 
Because I cannot love but one. 



I go — but wheresoe'er I flee 
There's not an eye will weep for me; 
There's not a kind congenial heart. 
Where I can claim the meanest part; 
Nor thou, who hast my hopes undone, 
Wilt sigh, although I love but one. 



To think of every early scene. 

Of what we are, and what we've been. 

Would whelm some softer hearts with 

woe — 
But mine, alas! has stood the blow; 
Yet still beats on as it begun, 
And never truly loves but one. 



And who that dear lov'd one may be. 
Is not for vulgar eyes to see; 
And why that early love was cross'd, 
Thou know'st the best, I feel the most; 
But few that dwell beneath the sun 
Have lov'd so long, and lov'd but one. 



I've tried another's fetters too. 
With charms perchance as fair to view; 
And I would fain have lov'd as well. 
But some unconquerable spell 
Forbade my bleeding breast to own 
A kindred care for aught but one. 



'Twould soothe to take one lingering 

view. 
And bless thee in my last adieu; 
Yet wish I not those eyes to weep 
For him that wanders o'er the deep; 
His home, his hope, his youth are gone. 
Yet still he loves, and loves but one. 

1809. 
[First published, 1809.] 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



97 



ENGLISH BARDS,! 

AND 

SCOTCH REVIEWERS; 2 

A SATIRE. 

BY 

LORD BYRON. 

"I had rather be a kitten, and cry, mew! 
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers." 
— Shakespeare. 

"Such shameless Bards we 'have; and yet 'tis 
true, 
There are as mad, abandon'd Critics, too." 
— Pope. 

PREFACE.^ 

A LL my friends, learned and unlearned, 
have urged me not to publish this Satire 
with my name. If I were to he "turned 
from the career of my humour by quib- 
bles quick, and paper bullets of the brain," 
I should have complied with their counsel. 
But I am not to be terrified by abuse, or 
bullied by reviewers, with or without 
arms. I can safely say that I have 
attacked none personally, who did not 
commence on the offensive. An au- 
thor'' s works are public property : he who 
purchases may judge, and publish his 

1 [A first draft of English Bards and Scotch 
Reviewers, then entitled British Bards, was begun 
October, 1807. The First Edition was published 
anonymously, March i, 1809. A Fifth Edition, 
printed in 1812, was suppressed, and was not 
published till 1831. The text of the present 
issue is based on that of the Fifth Edition.] 

2 "The binding of this volume is considerably 
too valuable for the contents. Nothing but the 
consideration of its being the property of an- 
other, prevents me from consigning this miser- 
able record of misplaced anger and indiscrimi- 
nate acrimony to the flames." — B., 1816. 

^ [The Preface, as it is here printed, was pre- 
fixed to the Second, Third, and Fourth Editions 
of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. The 
preface to the First Edition began with the words, 
"With regard to the real talents," etc. (see next 
column, line 28). The text of the poem follows 
that of the suppressed Fifth Edition, which 
passed under Byron's own supervision, and was 
to have be^n issued in 1812. From that Edition 
ihe Preface was altogether excluded.] 



Opinion if he pleases; and the Authors 
I have endeavoured to commemorate may 
do by me as I have done by them. I dare 
say they will succeed better in condemning 
my scribhlings, than in mending their 
own. But my object is not to prove that 
I can write well, but, if possible, to make 
others write better. 

As the Poem has met with far more 
success than I expected, I have endeav- 
oured in this Edition to make some addi- 
tions and alterations, to render it more 
worthy of public perusal. 

In the First Edition of this Satire, pub- 
lished anonymously, fourteen lines on 
the subject of Bowleses Pope were written 
by, and inserted at the request of, an 
ingenious friend of mine,^ who has now 
in the press a volume of Poetry. In the 
present Edition they are erased, and some 
of my own substituted in their stead; my 
only reason for this being that which I 
conceive would operate with any other 
person in the same manner, — a determi- 
nation not to publish with my name any 
production, which was not entirely and 
exclusively my own composition. 

With ^ regard to the real talents of many 
of the poetical persons whose perform- 
ances are mentioned or alluded to in the 
following pages, it is presumed by the 
Author that there can be little difference 
of opinion in the Public at large; though, 
like other sectaries, each has his separate 
tabernacle of proselytes, by whom his 
abilities are over-rated, his faults over- 
looked, and his metrical canons received 
without scruple and- without considera- 
tion. But the unquestionable possession 
of considerable genius by several of the 
writers here censured renders their 
mental prostitution more to be regretted. 
Imbecility may be pitied, or, at worst, 
laughed at and forgotten; perverted 
powers demand the most decided repre- 
hension. No one can wish more than 
the Author that some known and able 
writer had undertaken their exposure; 
but Mr Gifford has devoted himself to 
Massinger, and, in the absence of the 
regular physician, a country practitioner 

1 John Cam Hobhouse. 

2 [Preface to the First Edition.] 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



may, in cases of absolute necessity, he 
allowed to prescribe his nostrum to pre- 
vent the extension of so deplorable an epi- 
demic, provided there be no quackery in 
his treatment of the malady. A caustic 
is here offered; as it is to be feared noth- 
ing short of actual cautery can recover the 
numerous patients afflicted with the pres- 
ent prevalent and distressing rabies for 
rhyming. — As to the Edinburgh Re- 
viewers, it would indeed require an 
Hercules to crush the Hydra ; but if the 
Author succeeds in merely "bruising one 
of the heads of the serpent,''^ though his 
own hand should suffer in the encounter, 
he will be amply satisfied. 



Still ^ must I hear ? — shall hoarse 

.FlTZGERAX-D bawl 

His creaking couplets in a tavern hall,^ 

And I not sing, lest, haply, Scotch Re- 
views 

Should dub me scribbler, and denounce 
my Muse ? 

Prepare for rhyme — I'll publish, right 
or wrong : 

Fools are my theme, let Satire be my 
song. 

Oh ! Nature's noblest gift — my grey 

goose-quill ! 
Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my 

will, 
Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen. 
That mighty instrument of little men ! 
The pen ! foredoomed to aid the mental 

throes i i 

Or brains that labour, big with Verse or 

Prose ; 

1 Imitation. 

"Semper ego auditor tantum? nunquamne re- 
ponam, 
Vexatus toties rauci Theseide Codri?" 

— Juvenal, Satire I. 1. i. 

2 ''Hoarse _ Fitzgerald." — "Right enough; 
but why notice such a mountebank?" — B., 
i8i6. 

Mr. Fitzgerald, facetiously termed by Cobbett 
the "Small Beer Poet," inflicts his annual trib- 
ute of verse on the Literary Fund: not content 
with writing he_ spouts in person, after the com- 
pany have imbibed a reasonable quantity of bad 
port, to enable them to sustain the operation. 
[William Thomas Fitzgerald (circ. 1 759-1820) 
published, inter alia. Nelson's Triumph (179S) 
and Nelson's Tomb (1806).] 



Though Nymphs forsake, and Critics 

may deride, 
The Lover's solace, and the Author's 

pride. 
What Wits ! what Poets dost thou daily 

raise ! 
How frequent is thy use, how small thy 

praise ! 
Condemned at length to be forgotten 

quite,. 
With all the pages which 'twas thine to 

write. 
But thou, at least, mine own especial 

pen ! 
Once laid aside, but now assumed 

again, 20 

Our task complete, like Hamet's ^ shall 

be free; 
Though spurned by others, yet beloved 

by me: 
Then let us soar to-day; no common 

theme. 
No Eastern vision, no distempered 

dream ^ 
Inspires — our path, though full of 

thorns, is plain; 
Smooth be the verse, and easy be the 

strain. 

When Vice triumphant holds her 

sov'reign sway. 
Obeyed by all who nought beside obey; 
When Folly, frequent harbinger of 

crime, 
Bedecks her cap with bells of every 

Clime; 30 

When knaves and fools combined o'er all 

prevail. 
And weigh their Justice in a Golden 

Scale; 
E'en then the boldest start from public 

sneers, 
Afraid of Shame, unknown to other 

fears. 
More darkly sin, by Satire kept in 

awe, 
And shrink from Ridicule, though not 

from Law. 

^ Cid Hamet Benengeli promises repose to his 
pen, in the last chapter of Don Quixote. Oh ! 
that our voluminous gentry would follow the 
example of Cid Hamet Benengeli ! 

-"This must have been written io the spirit 
of prophecy." — B., 1816. 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



99 



Such is the force of Wit! but not 

belong 
To me the arrows of satiric song; 
The royal vices of our age demand 
A keener weapon, and a mightier hand. 
Still there are follies, e'en for me to 

chase 41 

And yield at least amusement in the 

race: 
Laugh when I laugh, I seek no other 

fame. 
The cry is up, and scribblers are my 

game: 
Speed, Pegasus ! — ye strains of great 

and small. 
Ode ! Epic ! Elegy ! — have at you all ! 
I, too, can scrawl, and once upon a time 
I poured along the town a flood of 

rhyme, 
A schoolboy freak, unworthy praise or 

blame; 
I printed — older children do the 

same. 50 

'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in 

print; 
A Book's a Book, altho' there's nothing 

in't. 
Not that a Title's sounding charm can 

save 
Or scrawl or scribbler from an equal 

grave : 
This Lamb ^ must own, since his patri- 

cian~hame 
Failed to preserve the spurious Farce 

from shame. ^ 
No matter, George continues still to 

write,^ 
Tho' now the name is veiled from public 

sight. 



^"He's a very good fellow; and, except his 
mother and sister, the best of the set, to my 
mind." — B., 1816. [William (1779-1848, Vis- 
count Melbourne, 1828), and _ George (1784- 
1834) Lamb, sons of Sir Peniston Lamb, by 
Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir Ralph Mil- 
banke, were Lady Byron's first cousins. Wil- 
liam married, in 1805, Lady Caroline Ponsonby, 
the writer of Glenarvon. George was one of 
the early contributors to the Edinburgh Review.] 

- This ingenious youth is mentioned more 
particularly, with his production, in another 
place. {Vide post, 1. 515.) 

[The farce Whistle for It was performed two 
or three times at Covent Garden Theatre in 
1807.] 

•^ In the Edinburgh Review. 



Moved by the great example, I pursue 
The self-same road, but make my own 

review : 60 

Not seek great Jeffrey's, yet like him 

will be 
Self-constituted Judge of Poesy. 
A man must serve his time to every 

trade 
Save Censure — Critics all are ready 

made. 
Take hackneyed jokes from Miller/ 

got by rote, "*"*-*— 

With just enough of learning to mis- 
quote; 
A mind well skilled to find, or forge a 

fault; 
A turn for punning — call it Attic salt; 
To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet, 
His pay is just ten sterling -pounds per 

sheet: 70 

Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a sharper hit; 
Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass 

for wit; 
Care not for feeling — pass your proper 

jest. 
And stand a Critic, hated yet caressed. 

And shall we own such judgment ? no 

— as soon 
Seek roses in December — ice in June; 
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff. 
Believe a woman or an epitaph. 
Or any other thing that's false, before 
You trust in Critics, who themselves are 

sore ; 80 

Or yield one single thought to be misled 
By Jeffrey's heart, or Lamb's Boeotian 

headT"****" "" " '"""*"^ " 

i[The proverbial "Joe" Miller (1684-1738), 
an actor by profession, is said to have been un- 
able to read. His reputation rests mainly on 
the book of jests, compiled after his death, by 
John Mottley.] 

2 Messrs Jeffrey and Lamb are the alpha and 
omega, the first and last of the Edinburgh 
Review; the others are mentioned hereafter. 

"This was not just. Neither the heart nor 
the head of these gentlemen are at all what they 
are here represented. At the time this was 
written, I was personally unacquainted with 
either." — B., 1816. 

[Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850) founded the 
Edinburgh Review in conjunction with Sydney 
Smith, Brougham, and Francis Horner, in 1802. 
In 1803 he succeeded Smith as editor, and con- 
ducted the Review till 1829. He was called to 
the Scottish bar in 1794, and as an advocate was 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



To these young tyrants, by themselves 

misplaced, 
Combined usurpers on the Throne of 

Taste; 
To these, when Authors bend in humble 

awe, 
And hail their voice as Truth, their 

word as Law; 
While these are Censors, 'twould be sin 

to spare; ^ 
While such are Critics, why should I 

forbear ? 
But yet, so near all modern worthies 

run, 
'Tis doubtful whom to seek, or whom to 

shun; 90 

Nor know we when to spare, or where to 

strike, 
Our Bards- and Censors are so much 

alike. 

Then should you ask me,^ why I ven- 
ture o'er 
The path which Pope and Gifford ^ 
trod before; 

especially successful with juries. He sat as M.P. 
twice for Malton (1830-1832), and, afterwards, 
for Edinburgh. In 1834 he was appointed a 
judge of the Court of Sessions, when he took the 
title of Lord Jeffrey.] 

1 Imitation. 

"Stulta est dementia, cum tot ubique 

occurras periturae parcere chartae." 

— Juvenal, Satire I. 11. 17, 18. 

2 Imitation. 

" Cur tamen hoc potius libeat decurrere campo, 
Per quem magnus equos Aurunca; tiexit 

alumnus. 
Si vacat, et placidi rationem admittitis, 

edam." 

— Juvenal, Satire I. 11. 1Q-21. 
s [William Gifford (1756-1826), a self- 
taught scholar, was sent by friends to Exeter 
College, Oxford (1770-82). In the Baviad 
(1794) and the Mceviad (179s) he attacked the 
so-called Delia Cruscan School, and in his 
Epistle to Peter Pindar (1800) he laboured to 
expose the true character of John Wolcot. As 
editor of the Quarterly Review, from its founda- 
tion (February, 1809) to his resignation in Sep>- 
tember, 1824, he soon rose to literary eminence 
by his sound sense, though his judgments were 
sometimes narrow-minded and warped by 
political prejudice. BvTon was attracted to 
Gifford, partly by his devotion to the classical 
models of literature, partly by the outspoken 
frankness of his literary criticism, partly also, 
perhaps, by his physical deformity. "I know 
no praise," he wrote September 20, 1821, "which 
would compensate me in my own mind for his 
censure."] 



If not yet sickened, you can still pro- 
ceed; 
Go on; my rhyme will tell you as you 

read. < 

"But hold!" exclaims a friend,-^ 

"here's some neglect: 
This — that — and t'other line seem 

incorrect." 
What then ? the self-same blunder Pope 

has got, 
And careless Dryden — "Aye, but Pye 

has not:" — 100 

Indeed ! — 'tis granted, faith ! — but 

what care I? 
Better to err with Pope, than shine with 

Pye.^ 

Time was, ere yet in these degenerate 

days 
Ignoble themes obtained mistaken 

praise. 
When Sense and Wit with Poesy 

allied, 
No fabled Graces, flourished side by 

side; 
From the same fount their inspiration 

drew. 
And, reared by Taste, bloomed fairer 

as they grew. 
Then, in this happy Isle, a Pope's pure 

strain "~ 

Sought the rapt soul to charm, nor 

sought in vain; no 

A polished nation's praise aspired to 

claim, 
And raised the people's, as the poet's 

fame. 
Like him great Dryden poured the tide 

of song, ^^-^.,^^ 
In stream less sm^JcHjh, indeed, yet 

doubly strong. 
Then Congreve's scenes could cheer, 

or Otway's melt; 
For Nature then an English audience 

felt — 
But why these names, or greater still, 

retrace. 
When all to feebler Bards resign their 

place? 

1 [H^nry James Pye (1745-1813), M.P. for 
Berkshire, held the office of poet laureate from 
1790 till his death in 181 3, succeeding Thomas 
Warton, and succeeded by Southey.] 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



Yet to such times our lingering looks 

are cast, 
When taste and reason with those times 

are past. 120 

Now look around, and turn each 

trifling page, 
Survey the precious works that please 

the age; 
This truth at least let Satire's self allow, 
No dearth of Bards can be complained 

of now. 
The loaded Press beneath her labour 

groans, 
And Printers' devils shake their weary 

bones; 
While gpuTHEY's Epics cram the creak- 
ing shelves, 
And Little 's Lyrics shine in hot-pressed 

twelves.^ 
Thus saith the Preacher: "Nought 

beneath the sun 
Is new," ^ yet still from change to change 

we run. 130 

What varied wonders tempt us as they 

pass! 
The Cow-pox, Tractors,^ Galvanism, 

and Gas, 
In turns appear, to make the vulgar 

stare. 
Till the swoln bubble bursts — and all 

is air! 
Nor less new schools of Poetry arise. 
Where dull pretenders grapple for the 

prize : 
O'er Taste awhile these Pseudo-bards 

prevail ; 
Each country Book-club bows the knee 

to Baal, 
And, hurling lawful Genius from the 

throne. 
Erects a shrine and idol of its own ; 1 40 

^ [Little was the name under which Moore's 
early poems were published. — The Poetical 
Works of the late Thomas Little, Esq. (1801). 
"Twelves" refers to the "duodecimo." Sheets, 
after printing, are pressed between cold or hot 
rollers, to impart smoothness of "surface." 
Hot rolling is the more expensive process.] 

2 Eccles. chapter i. verse 9. 

^[Metallic "Tractors" were a remedy much 
advertised at the beginning of the century by 
an American quack, Benjamin Charles Perkins, 
founder of the Perkinean Institution in London, 
as a "cure for all Disorders, Red Noses, Gouty 
Toes, Windy Bowels, Broken Legs, Hump 
Backs."] 



Some leaden calf — but whom it matters 
not, 

From soaring Southey, down to grovel- 
ling Stott.^ 

Behold ! in various throngs the 

scribbling crew, 
For notice eager, pass in long review: 
Each spurs his jaded Pegasus apace, 
And Rhyme and Blank maintain an 

equal race; 
Sonnets on sonnets crowd, and ode on 

ode; 
And Tales of Terror ^ jostle on the road; 
Immeasurable measures move along; 
For simpering Folly loves a varied 

song, 150 

To strange, mysterious Dulness still the 

friend, 
Admires the strain she cannot compre- 
hend. 
Thus Lays of Minstrels ^ — may they 

be the last ! — 
On half-strung harps whine mournful 

to the blast, 

1 Stott, better known in the Morning Post by 
the name of Hafiz. This personage is at pres- 
ent the most profound explorer of the bathos. 
I remember, when the reigning family left Portu- 
gal, a special Ode of Master Stott's, beginning 
thus : — (Stott loquitur quoad Hibernia) — 
" Princely offspring of Braganza, 
Erin greets thee with a stanza," etc. 
Also a Sonnet to Rats, well worthy of the sub- 
ject, and a most thundering Ode, commencing 
as follows: — 

"Oh ! for a Lay ! loud as the surge 
That lashes Lapland's sounding shore." 
Lord have mercy on us ! the Lay of the Last 
Minstrel was nothing to this. [The lines 
"Princely Offspring," etc., were published in 
the Morning Post, Dec. 30, 1807.] 

- [See line 265, note.] 

3 See the Lay of the Last Minstrel, passim. 
Never was any plan so incongruous and absurd 
as the groundwprk of this production. The 
entrance of Thunder and Lightning prologuis- 
ing to Bayes' tragedy, unfortunately takes away 
the merit of originality from the dialogue be- 
tween Messieurs the Spirits of Flood and Fell in 
the first canto. Then we have the amiable 
William of Deloraine, "a stark moss-trooper," 
videlicet, a happy compound of poacher, sheep- 
stealer, and highwayman. The propriety of his 
magical lady's injunction not to read can only 
be equalled by his candid acknowledgment of 
his independence of the trammels of spelling, 
although, to use his own elegant phrase, "'twas 
his neckverse at Harribee," i.e. the gallows. 

The biography of Gilpin Horner, and the 
marvellous pedestrian page, who travelled twice 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



While mountain spirits prate to river 

sprites, 
That dames may listen to the sound at 

nights; 
And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner's ^ 

brood 
Decoy young Border-nobles through the 

wood. 
And skip at every step, Lord knows how 

high, 
And frighten foolish babes, the Lord 

knows why; i6o 

While high-born ladies in their magic 

cell, 
Forbidding Knights to read who cannot 

spell, 
Despatch a courier to a wizard's grave. 
And fight with honest men to shield a 

knave. 

Next view in state, proud prancing 

on his roan. 
The golden-crested haughty Marmion, 
Now forging scrolls, now foremost in 

the fight. 
Not quite a Felon, yet but half a Knight, 
The gibbet or the field prepared to 

grace — 
A mighty mixture of the great and base. 

as fast as his master's horse, without the aid of 
seven-leagued boots, are chefs d'ceuvre in the 
improvement of taste. For incident we have the 
invisible, but by no means sparing box on the 
ear bestowed on the page, and the entrance of 
a Knight and Charger into the castle, under the 
very natural disguise of a wain of hay. Mar- 
mion, the hero of the latter romance, is exactly 
what William of Deloraine would have been, 
had he been able to read and write. The poem 
was manufactured for Messrs Constable, 
Murray, and Miller, worshipful Booksellers, 
in consideration of the receipt of a sum of money; 
and truly, considering the inspiration, it is a very 
creditable production. If Mr Scott will write 
for hire, let him do his best for his paymasters, 
but not disgrace his genius, which is undoubtedly 
great, by a repetition of Black-Letter Ballad 
imitations. 

[Constable paid Scott a thousand pounds for 
Marmion, and "offered one fourth of the copy- 
right to Mr Miller of Albemarle Street, and one 
fourth to Mr Murray of Fleet Street (see line 
173)- Both publishers eagerly accepted the 
proposal. . . ." {Memoirs of John Murray, 
i- 76 95-)] 

1 [It was the suggestion of the Countess of 
Dalkeith, that Scott should write a ballad on the 
old border legend of Gilpin Horner, which first 
gave shape to the poet's ideas, and led to the 
Lay of the Last Minstrel.'] 



And think'st thou, Scott ! by vain 
conceit perchance, — ■""" 171 

■^On public taste to foist thy stale ro- 
mance, 

Though Murray with his Miller may 
combine 

To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per 
line ? 

No ! when the sons of song descend to 
trade. 

Their bays are sear, their former laurels 
fade. 

Let such forego the poet's sacred name. 

Who rack their brains for lucre, not for 
fame: 

Still for stern Mammon may they toil in 
vain! 

And sadly gaze on gold they cannot 
gain ! 180 

Such be their meed, such still the just 
reward 

Of prostituted Muse and hireling bard ! 

For this we spurn Apollo's venal son. 

And bid a long "good night to Mar- 
mion." ^ 

These are the themes that claim our 

plaudits now; 
These are the Bards to whom the Muse 

must bow; 
While Milton, Dryden, Pope, aUke 

forgot. 
Resign their hallowed Bays to Walter 

Scott. 

The time has been, when yet the Muse 
was young. 

When Homer swept the lyre, and Maro 
sung, 190 

An Epic scarce ten centuries could claim. 

While awe-struck nations hailed the 
magic name: 

The work of each immortal Bard ap- 
pears 

The single wonder of a thousand years.^ 

^"Good night to Marmion" — the pathetic 
and also prophetic exclamation of Henry Blount, 
Esquire, on the death of honest Marmion. 

- As the Odyssey is so closely connected with 
the story of the Iliad, they may almost be classed 
as one grand historical poem. In alluding to 
Milton and Tasso, we consider the Paradise 
Lost and Gerusalemme Liberata as their standard 
efforts; since neither the Jerusalem Conquered 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



103 



Empires have mouldered from the face 

of earth, 
Tongues have expired with those v^ho 

gave them birth, 
Without the glory such a strain can 

give, 
As even in ruin bids the language 

Hve. 
Not so with us, though minor Bards 

content. 
On one great work a life of labour 

spent: 200 

-With eagle pinion soaring to the 
f, skies, 

jBehold the Ballad-monger Southey 
I rise ! 
'To him let Camoens, Milton, Tasso 

yield. 
Whose annual strains, like armies, take 

the field. 
First in the ranks see Joan of Arc ad- 
vance, 
The scourge of England and the boast 

of France ! 
Though burnt by wicked Bedford for 

a witch. 
Behold her statue placed in Glory's 

niche; 
Her fetters burst, and just released from 

prison, 
A virgin Phoenix from her ashes 

risen. 210 

Next see tremendous Thalaba come 

on,^ 
Arabia's monstrous, wild, and wond'- 

rous son; 
Domdaniel's dread destroyer, who o'er- 

threw 
More mad magicians than the world e'er 

knew. 



of the Italian, nor the Paradise Regained of the 
English bard, obtained a proportionate celebrity 
to their former poems. Query : Which of Mr 
Southey's will survive? 

1 Thalaba, Mr Southey's second poem, is 
WTitten in open defiance of precedent and poetry. 
Mr S. wished to produce something novel, and 
succeeded to a miracle. Joan of Arc was mar- 
vellous enough, but Thalaba was one of those 
poems "which," in the words of Porson, "will 
be read when Homer and Virgil are forgotten, 
but — not till then." [" Of Thalaba the wild and 
wondrous song." — Proem to Madoc, Southey's 
Poetical Works (1838), vol. v. Joan of Arc was 
published in 1796, Thalaba the. Destroyer in 1801, 
and Madoc in 1805.] 



Immortal Hero ! all thy foes o'ercome. 
For ever reign — the rival of Tom 

Thumb ! ^ 
Since startled Metre fled before thy 

face. 
Well wert thou doomed the last of all 

thy race ! 
Well might triumphant Genii bear thee 

hence. 
Illustrious conqueror of common sense ! 
Now, last and greatest, Madoc spreads 

his sails, 221 

Cacique in Mexico,^ and Prince in 

Wales; 
Tells us strange tales, as other travellers 

do, 
More old than Mandeville's, and not so 

true. 
*, Oh, Southey! Southey!^ cease thy 

V*- varied song ! 
bard may chaunt too often and too 
long: 

As thou art strong in verse, in mercy 
spare ! 

A fourth, alas ! were more than we 
could bear. 

But if, in spite of all the world can 
say. 

Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary 
. way; 230 

If still in Berkeley-Ballads most un- 
civil, 

Thou wilt devote old women to the 
devil,'* 



^ [The hero of Fielding's farce. The Tragedy 
of Tragedies, or the Life and Death of Tom 
Thumb the Great, first played in 1730 at the Hay- 
market.] 

- [Southey's Madoc is divided into two parts 
— Part I., "Madoc in Wales:" Part U., 
"Madoc in Aztlan."] 

^ We beg Mr Southey's pardon: "Madoc 
disdains the degraded title of Epic." See his 
Preface. [Poetical Works, v. p. xxi.] Why is 
Epic degraded? and by whom? Certainly the 
late Romaunts of Masters Cottle, Laureat Pye, 
Ogilvy, Hole, and gentle Mistress Cowley, have 
not exalted the Epic Muse; but, as Mr 
Southey's poem "disdains the appellation," 
allow us to ask — has he substituted anything 
better in its stead? or must he be content to 
rival Sir Richard Blackmore in the quantity 
as well as qualitv of his verse? 

* See The Old Woman of Berkeley, a ballad by 
Mr Southey, wherein an aged gentlewoman is 
carried away by Beelzebub, on a "high trotting 
horse." 



104 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



The babe unborn thy dread intent may 

rue: 
"God help thee," Southey/ and thy 

readers too. 

Next comes the dull disciple of thy 

school,^ 
That mild apostate from poetic rule, 
The simple Wordsworth, framer of a 

lay 
As soft as evening in his favourite 

May, 
Who warns his friend "to shake off toil 

and trouble, 
And quit his books, for fear of growing 

double"; ^ 240 

Who, both by precept and example, 

shows 
That prose is verse, and verse is merely 

prose; 
Convincing all, by demonstration plain. 
Poetic souls delight in prose insane; 
And Christmas stories tortured into 

rhyme 
Contain the essence of the true sublime. 
Thus, when he tells the tale of Betty 

Foy, 
The idiot mother of "an idiot Boy"; 
A moon-struck, silly lad, who lost his 

way. 
And, like his bard, confounded night 

with day; ^ 250 

1 The last line, " God help thee," is an evident 
plagiarism from the Anti- Jacobin to Mr Southey, 
on his Dactylics: — 

"God help thee, silly one!" 

— Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, p. 23. 

2 [In the annotated copy of the Fourth Edition 
Byron has drawn a line down the margin of the 
passage on Wordsworth, lines 236-248, and adds 
the word "Unjust." The first four lines on 
Coleridge (lines 255-258) are also marked "Un- 
just." The recantation is, no doubt, intended 
to apply to both passages from beginning to end.] 

^Lyrical Ballads, p. 4. — "The Tables 
Turned," st. i. 

"Up, up, my friend, and clear your looks, 
Why all this toil and trouble? 
Up, up, my friend, and quit your books, 

Or surely you'll grow double." 
* Mr W. in his preface labours hard to prove, 
that prose and ver.se are much the same; and 
certainly his precepts and practice are strictly 
conformable : — 

"And thus to Betty's questions he 

Made answer, like a traveller bold. 
'The cock did crow, to-whoo, to-whoo. 
And the sun did shine so cold.'" 

— Lyrical Ballads, p. 179. 



So close on each pathetic part he 

dwells, 
And each adventure so sublimely tells, V^ 
That all who view the "idiot in his 

glory" 
Conceive the Bard the hero of the story. 

Shall gentle Coleridge pass un- 
noticed here, 
To turgid ode and tumid stanza dear ? 
Though themes of innocence amuse him 

best, 
Yet still Obscurity's a welcome guest. 
If Inspiration should her aid refuse 
To him who takes a Pixy for a muse,^ 260 
Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass 
The bard who soars to elegise an ass: 
So well the subject suits his noble mind, 
He brays, the Laureate of the long-eared 
kind. 

" ; Oh ! wonder-working Lewis I ^ Monk, 
or Bard, 

iWho fain would make Parnassus a 

'1 churchyard 1 

ILo ! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy 
brow. 

Thy Muse a Sprite, Apollo's sexton 
thou! 

Whether on ancient tombs thou tak'st 
thy stand. 

By gibb'ring spectres hailed, thy kin- 
dred band; 270 



1 Coleridge's Poems, p. 11, "Songs of the 
Pixies," i.e. Devonshire Fairies; p. 42, we have 
" Lines to a Young Lady " ; and, p. 52, " Lines to 
a Young Ass." 

2 [Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818), 
known as "Monk" Lewis, was the son of a rich 
Jamaica planter. In 1794 he was appointed 
attache to the Embassy at the Hague, and in the 
course of ten weeks wrote Ambrosio, or The 
Monk, which was published in 1795. In 1798 
he made the acquaintance of Scott, and procured 
his promise of co-operation in his contemplated 
Tales of Terror, which were printed at Kelso, in 
1799. Two or three editions of Tales of Wonder, 
to which Byron refers, were published in 1801. 
Lewis borrowed so freely from all sources that 
the collection was called "Tales of Plunder." 

As a writer, he is memorable chiefly for his 
sponsorship of German literature. Scott said of 
him that he had the finest ear for rhythm he ever 
met with — finer than Byron's; and Coleridge, 
in Table Talk for Marcla 20, 1834, commends 
his verses. Certainly his ballad of Crazy Jane, 
once so famous that ladies took to wearing " Crazy 
Jane" hats, is of the nature of poetry.] 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



lOS 



Or tracest chaste descriptions on thy 
page, 

To please the females of our modest age ; 

All hail, M.P. ! ^ from whose infernal 
brain 

Thin-sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly 
train; 

At whose command "grim women" 
throng in crowds, 

And kings of fire, of water, and of 
clouds, 

With "small grey men," — "wild ya- 
gers," and what not, 

To crown with honour thee and Walter 
Scott: 

Again, all hail ! if tales Uke thine may 
please, 

St Luke alone can vanquish the dis- 
ease: 280 

Even Satan's self with thee might dread 
to dwell, 

And in thy skull discern a deeper Hell. 

Who in soft guise, surrounded by a 
choir 
Of virgins melting, not to Vesta's fire. 
With sparkling eyes, and cheek by pas- 
sion flushed 
Strikes his wild lyre, whilst listening 
\ dames are hushed? 

\ 'Tis Little ! young Catullus of his day, 
\ As sweet, but as immoral, in his Lay ! 
I Grieved to condemn, the Muse must 
\ still be just, 

^Nor spare melodious advocates of lust. 

Pure is the flame which o'er her alt^r 

burns; '291 

From grosser incense with disgust she 

turns: 
Yet, kind to youth, this expiation o'er. 
She bids thee, "mend thy line, and sin 
no more." ^.^-'^ 



For thee, translator of the tinsel song. 
To whom such glittering ornaments 
belong, 

1 "For every one knows little Matt's an M.P." 
— See a poem to Mr Lewis, in The Statesman, 
supposed to be written by Mr Jekyll. 

[Joseph Jekyll (i 754-1837) was celebrated for 
his witticisms and metrical jeux d' esprit which he 
contributed to the Morning Chronicle and the 
Evening Statesman. He was a favourite with 
the Prmce Regent, at whose instance he was 



Hibernian 



with thine 



of bh 



And boasted locks of red or auburn 

hue. 
Whose plaintive strain each love-sick 

Miss admires. 
And o'er harmonious fustian half ex- 
S pires, 300 

team, if thou canst, to yield thine 
\ author's sense, 

'Nor vend thy sonnets on a false pre- 
tence. 
IThink'st thou to gain thy verse a higher 

place, 
;By dressing Camoens ^ in a suit of lace? 
Mend, Strangford ! mend thy morals 

and thy taste; 
Be warm, but pure; be amorous, but be 

chaste : 
Cease to deceive; thy pilfered harp 

restore, 
Nor teach the Lusian Bard to copy 

Moore. 

Behold — Ye Tarts ! — one moment 

spare the text ! — 
Hayley's last work, and worst — until 

TTtS"TText; 310 

Whether he spin poor couplets into plays, 
Or damn the dead with purgatorial 

praise,^ 

appointed a Master in Chancery in 1815. See 
his Correspondence, published in 1894.] 

^ The reader, who may wish for an explana- 
tion of this, may refer to " Strangford's Ca- 
moens," p. 127, note to p. 56, or to the last page 
of the Edinburgh Review of Strangford's Ca- 
moens. [Percy Clinton Sydney Smythe, sixth 
Viscount Strangford (1780-1S55), published 
Poems from the Poriugtiese by Luis de Camoens, 
in 1803. The note to which Byron refers runs 
thus: "Locks of auburn and eyes of blue have 
ever been dear to the sons of song," etc. It 
may be added that Byron's own locks were 
auburn, and his eyes a greyish-blue.] 

2 It is also to be remarked, that the things 
given to the public as poems of Camoens are no 
more to be found in the original Portuguese, 
than in the*Song of Solomon. 

3 See his various Biographies of defunct 
Painters, etc. [William Hayley (1745-1820) 
published a biography of Milton in 1796, of 
Cowper in 1803-4, of Romney in 1809. For his 
life and works, see Southey's article in the 
Quarterly Review (vol. xxxi. p. 263). The 
appeal to "tarts" to "spare the text," is, pos- 
sibly, an echo of The Dunciad, 1. 155, 156 — 
" Of these twelve volumes, twelve of amplest size, 

Redeemed from topers and defrauded pies."] 



io6 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



His style in youth or age is still the 
same, 

For ever feeble and for ever tame. 

Triumphant first see "Temper's Tri- 
umphs" shine ! 

At least I'm sure they triumphed over 
mine. 

Of "Music's Triumphs," all who read 
may swear 

That luckless Music never triumphed 
there. ^ 

Moravians, rise! bestow some meet 

reward ^ 
On dull devotion — Lo ! the Sabbath 

Bard, 320 

Sepulchral Grahame,^ pours his notes 

sublime " 
In mangled prose, nor e'en aspires to 

rhyme; 
Breaks into blank the Gospel of St 

Luke, 
And boldly pilfers from the Penta- 
teuch ; 
And, undisturbed by conscientious 

qualms. 
Perverts the Prophets, and purloins the 

Psalms. 

1 Hayley's two most notorious verse pro- 
ductions are Triumphs of Temper (1781) and 
The Triumph of Music (1804). He has also 
written much Comedy in rhyme, Epistles, etc., etc. 
As he is rather an elegant writer of notes and 
biography, let us recommend Pope's advice to 
Wycherley to Mr H.'s consideration, viz., 
"to convert poetry into prose," which may 
easily be done by taking away the final syllable 
of each couplet. 

2 [Lines 319-326 were substituted for a pas- 
sage which reflected on Samuel Jackson Pratt 
(1749-1814), a poet of the Cruscan School, 
author of Gleaning, and Sympathy, a Poem 
(1788): — 

"In verse most stale, unprofitable, flat — 
Come let us change the scene, and 'glean' 

with Pratt; 
In him an author's luckless lot behold. 
Condemned to make the books which once 

he sold: 
Degraded man ! again resume thy trade — 
The votaries of the Muse are ill repaid. 
Though daily puffs once more invite to buy 
A new edition of thy 'Sympathy.'"] 

3 Mr Grahame has poured forth two volumes 
of Cant, under the name of Sabbath Walks and 
Biblical Pictures. [James Grahame (1765- 
181 1), a lawyer, afterwards a clergyman. The 
Sabbath was published in 1804; and to a second 
edition were added Sabbath Walks. Biblical 
Pictures appeared in 1807.] 



Hail, Sympathy ! thy soft idea brings 
A thousand visions of a thousand 

things, 
And shows, still whimpering through 

threescore of years. 
The maudlin prince of mournful son- 
neteers. 330 
And art thou not their prince, har- 
monious Bowles ! ^ 
Thou first, great oracle of tender souls? 
Whether thou sing'st with equal ease, 

and grief. 
The fall of empires, or a yellow leaf; 
Whether thy muse most lamentably tells 
What merry sounds proceed from 

Oxford bells. 
Or, still in bells delighting, finds a 

friend 
In every chime that jingled from 

Ostend; 
Ah ! how much juster were thy Muse's 

hap. 
If to thy bells thou would' st but add a 

cap ! 340 

DeUghtful Bowles ! still blessing and 

still blest. 
All love thy strain, but children Uke it 

best. 
'Tis thine, with gentle Little's moral 

song. 
To soothe the mania of the amorous 

throng ! 
With thee our nursery damsels shed their 

tears. 
Ere Miss as yet completes her infant 

years: 
But in her teens thy whining powers are 

vain; 
She quits poor Bowles for Little's 

purer strain. 
Now to soft themes thou scornest to 

confine 349 

The lofty numbers of a harp like thine; 

i[The Rev. W. Lisle Bowles (1762-1850). 
His edition of Pope's Works, in ten volumes, 
which stirred Byron's gall, appeared in 1806. 
The Fall of Empires, Tyre, Carthage, etc., is 
the subject of part of the third book of The 
Spirit of Discovery by Sea (1804). Lines "To 
a Vrithered Leaf,''' are, perhaps, of later date; 
but the "sear tresses," and "shivering leaves" 
of "Autumn's gradual gloom" are familiar 
images in his earlier poems. Among his poems 
are a "Sonnet to Oxford," and "Stanzas on 
hearing the Bells of Ostend."] 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



"Awake a louder and a loftier strain," ^ 
Such as none heard before, or will again ! 
Where all discoveries jumbled from the 

flood, 
Since first the leaky ark reposed in 

mud, 
By more or less, are sung in every book, 
From Captain Noah down to Captain 

Cook. 
Nor this alone — but, pausing on the 

road. 
The Bard sighs forth a gentle episode,^ 
And gravely tells — attend, each beaute- 
ous Miss ! — 
When first Madeira trembled to a 

kiss. 360 

Bowles ! in thy memory let this precept 

dwell, 
'Stiek;^9 thy Sonnets, Man ! — at least 

they seir."""-'^ '""'*" 
But if some new-born whim, or larger 

bribe, 
Prompt thy crude brain, and claim thee 

for a scribe: 
If 'chance some bard, though once by 

dunces feared. 
Now, prone in dust, can only be revered; 
If Pope, whose fame and genius, from 

the first, 
Have foiled the best of critics, needs the 

worst, 
Do thou essay: each fault, each faiUng 

scan; 
The first of poets was, alas ! but man. 

^" Awake a louder," etc., is the first line in 
Bowles's Spirit of Discovery: a very spirited 
and pretty dwarf Epic. Among other exquisite 
lines we have the following : — 

— "A kiss 
Stole on the list'ning silence, never yet 
Here heard; they trembled even as if the power," 
etc., etc. 

That is, the woods of Madeira trembled to 
a kiss; very much astonished, as well they might 
be, at such a phenomenon. 

"Misquoted and misunderstood by me; but 
not intentionally. It was not the 'woods,' but 
the people in them who trembled — why, 
Heaven only knows — unless they were over- 
heard making this prodigious smack." — ^ B., 
1816. 

- The episode above alluded to is the story of 
"Robert a Machin" and "Anna d'Arfet," a 
pair of constant lovers, who performed the kiss 
above mentioned, that startled the woods of 
Madeira. [See Byron's letter to Murray, 
February 7, 1821, "On Bowles' Strictiu-es," 
Lile, p. 688.] 



Rake from each ancient dunghill ev'ry 

pearl, 371 

Consult Lord Fanny, and confide in 

Curll; ^ 
Let all the scandals of a former age 
Perch on thy pen, and flutter o'er thy 

page; 
Affect a candour which thou canst not 

feel. 
Clothe envy in the garb of honest zeal; 
Write, as if St John's soul could still 

inspire. 
And do from hate what Mallet ^ did 

for hire. 
Oh ! hadst thou lived in that congenial 

time. 
To rave with Dennis, and with Ralph 

to rhyme ^ — 380 

Thronged with the rest around his living 

head. 
Not raised thy hoof against the lion 

dead, 
A meet reward had crowned thy glorious 

gains. 
And Unked thee to the Dunciad for thy 

pains.'* 

1 Curll is one of the heroes of the Dunciad, 
and was a bookseller. Lord • Fanny is the 
poetical name of Lord Hervey, author of 
Lines to the Imitator of Horace. 

2 Lord BoLiNGBROKE hired Mallet to 
traduce Pope after his decease, because the poet 
had retained some copies of a work by Lord 
Bolingbroke — the " Patriot King," — which 
that splendid but malignant genius had ordered 
to be destroyed. 

3 Dennis the critic, and Ralph the rhymester: 
" Silence, ye Wolves ! while Ralph to Cynthia 

howls. 
Making Night hideous: answer him, ye 
owls!" 

— Dunciad. 
[Book III. 11. 165, 166. Pope wrote, "And 
makes night," etc.] 

■' See Bowles's late edition of Pope's works, for 
which he received three hundred pounds. Thus 
Mr B. has experienced how much easier it is to 
profit by the reputation of another, than to elevate 
his own. ["Too savage all this on Bowles," 
wrote BvTon, in 1816, but he afterwards returned 
to his original sentiments, and regretted the 
omission of "fourteen lines on Bowles's Pope," 
what Hobhouse had contributed to the First 
Edition of English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers. 
The lines supplied by Hobhouse are here sub- 
joined: — 

"Stick to thy Sonnets, man ! — at least they sell: 
Or take the only path that open lies 
For modern worthies who would hope to rise: 
Fix on some well-known name, and, bit by bit, 
Pare off the merits of his worth and wit: 



[o8 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



Another Epic ! Who inflicts again 
More books of blank upon the sons of 

men? 
Boeotian Cottle, rich Bristowa's boast, 
Imports old stories from the Cambrian 

coast. 
And sends his goods to market — all 

"alive ! 
Lines forty thousand, Cantos twenty- 
five ! 390 
Fresh fish from Hippocrene ! ^ who'll 

buy? who'll buy? 
The precious bargain's cheap — in 

faith, not I. 
Your turtle-feeder's verse must needs 

be flat, 
Though Bristol bloat him with the 

verdant fat; 
If Commerce fills the purse, she clogs 

the brain. 
And Amos Cottle strikes the Lyre in 

vain. 

In him an author's luckless lot behold ! 
Condemned to make the books which 

once he sold. 
Oh, Amos Cottle ! — Phoebus ! what 

a name 
To fill the .speaking-trump of future 

fame ! — 400 

Oh, Amos Cottle ! for a moment think 
What meagre profits spring from pen 

and ink ! 
When thus devoted to poetic dreams, 
Who will peruse thy prostituted reams? 
Oh ! pen perverted ! paper misappUed ! 
Had Cottle ^ still adorned the counter's 

side, 



On each alike employ the critic's knife, 
And when a comment fails prefix a life; 
Hint certain failings, faults before unknown, 
Review forgotten lines, and add your own; 
Let no disease, let no misfortune 'scape, 
And print, if luckily deformed, his shape: 
Thus shall the world, quite undeceived at last, 
Cleave to their present wits, and quit their past; 
Bards once revered no more with favour view, 
But give their modern sonneteers their due; 
Thus with the dead may living merit cope, 
Thus Bowles may triumph o'er the shade of 
Pope."] 

1 " ' Helicon ' is a mountain and not a fish- 
pond. It should have been 'Hippocrene.'" — 
B, 18 16. [The correction was made in the Fifth 
Edition.] 

2 Mr Cottle, Amos, Joseph, I don't know 
which, but one or both, once sellers of books 
they did not write, and now writers of books 



Bent o'er the desk, or, born to useful 

toils, 
Been taught to make the paper which he 

soils, 
Ploughed, delved, or pHed the oar with 

lusty limb, 
He had not sung of Wales, nor I of 

him. 410 

As Sisyphus against the internal steep 
Rolls the huge rock whose motions ne'er 

may sleep, 
So up thy hill, ambrosial Richmond ! 

heaves 
Dull Maurice ^ all his granite weight 

of leaves: 
Smooth, solid monuments of mental 

pain! 
The petrifactions of a plodding brain, 
That, ere they reach the top, fall lum- 
bering back again. 
With broken lyre and cheek serenely 

pale, 
Lo ! sad Alcffius wanders down the vale; 
Though fair they rose, and might have 

bloomed at last, 420 

His hopes have perished by the northern 

blast: 



they do not sell, have published a pair of Epics 
— Alfred (poor Alfred ! Pye has been at him 
too!) — Alfred and the Fall of Cambria. 

"All right. I saw some letters of this fellow 
(J''- Cottle) to an unfortunate poetess, whose pro- 
ductions, which the poor woman by no means 
thought vainly of, he attacked so roughly and- 
bitterly, that I could hardly regret assailing him, 
even were it unjust, which it is not — for verily 
he is an ass." — B., 1816. 

[Compare Poetry of the Anti- Jacobin — 
"And Cottle, not he whom that Alfred made 

famous. 
But Joseph of Bristol, the brother of Amos." 

The identity of the brothers Cottle appears 
to have been a matter beneath the notice both of 
the authors of the Anti- Jacobin and of Byron. 
Amos Cottle, who died in 1800, was the author of 
a Translation of the Edda of Scenimid, published 
in 1797. Joseph Cottle, inter alia, published 
Alfred in 1801, and The Fall of Cambria, 1807. 
The "unfortunate poetess" was, probably, Ann 
Yearsley, the Bristol milk-woman.] 

^ Mr Maurice hath manufactured the com- 
ponent parts of a ponderous quarto, upon the 
beauties of "Richmond Hill" and the like: — 
it also takes in a charming view of Turnham 
Green, Hammersmith, Brentford, Old and New, 
and the parts adjacent. [The Rev. Thomas 
Maurice (1754-1824) published his Richmond 
Hill in 1807. He was assistant keeper of MSS. 
at the British Museum from 1799 till his death.] 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



log 



Nipped in the bud by Caledonian gales, 

His blossoms wither as the blast pre- 
vails ! 

O'er his lost works let classic Sheffield 
weep ; 

May no rude hand disturb their early 
sleep ! ^ 

Yet say ! why should the Bard, at 

once, resign 
His claim to favour from the sacred 

Nine? 
For ever startled by the mingled howl 
Of Northern Wolves, that still in dark- 
ness prowl; 
A coward Brood, which mangle as they 

prey, 430 

By hellish instinct, all that cross their 

way : 
Aged or young, the living or the dead, 
No mercv find — these harpies must be 

fed.' 
Why do the injured unresisting yield 
The calm possession of their native 

field? 
Why tamely thus before their fangs 

retreat, 
Nor hunt the blood-hounds back to 

Arthur's Seat ? ^ 

Health to immortal Jeffrey ! once, 

in name, 
England could boast a judge almost the 

same ; 
In soul so like, so merciful, yet just, 440 
Some think that Satan has resigned his 

trust. 



^ Poor Montgomery, though praised by 
every English Review, has been bitterly reviled 
by the Edinburgh. After all, the Bard of 
Sheffield is a man of considerable genius. His 
Wanderer of Swilzerlatid is worth a thousand 
Lyrical Ballads, and at least fifty Degraded Epics. 

[James Montgomery (i 771-1854), poet and 
radical, journalist. His early poems were re- 
viewed by Jeffrey in January, 1S07. The 
Wanderer of Switzerland was published in 1806. 
The allusion in line 419 is to the first stanza of 
The Lyre — 

"Where the roving rill meand'red 
Down the green, retiring vale. 
Poor, forlorn Alca^us wandered. 
Pale with thoughts — serenely pale." 
He is remembered chiefly as the writer of some 
admirable hymns.] 

- Arthur's Seat ; the hill which overhangs 
Edinburgh. 



And given the Spirit to the world again, 
To sentence Letters, as he sentenced 

men. 
With hand less mighty, but with heart 

as black. 
With voice as willing to decree the rack; 
Bred in the Courts betimes, though all 

that law 
As yet have taught him is to find a 

flaw,— 
Since well instructed in the patriot 

school 
To rail at party, though a party tool — 
Who knows? if chance his patrons 

should restore 450 

Back to the sway they forfeited before. 
His scribbling toils some recompense 

may meet. 
And raise this Daniel to the Judgment- 
Let Jeffrey's shade indulge the pious 

hope. 
And greeting thus, present him with a 

rope: 
"Heir to my virtues! man of equal 

mind ! 
Skilled to condemn as to traduce man- 
kind. 
This cord receive ! for thee reserved with 

care, 
To wield in judgment, and at length to 

wear." 

Health to great Jeffrey! Heaven 

preserve his life, 460 

To flourish on the fertile shores of Fife, 

And guard it sacred in its future wars, 

Since authors sometimes seek the field 

of Mars ! 
Can none remember that eventful day,^ 
That ever-glorious, almost fatal fray, 
When Little's lead less pistol met his 

eye,^ 
And Bow-street Myrmidons stood laugh- 
ing by? 



i"Too ferocious — this is mere insanity." 
— B., 1816. [The comment applies to lines 
432-453-] 

2 "All this is bad, because personal. — B., 
1816. 

3 In 1806, Messrs Jeffrey and Moore met at 
Chalk Farm. The duel was prevented by the 
interference of the Magistracy; and on ex- 
amination, the balls of the pistols were found to 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



Oh, day disastrous! on her firm-set 

rock, 
Dunedin's castle felt a secret shock; 
Dark rolled the sympathetic waves of 

Forth, 470 

Low groaned the startled whirlwinds of 

the north; 
Tweed rufSed half his waves to form a 

tear, 
The other half pui sued his calm career; ^ 
Arthur's steep summit nodded to its 

base, 
The surly Tolbooth scarcely kept her 

place. 
The Tolbooth felt — for marble some- 
times can. 
On such occasions, feel as much as 

man — 
The Tolbooth felt defrauded of his 

charms. 
If Jeffrey died, except within her 

arms: ^ 
The sixteenth story, where himself was 

born, 480 

His patrimonial garret, fell to ground. 
And pale Edina shuddered at the 

sound: 
Strewed were the streets around with 

milk-white reams. 
Flowed all the Canongate with inky 

streams; 

have evaporated. This incident gave occasion 
to much waggery in the daily prints. 

[The following disclaimer to the foregoing 
note appears in the MS. in Leigh Hunt's copy of 
the Fourth Edition, 181 1. It was first printed 
in the Fifth Edition: — 

"I am informed that Mr Moore published at 
the time a disavowal of the statements in the news- 
papers, as far as regarded himself; and, in 
justice to him, I mention this circumstance. As 
I never heard of it before, I cannot state the 
particulars, and was only made acquainted with 
the fact very lately. November 4, 1811."] 

^ The Tweed here behaved with proper de- 
corum; it would have been highly reprehensible 
in the English half of the river to have shown 
the smallest symptom of apprehension. 

- This display of sympathy on the part of the 
Tolbooth (the principal prison in Edinburgh), 
which truly seems to have been most affected on 
this occasion, is much to be commended. It was 
to be apprehended, that the many unhappy 
criminals executed in the front rnight have 
rendered the Edifice more callous. She is said 
to be of the softer sex, because her delicacy of 
feeling on this day was truly feminine, thou^rfi, 
like most feminine impulses, perhaps a little 
selfish. 



This of his candour seemed the sable 

dew, 
That of his valour showed the bloodless 

hue; 
And all with justice deemed the two 

combined 
The mingled emblems of his mighty 

mind. 
But Caledonia's goddess hovered o'er 
The field, and saved him from the wrath 

of Moore; 490 

From either pistol snatched the vengeful 

lead, 
And straight restored it to her favourite's 

head; 
That head, with greater than magnetic 

power. 
Caught it, as Danae caught the golden 

shower, 
And, though the thickening dross will 

scarce refine. 
Augments its ore, and is itself a mine. 
"My son," she cried, "ne'er thirst for 

gore again. 
Resign the pistol and resume the pen; 
O'er politics and poesy preside, 
Boast of thy country, and Britannia's 

guide ! 500 

For long as Albion's heedless sons sub- 
mit. 
Or Scottish taste decides on Enghsh wit, 
So long shall last thine unmolested reign, 
Nor any dare to take thy name in vain. 
Behold, a chosen band shall aid thy 

plan. 
And own thee chieftain of the critic clan. 
First in the oat-fed phalanx shall be 

seen 
The travelled Thane, Athenian Aber- 
deen.^ 
Herbert shall wield Thor's hammer,^ 

and sometimes. 
In gratitude, thou'lt praise his rugged 

rhymes. 510 

^His Lordship has been much abroad, is a 
member of the Athenian Society, and reviewer of 
Gell's Topography oj Troy. [George Gordon, 
fourth Earl of Aberdeen (1784-1860), published 
in 1822 An Inquiry into the Principles oj Beauty 
in Grecian Architecture.] 

2 Mr Herbert is a translator of Icelandic and 
other poetry. One of the principal pieces is a 
Song on the Recovery of Thor's Hammer: the 
translation is a pleasant chant in the vulgar 
tongue, and endeth thus: — 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



Smug,S^»^f«;Y/ too, thy bitter page shall 
seek, 

And classic Hallam,^ much renowned 
for Greek; 

Scott may perchance his name and in- 
fluence lend 

And paltry Pillans ^ shall traduce his 
friend ; 

While gay Thalia's luckless votary, 
Lamb,* 

Damned like the Devil — Devil-like will 
damn. 

"Instead of money and rings, I wot, 
The hammer's bruises were her lot. 
Thus Odin's son his hammer got." 

[William Herbert (1778-1847), son of the first 
Earl of Carnarvon, was one of the earliest con- 
tributors to the Edmhurgh Rtficw.] 

iThe Rev. Sydney Smith, the reputed 
Author of Peter Flymlcy's Letters, and sundry 
criticisms. [Sydney Smith (1771-1S45), the 
"witty Canon of St Paul's," was one of the 
founders, and for a short time (1802) the editor, 
of the Edinburgh Review.] 

- Mr HA.LLAM reviewed Payne Knight's 
"Taste." and was e.xceedingly severe on some 
Greek verses therein. It was not discovered 
that the lines were Pindar's till the press rendered 
it impossible to cancel the critique, which still 
stands an everlasting monument of Hallam's 
ingenuity. — The said Hallam is incensed be- 
cause he is falsely accused, seeing that he never 
dineth at Holland House. If this be true, I am 
sorry — not for having said so, but on his ac- 
count, as I understand his Lordship's feasts are 
preferable to his compositions. If he did not 
review Lord Holland's performance, I am 
glad; because it must have been painful to read, 
and irksome to praise it. If Mr Hallam will 
tell me who did review it, the real name shall 
tind a place in the text; provided, nevertheless, 
the said name be of two orthodox musical 
syllables, and will come into the verse: till then, 
Hallam must stand for want of a better. 

[Henry Hallam (1777-1859), author of 
Europe during the Middle Ages, 1818, etc. The 
article in question was written by Dr John Allen, 
Lord Holland's domestic physician, and Byron 
was misled by the similarity of sound in the two 
names, or repeated what Hodgson had told him.] 

3 Pillans is a tutor at Eton. [James Pillans 
(1778-1864), Rector of the High School, and 
Professor of Humanity in the University, 
Edinburgh. Byron probably assumed that the 
review of Hodgson's Translation of Juvenal, in 
the Edinburgh Review, April, 1808, was by him.] 

* The Honourable G. Lambe reviewed " Ber- 
esford's Miseries," and is moreover Author of 
a farce enacted with much applause at the 
Priory, Stanmore; and damned with great ex- 
pedition at the late theatre, Covent Garden. It 
was entitled Whistle for It. [See note, ante, on 
line 56. His review of James Beresford's 
Miseries of H tan an Life; or the Last Groans of 
Timothy Testy and Samuel Sensitive, appeared 
in the Edinburgh Review for October, 1806.] 



Known be thy name ! unbounded be thy 
sway ! 

Thy Holland's banquets shall each 
toil repay ! 

While grateful Britain yields the praise 
she owes 

To Holland's hirelings and to Learn- 
ing's foes. 520 

Yet mark one caution ere thy next Re- 
view 

Spread its light wings of Saffron and of 
Blue, 

Beware lest blundering Brougham ^ 
destroy the sale. 

Turn Beef to Bannocks, Cauliflowers to 
Kail." 

Thus having said, the kilted Goddess 
kissed 

Her son, and vanished in a Scottish mist.^ 

Then prosper, Jeffrey! pertest of 
the train 
Whom Scotland pampers with her fiery 
grain ! 

1 Mr Brougham, in No. XXV. of the Edin- 
burgh Review, throughout the article concerning 
Don Pedro de Cevallos, has displayed more 
politics than policy; many of the worthy bur- 
gesses of Edinburgh being so incensed at the 
infamous principles it evinces, as to have with- 
di-awn their subscriptions. — [Here followed, 
in the First Edition: "The name of this per- 
sonage is pronounced Broom in the south, but 
the truly northern and musical pronunciation 
is Brough-am, in two syllables;" but for this, 
Byron substituted in the Second Edition: "It 
seems that Mr Brougham is not a Pict, as I 
supposed, but a Borderer, and his name is 
pronounced Broom, from Trent to Tay : — so 
be it." 

[The title of the work was "Exposition of the 
Practices and Machinations which led to the 
usurpation of the Crown of Spain," etc., by Don 
Pedro Cevallos. The article, which appeared in 
October, 1808, was the joint composition of 
Jeffrey and Brougham, and proved a turning- 
point in the political development of the Review.] 

- I ought to apologise to the worthy Deities for 
introducing a new Goddess with short petticoats 
to their notice: but, alas ! what was to be done? 
I could not say Caledonia's Genius, it being well 
known there is no Genius to be found from 
Clackmannan to Caithness; yet without super- 
natural agency, how was Jeffrey to be saved? 
The national "Kelpies" are too unpoetical, and 
the "Brownies" and "gude neighboxirs" (spirits 
of a good disposition) refused to extricate him. 
A Goddess, therefore, has been called for the 
purpose; and great ought to be the gratitude 
of Jeffrey, seeing it is the only communication 
he ever held, or is likely to hold, with anything 
heavenly. 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



Whatever blessing waits a genuine 

Scot, 
In double portion swells thy glorious 

lot; 53° 

For thee Edina culls her evening sweets, 
And showers their odours on thy candid 

sheets. 
Whose Hue and Fragrance to thy work 

adhere — 
This scents its pages, and that gilds its 

rear.^ 
Lo ! blushing Itch, coy nymph, enam- 
oured grown. 
Forsakes the rest, and cleaves to thee 

alone, 
And, too unjust to other Pictish men. 
Enjoys thy person, and inspires thy 

pen! 

Illustrious Holland ! hard would be 

his lot, 
His hirelings mentioned, and himself 

forgot ! ^ 540 

Holland, with Henry Petty ^ at his 

back. 
The whipper-in and huntsman of the 

pack. 
Blest be the banquets spread at Holland 

House, 
Where Scotchmen feed, and Critics may 

carouse ! 
Long, long beneath that hospitable 

roof 
Shall Grub-street dine, while duns are 

kept aloof. 
See honest Hallam * lay aside his 

fork. 
Resume his pen, review his Lordship's 

work, 

' See the colour of the back binding of the 
Edinburgh Review. 

'"Bad enough, and on mistaken grounds 
too." — B., 1816. [The comment applies to 
the whole passage on Lord Holland. 

[Henry Richard Vassall, third Lord Holland 
(1773-1840), to whom Byron dedicated the 
Bride of Ahydos (1813).] 

i [Henry Petty (i 780-1863) succeeded his 
brother as third Marquis of Lansdowne in 1809. 
He was a regular attendant at the social and 
political gatherings of his relative, Lord Holland; 
and as Holland House was regarded as one of 
the main rallying-points of the Whig party and 
of the Edinburgh Reviewers, the words, "whip- 
per-in and huntsman," probably refer to their 
exertions in this respect.] 

4 [See note 2, col. i, p. iii.] 



And, grateful for the dainties on his 
plate, 

Declare his landlord can at least trans- 
late ! ^ . . .550 

Dunedin ! view thy children with de- 
light. 

They write for food — and feed because 
they write: 

And lest, when heated with the unusual 
grape. 

Some glowing thoughts should to the 
press escape, 

And tinge with red the female reader's 
cheek. 

My lady skims the cream of each critique ; 

Breathes o'er the page her purity of 
soul. 

Reforms each error, and refines the 

™'''"^' .- v^!M'^' 

I Now to the Drama turn ' — Oh ! mot- 
! ley sight ! 

' What precious scenes the wondering 

1 eyes invite: 560 

/ Puns, and a Prince within a barrel 

pent,^ 

And Dibdin's nonsense yield complete 

content.* 
Though now, thank Heaven! the 

Rosciomania's o'er,^ 
And full-grown actors are endured once 

more; 
Yet what avail their vain attempts to 

please. 
While British critics suffer scenes Hke 
these; 

' Lord Holland has translated some specimens 
of Lope de Vega, inserted in his life of the author. 
Both are bepraised by his disinterested guests. 

= Certain it is, her ladyship is suspected of 
having displayed her matchless wit in the Edin- 
burgh Review. However that may be, we know 
from good authority, that the manuscripts are 
submitted to her perusal — no doubt, for 
correction. 

3 In the melo-drama of Tekeli, that heroic 
prince is clapt into a barrel on the stage — a new 
asylum for distressed heroes. [Theodore Ed- 
ward Hook (1788-1841) produced Tekeli in 
1806.] 

4 [Vide post, 1. 590, note 5.] 

5 [William Hemy West Betty (1791-1874) 
(" the Young Roscius") made his first appearance 
on the London stage as Selim, disguised as 
Achmet, in Barbarossa, December i, 1804, and 
his last, as a boy actor, as Richard IH., April 8, 
(or, ? Hamlet, April 9,) 1806, but acted in the 
provinces till 1808.] 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



113 



While Reynolds vents his "dammes!^' 

"poohs!" and "zounds!"^ 
And common-place and common sense 

confounds ? 
While Kenney's 2 " World " — qh ! 

where is Kenney's wit ? — 
Tires the sad gallery, lulls the listless 

Pit; 570 

And Beaumont's pilfered Caratach 

affords 
A tragedy complete in all but 

words'? ^ 
Who but must mourn, while these are 

all the rage, 
The degradation of our vaunted stage? 
Heavens! is all sense of shame and 

talent gone? 
Have we no living Bard of merit? — 

none? 
Awake, George Colman ! ^ Cumber- 
land, awake ! ^ 
Ring the alarum bell ! let folly 

quake ! 
Oh ! Sheridan ! if aught can move thy 

pen. 
Let Comedy assume her throne again; 



' All these are favourite expressions of Mr 
Reynolds, and prominent in his comedies, living 
and defunct. [Frederic Reynolds (1764-1841) 
produced nearly one hundred plays, one of the 
most successful of which was The Caravan, or 
the Driver and his Dog. The text alludes to his 
endeavoiu: to introduce the language of ordinary 
life on the stage.] 

» [James Kenney (1780-1849). The World 
was brought out at Drury Lane, March 31, 1808, 
and had a considerable run.] 

3 Mr T. Sheridan, the new Manager of Drury 
Lane theatre, stripped the tragedy of Bonduca 
[Caratach in the original MS.] of the dialogue, 
and exhibited the scenes as the spectacle of 
Caractuais. Was this worthy of his sire? or of 
himself? [Thomas Sheridan (i 775-181 7), the 
son of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and father of 
Lady Dufferin, Mrs Norton, and the Duchess 
of Somerset, was author of several plays. His 
Bonduca was played at Covent Garden, May 3, 
1808.] 

■» [George Colman, the yoimger (1762-1836), 
wTote numerous chamas, several of which, e.g. 
The Iron Chest (1796), The Heir-at-Law (1797), 
John Bull (1803), have been popular with more 
than one generation of playgoers. John Bull is 
referred to in Hints from Horace, line 166.] 

3 [Richard Cumberland (1732-1811), the 
original of Sir Fretful Plagiary in The Critic, 
a man of varied abilities, wrote poetry, plays, 
novels, classical translations, and works of 
religious controversy. He published his Me- 
moirs in 1806-7.] 



Abjure the mummery of German 
schools; 581 

Leave new Pizarros to translating fools ;^ 

Give, as thy last memorial to the age, 

One classic drama, and reform the 
stage. 

Gods ! o'er those boards shall Folly rear 
her head, 

Where Garrick trod, and Siddons 
lives to tread? 

On those shall Farce display Buffoon- 
ery's mask. 

And Hook conceal his heroes in a 
cask ? 2 

Shall sapient managers new scenes pro- 
duce 

From Cherry,^ Skeffington,* and 
Mother Goose? ^ 590 

While Shakespeare, Otway, Mas^- 
SINGER, forgot, 

On stalls must moulder, or in closets 
rot? 

Lo ! with what pomp the daily prints 
proclaim 

The rival candidates for Attic fame! 

In grim array though Lewis' spectres 
rise, 

Still Skeffington and Goose divide 
the prize. 

And, sure, great Skefi&ngton must claim 
our praise, 

For skirtless coats and skeletons of plays 

' [Sheridan's translation of Pizarro, by 
Kotzebue, was first played at Drury Lane, 
May 24, 1 799-] 

* [See ante, line 561.] 
r 3 [Andrew Cherry (1762-1812) acted many 
parts in Ireland and in the provinces, and for 
a few years appeared at Drury Lane. He was 
popular in Dublin, where he was known as 
"Little Cherry." He wTote The Travellers 
(1806), Peter the Great (1807), and other plays.] 

•* Mr [now Sir Lumley] Skeffington is the 
illustrious author of The Sleeping Beauty, and 
some comedies, particularly Maids and Bache- 
lors: Baccalaurii baculo magis quam lauro 
digni. 

[Lumley St George (afterwards Sir Lumley) 
Skeffington (1771-1850). "Great Skeffington" 
was a great dandy. According to Captain 
Gronow {Reminiscences, i. 63), "he u.sed to 
paint his face so that he looked like a French 
toy." His play Tlie Sleeping Beauty had a 
considerable vogue.] 

5 [Thomas John Dibdin _ (i77i_-i84i)._ His 
pantomime. Mother Goose, in which Grimaldi 
took a part, was played at Covent Garden in 
1807, and is said to have brought the manage- 
ment ;£20,000.] 



114 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



Renowned alike; whose genius ne'er 

confines 
Her flight to garnish Greenwood's gay 

designs; * 600 

Nor sleeps with "Sleeping Beauties," 

but anon 
In five facetious acts comes thundering 

on; 
While poor John Bull, bewildered with 

the scene. 
Stares, wondering what the devil it can 

mean; 
But as some hands applaud, a venal few 1 
Rather than sleep, why, John applauds 

it too. 

Such are we now. Ah ! wherefore 

should we turn 
To what our fathers were, unless to 

mourn ? 
Degenerate Britons ! are ye dead to 

shame. 
Or, kind to dulness, do you fear to 

blame? 610 

Well may the nobles of our present race 
Watch each distortion of a Naldi's 

face; 
Well may they smile on Italy's buffoons, 
And worship Catalani's pantaloons,^ 
Since their own Drama yields no fairer 

trace 
Of wit than puns, of humour than 

grimace.^ 



' Mr Greenwood is, we believe, scene- 
painter to Drury Lane theatre — as such, Mr 
Skeffington is much indebted to him. 

= Naldi and Catalani require Httle notice; 
for the visage of the one, and the salary of the 
other, will enable us long to recollect these 
amusing vagabonds. Besides, we are still black 
and blue from the squeeze on the first night of 
the Lady's appearance in trousers. [Giuseppe 
Naldi (1770-1820) made his debut on the London 
stage at the King's Theatre in April, 1806. 
Angelica Catalani (circ. 1785-1849), a famous 
soprano, made her debut at Venice in 1795. 
Her first appearance in England was at the 
King's Theatre, in Portogallo's Semiramidc, 
in 1806.] 

3 [Moore says that the following twenty lines 
were struck off one night after Lord Byron's 
return from the Opera, and sent the next morn- 
ing to the printer. The representation which 
provoked the outburst was probably that of 
/ Villegiatori Rezzani, at the King's Theatre, 
February 21, 1809. The first piece, in which 
Naldi and Catalani were the principal singers, 
was followed by d'Egville's musical extrava- 



Then let Ausonia, skilled in every art 
To soften manners, but corrupt the 

heart, 
Pour her exotic follies o'er the town. 
To sanction Vice, and hunt Decorum 

down: 620 

Let wedded strumpets languish o'er 

Deshayes, 
And bless the promise which his form 

displays; 
While Gayton bounds before th' en- 
raptured looks 
Of hoary Marquises, and stripling 

Dukes: 
Let high-born lechers eye the lively 

Presle 
Twirl her light limbs, that spurn the 

needless veil; 
Let Angiolini bare her breast of snow, 
Wave the white arm, and point the pliant 

toe; 
Collini trill her love-inspiring song, 
Strain her fair neck, and charm the 

listening throng ! 630 

Whet not your scythe. Suppressors of 

our Vice ! 
Reforming Saints ! too deUcately nice ! 
By whose decrees, our sinful souls to 

save. 
No Sunday tankards foam, no barbers 

shave; 
And beer undrawn, and beards un- 

mown, display 
Your holy reverence for the Sabbath- 
day. 

Or hail at once the patron and the 
pile 
Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle ! ^ 

ganza, Don Quichotle, ou les Noccs de Ga- 
mache. In the corps de ballet were Deshaj'es 
of Herculean stature, for many years master 
of the ballet at the King's Theatre, Miss Gayton, 
who had played a Sylph at Drury Lane as early 
as 1806, and Mademoiselle Angiolini, "elegant 
of figure, petite, but finely formed, with the 
manner of Vestris." Mademoiselle Presle does 
not seem to have taken part in Don Quichotle; 
but she was well known as premiere danseuse 
in La Belle Laitiere, La Fete Chinoise, and 
other ballets.] 

' To prevent any blunder, such as mistaking 
a street for a man, I beg leave to state, that it is 
the institution, and not the Duke of that name, 
which is here alluded to. 

A gentleman, with whom I am slightly ac- 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



"5 



Where yon proud palace, Fashion's 

hallowed fane, 
Spreads wide her portals for the motley 

train, . 640 

Behold the new Petronius ^ of the 

day. 
Our arbiter of pleasure and of play ! 
There the hired eunuch, the Hesperian 

choir, 
The melting lute, the soft lascivious 

lyre, 
The song from Italy, the step from 

France, 
The midnight orgy, and the mazy 

dance. 
The smile of beauty, and the flush of 

wine. 
For fops, fools, gamesters, knaves, and 

Lords combine: 
Each to his humour — Comus all 

allows; 
Champagne, dice, music — or your 

neighbour's spouse. 650 

Talk not to us, ye starving sons of 

trade ! 
Of piteous ruin, which ourselves have 

made; 

quainted, lost in the Argyle Rooms several 
thousand pounds at Backgammon.* It is but 
justice to the manager in this instance to say, 
that some degree of disapprobation was mani- 
fested: but why are the implements of gaming 
allowed in a place devoted to the society of both 
sexes? A pleasant thing for the wives and 
daughters of those who are blessed or cursed 
with such connections, to hear the Billiard- 
Bails rattling in one room, and the dice in an- 
other ! That this is the case I myself can 
testify, as a late unworthy member of an Institu- 
tion which materially affects the morals of the 
higher orders, while the lower may not even 
move to the sound of a tabor and fiddle, without 
a chance of indictment for riotous behaviour. 
[The Argyle Institution, founded by Colonel 
Greville, flourished many years before the 
Argyll Rooms were built by Nash in 18 18. This 
mention of Greville's name caused him to de- 
mand an explanation from Byron, but the 
matter was amicably settled by Moore and 
G. F. Leckie, who acted on behalf of the dis- 
putants. (See Ljje, pp. 160, 161.)] 

' Petronius, "Arbiter elegantiarum " to Nero, 
"and a very pretty fellow in his day," as Mr 
Congreve's "Old Bachelor" saith of Hannibal. 



♦"True. It was Billy Way who lost the 
money. I knew him, and was a subscriber to 
the Argyle at the time of this event." — B., 1816. 



In Plenty's sunshine Fortune's minions 

bask, 
Nor think of Poverty, except "en 

masque," ^ 
When for the night some lately titled ass 
Appears the beggar which his grandsire 

was. 
The curtain dropped, the gay Burletta 

o'er. 
The audience take their turn upon the 

floor: 
Now round the room the circling dow'- 

gers sweep, 
Now in loose waltz the thin-clad 

daughters leap; 660 

The first in lengthened line majestic 

swim, 
The last display the free unfettered 

limb! 
Those for Hibernia's lusty sons repair 
With art the charms which Nature could 

not spare; 
These after husbands wing their eager 

flight. 
Nor leave much mystery for the nuptial 

night. 

Oh ! blest retreats of infamy and ease. 
Where, all forgotten but the power to 

please, 
Each maid may give a loose to genial 

thought. 
Each swain may teach new systems, or 

be taught: 670 

There the blithe youngster, just returned 

from Spain, 
Cuts the light pack, or calls the rattling 

main; 
The jovial Caster's set, and seven's the 

Nick, 
Or — done ! — a thousand on the com- 
ing trick ! 
If, mad with loss, existence 'gins to tire, 
And all your hope or wish is to expire, 
Here's Powell's ^ pistol ready for your 

life,' 
And, kinder still, two Pagets for your 

wife: 

' ["We are authorised to state that Mr 
Greville, who has a small party at his private 
assembly rooms at the Argyle, will receive from 
10 to 12 [p.m.] masks who have Mrs. Chichester's 
Institution tickets." — Morning Post, June 7, 
1809.] ' [See note on line 683, injra.] 



Ii6 



EA'GLI^H BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



Fit consummation of an earthly race 
Begun in folly, ended in disgrace, 6So 
While none but menials o'er the bed of 

death, 
Wash thy red wounds, or watch thy 

wavering breath: 
Traduced by liars, and forgot by all, 
The mangled victim of a drunken brawl. 
To Uve like Clodius,^ and Uke Falk- 
land fall.- 

Truth ! rouse some genuine Bard, and 

guide his hand 
To drive this pestilence from out the land. 
E'en I — least thinking of a thoughtless 

throng. 
Just skilled to know the right and choose 

the wrong. 
Freed at that age when Reason's shield 

is lost, 690 

To fight my course through Passion's 

countless host,^ 
Whom every path of Pleasure's fiow'ry 

way 
Has lured in turn, and all have led 

astray — 
E'en I must raise my voice, e'en I must 

feel 
Such scenes, such men, destroy the pub- 
He weal: 
Altho' some kind, censorious friend will 

say, 
"What art thou better, meddling fool,^ 

than they?" 

' [The allusion is to the well-known incidents 
of his intrigue with Pompeia, Caesar's wife, and 
his sacrilegious intrusion into the mj'steries of 
the Bona Dea.] 

" I knew the late Lord Falkland well. On 
Sunday night I beheld him presiding at his own 
table, in all the honest pride of hospitality; on 
Wednesday morning, at three o'clock, I saw 
stretched before mc all that remained of courage, 
feeling, and a host of passions. He was a gallant 
and successful officer: his faults were the faults 
of a sailor — • as such, Britons will forgive them. 
He died like a brave man in a better cause; for 
had he fallen in like manner on the deck of the 
frigate to which he was just appointed, his last 
moments would have been held up by his 
countrymen as an example to succeeding heroes. 

[Charles John Carey, ninth Viscount Falk- 
land, died from a wound received in a duel with 
Mr A. Powell on February 28, 1809.] 

3 "Yes: and a precious chase they led me." 
— B., 1816. 

♦ " Fool enough, certainly, then, and no wiser 
since." — B.. 1816. 



And every Brother Rake will smile to 

see 
That miracle, a MoraUst in me. 
No matter — when some Bard in virtue 

strong, 700 

Gifford perchance, shall raise the 

chastening song, 
Then sleep my pen for ever ! and my 

voice 
Be only heard to hail him, and rejoice, 
Rejoice, and yield my feeble praise, 

though I 
May feel the lash that Virtue must 

apply. 

As for the smaller fry, who swarm in 

shoals 
From silly Hafiz up to simple Bowles,^ 
Why should we call them from their 

dark abode. 
In broad St Giles's or in Tottenham- 
Road? 
Or (since some men of fashion nobly 

dare 710 

To scrawl in verse) from Bond-street or 

the Square? 
If things of Ton their harmless lays 

indite. 
Most wisely doomed to shun the public 

sight. 
What harm? in spite of every critic 

elf, 
Sir T. may read his stanzas to him- 
self; 
Miles Andrews ^ still his strength in 

couplets try. 
And live in prologues, though his dramas 

die. 
Lords too are Bards: such things at 

times befall, 
And 'tis some praise in Peers to write at 

all. 



' What would be the sentiments of the Persian 
Anacreon, Hafiz, could he rise from his splendid 
sepulchre at Sheeraz (where he reposes with 
Ferdousi and Sadi, the Oriental Homer and 
Catullus), and behold his name assumed by one 
Stott of Dromore, the most impudent and 
execrable of literary poachers for the Daily 
Prints? 

= [Miles Peter Andrews (d. 1814) was M.P. for 
Bewdley. He held a good social position, but 
his intimate friends were actors and playwrights. 
His Biilcr Laic tlian Never was played for the 
lirst time at Drury Lane, November 17, 1790.] 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



ti7 



Yet, did or Taste or Reason sway the 

times, 720 

Ah ! who would take their titles with 

their rhymes ? ^ 
Roscommon I ^ Sheffield ! ^ with your 

spirits fled, 
No future laurels deck a noble head; 
No Muse will cheer, with renovating 

smile, 
The paralytic puling of Carlisle/ 
The puny schoolboy and his early 

lay 
Men pardon, if his follies pass away; 
But who forgives the Senior's ceaseless 

verse. 
Whose hairs grow hoary as his rhymes 

grow worse? 



' [In a manuscript fragment, bound in the 
same volume as British Bards (the tirst draft of 
English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers which 
Byron had set up in type), we find these lines: — 

"In these, our times, with daily wonders big, 
A lettered peer is like a lettered pig; 
Both know their Alphabet, but who, from 

thence, 
Infers that peers or pigs have manly sense? 
Still less that such should woo the graceful nine; 
Parnassus was not made for lords'and swine."] 

" [Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon 
(1634-1685), author of many translations and 
minor poems, endeavoured (circ. 1663) to found 
an English literary academy.] 

3 [John Sheffield (1648-1721), Earl of Mul- 
grave (1658), Marquis of Normanby (1694), 
Duke of Buckingham (1703), wrote an Essay 
upon Poetry, and several other works.] 

4 [Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, 
K.G. (1748-1825), Viceroy of Ireland, 1780- 
1782, and Privy Seal, etc., published Tragedies 
and Poems, 1801. He was Byron's first cousin 
once removed, and his guardian. Poems 
Original and Translated were dedicated to 
Lord Carlisle, and, as an erased MS. addition 
to British Bards testifies, he was to have been 
excepted from the roll of titled fxjetasters — 

"Ah, who would take their titles from their 
rhymes ? 
On one alone Apollo deigns to smile, 
And crowns a new Roscommon in Carlisle." 

Before, however, the reAised Satire was sent to 
the press, Carlisle ignored his cousin's request to 
introduce him on taking his seat in the House of 
Lords, and, to avenge the slight, eighteen lines of 
castigation supplanted the flattering couplet. 
Lord Carlisle suffered from a nervous disorder, 
and Byron was informed that some readers had 
scented an allusion in the words "paralytic 
puling." "I thank Heaven," he exclaimed, 
"I did not know it; and would not, could not, 
if I had. I must naturally be the last person to 
be pointed on defects or maladies."] 



What heterogeneous honours deck the 
Peer ! 730 

Lord, rhymester, petit-maitre, pam- 
phleteer! ^ 

So dull in youth, so drivelling in his 
age, 

His scenes alone had damned our sink- 
ing stage; 

But Managers for once cried, "Hold, 
enough !" 

Nor drugged their audience with the 
tragic stuff. 

Yet at their judgment let his Lordship 
laugh. 

And case his volumes in congenial 
calf; 

Yes ! doff that covering, where Morocco 
shines. 

And hang a calf-skin on those recreant 
lines.^ 

With you, ye Druids! rich in native 

lead, 740 

Who daily scribble for your daily 

bread : 
With you I war not: Gifford's heavy 

hand 
Has crushed, without remorse, your 

numerous band. 
On "All the Talents" vent your vena! 

spleen; ^ 
Want is your plea, let Pity be your 

screen. 



' The Earl of Carlisle has lately published an 
eighteen-penny pamphlet on the state of the 
Stage, and offers his plan for building a new 
theatre. It is to be hoped his Lordship will be 
permitted to bring forward anything for the 
Stage — except his own tragedies. [This pam- 
phlet was entitled Thoughts upon the present 
condition of the stage, and upon the construction 
of a new Theatre. Anon. 1808.] 

^"Doff that lion's hide, 
And hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs." 
— Shakespeare, King John. 

Lord Carlisle's works, most resplendently bound, 
form a conspicuous ornament to his book- 
shelves : — 
"The rest is all but leather and prunella." 

" Wrong also — the provocation was not 
sufficient to justify such acerbity." — B., 1816. 

i All the Blocks, or an Antidote to '"All the 
Talents," by Flagellum (W. H. Ireland), Lon- 
don, 1807; The Groan 0} the Talents, or Private 
Sentiments on Public Occasions, 1807; "Gr — vile 
Agonistes, A Dramatic Poem, 1807, etc., etc." 



ii8 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



Let Monodies on Fox regale your crew, 
And Melville's Mantle * prove a Blanket 

too! 
One common Lethe w^aits each hapless 

Bard, 
And, peace be v^ith you ! 'tis your best 

reward. 
Such damning fame as Dunciads only 

give 750 

Could bid your lines beyond a morning 

live; 
But now at once your fleeting labours 

close, 
With names of greater note in blest 

repose. 
Far be't from me unkindly to upbraid 
The lovely Rosa's prose in masquerade. 
Whose strains, the faithful echoes of her 

mind. 
Leave wondering comprehension far 

behind.^ 
Though Crusca's bards no more our 

journals fill. 
Some stragglers skirmish round the 

columns still; 
Last of the howling host which once 

was Bell's, 760 

Matilda snivels yet, and Hafiz yells; 
And Merry's metaphors appear anew. 
Chained to the signature of O. P. Q.^ 

' " Melville's Mantle," a parody on Elijah's 
Mantle, a poem. [Elijah's Mantle, being verses 
occasioned by the death of the Right Hon. W. 
Pitt (1807), was written by James Sayer. Mel- 
ville's Mantle, being a Parody on the poem 
entitled ''Elijah's Mantle," was published by 
Budd, 1807. A Monody on the death of the 
R. H. C. J. Fox, by Richard Payne Knight, was 
printed for J. Payne, 1806-7, and there were 
others.] 

= This lovely little Jessica, the daughter of 
the noted Jew King, seems to be a follower of 
the Delia Crusca school, and has published two 
volumes of very respectable absurdities in rhyme, 
as times go; besides sundry novels in the style 
of the first edition of The Monk. 

" She since married the Morning Post — an 
exceeding good match; and is now dead ^ — 
which is better." — B., 1816. [The novelist 
"Rosa," the daughter of "Jew King," the 
lordly money-lender who lived in Clarges Street, 
and drove a yellow chariot, may possibly be 
confounded with " Rosa Matilda," Mrs. Byrne, 
the wife of the Editor of the Morning Post.] 

3 These are the signatures of various worthies 
who figure in the poetical departments of the 
newspapers. 

[Lines 756-764 refer to the so-called Delia 
Cruscan school attacked by Gifford in Tlie 



When some brisk youth, the tenant of 

a stall, 
Employs a pen less pointed than his 

awl. 
Leaves his snug shop, forsakes his store 

of shoes, 
St Crispin quits, and cobbles for the 

Muse, 
Heavens ! how the vulgar stare ! how 

crowds applaud ! 
How ladies read, and Literati laud ! ^ 
If, 'chance, some wicked wag should pass 

his jest, 770 

'Tis sheer ill-nature — don't the world 

know best? 
Genius must guide when wits admire 

the rhyme. 
And Capel Lofft ^ declares 'tis quite 

sublime. 

Baviad, and The Mcnnad. "Rosa" or "Rosa 
Matilda" (1. 756), born Charlotte Dacre, after- 
wards Mrs. Byrne, published poems {Hours of 
Solitude, 1805), etc.; "Anna" (1- 762) or "Anna 
Matilda," born Hannah Parkhouse, afterwards 
Mrs. Cowley, wrote The Belle's Stratagem, acted 
at Covent Garden, in 1782; "Hafiz," Robert 
Stott, wrote for the Morning Post; Robert Merry 
(i755-i7g8),;kvho had helped to found the school 
at Florence, and written for the Artio Mis- 
cellany, 1784, etc., afterward contributed to 
The World, then edited by Captain Topham. . 
Of these writers. Merry was dead; "Rosa 
Matilda" Byrne, "Anna Matilda" Cowley, 
and "Hafiz" Stott were still living.] 

' "This was meant for poor Blackett, who 
was then patronised by A. I. B." [Lady Byron]; 
"but that I did not know, or this would not have 
been written, at least I think not." — B., 1816. 

[Joseph Blacket (1786-1810), said by Southey 
to possess "force and rapidity," and to be en- 
dowed with "more powers than Robert Bloom- 
field, and an intellect of higher pitch," was the 
son of a labourer, and by trade a cobbler. He 
was brought into notice by S. J. Pratt (who 
published Blacket's Remains in 181 1), and was 
befriended by the Milbanke family. He died 
on the Seaham estate in September, 18 10, at the 
age of twenty-three.] 

" Capell Lofft, Esq., the Maecenas of shoe- 
makers, and Preface-writer General to distressed 
versemen; a kind of gratis Accoucheur to those 
who wish to be delivered of rhyme, but do not 
know how to bring it forth. 1 

[Capell Lofft (1751-1824), jurist, poet, critic, ' 
and horticulturist, honoured himself by his t 
kindly patronage of Robert Bloomfield (1766- ' 
1823), who was born at Honington, near Lofft's H 
estate of Throston, Suffolk. Robert Bloom- j 
field was brought up by his elder brothers — !j 
Nathaniel a tailor, and George a shoemaker. ,' 
It was in the latter's workshop that he composed 
The Farmer's Boy, which was published (1798) j 
with the help of Lofft.] ji 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



Hear, then, ye happy sons of needless 

trade ! 
Swains ! quit the plough, resign the 

useless spade ! 
Lo! Burns and Bloomfield, nay, a 

greater far, 
GiFFORD was born beneath an adverse 

star. 
Forsook the labours of a servile state, 
Stemmed the rude storm, and tri- 
umphed over Fate: 
Then why no more? if Phoebus smiled 

on you, 780 

Bloomfield ! why not on brother 

Nathan too? 
Him too the Mania, not the Muse, has 

seized ; 
Not inspiration, but a mind diseased: 
And now no Boor can seek his last 

abode. 
No common be inclosed without an 

ode.^ 
Oh ! since increased refinement deigns 

to smile 
On Britain's sons, and bless our genial 

Isle, 
Let Poesy go forth, pervade the whole, 
Alike the rustic, and mechanic soul ! 
Ye tuneful cobblers ! still your notes 

prolong, 790 

Compose at once a slipper and a 

song; 
So shall the fair your handywork 

peruse. 
Your sonnets sure shall please — per- 
haps your shoes. 
May Moorland weavers - boast Pindaric 

skill. 
And tailors' lavs be longer than their 

bill! 
While punctual beaux reward the grate- 

. ful notes. 
And pay for poems — when they pay 

for coats. 

' See Nathaniel Bloomfield's ode, elegy, or 
whatever he or any one else chooses to call it, 
on the enclosures of "Honington Green." 
[Nathaniel Bloomfield, as a matter of fact, 
called it a ballad. — Poems (1803).] 

^ Vide Recollections 0} a Weaver in the Moor- 
lands of Staffordshire. [The exact title is The 
Moorland Bard; or Poetical Recollections of 
a Weaver, etc., 2 vols., 1807. The author was 
T. Bakewell, who also wrote A Domestic Guide 
to Insanity, 1805.] 



To the famed throng now paid the 

tribute due. 
Neglected Genius ! let me turn to 

you. 
Come forth, oh Campbell ! give thy 

talents scope; 800 

Who dares aspire if thou must cease to 

hope? 
And thou, melodious Rogers ! rise at 

last. 
Recall the pleasing memory of the 

past; ^ 
Arise ! let blest remembrance still in- 
spire, 
And strike to wonted tones thy hallowed 

lyre; 
Restore Apollo to his vacant throne. 
Assert thy country's honour and thine 

own. 
What ! must deserted Poesy still weep 
Where her last hopes with pious Cowper 

sleep? 
Unless, perchance, from his cold bier 

she turns, 810 

To deck the turf that wraps her minstrel, 

Burns ! 
No ! though Contempt hath marked the 

spurious brood. 
The race who rhyme from folly, or for 

food. 
Yet still some genuine sons 'tis hers to 

boast, 
Who, least affecting, still affect the 

most: 

■ It would be superfluous to recall to the mind 
of the reader the authors of The Pleasures 0} 
Memory and The Pleasures of Hope, the most 
beautiful didactic poems in our language, if we 
except Pope's Essay on Man: but so many 
poetasters have started up, that even the names 
of Campbell and Rogers are become strange. — 
[Beneath this note Byron scribbled, in 1816, — 
"Pretty Miss Jaqueline 

Had a nose aquiline. 

And would assert rude 

Things of Miss Gertrude, 

While Mr. Marmion 

Led a great army on, 

Making Kehama look 

Like a fierce Mameluke." 
"I have been reading," he says, in 1813, 
"Memory again, and Hope together, and retain 
all my preference of the former. His elegance 
is really wonderful — there is no such a thing 
as a vulgar line in his book." In the annota- 
tions of 1816, Byron remarks, "Rogers has not 
fulfilled the promise of his first poems, but has 
still very great merit."] 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



Feel as they write, and write but as thev 

feel — 
Bear witness Gifford/ Sotheby,^ Mac- 

NEIL,^ 

"Why slumbers Gifford?" once 

was asked in vain; 
Why slumbers Gifford ? let us ask 

again.'* 
Are there no follies for his pen to 

purge? 820 

Are there no fools whose backs demand 

the scourge? 
Are there no sins for Satire's Bard to 

greet ? 
Stalks not gigantic Vice in every street ? 
Shall Peers or Princes tread Pollution's 

path, 
And 'scape alike the Law's, and Muse's 

wrath, 
Nor blaze with guilty glare through 

future time, 
Eternal beacons of consummate crime? 
Arouse thee, Gifford ! be thy promise 

claimed. 
Make bad men better, or at least 

ashamed. 

Unhappy White ! ^ while life was in 
its spring, 830 

And thy young Muse just waved her 
joyous wing, 

' Gifford [vide line 94, note 3], author of the 
Baviad and Maviad, the first satires of the day, 
and translator of Juvenal. 

^ SoTHEBY, translator of Wieland's Oberon 
and Virgil's Georgics, and author of Saul, an 
epic poem (1807). [William Sotheby (1757- 
1833) began life as a cavahy officer, but being 
a man of fortune, sold out of the army and 
devoted himself to literature, and to the patron- 
age of men of letters. He is " the solemn antique 
man of rhyme" {Bcppo, .st. Ixiii.), and the 
"Botherby" of The Blues.] 

3 Macneil, whose poems are deservedly 
popular, particularly Scotland's Scaith, and the 
Waes 0' War, of which ten thousand copies were 
sold in one month. [Hector Macneill (1746- 
18 18) wrote in defence of slavery in Jamaica, 
and was the author of several poems: Scot- 
land's Skaith; or, the History 0' Will and Jean 
(1795), etc., etc.] 

4 Mr. Gifford promised publicly that the 
Baxnad and Mceinad should not be his last 
original works; let him remember, " Mox in 
reluctantes dracones." 

5 Henry Kirke White died at Cambridge, in 
October, 1806, in consequence of too much ex- 
ertion in the pursuit of studies that would have 



The Spoiler swept that soaring Lyre 

away. 
Which else had sounded an immortal 

lay. 
Oh ! what a noble heart was here un- 
done. 
When Science' self destroyed her fav- 
ourite son ! 
Yes, she too much indulged thy fond 

pursuit. 
She sowed the seeds, but Death has 

reaped the fruit. 
'Twas thine own Genius gave the final 

blow. 
And helped to plant the wound that laid 

thee low: 
•So the struck Eagle, stretched upon the 

plain, 840 

No more through roUing clouds to soar 

again, 
Viewed his own feather on the fatal 

dart, 
And winged the shaft that quivered in 

his heart; 
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to 

feel 
He nursed the pinion which impelled the 

steel; 
While the same plumage that had warmed 

his nest 
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding 

breast. 

There be who say, in these enlightened 

days, 
That splendid Kes are all the poet's 

praise; 
That strained Invention, ever on the 

wing, 850 

Alone impels the modern Bard to sing: 

matured a mind which disease and poverty 
could not impair, and which Death itself de- 
stroyed rather than subdued. His poems 
abound in such beauties as must impress the 
reader with the liveliest regret that so short a 
period was allotted to talents, which would have 
dignified even the sacred functions he was 
destined to assume. 

[H. K. White (i 785-1 806) published Clifton 
Grove and other poems, in 1803. His tendency 
to epilepsy was increased by over-work at 
Cambridge. He once remarked to a friend that 
"were he to paint a picture of Fame, crowning 
a distinguished undergraduate after the Senate 
house examination, he would represent her as 
concealing a Death's head under a mask of 
Beauty" {Life of H. K. IV., by Southey, i. 45).] 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



'Tis true, that all who rhyme — nay, all 

who write, 
Shrink from that fatal word to Genius — 

Trite; 
Yet Truth sometimes will lend her 

noblest fires, 
And decorate the verse herself inspires: 
This fact in Virtue's name let Crabbe ^ 

attest : 
Though Nature's sternest Painter, yet 

the best. 

And here let Shee ^ and Genius find 

a place, 
Whose pen and pencil yield an equal 

grace ; 
To guide whose hand the sister Arts 

combine, 860 

And trace the Poet's or the Painter's 

line; 
Whose magic touch can bid the canvas 

glow, 
Or pour the easy rhyme's harmonious 

flow; 
While honours, doubly merited, attend 
The Poet's rival, but the Painter's 

friend. 

Blest is the man who dares approach 

the bower 
Where dwelt the Muses at their natal 

hour; 
Whose steps have pressed, whose eye has 

marked afar. 
The clime that nursed the sons of song 

and war, 
The scenes which Glory still must hover 

o'er, 870 

Her place of birth, her own Achaian 

shore. 
But doubly blest is he whose heart ex- 
pands 
With hallowed feeUngs for those classic 

lands; 

' " I consider Crabbe and Coleridge as the 
first of these times, in point of power and genius." 
— B., 1816. 

' Mr Shee, author of Rhymes on Art and 
Elements of Art. [Sir Martin Archer Shee 
(176Q-1850) was President of the Royal Acad- 
emy (1830-45). His Rhymes on Art (1805) 
and Elements oj Art (1809), a poem in six cantos, 
will hardly be regarded as worthy of Byron's 
praise, which was probably quite genuine. 
He also wrote a novel, Harry Calverley, and 
other works.] 



Who rends the veil of ages long gone 

by, 
And views their remnants with a poet's 

eye! 
Wright ! ^ 'twas thy happy lot at once 

to view 
Those shores of glory, and to sing them 

too; 
And, sure, no common Muse inspired 

thy pen 
To hail the land of Gods and Godlike 

men. 

And you, associate Bards ! ^ who 

snatched to light 880 

Those gems too long vv^ithheld from 

modern sight; 
Whose mingUng taste combined to cull 

the wreath 
While Attic flowers Aonian odours 

breathe. 
And all their renovated fragrance 

flung, 
To grace the beauties of your native 

tongue ; 
Now let those minds, that nobly could 

transfuse 
The glorious Spirit of the Grecian 

Muse, 
Though soft the echo, scorn a borrowed 

tone: 
Resign Achaia's lyre, and strike your 

own. 

Let these, or such as these, with just 
applause, 890 

Restore the Muse's violated laws; 

' Mr. Wright, late Consul-General for the 
Seven Islands, is author of a very beautiful poem, 
just published: it is entitled Horce lonicce, and 
is descriptive of the isles and the adjacent coast 
of Greece. [Waller Rodwell Wright was after- 
wards President of the Court of Appeal in Malta, 
where he died in 1826. Horce lonicce, a Poem 
descriptive of the Ionian Islands, and Part of the 
Adjacent Coast of Greece, was published in 1809.] 

= The translators of the Anthology have since 
published separate poems, which evince genius 
that only requires opportunity to attain emi- 
nence. [The Rev. Robert Bland (1779-1825) 
published, in 1806, Translations chiefly from 
the Greek Anthology, etc. In these he vvas 
assisted by Denman (afterwards Chief Justice), 
by Hodgson himself, and, above all, by John 
Herman Merivale (i 779-1844), who, in 1813, 
was joint editor with him of Collections from 
the Greek Anthology, etc.] 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



But not in flimsy Darwin's ^ pompous 

chime, 
That mighty master of unmeaning 

rhyme, 
Whose gilded cymbals, more adorned 

than clear, 
The eye delighted, but fatigued the 

ear, 
In show the simple lyre could once sur- 
pass. 
But now, worn down, appear in native 

brass; 
While all his train of hovering sylphs 

around 
Evaporate in similes and sound: 
Him let them shun, with him let tinsel 

die : 900 

False glare attracts, but more offends 

the eye,^ 

Yet let them not to vulgar Words- 
worth stoop. 
The meanest object of the lowly 

group. 
Whose verse, of all but childish prattle 

void. 
Seems blessed harmony to Lamb and 

Lloyd : ^ 
Let them — but hold, my Muse, nor 

dare to teach 
A strain far, far beyond thy humble 

reach: 
The native genius with their being 

given 
Will point the path, and peal their notes 

to heaven. 

'[Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), the grand- 
father of Charles Robert Darwin. His chief 
works are The Botanic Garden (1789-92) and 
The Temple of Nature (1803).] 

2 The neglect of The Botanic Garden is some 
proof of returning taste. The scenery is its sole 
recommendation. 

3 Messrs Lamb and Lloyd, the most ignoble 
followers of Southey and Co. [Charles Lloyd 
(1775-1830). Lamb and Lloyd contributed 
several pieces to the second edition of Coleridge's 
Poems, published in 1797; and, in 1798, they 
brought out a joint volume of their own. com- 
position, named Poems in Blank Verse. But 
Byron probably had in his mind nothing more 
than the lines in the Anti- Jacobin, where Lamb 
and Lloyd are classed with Coleridge and 
Southey as advocates of French socialism : — 

"Coleridge and Southey, Lloyd and Lamb and 
Co., 
Tune all your mystic harps to praise Lepaux."] 



And thou, too, Scott ! ^ resign to 

minstrels rude 910 

The wilder Slogan of a Border feud: 
Let others spin their meagre hnes for 

hire; 
Enough for Genius, if itself inspire ! 
Let Southey sing, altho' his teeming 

muse. 
Prolific every spring, be too profuse; 
Let simple Wordsworth ^ chime his 

childish verse. 
And brother Coleridge lull the babe at 

nurse; 
Let Spectre-mongering Lewis aim, at 

most. 
To rouse the Galleries, or to raise a 

ghost ; 
Let Moore still sigh; let Strangford 

steal from Moore, 920 

And swear that Camoens sang such 

notes of yore; 
Let Hayley hobble on, Montgomery 

rave. 
And godly Grahame chant a stupid 

stave ; 
Let sonneteering Bowles his strains 

refine, 
And whine and whimper to the four- 
teenth Hne; 
Let Stott, Carlisle,^ Matilda, and 

the rest 
Of Grub Street, and of Grosvenor Place 

the best, 

' By the bye, I hope that in Mr Scott's next 
poem, his hero or heroine will be less addicted to 
"Gramarye," and more to Grammar, than the 
Lady of the Lay and her Bravo, William of 
Deloraine. 

^ "Unjust." — B., 1816. [In Frost at Mid- 
night, first published in 1798, Coleridge twice 
mentions his "Cradled infant."] 

3 It may be asked, why I have censured the 
Earl of Carlisle, my guardian and relative, to 
whom I dedicated a volume of puerile poems a 
few years ago? — The guardianship was nominal, 
at least as far as I have been able to discover; 
the relationship I cannot help, and am very 
sorry for it; but as his Lordship seemed to for- 
get it on a very essential occasion to me, I shall 
not burden my memory with the recollection. 
I do not think that personal differences sanction 
the unjust condemnation of a brother scribbler; 
but I see no reason why they should act as a 
preventive, when the author, noble or ignoble, 
has, for a series of years, beguiled a "discerning 
public" (as the advertisements have it) with 
divers reams of most orthodox, imperial non- 
sense. Besides, I do not step aside to vituperate 
the earl : no — his works come fairly in review 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



23 



Scrawl on, till Death release us from the 

strain, 
Or Common Sense assert her rights 

again ; 
But Thou, with powers that mock the 

aid of praise, 930 

Should'st leave to humbler Bards ignoble 

lays: 
Thy country's voice, the voice of all the 

Nine, 
Demand a hallowed harp — that harp 

is thine. 
Say! will not Caledonia's annals yield 
The glorious record of some nobler field. 
Than the vile foray of a plundering 

clan. 
Whose proudest deeds disgrace the name 

of man? 
Or Marmion's acts of darkness, fitter 

food 
For Sherwood's outlaw tales of Robin 

Hood? 
Scotland ! still proudly claim thy native 

Bard, , 940 

And be thy praise his first, his best 

reward ! 
Yet not with thee alone his name should 

live. 
But own the vast renown a world can 

give; 
Be known, perchance, when Albion is 

no more. 
And tell the tale of what she was before; 
To future times her faded fame recall. 
And save her glory, though his country 

fall. 

with those of other Patrician Literati. If, 
before I escaped from my teens, I said anything 
in favour of his Lordship's paper books, it was 
in the way of dutiful dedication, and more from 
the advice of others than my own judgment, 
and I seize the first opportunity of pronouncing 
my sincere recantation. I have heard that 
some persons conceive me to be under obliga- 
tions to Lord Carlisle: if so, I shall be most 
particularly happy to learn what they are, and 
when conferred, that they may be duly appre- 
ciated and publicly acknowledged. What I 
have humbly advanced as an opinion on his 
printed things, I am prepared to support, if 
necessary, by quotations from Elegies, Eulogies, 
Odes, Episodes, and certain facetious and dainty 
tragedies bearing his name and mark : — 
"What can ennoble knaves, or /00/5, or cowards? 
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards." 
So says Pope. Amen ! — " Much too savage, 
whatever the foundation might be." — B., 1816. 



Yet what avails the sanguine Poet's 

hope. 
To conquer ages, and with time to cope ? 
New eras spread their wings, new nations 

rise, 950 

And other Victors fill th' applauding 

skies; ^ 
A few brief generations fleet along, 
Whose sons forget the Poet and his 

song: 
E'en now, what once-loved Minstrels 

scarce may claim 
The transient mention of a dubious 

name! 
When Fame's loud trump hath blown 

its noblest blast. 
Though long the sound, the echo sleeps 

at last; 
And Glory, Hke the Phoenix ^ midst her 

fires. 
Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires. 

Shall hoary Granta call her sable 

sons, 960 

Expert in science, more expert at puns? 
Shall these approach the Muse ? ah, no ! 

she flies. 
Even from the tempting ore of Seaton's 

prize ; 
Though Printers condescend the press 

to soil 
With rhyme by Hoare,^ and epic blank 

by Hoyle: * — 
Not him whose page, if still upheld by 

whist. 
Requires no sacred theme to bid us Hst.^ 

' Line 951. Note — 
" Tollere humo, victorque virum volitare per ora." 
— Virgil. 

^'"The devil take that 'Phcenix'! How 
came it there?" — B., 1816. 

3 [The Rev. Charles James Hoare (1781- 
1865), Archdeacon of Surrey and Canon of 
Winchester, a close friend of the leaders of the 
Evangelical party — gained the Seatonian Prize 
at Cambridge in 1807 with his poem on the 
Shipwreck of St Paul.] 

4 [Edmund Hoyle, the father of the modern 
game of whist, lived from 1672 to 1769. The 
Rev. Charles Hoyle, his " poetical namesake," 
was, like Hoare, a Seatonian prizeman, and 
wrote an epic in thirteen books on the Exodus.] 

s The Games 0} Hoyle, well-known to the 
votaries of Whist, Chess, etc., are not to be 
superseded by the vagaries of his poetical name- 
sake, whose poem comprised, as expressly stated 
in the advertisement, all the "Plagues of 
Egypt." 



124 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



Ye ! who in Granta's honours would 

surpass, 
Must mount her Pegasus, a full-grown 

ass; 969 

A foal well worthy of her ancient Dam, 
Whose Helicon is duller than her Cam. 

There Clarke,^ still striving pite- 
ously "to please," 
Forgetting doggerel leads not to degrees, 

1 This person, who has lately betrayed the 
most rabid symptoms of confirmed authorship, 
is writer of a poem denominated The Art of 
Pleasing, as " Lucus a non lucendo," containing 
little pleasantry, and less poetry. He also acts 
as monthly stipendiary and collector of calumnies 
for the Satirist. If this unfortunate young 
man would exchange the magazines for the 
mathematics, and endeavour to take a decent 
degree in his university, it might eventually 
prove more serviceable than his present salary. 
Note. — An unfortunate young person of 
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, ycleped Hew- 
son Clarke, has lately manifested the most 
rabid symptoms of confirmed Authorship. 
His Disorder commenced some years ago, and 
the Newcastle Herald teemed with his pre- 
cocious essays, to the great edilkation of the 
Burgesses of Newcastle, Morpeth, and the 
parts adjacent even unto Berwick-upon-Tweed. 
These have since been abundantly scurrilous 
upon the [town] of Newcastle, his native spot, 
Mr Mathias and Anacreon Moore. What 
these men had done to offend Mr. Hewson 
Clarke is not known, but surely the town in 
whose markets he had sold meat, and in whose 
weekly journal he had written prose, deserved 
better treatment. Mr H. C. should recollect 
the proverb "'tis a villainous bird that defiles 
his own nest." He now writes in the Satirist. 
We recommend the young man to abandon the 
magazines for mathematics, and to believe 
that a high degree at Cambridge will be more 
advantageous, as well as profitable in the end, 
than his present precarious gleanings. 

[Hewson Clarke (1787-circ. 1832) was entered 
at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, circ. 1806 
(see Postscript). He migrated to London, where 
he devoted his not inconsiderable talents to 
contributions to the Satirist, the Scourge, etc. 
He wrote inter alia, a continuation of Hume's 
History of England, 2 vols. (1832). 

_ The Satirist, a monthly magazine illustrated 
with coloured cartoons, was issued 1808-1814. 
"The Diary of a Cantab" (June, 1808, ii. 368) 

contains some verses of "Lord B n to his 

Bear. To the tune of Lachin y gair." The 
last verse runs thus: — 

" But when with the ardour of Love I am burning, 
I feel for thy torments, I feel for thy care; 

And weep for thy bondage, so truly discerning 

What's felt by a Lord, mav be felt by a Bear." 

In August, 1808 (iii. 78-86), there is a critique 

on Poems Original and Translated, in which the 

bear plays many parts. Hence the castigation 

of "the sizar of Emmanuel College."] 



A would-be Satirist, a hired Buffoon, 
A monthly scribbler of some low lam 

poon,^ 
Condemned to drudge, the meanest of 

the mean. 
And furbish falsehoods for a magazine. 
Devotes to scandal his congenial mind; 
Himself a living libel on mankind. 



Oh ! dark asylum of a Vandal race ! ^ 
At once the boast of learning, and dis- 



grace 



So lost to Phoebus, that nor Hodgson's ^ 

verse 
Can make thee better, nor poor Hew- 

son's •* worse. 
But where fair Isis rolls her purer 

wave. 
The partial Muse delighted loves to lave; 
On her green banks a greener wreath 

she wove, 
To crown the Bards that haunt her 

classic grove; 
Where RigHARDS wakes a genuine poet's 

fires, 
And modern Britons glory in their 

Sires.^ 

For me, who, thus unasked, have 

dared to tell 990 

My country, what her sons should know 

too well, 
Zeal for her honour bade me here engage 
The host of idiots that infest her age ; 

^ " Right enough: this was well deserved, and 
well laid on." — B., 1816. 

2 "Into Cambridgeshire the Emperor Probus 
transported a considerable body of Vandals." — 
Gibbon's Decline and Fall, ii. 83. There is no 
reason to doubt the truth of this assertion; the 
breed is still in high perfection. 

3 This gentleman's name requires no praise: 
the man who in translation displays unquestion- 
able genius may be well expected to excel in 
original composition, of which it is to be hoped, 
we shall soon see a splendid specimen. [Francis 
Hodgson (i 781-1852) was Byron's lifelong 
friend. His Juvenal appeared in 1807; Lady 
Jane Grey and other Poems, in 1809; Sir Edgar, 
a Tale, in 1810. He became Provost of Eton 
in 1840.] 

4 Hewson Clarke, Esq., as it is written. 

5 The Aboriginal Britons, an excellent poem, 
by Richards. [The Rev. George Richards, D.D. 
(1767-1835), a Fellow of Oriel, and, afterwards. 
Rector of St Martin's-in-the-Fields. The Abo- 
riginal Britons, a prize poem, was published 
in 1792.] 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



125 



No just applause her honoured name 

shall lose, 
As first in freedom, dearest to the 

Muse. 
Oh ! would thy bards but emulate thy 

fame, 
And rise more worthy, Albion, of thy 

name ! 
What Athens was in science, Rome in 

power. 
What Tyre appeared in her meridian 

hour, 
'Tis thine at once,,fair Albion! to have 

been — 1000 

Earth's chief Dictatress, Ocean's lovely 

Queen: 
But Rome decayed, and Athens strewed 

the plain, 
And Tyre's proud piers lie shattered in 

the main; 
Like these, thy strength may sink in ruin 

hurled, 
And Britain fall, the bulwark of the 

world. 
But let me cease, and dread Cassandra's 

fate, 
With warning ever scoffed at, till too 

late; 
To themes less lofty still my lay confine, 
And urge thy Bards to gain a name like 

thine. 

Then, hapless Britain ! be thy rulers 

blest, loio 

The Senate's oracles, the people's jest ! 
Still hear thy motley orators dispense 
The flowers of rhetoric, though not of 

sense. 
While Canning's colleagues hate him 

for his wit, 
And old dame Portland ^ fills the place 

of Pitt. 

1 A friend of mine being asked, why his Grace 
of Portland was likened to an old woman? re- 
plied, "he supposed it was because he was past 
bearing." His Grace is now gathered to his 
grandmothers, where he sleeps as sound as ever; 
but even his sleep was better than his colleagues' 
waking. 1811. [William Henry Cavendish, 
third Duke of Portland (1738-1809), was Prime 
Minister in 1807, till his death in 1809. When 
BjTon meditated a tour to India in 1808, Port- 
land declined to write on his behalf to the 
Directors -of the East India Company, and 
couched his refusal in terms which Byron fancied 
to be offensive.] 



Yet once again, adieu ! ere this the 

sail 
That wafts me hence is shivering in the 

gale; 
And Afric's coast and Calpe's adverse 

height,^ 
And Stamboul's minarets must greet my 

sight : 
Thence shall I stray through Beauty's 

native clime,^ 1020 

Where Kaff ^ is clad in rocks, and 

crowned with snows sublime. 
But should I back return, no tempting 

press 
Shall drag my Journal from the desk's 

recess ; 
Let coxcombs, printing as they come 

from far, 
Snatch his own wreath of Ridicule from 

Carr; 
Let Aberdeen and Elgin * still pursue 
The shade of fame through regions of 

Virtii; 
Waste useless thousands on their Phid- 

ian freaks, 
Misshapen monuments and maimed 

antiques; 
And make their grand saloons a general 

mart 1030 

For all the mutilated blocks of art: 
Of Dardan tours let Dilettanti tell, 
I leave topography to rapid Gell; ^ 
And, quite content, no more shall inter- 
pose 
To stun the pubhc ear — at least with 

Prose. 

i"Saw it August, 1809." — B., 1816. 

- Georgia. 

3 Mount Caucasus. 

* Lord Elgin would fain persuade us that all 
the figures, with and without noses, in his stone- 
shop, are the work of Phidias ! " Credat 
Judaeus!" [R. Payne Knight, in his introduc- 
tion to Specimens of A ncient Smdpiure, published 
1809, throws a doubt on the Phidian workman- 
ship of the "Elgin" marbles.] 

5 Mr Cell's Topography of Troy and Ithaca 
cannot fail to ensure the approbation of every 
man possessed of classical taste, as well for the 
information Mr Gell conveys to the mind of 
the reader, as for the ability and research the 
respective works displav. 

[Sir William Gell (1777-1836) published the 
Topography of Troy (1804), the Geography and 
Antiquities of ItJmca (1807), and the Itinerary 
of Greece (1810). Byron reviewed the two last 
works in the Monthly Review (August, 181 1). 
Fresh from the scenes, he speaks with authority. 



126 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



Thus far I've held my undisturbed 

career, 
Prepared for rancour, steeled 'gainst 

selfish fear; 
This thing of rhyme I ne'er disdained 

to own — 
Though not obtrusive, yet not quite 

unknown: 
My voice was heard again, though not 

so loud, 1040 

My page, though nameless, never dis- 
avowed ; 
And now at once I tear the veil away : — 
Cheer on the pack! the Quarry stands 

at bay, 
Unscared by all the din of Melbourne 

house, ^ 
By Lamb's resentment, or by Holland's 

spouse, 
By Jeffrey's harmless pistol, Hallam's 

rage, 

Edina's brawny sons and brimstone 

page. 
Our men in buckram shall have blows 

enough. 
And feel they too are "penetrable stuff" : 
And though I hope not hence unscathed 

to go, 1050 

Who conquers me shall find a stubborn 

foe. 
The time hath been, when no harsh sound 

would fall 
From lips that now may seem imbued 

with gall; 
Nor fools nor folUes tempt me to despise 
The meanest thing that crawled beneath 

my eyes: 
But now, so callous grown, so changed 

since youth, 
I've learned to think, and sternly speak 

the truth; 

"With Homer in his pocket and Gell on his 
sumptfer-mule, the Odysseus tourist may now 
make a very classical and delightful excursion." 
The epithet in the original MS. was "coxcomb," 
but becoming acquainted with Gell while the 
satire was in the press, Byron changed it to 
"classic." In the fifth edition he altered it to 
"rapid," and appended this note: — "'Rapid,' 
indeed ! He topographised and typographised 
King Priam's dominions in three days ! I 
called him ' classic ' before I saw the Troad, 
but since have learned better than to tack to 
his name what don't belong to it."] 

1" Singular enough, and din enough, God 
knows." — B., 1816. 



Learned to deride the critic's starch 

decree. 
And break him on the wheel he meant 

for me; 
To spurn the rod a scribbler bids me 

kiss, 1060 

Nor care if courts and crowds applaud 

or hiss: 
Nay more, though all my rival rhyme- 
sters frown, 
I too can hunt a Poetaster down ; 
And, armed in proof, the gauntlet cast 

at once 
To Scotch marauder, and to Southern 

dunce. 
Thus much I've dared; if my incondite 

lay 
Hath wronged these righteous times, let 

others say: 
This, let the world, which knows not 

how to spare. 
Yet rarely blames unjustly, now 

declare.^ 1069 



POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND 
EDITION. 



I HAVE been informed, since the present 
edition went to the press, that my trusty 
and well-beloved cousins, the Edinburgh 
Reviewers, are preparing a most vehe- 
ment critique on my poor, gentle, tmre- 
sisting Muse, whom they have already 
so be-deviled with their ungodly rib- 
aldry; 

" Tantasne animis coelestibus Iras ! " 

I suppose I must say of Jeffrey as Sir 
Andrew Aguecheek saith, "an I had 
known he was so cunning of fence, I had 
seen him damned ere I had fought him." 
What a pity it is that I shall be beyond 
the Bosphorus before the next number 

' "The greater part of this satire I most 
sincerely wish had never been written — not 
only on account of the injustice of much of the 
critical, and some of the personal part of it — • 
but the tone and temper are such as I cannot 
approve." — Byron. July 14, 1816. Diodaii, 
Geneva. 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 



127 



has passed the Tweed ! But I yet hope 
to light my pipe with it in Persia.* 

My Northern friends have accused me, 
with justice, of personaUty towards their 
great Hterary Anthropophagus, Jef- 
frey; but what else was to be done 
with him and his dirty pack, who feed 
by "lying and slandering," and slake 
their thirst by "evil speaking" ? I have 
adduced facts already well known, and 
of Jeffrey's mind I have stated my free 
opinion, nor has he thence sustained 
any injury: — what scavenger was ever 
soiled by being pelted with mud? It 
may be said that I quit England because 
I have censured there "persons of 
honour and wit about town"; but I am 
coming back again, and their vengeance 
will keep hot till my return. Those who 
know me can testify that my motives 
for leaving England are very different 
from fears, literary or personal; those 
who do not, may one day be con- 
vinced. Since the publication of this 
thing, my name has not been concealed ; 
I have been mostly in London, ready to 
answer for my transgressions, and in 
daily expectation of sundry cartels; but, 
alas! "the age of chivalry is over," or, 
in the vulgar tongue, there is no spirit 
now-a-days. 

There is a youth ycleped Hewson 
Clarke (subaudi esquire), a sizar of 
Emmanuel College, and, I believe, a 
denizen of Berwick-upon-Tweed, whom 
I have introduced in these pages to 
much better company than he has been 
accustomed to meet; he is, notwith- 
standing, a very sad dog, and for no 

1 [The article never appeared, and Lord Byron, 
in the Hints from Horace, taunted Jeffrey with 
a silence which seemed to indicate that the critic 
was beaten from the field.] 



reason that I can discover, except a 
personal quarrel with a bear, kept by 
me at Cambridge to sit for a fellowship, 
and whom the jealousy of his Trinity 
contemporaries prevented from success, 
has been abusing me, and, what is 
worse, the defenceless innocent above 
mentioned, in the Satirist for one year 
and some months. I am utterly un- 
conscious of having given him any prov- 
ocation; indeed, I am guiltless of hav- 
ing heard his name, till coupled with the 
Satirist. He has therefore no reason to 
complain, and I dare say that, like Sir 
Fretful Plagiary, he is rather pleased 
than otherwise. I have now mentioned 
all who have done me the honour to 
notice me and mine, that is, my bear 
and my book, except the editor of the 
Satirist, who, it seems, is a gentleman — 
God wot ! I wish he could impart a 
little of his gentility to his subordinate 
scribblers. I hear that Mr. Jerning- 
HAM * is about to take up the cudgels for 
his Maecenas, Lord Carlisle. I hope 
not: he was one of the few, who, in the 
very short intercourse I had with him, 
treated me with kindness when a boy; 
and whatever he may say or do, "pour 
on, I will endure." I have nothing fur- 
ther to add, save a general note of 
thanksgiving to readers, purchasers, and 
publishers, and in the words of Scott, I 
wish 

"To all and each a fair good night, 
And rosy dreams and slumbers light." 



1 [Edward Jerningham (1727-1812), third 
son of Sir George Jerningham, Bart., was an 
indefatigable versifier. Between the publica- 
tion of his first poem, The Nunnery, in 1762, 
and his last, The Old Bard's Farewell, in 1812, 
he sent to the press no less than thirty separate 
compositions.] 



28 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



HINTS FROM HORACE :i 

BEING AN ALLUSION IN ENGLISH VERSE 
TO THE EPISTLE "AD PISONES, DE 
ARTE POETICA," AND INTENDED AS 
A SEQUEL TO "ENGLISH BARDS, AND 
SCOTCH REVIEWERS." 



"Ergo fungar vice cotis, acutum 

Reddere quae ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi." 

— HOR. De Arte Poet., 11. 304 and 305. 
" Rhymes are difficult things — they are stubborn 
things, Sir." 
— Fielding's Amelia, vol. iii. bk, A ch. v. 



Athens: Capuchin Convent, 
March 12, 1811. 

Who would not laugh, if Lawrence,^ 

hired to grace 
His costly canvas with each flattered 

face, 
Abused his art, till Nature, with a blush, 
Saw cits grow Centaurs underneath his 

brush ? 
Or, should some limner join, for show 

or sale, 
A Maid of Honour to a Mermaid's tail ? 
Or low Dubost ^ — as once the world 

has seen — 
Degrade God's creatures in his graphic 

spleen ? 
Not all that forced politeness, which 

defends 
Fools in their faults, could gag his grin- 
ning friends. 10 

1 [A fragment, 156 lines, oi Hints from Horace, 
as first published in Recollections of the Life of 
R. C. Dallas, 1S24. The full text of the poem 
was not published till 1831.] 

-[Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) suc- 
ceeded West as P.R.A. in 1820. Benjamin 
West (1738-1820) had been elected P.R.A. in 
1792, on the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds.] 

3 In an English newspaper, which finds its 
way abroad wherever there are Englishmen, 
I read an account of this dirty dauber's cari- 
cature of Mr H as a "beast," and the con- 
sequent action, etc. The circumstance is, 
probably, too well known to require further 
comment. [Thomas Hope (i 770-1 831) was 
celebrated for his collections of pictures, sculp- 
ture, and bric-a-brac. He was the author of 
Anaslasius, or Memoirs of a Greek, etc., which 
was attributed to Byron, and, according to 
Lady Blessington, excited his envy. "Low 
Dubost" was a French painter, who, in revenge 
for some fancied injustice, caricatured Hope and 
his wife as Beauty and the Beast.] 



Believe me, Moschus, like that picture 

seems 
The book which, sillier than a sick man's 

dreams. 
Displays a crowd of figures incomplete, 
Poetic Nightmares, without head or feet. 

Poets and painters, as all artists 

know, 
May shoot a little with a lengthened 

bow; 
We claim this mutual mercy for our task, 
And grant in turn the pardon which we 

ask; 
But make not monsters spring from 

gentle dams — 
Birds breed not vipers, tigfers nurse not 

lambs. 20 

A laboured, long Exordium, some- 
times tends 

(Like patriot speeches) but to paltry 
ends; 

And nonsense in a lofty note goes down, 

As Pertness passes with a legal gown: 

Thus many a Bard describes in pom- 
pous strain 

The clear brook babbling through the 
goodly plain: 

The groves of Granta, and her Gothic 
halls, 

King's Coll — ■ Cam's stream — stained 
windows, and old walls: 

Or, in adventurous numbers, neatly 
aims 

To paint a rainbow, or — the river 



Thames. 



30 



You sketch a tree, and so perhaps may 

shine — 
But daub a shipwreck like an alehouse 

sign; 
You plan a vase — it dwindles to a pot; 
Then glide down Grub Street — fasting 

and forgot; 
Laughed into Lethe by some quaint 

Review, 
Whose wit is never troublesome till — 

true. 

In fine, to whatsoever you aspire, 
Let it at least be simple and entire. 

1 " While pure Description held the place of 
Sense." — Pope, Prol. to the Sat., 1. 148. 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



129 



The greater portion of the rhyming 

tribe 
(Give ear, my friend, for thou hast been 

a scribe) 4° 

Are led astray by some peculiar lure. 
I labour to be brief — become obscure; 
One falls while following Elegance too 

fast; 
Another soars, inflated with Bombast; 
Too low a third crawls on — afraid to 

fly 

He spins his subject to Satiety; 
Absurdly varying, he at last engraves 
Fish in 'the woods, and boars beneath 
the waves! 

Unless your care's exact, your judg- 
ment nice. 

The flight from Folly leads but into 
Vice; 5° 

None are complete, all wanting in some 
part, 

Like certain tailors, limited in art: 

For galligaskins Slowshears is your 
man. 

But coats must claim another artisan. 

Now this to me, I own, seems much the 
same 

As Vulcan's feet to bear Apollo's frame; 

Or, with a fair complexion, to expose 

Black eyes, black ringlets, but — a 
bottle nose ! 

Dear Authors! suit your topics to 

your strength, 
And ponder well your subject, and its 

length; 60 

Nor lift your load, before you're quite 

aware 
What weight your shoulders will, or will 

not, bear. 
But lucid Order, and Wit's siren voice. 
Await the Poet, skilful in his choice; 
With native Eloquence he soars along, 
Grace in his thoughts, and Music in his 

song. 

Let Judgment teach him wisely to 
combine 
With future parts the now omitted line : 
This shall the author choose, or that 

reject. 
Precise in style, and cautious to select; 



Nor slight applause will candid pens 
afford 71 

To him who furnishes a wanting word. 

Then fear not, if 'tis needful, to pro- 
duce 

Some term unknown, or obsolete in 
use, 

(As Pitt has furnished us a word or 
two,^ 

Which Lexicographers declined to do;) 

So you, indeed, with care, — (but be 
content 

To take this license rarely) — may in- 
vent. 

New words find credit in these latter 
days. 

If neatly grafted on a Gallic phrase; 80 

What Chaucer, Spenser did, we scarce 
refuse 

To Dryden's or to Pope's maturer Muse. 

If you'can add a little, say why not. 

As well as William Pitt, and Walter 
Scott? 

Since they, by force of rhyme and force 
of lungs, 

Enriched our Island's ill-united tongues; 

'Tis then — and shall be — lawful to 
present 

Reform in writing, as in Parliament, 

As forests shed their foliage by de- 
grees. 

So fade expressions which in season 
please ; 9° 

And we and ours, alas ! are due to Fate, 

And works and words but dwindle to a 
date. 

Though as a Monarch nods, and Com- 
merce calls, 

Impetuous rivers stagnate in canals; 

Though swamps subdued, and marshes 
drained, sustain 

The heavy ploughshare and the yellow 
grain. 

And rising ports along the busy shore 

Protect the vessel from old Ocean's roar, 

All, all, must perish; but, surviving 
last. 

The love of Letters half preserves the 
past. 100 

1 Mr Pitt was liberal in his additions to our 
Parliamentary tongue; as may be seen in many 
publications, particularly the Edinburgh Revtew. 



I30 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



True, some decay, yet not a few re- 
vive; ^ 

Though those shall sink, which now 
appear to thrive. 

As custom arbitrates, whose shifting 
sway 

Our life and language must alike obey. 

The immortal wars which Gods and 

Angels wage. 
Are they not shown in Milton's sacred 

page? 
His strain will teach what numbers best 

belong 
To themes celestial told in Epic song. 

The slow, sad stanza will correctly 

paint 
The Lover's anguish, or the Friend's 

complaint. no 

But which deserves the Laurel — Rhyme 

or Blank? 
Which holds on Helicon the higher 

rank? 
Let squabbling critics by themselves 

dispute 
This point, as puzzling as a Chancery 

suit. 

Satiric rhyme first sprang from selfish 
spleen : 
You doubt — see Dryden, Pope, St 
Patrick's Dean.^ 

Blank verse is now, with one consent, 
allied 
To Tragedy, and rarely quits her side. 

1 Old ballads, old plays, and old women's 
stories, are at present in as much request as old 
wine or new speeches. In fact, this is the mil- 
lennium of black letter: thanks to our Hebers, 
Webers, and Scotts ! [Richard Heber (1773- 
1833), book-collector and man of letters, was 
half-brother of the Bishop of Calcutta. He 
edited, inter alia, Specimens 0} the Early English 
Poets, bv George Ellis, 3 vols., London, 181 1. 

W. H. Weber (17S3-1818), a German by 
birth, was employed by Sir Walter Scott as an 
amanuensis and "searcher." (See Lockhart's 
Life of Scott (1871), p. 251.)] 

- MacFlecknoe, the Diinciad, and all Swift's 
lampooning ballads. Whatever their other 
works may be, these originated in personal 
feelings, and angry retort on unworthy rivals; 
and though the ability of these satires elevates 
the poetical, their poignancy detracts from the 
personal character of the writers. 



Though mad Almanzor ^ rhymed in 

Dryden's days, 
No sing-song Hero rants in modern 

plays; 120 

Whilst modest Comedy her verse fore- 
goes 
For jest and pun ^ in very middling 

prose. 
Not that our Bens or Beaumonts show 

the worse, 
Or lose one point, because they wrote 

in verse. 
But so Thalia pleases to appear. 
Poor Virgin ! damned some twenty 

times a year ! 

Whate'er the scene, let this advice 

have weight: — 
Adapt your language to your Hero's 

state. 
At times Melpomene forgets to groan, 
And brisk Thalia takes a serious tone; 
Nor unregarded will the act pass 

by .131 

Where angry Townly ^ "lifts his voice 

on high." 
Again, our Shakespeare limits verse to 

Kings, 
When common prose will serve for com- 
mon things; 
And lively Hal resigns heroic ire, 
To "hollaing Hotspur " * and his 

sceptred sire. 

'Tis not enough, ye Bards, with all 

your art. 
To polish poems; — they must touch 

the heart: 
Where'er the scene be laid, whate'er the 

song, 
Still let it bear the hearer's soul along; 

^ {Almanzor; or The Conquest of Granada by 
the Spaniards, a Tragedy by John Dryden. 
The bombastic character of the hero was severely 
criticized in Dryden's own time. (See An 
Essay on Heroic Plays. Works of John Dryden 
(1821), iv. 23-25.)] 

- With all the vulgar applause and critical 
abhorrence of puns, they have Aristotle on their 
side; who permits them to orators, and gives 
them consequence by a grave disquisition. 

^ [In Vanbrugh and Gibber's comedy of The 
Provoked Husband, first played at Drury Lane, 
January 10, 1728.] 

*"And in his ear I'll holla — 'Mortimer'!" 
[i Henry IV., act i. sc. 3, 1. 222.] 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



131 



Command your audience or to smile or 

weep, 141 

Whiche'er may please you — anything 

but sleep. 
The Poet claims our tears; but, by his 

leave. 
Before I shed them, let me see him 

grieve. 

If banished Romeo feigned not sigh 

nor tear, 
Lulled by his languor, I could sleep or 

sneer. 
Sad words, no doubt, become a serious 

face. 
And men look angry in the proper place. 
At double meanings folks seem won- 
drous sly. 
And Sentiment prescribes a pensive 

eye; 150 

For Nature formed at first the inward 

man, 
And actors copy Nature — when they can . 
She bids the beating heart with rapture 

bound, 
Raised to the Stars, or levelled with the 

ground; 
And for Expression's aid, 'tis said, or 

sung. 
She gave our mind's interpreter — the 

tongue, 
Who, worn vv^ith use, of late would feign 

dispense 
(At least in theatres) with common 

sense; 
O'erwhelm with sound the boxes. Gal- 
lery, Pit, 
And raise a laugh with anything — but 

Wit. 160 

To skilful writers it will much import, 
Whence spring their scenes, from com- 
mon life or Court; 
Whether they seek applause by smile or 

tear, 
To draw a Lying Valet,^ or a Lear,^ 

1 [Garrick's Lying Valet was played for the 
first time at Goodman's Fields, November 30, 
1741.] 

["Peregrine" is a character in George 
Colman's John Bull, or An Englishman's 
Fire-Side, Covent Garden, March 5, 1803.] 

- I have Johnson's authority for making Lear 
a monosyllable — 

"Perhaps where Lear rav'd or Hamlet died 
On flying cars new sorcerers may ride." 



A sage, or rakish youngster wild from 

school, 
A wandering Peregrine, or plain John 

Bull; 
All persons please when Nature's voice 

prevails, 
Scottish or Irish, born in Wilts or Wales. 

Or follow common fame, or forge a 

plot; 
Who cares if mimic heroes Hved or 

not ! 1 70 

One precept serves to regulate the 

scene : 
Make it appear as if it might have 

been. 

If some Drawcansir ^ you aspire to 

draw. 
Present him raving, and above all 

law: 
If female furies in your scheme are 

planned, 
Macbeth's fierce dame is ready to your 

hand; 
For tears and treachery, for good and 

evil, 
Constance, King Richard, Hamlet, and 

the Devil! 
But if a new design you dare essay. 
And freely wander from the beaten 

way, 180 

True to your characters, till all be 

past. 
Preserve consistency from first to last. 

["Perhaps where Lear has rav'd, and Hamlet 
dy'd." 
— Prologue to Irene. Johnson's Works 
(1806), i. 168.] 

'^["■Johnson. Pray, Mr Bayes, who is that 
Drawcansir? 

Bayes. Why, Sir, a great [fierce] hero, that 
frights his mistress, snubs up kings, baffles armies 
and does what he will, without regard to numbers, 
good sense, or justice [good manners, justice, or 
numbers]." — The Rehearsal, act iv. sc. i. 

The Rehearsal, by George Villiers, second 
Duke of Buckingham (1628-1687), appeared in 
167 1. Sprat and others are said to have shared 
the authorship. So popular was the play that 
"Drawcansir" passed into a synonym for a 
braggadocio. It is believed that "Bayes" (that 
is, of course, "laureate") was meant for a cari- 
cature of Dryden: "he himself complains 
bitterly that it was so." (See Lives of the Poets 
(1890), i. 386; and Boswell's Life of Johnson 
(1876), p. 235, and note.)] 



132 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



'Tis hard^ to venture where our bet- 
ters fail, 
Or lend fresh interest to a twice-told 

tale; 
And yet, perchance, 'tis wiser to prefer 
A hackneyed plot, than choose a new, 

and err; 
Yet copy not too closely, but record, 
More justly, thought for thought than 
word for word; 



' " DifiBcile est proprie communia dicere ; 
tuque 
Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus, 
Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus." 
— Horace, De Arte Poet., 11. 128-130. 

Mons. Dacier, Mons. de Sevigne, Boileau, and 
others, have left their dispute on the meaning of 
this sentence in a tract considerably longer than 
the poem of Horace. It is printed at the close 
of the eleventh volume of Madame de Sevigne's 
Letters, edited by Grouvelle, Paris, 1806. Pre- 
suming that all who can construe may venture 
an opinion on such subjects, particularly _ as so 
many who cmi't have taken the same liberty, 
I should have held "my farthing candle" as 
awkwardly as another, had not my respect for 
the wits of Louis XIV.'s Augustan "Siecle" 
induced me to subjoin these illustrious au- 
thorities. I therefore offer firstly Boileau: 
"II est difficile de traiter des sujets qui sont a 
la portee de tout le monde d'une maniere qui 
vous les rende propres, ce qui s'appelle s'appro- 
prier un sujet par le tour qu'on y donne." 
Secondly, Batteux: "Mais il est bien difficile 
de donner des traits propres et individuels aux 
Stres purement possibles." Thirdly, Dacier: 
"H est difficile de traiter convenablement ces 
caracteres que tout le monde peut inventer." 
Mr Sevigne's opinion and translation, con- 
sisting of some thirty pages, I omit, particularly 
as Mr Grouvelle observes, "La chose est bien 
remarquable, aucune de ces diverses inter- 
pretations ne parait etre la veritable." But, 
by way of comfort, it seems, fifty years after- 
wards, "Le lumineux Dumarsais" made his 
appearance, to set Horace on his legs again, 
"dissiper tons les nuages, et concilier tons les 
dissentiments ; " and I suppose some fifty years 
hence, somebody, still more luminous, will 
doubtless start up and demolish Dumarsais and 
his system on this weighty affair, as if he were 
no better than Ptolemy or Copernicus and com- 
ments of no more consequence than astro- 
nomical calculations. I am happy to say, "la 
longueur de la dissertation" of Mr D. prevents 
Mr G. from saying any more on the matter. 
A better poet than Boileau, and at least as good 
a scholar as Mr de Sevigne, has said, 

"A little learning is a dangerous thing." 

And by the above extract, it appears that a good 
deal may be rendered as useless to the Pro- 
prietors. [Byron chose the words in question, 
Difficile, etc., as a motto for the first five cantos 
of Don Juan.] 



Nor trace your Prototype through nar- 
row ways, 

But only follow where he merits 
praise. 190 

For you, young Bard ! whom luckless 
fate may lead ^ 

To tremble on the nod of all who 
read, 

Ere your first score of cantos Time un- 
rolls. 

Beware — for God's sake, don't begin 
like Bowles! 

^ About two years ago a young man named 
Townsend was announced by Mr Cumberland, 
in a review (since deceased) [the London Re- 
view], as being engaged in an epic poem to be 
entitled "Armageddon." The plan and speci- 
men promise much; but I hope neither to offend 
Mr Townsend, nor his friends, by recommend- 
ing to his attention the lines of Horace to which 
these rhymes allude. If Mr Townsend succeeds 
in his undertaking, as there is reason to hope, 
how much will the world be indebted to Mr 
Cumberland for bringing him before the public ! 
But, till that eventful day arrives, it may be 
doubted whether the premature display of his 
plan (sublime as the ideas confesseclly are) has 
not, — by raising expectation too high, or di- 
minishing curiosity, by developing his argument, 
— rather incurred the hazard of injuring Mr 
Townsend's future prospects. Mr Cumber- 
land (whose talents I shall not depreciate by the 
humble tribute of my praise) and Mr Town- 
send must not suppose me actuated by un- 
worthy motives in this suggestion. _ I wish the 
author all the success he can wish himself, 
and shall be truly happy to see epic poetry 
weighed up from the bathos where it lies sunken 
with Southey, Cottle, Cowley (Mrs or Abra- 
ham), Ogilvy, Wilkie, Pye, and all the "dull of 
past and present days." Even if he is not a 
Milton, he may be better than Blackmore; if 
not a Homer, an Antimachus. I should deem 
myself presumptuous, as a young man, in offer- 
ing advice, were it not addressed to one still 
younger. Mr Townsend has 4he greatest 
difficulties to encounter; but in conquering 
them, he will find employment; in having 
conquered them, his reward. I know too well 
"the scribbler's scoff, the critic's contumely"; 
and I am afraid time will teach Mr Townsend 
to know them better. Those who succeed, and 
those who do not, must bear this alike, and it 
is hard to say which have most of it. I trust 
that Mr Townsend's share will be from envy; 
he will soon know mankind well enough not to 
attribute this expression to malice. [This note 
was written [at Athens] before the author was 
apprised of Mr Cumberland's death [in May, 
1811]. — .1/5. The Rev. George Townsend 
(i 788-1857) published Poems in 1810, and 
eight books of his Armageddon in 1815. They 
met with the fate which Byron had pre- 
dicted.] 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



133 



" Awake a louder and a loftier strain ," ^ — 
And pray, what follows from his boiling 

brain ? — 
He sinks to Southey's level in a trice, 
Whose Epic Mountains never fail in 

mice! 
Not so of yore awoke your mighty Sire 
The tempered warbUngs of his master- 
lyre; 200 
Soft as the gentler breathing of the 

lute, 
"Of Man's first disobedience and the 

fruit" 
He speaks, but, as his subject swells 

along, 
Earth, Heaven, and Hades echo with 

the song. 
Still to the "midst of things" he hastens 

on. 
As if he witnessed all already done; 
Leaves on his path whatever seems too 

mean 
To raise the subject, or adorn the scene ; 
Gives, as each page improves upon the 

sight. 
Not smoke from brightness, but from 

darkness — light; 210 

And truth and fiction with such art com- 
pounds. 
We know not where to fix their several 

bounds. 

If you would please the Public, deign 

to hear 
What soothes the many-headed mon- 
ster's ear: 
If your heart triumph when the hands of 

all 
Applaud in thunder at the curtain's fall, 
Deserve those plaudits — study Nature's 

page. 
And sketch the striking traits of every 

age; 
While varying Man and varying years 

unfold 
Life's little tale, so oft, so vainly told; 
Observe his simple childhood's dawning 

days, 221 

His pranks, his prate, his playmates, 
• and his plays: 

» [The first line of A Spirit of Discovery by 
Sea, by the Rev. W. Lisle Bowles, first published 
in 1804.] 



Till time at length the mannish tyro 

weans, 
And prurient vice outstrips his tardy 

teens ! 



Behold him Freshman ! forced no 

more to groan 
O'er Virgil's ^ devilish verses and his 

own; 
Prayers are too tedious, Lectures too 

abstruse. 
He flies from Ta veil's frown to "Ford- 
ham's Mews" ; 
(Unlucky Tavell ! ^ doomed to daily 

cares 
By pugilistic pupils, and by bears,) 230 
Fines, Tutors, tasks. Conventions threat 

in vain, 
Before hounds, hunters, and Newmarket 

Plain. 
Rough with his elders, with his equals 

rash. 
Civil to sharpers, prodigal of cash; 
Constant to nought — save hazard and 

a whore. 
Yet cursing both — for both have made 

him sore: 



' Harvey, the circulator of the circulation of 
the blood, used to fling away Virgil in his ecstasy 
of admiration and say, "the book had a devil." 
Now such a character as I am copying would 
probably fling it away also, but rather wish that 
"the devil had the book"; not from dislike to 
the poet, but a well-founded horror of hex- 
ameters. Indeed, the public school penance of 
"Long and Short" is enough to beget an an- 
tipathy to poetry for the residue of a man's life, 
and, perhaps, so far may be an advantage. 

= '' Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem." 
I dare say Mr Tavell (to whom I mean no 
affront (will understand me; and it is no matter 
whether any one else does or no. — To the 
above events, " quaque ipse miserrima vidi, et 
quorum pars magna jui," all times and terms 
bear testimony. [The Rev. G. F. Tavell was 
a fellow and tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge, 
diuring Byron's residence, and owed this notice 
to the " zeal with which he protested against his 
juvenile vagaries." Whilst he was at Trinity, 
B)Ton kept a tame bear in his rooms in Neville's 
Court. 

The following copy of a bill (no date) tells 
its own story : — 

"The Honble. Lord Byron. 

To John Clarke. 
To Bread & Milk for the Bear /, £ 
de]iv<i to Haladay .... (197 

Cambridge Reve. A. Clarke.]' 



f34 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



Unread (unless since books beguile dis- 
ease, 

The P — X becomes his passage to 
Degrees) ; 

Fooled, pillaged, dunned, he wastes his 
terms away. 

And unexpelled, perhaps, retires M.A.; 

Master of Arts ! as hells and clubs ^ 
proclaim, 241 

Where scarce a blackleg bears a brighter 
name ! 

Launched into life, extinct his early 

fire. 
He apes the selfish prudence of his Sire ; 
Marries for money, chooses friends for 

rank. 
Buys land, and shrewdly trusts not to 

the Bank; 
Sits in the Senate; gets a son and heir; 
Sends him to Harrow — for himself was 

there. 
Mute, though he votes, unless when 

called to cheer, 
His son's so sharp — he'll see the dog a 

Peer! 250 

Manhood declines — Age palsies 
every limb; 

He quits the scene — or else the scene 
quits him; 

Scrapes wealth, o'er each departing 
penny grieves. 

And Avarice seizes all Ambition leaves; 

Counts cent per cent, and smiles, or 
vainly frets. 

O'er hoards diminished by young Hope- 
ful's debts; 

Weighs well and wisely what to sell or 
buy, 

Complete in all Hfe's lessons — but to 
die; 

Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to 
please. 

Commending every time, save times 
like these; 260 

Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half for- 
got. 

Expires unwept — is buried — Let him 
rot! 

' ''Hell," a gaming-house so called, where you 
risk little, and are cheated a good deal. " Club," 
a pleasant purgatory, where you lose more, and 
are not supposed to be cheated at all. 



But from the Drama let me not digress. 
Nor spare my precepts, though they 

please you less. 
Though Woman weep, and hardest 

hearts are stirred. 
When what is done is rather seen than 

heard. 
Yet many deeds preserved in History's 

page 
Are better told than acted on the stage; 
The ear sustains what shocks the timid 

eye. 
And Horror thus subsides to Sympathy. 
True Briton all beside, I here am 

French — 271 

Bloodshed 'tis surely better to retrench: 
The gladiatorial gore we teach to flow 
In tragic scenes disgusts, though but in 

show; 
We hate the carnage while we see the trick. 
And find small sympathy in being sick. 
Not on the stage the regicide Macbeth 
Appals an audience with a Monarch's 

death; 
To gaze when sable Hubert threats to 

sear 
Young Arthur's eyes, can ours or Nature 

bear ? 280 

A halted heroine ^ Johnson sought to 

slay — 
We saved Irene, but half damned the 

play, 
And (Heaven be praised !) our tolerating 

times 
Stint Metamorphoses to Pantomimes; 
And Lewis' ^ self, with all his sprites, 

would quake 
To change Earl Osmond's negro to a 

snake ! 



' " Irene had to speak two lines with the bow- 
string round her neck; but the audience cried 
out ['Murder!'] 'Murder!' and she was obliged 
to go off the stage alive." — Boswell's Johnson 
[1876], p. 60. [Irene (first played February 6, 
1749), for the future was put to death behind the 
scenes. The strangling her, contrary to Horace's 
rule, corain popzilo, was suggested by Garrick. 
(See Davies' Life oj Garrick (1808), i. 157.)] 

^ [Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818). 
(Vide English Bards, etc., 1. 265, iiole 2.) The 
character of Hassan, "my misanthropic negro," 
as Lewis called him, was said by the critics of 
the day to have been borrowed from Zanga in 
Young's Revenge. Lewis, in his "Address to 
the Reader," quoted by Byron, defends the 
originality of the conception.] 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



135 



Because, in scenes exciting joy or grief, 
We loathe the action which exceeds 

belief: 
And yet, God knows! what may not 

authors do, 
Whose Postscripts prate of dyeing 



heroines blue" ? 



290 



Above all things, Daft Poet, if you 

can, 
Eke out your acts, I pray, with mortal 

man, 
Nor call a ghost, unless some cursed 

scrape 
Must open ten trap-doors for your 

escape. 
Of all the monstrous things I'd fain 

forbid, 
I loathe an Opera worse than Dennis 

did; 2 
Where good and evil persons, right or 

wrong. 
Rage, love, and aught but moralise — 

in song. 
Hail, last memorial of our foreign 

friends, 
Which Gaul allows, and still Hesperia 

lends ! 300 

Napoleon's edicts no embargo lay 
On Whores — spies — singers — wisely 

shipped away. 
Our giant Capital, whose squares are 

spread 
Where rustics earned, and now may 

beg, their bread. 
In all iniquity is grown so nice. 
It scorns amusements which are not of 

price. 
Hence the pert shopkeeper, whose 

throbbing ear 
Aches with orchestras which he pays 

to hear, 

' In the postscript to The Castle Spectre, Mr 
Lewis tells us, that though blacks were unknown 
in England at the period of his action, yet he has 
made the anachronism to set off the scene: and 
ifhe could have produced the effect "by making 
his heroine blue," — I quote him — "blue he 
would have made her!" [The Castle Spectre, 
by M. G. Lewis, Esq., M.P., London (1798), 
p. 102.] 

= [In 1706 John Dennis, the critic (1657- 
1734). wrote an Essay on the Operas after the 
Italian manner, which are about to be established 
on the English Stage; to show that they were 
more immoral than the most licentious play.] 



Whom shame, not sympathy, forbids to 

snore, 
His anguish doubling by his own " en- 
core " ; 310 
Squeezed in " Fop's Alley," ^ jostled by 

the beaux, 
Teased with his hat, and trembling for 

his toes ; 
Scarce wrestles through the night, nor 

tastes of ease. 
Till the dropped curtain gives a glad 

release : 
Why this, and more, he suffers — can ye 

guess ? — 
Because it costs him dear, and makes 

him dress ! 

So prosper eunuchs from Etruscan 

schools ; 
Give us but fiddlers, and they're sure 

of fools ; 
Ere scenes were played by many a 

reverend clerk, 
(What harm — if David danced before 

the ark?) 320 

In Christmas revels, simple country folks 
Were pleased with morrice-mumm'ry 

and coarse jokes. 
Improving years, with things no longer 

known, 
Produced blithe Punch and merry 

Madame Joan, 
Who still frisk on with feats so lewdly low, 
'Tis strange Benvolio ^ .suffers such a 

show; 



' [One of the gangways in the Opera House, 
where the young men of fashion used to assemble. 
(See letter to Murray, November 19, 1820; 
Letters, 1901, v. 126.] 

^ Benvolio does not bet; but every man who 
maintains racehorses is a promoter of all the 
concomitant evils of the turf. Avoiding to bet is 
a little Pharisaical. Is it an exculpation? I 
think not. I never yet heard a bawd praised 
for chastity, because she herself did not commit 
fornication. 

[Robert, second Earl Grosvenor (i 767-1845), 
was created Marquis of Westminster in 1831. 
Like his father, Gifford's patron, the first Earl 
Grosvenor, he was a breeder of racehorses, and 
a patron of the turf. As Lord Belgrave, he 
brought forward a motion for the suppression 
of Sunday newspapers, June 11, 1799, de- 
nouncing them in a violent speech. The motion 
was lost; but many years after, in a speech 
delivered in the House of Lords, January 2, 1807, 
he returned to the charge.] 



136 



BINTS FROM HORACE 



Suppressing peer ! to whom each vice 

gives place, 
Oaths, boxing, begging — all, save rout 

and race. 

Farce follovv^ed Comedy, and reached 
her prime. 

In ever-laughing Foote's fantastic 
time : ^ 330 

Mad wag ! who pardoned none, nor 
spared the best, 

And turned some very serious things to 
jest. 

Nor Church nor State escaped his pub- 
lic sneers. 

Arms nor the Gown — Priests — Law- 
yers — Volunteers: 

"Alas, poor Yorick!" now for ever 
mute ! 

Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for 
Foote. 

We smile, perforce, when histrionic 

scenes 
Ape the swoln dialogue of Kings and 

Queens, 
When " Chrononhotonthologos must 

die," 2 
And Arthur struts in mimic majesty. 340 

Moschus! with whom once more I 
hope to sit,^ 

And smile at folly, if we can't at wit; 

Yes, Friend ! for thee I'll quit my cynic 
cell, 

And bear Swift's motto, "Vive la baga- 
telle!" 

Which charmed our days in each ^gean 
clime, 

As oft at home, with revelry and rhyme. 

/ [Samuel Foote (1720-1777), actor and play- 
wright. His farces and curtain-pieces were 
often "spiced-up" with more or less malicious 
character-sketches of living persons. Among 
his_ better known pieces are The Minor (1760), 
ridiculing Whitefield and the Methodists, and 
The Mayor of Garratt (1763), in which he played 
the part of Sturgeon.] 

' [Henry Carey, poet and musician (d. 1743), 
a natural son of George Savile, Marquis of 
Halifax, was the author of Chrononhotontholo- 
gos,^ "the most tragical tragedy ever yet tra- 
gedised by any company of tragedians," which 
was first played at the Haymarket, February 22, 
I734-] 

3 [Moschus stands for Hbbhouse.] 



Then may Euphrosyne, who sped the 

past. 
Soothe thy Life's scenes, nor leave thee 

in the last; 
But find in thine — Hke pagan Plato's 

bed,i 
Some merry Manuscript of Mimes, 

when dead. 350 



Now to the Drama let us bend our 

eyes. 
Where fettered by whig Walpole low 

she Hes; ^ 
Corruption foiled her, for she feared her 

glance; 
Decorum left her for an Opera 

dance ! 
Yet Chesterfield,^ whose polished pen 

inveighs 
'Gainst laughter, fought for freedom to 

our Plays; 
Unchecked by Megrims of patrician 

brains. 
And damning Dulness of Lord Cham- 
berlains. 
Repeal that act ! again let Humour 

roam 
Wild o'er the stage — we've time for 

tears at home; 360 



' Under Plato's pillow a volume of the Mimes 
of Sophron was found the day he died. — Vide 
Barthelemi, De Pauw, or Diogenes Laertius, if 
agreeable. De Pauw calls it a jest-book. 
Cumberland, in his Observer, terms it moral, 
like the sayings of Publius Syrus. 

' [In 1737 the manager of Goodman's Fields 
Theatre having brought Sir Robert Walpole a 
farce called The Golden Rump, the minister 
detained the copy. He then made extracts of 
the most offensive passages, read them to the 
house, and brought in a bill to limit the number 
of playhouses and to subject all dramatic 
writings to the inspection of the Lord Chamber- 
lain. Horace Walpole ascribed The Golden 
Rump to Fielding, and said that he had 
found an imperfect copy of the play among 
his father's papers. But this has been ques- 
tioned.] 

i His speech on the Licensing Act is one of his 
most eloquent efforts. 

[Lord Chesterfield's sentiments with regard 
to laughter are contained in an apophthegm, 
repeated more than once in his correspondence: 
"The vulgar laugh aloud, but never smile; 
on the contrary, people of fashion often smile, 
but seldom or never laugh aloud." — Chester- 
field's Letters to his Godson, Oxford, 189O: 
p. 27.] 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



137 



Let Archer ^ plant the horns on Sullen's 

brows, 
And Estifania gull her "Copper"^ 

spouse ; 
The moral's scant — but that may be 

excused, 
Men go not to be lectured, but amused. 
He whom^ our plays dispose to Good or 

111 
Must wear a head in want of Willis' 

skill; 3 
Aye, but Macheath's example — • psha ! 

— no more ! 
It formed no thieves — the thief was 

formed before; 
And spite of puritans and Collier's 

curse, 
Plays make mankind no better, and no 

worse.'* 370 

Then spare our stage, ye methodistic 

men ! 
Nor burn damned Drury if it rise again.^ 
But why to brain-scorched bigots thus 

appeal ? 
Can heavenly Mercy dwell with earthly 

Zeal? 
For times of fire and faggot let them 

hope! 
Times dear alike to puritan or Pope. 
As pious Calvin saw Servetus blaze, 
So would new sects on newer victims 

gaze. 

' [Archer and Squire Sullen are characters in 
Farquhar's (1678-1707) play, The Beaux' 
Stratagem, March 8, 1707.] 

2 Michael Perez, the " Copper Captain," in 
[Fletcher's] Rule a Wife and Have a Wife 
[licensed October 19, 1624]. 

3 [The Rev. Dr Francis Willis died in 1807, 
in the 90th year of his age. He attended George 
III. in his first attack of madness in 1788. His 
son, John Willis, was entrusted with the entire 
charge of the king in 181 1. (See Life 0} George 
IV., by Percy Fitzgerald (1881), ii. 18.)] 

•t Jerry Collier's controversy with Congreve, 
etc., on the subject of the drama, is too well 
known to require further comment. 

[Jeremy Collier (1650-1726), non-juring 
bishop and divine. The occasion of his con- 
troversy with Congreve was the publication of 
his Short View of the Immorality and Profane- 
ness of the English Stage (1697-8).] 

s [A few months after lines 370-381 were 
added to The Hints, in September, 1812, Byron, 
at the request of Lord Holland, wrote the ad- 
dress delivered on the opening of the theatre, 
which had been rebuilt after the fire of February 
24, 1809. He subsequently joined the Com- 
mittee of Management.] 



E'en now the songs of Solyma begin; 
Faith cants, perplexed apologist of Sin ! 
While the Lord's servant chastens whom 

he loves, 381 

And Simeon kicks,^ where Baxter only 

"shoves." ^ 

Whom nature guides, so writes, that 
every dunce, 

Enraptured, thinks to do the same at 
once; 

But after inky thumbs and bitten 
nails, 

And twenty scattered quires, the cox- 
comb fails. 

Let Pastoral be dumb; for who can 
hope 

To match the youthful eclogues of our 
Pope? 

Yet his and Philips' ^ faults, of different 
kind. 

For Art too rude, for Nature too re- 
fined, 390 

Instruct how hard the medium 'tis to 
hit 

'Twixt too much poHsh and too coarse 
a wit. 

A vulgar scribbler, certes, stands dis- 
graced 
In this nice age, when all aspire to taste; 



' Mr Simeon is the very bully of beliefs, and 
castigator of "good works." He is ably sup- 
ported by John Stickles, a labourer in the same 
vineyard : — but I say no more, for, according 
to Johnny in full congregation, "N'o hopes for 
tliem as laughs." — [The Rev. Charles Simeon 
(i758-i836)_ was the leader of the evangelical 
movement in Cambridge. He was naturally 
irascible, and, in reply to a friend who had 
mildly reproved him for some display of temper, 
signed himself, in humorous penitence, " Charles 
proud and irritable." (See Memoirs of the 
Life of the Rei<. Mr Simeon, by Rev. W. Carus 
(1847), PP- 195, 282, etc.)] 

= Baxter's shove to heavy-a- — d Christians, the 
veritable title of k book once in good repute, and 
likely enough to be so again. ["Baxter" is a 
slip of the pen. The tract or sermon, An 
Effectual Shove to the heavy-arse Christian, was, 
according to the title-page, written by William 
Bunyan, minister of the gospel in South Wales, 
and "printed for the author," in London, in 
1768.] 

3 [Ambrose Philips (i675?-i749) published 
his Epistle to the Earl of Dorset and his Pastorals 
in 1709.] 



138 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



The dirty language, and the noisome 

jest, 
Which pleased in Swift of yore, we now 

detest; 
Proscribed not only in the world 

poUte, 
But even too nasty for a City Knight ! 

Peace to Swift's faults! his wit hath 

made them pass, 
Unmatched by all, save matchless 

Hudibras ! 400 

Whose author is perhaps the first we 

meet, 
Who from our couplet lopped two final 

feet; 
Nor less in merit than the longer Hne, 
This measure moves a favourite of the 

Nine. 
Though at first view eight feet may seem 

in vain 
Formed, save in Ode, to bear a serious 

strain. 
Yet Scott has shown our wondering isle 

of late 
This measure shrinks not from a theme 

of weight, 
And, varied skilfully, surpasses far 
Heroic rhyme, but most in Love and 

War, 410 

Whose fluctuations, tender or sublime, 
Are curbed too much by long-recurring 

rhyme. 

But many a skilful judge abhors to 

see. 
What few admire — irregularity. 
This some vouchsafe to pardon; but 

'tis hard 
When such a word contents a British 

Bard. 

And must the Bard his glowing 
thoughts confine. 

Lest Censure hover o'ei; some faulty 
line? 

Remove whate'er a critic may suspect. 

To gain the paltry suffrage of "Cor- 
rect^'? 420 

Or prune the spirit of each daring 
phrase, 

To fly from Error, not to merit 
Praise ? 



Ye, who seek finished models, never 

cease. 
By day and night, to read the works of 

Greece. 
But our good Fathers never bent their 

brains 
To heathen Greek, content with native 

strains. 
The few who read a page, or used a pen. 
Were satisfied with Chaucer and old 

Ben; 
The jokes and numbers suited to their 

taste 
Were quaint and careless, anything but 

chaste; 430 

Yet, whether right or wrong the ancient 

rules. 
It will not do to call our Fathers 

fools ! 
Though you and I, who eruditely know 
To separate the elegant and low. 
Can also, when a hobbling line appears, 
Detect with fingers — in default of ears. 

In sooth I do not know, or greatly care 

To learn, who our first English strollers 
were; 

Or if, till roofs received the vagrant 
art. 

Our Muse, like that of Thespis, kept a 
cart; 440 

But this is certain, since our Shake- 
speare's days, 

There's pomp enough — if little else — 
in plays; 

Nor will Melpomene ascend her Throne 

Without high heels, white plume, and 
Bristol stone. 

Old Comedies still meet with much 
applause, 
Though too licentious for dramatic laws; 
At least, we moderns, wisely, 'tis confest, 
Curtail, or silence, the lascivious jest. 

Whate'er their follies, and their faults 
beside, 

Our enterprising Bards pass nought un- 
tried; 450 

Nor do they merit slight applause who 
choose 

An English subject for an English 
Muse, 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



139 



And leave to minds, which never dare 

invent, 
French flippancy and German senti- 
ment. 
Where is that living language which 

could claim 
Poetic more, as philosophic, fame. 
If all our Bards, more patient of delay. 
Would stop, Uke Pope, to poUsh by the 
way? 

Lords of the quill, whose critical 

assaults 
O'erthrow whole quartos with their 

quires of faults, 460 

Who soon detect, and mark where'er we 

fail. 
And prove our marble with too nice a 

nail ! 
Democritus himself was not so bad; 
He — only thought — but you would 

make us — mad ! 

But truth to say, most rhymers rarely 

guard 
Against that ridicule they deem so 

hard; 
In person negligent, they wear, from 

sloth, 
Beards of a week, and nails of annual 

growth ; 
Reside in garrets, fly from those they 

meet. 
And walk in alleys rather than the 

street. 470 

With Uttle rhyme, less reason, if you 
please. 
The name of Poet may be got with ease. 
So that not tuns of helleboric juice 
Shall ever turn your head to any use; 
Write but like Wordsworth — live be- 
side a lake. 
And keep your bushy locks a year from 
Blake'; ' 

' As famous a tonsor as Licinus himself, and 
better paid, and may, like him, be one day a 
senator, having a better qualification than one 
half of the heads he crops, viz. — Independence. 
[According to the Scholiast, Cassar made his 
barber Licinus a senator, "quod odisset Pom- 
peium." Blake (see Letter to Murray, Novem- 
ber 9, 1820) was presumably Benjamin Blake, 
a perfumer, who lived at 46, Park Street, Gros- 
venor Square.] 



Then print your book, once more return 

to town, 
And boys shall hunt your Bardship up 

and down.^ 

Am I not wise, if such some poets' 

plight, 
To purge in spring — like Bayes ^ — 

before I write? 480 

If this precaution softened not my bile, 
I know no scribbler with a madder 

style; 
But since (perhaps my feelings are too 

nice) 
I cannot purchase Fame at such a 

price, 
I'll labour gratis as a grinders' wheel. 
And, blunt myself, give edge to other's 

steel, 
Nor write at all, unless to teach the 

art 
To those rehearsing for the Poet's part; 
From Horace show the pleasing paths of 

song. 
And from my own example — what is 

wrong. 490 

Though modern practice sometimes 
differs quite, 

'Tis just as well to think before you 
write; 

Let every book that suits your theme be 
read. 

So shall you trace it to the fountain- 
head. 

He who has learned the duty which 
he owes 
To friends and country, and to pardon 
foes; 

' [There was some foundation for this. When 
Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy called on 
Daniel Stuart, editor of the Courier, at his fine 
new house in Harley Street, the butler would 
not admit them further than the hall, and was 
not a little taken aback when he witnessed the 
deference shown to these strangely-attired figures 
by his master. — Personal Reminiscence of the 
late Miss Stuart, of 106 Harley Street.] 

^ [The reference is to the Duke of Bucking- 
ham's play. The Rehearsal, act ii. sc. i. This 
passage is instanced by Johnson as a proof that 
"Bayes" was a caricature of Dryden. "Bayes, 
when he is to write, is blooded and purged; this, 
as Lamotte relates, . . . was the real practice 
of the poet." — Lives of the Poets (1890), i. 388.] 



140 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



Who models his deportment as may best 

Accord with Brother, Sire, or Stranger- 
guest ; 

Who takes our Laws and Worship as they 
are. 

Nor roars reform for Senate, Church, 
and Bar; 500 

In practice, rather than loud precept, 
wise, 

Bids not his tongue, but heart, philoso- 
phise: 

Such is the man the Poet should re- 
hearse, 

As joint exemplar of his life and verse. 

Sometimes a sprightly wit, and tale 

well told, 
Without much grace, or weight, or art, 

will hold 
A longer empire o'er the public mind 
Than sounding trifles, empty, though 

refined. 

Unhappy Greece ! thy sons of ancient 

days 
The Muse may celebrate with perfect 

praise, 510 

Whose generous children narrowed not 

their hearts 
With Commerce, given alone to Arms 

and Arts. 
Our boys (save those whom public 

schools compel 
To "Long and Short," before they're 

taught to spell) 
From frugal fathers soon imbibe by 

rote, 
" A penny saved, my lad, 's a penny got." 
Babe of a city birth ! ^ from sixpence 

take 
The third, how much will the remainder 

make ? — 
"A groat." — "Ah, bravo! Dick hath 

done the sum, 
He'll swell my fifty thousand to a 

Plum." 2 520 

^ [A MS. reads ''Babe, of old Thelusson," etc.; 
Peter Isaac Thellusson, banker (died July 21, 
1797), by his will directed that his property 
should accumulate for the benefit of the unborn 
heir of an unborn grandson. The will was 
upheld, but, on July 28, 1800, an act was passed 
limiting such executory devises.] 

' [Cant term for ;£ioo,ooo.] 



They whose young souls receive this 

rust betimes, 
'Tis clear, are fit for anything but 

rhymes; 
And Locke will tell you, that the father's 

right 
Who hides all verses from his children's 

sight; 
For Poets (says this Sage,^ and many 

more,) 
Make sad mechanics with their lyric 

lore: 
And Delphi now, however rich of old, 
Discovers little silver, and less gold, 
Because Parnassus, though a Mount 

divine. 
Is poor as Irus,^ or an Irish mine.^ 530 

Two objects always should the Poet 
move, 

Or one or both, — to please or to im- 
prove. 

Whate'er you teach, be brief, if you 
design 

For our remembrance your didactic 
line; 

Redundance places Memory on the rack. 

For brains may be o'erloaded, like the 
back. 

Fiction does best when taught to look 

like Truth, 
And fairy fables bubble none but youth: 
Expect no credit for too wondrous tales, 
Since Jonas only springs alive from 

Whales ! 540 

' I have not the original by me, but the Italian 
translation runs as follows: — "E una cosa a 
mio credere molto stravagante, che un Padre 
desideri, o permetta, che suo figliuolo coltivi e 
perfezioni questo talento." A little further on: 
"Si trovano di rado nel Parnaso le miniere d' 
oro e d' argento." — Educazione dei Fancitilli 
del Signor Locke (Venice, 1782), ii. 87. ["If 
the child have a poetic vein, it is to me the 
strangest thing in the world, that the father 
should desire or suffer it to be cherished or im- 
proved." — "It is very seldom seen, that any 
one discovers mines of gold or silver in Par- 
nassus." — Some Thoughts concerning Educa- 
tion, by John Locke (1880), p. 152.] 

*"Iro pauperior:" a proverb: this is the 
same beggar who boxed with Ulysses for a pound 
of kid's fry, which he lost, and half a dozen 
teeth besides. (See Odyssey, xviii. 98.) 

3 The Irish gold mine in Wicklow, which 
yields just ore enough to swear by, or gild a bad 
guinea. 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



141 



Young men with aught but Elegance 

dispense; 
Maturer years require a little Sense. 
To end at once: — that Bard for all 

is fit 
Who mingles well instruction with his 

wit; 
For him Reviews shall smile; for him 

o'erflow 
The patronage of Paternoster-row; 
His book, with Longman's liberal aid, 

shall pass 
(Who ne'er despises books that bring 

him brass); 
Through three long weeks the taste of 

London lead, 
And cross St George's Channel, and the 

Tweed. 550 

But everything has faults, nor is't 

unknown 
That harps and fiddles often lose their 

tone, 
And wayward voices, at their owner's 

call. 
With all his best endeavours, only 

squall; 
Dogs blink their covey, flints withhold 

the spark. 
And double-barrels (damn them !) miss 

their mark.^ 

Where frequent beauties strike the 

reader's view. 
We must not quarrel for a blot or 

two; 
But pardon equally to books or men, 
The slips of Human Nature, and the 

Pen. 560 

Yet if an author, spite of foe or friend. 
Despises all advice too much to mend. 
But ever twangs the same discordant 

string. 
Give him no quarter, howsoe'er he 

sing. 

' As Mr Pope took the liberty of damning 
Homer, to whom he was under great obligations 
— ''And Homer (damn him!) calls" — it may 
be presumed that anybody or anything may be 
damned in verse by poetical licence; and, in 
case of accident, I beg leave to plead so illustrious 
a precedent. 



Let Havard's ^ fate overtake him, who, 

for once. 
Produced a play too dashing for a dunce: 
At first none deemed it his; but when 

his name 
Announced the fact — what then ? — 

it lost its fame. 
Though all deplore when Milton deigns 

to doze, 
In a long work 'tis fair to steal repose. 

As Pictures, so shall Poems be; some 

stand 571 

The critic eye, and please when near 

at hand; 
But others at a distance strike the sight; 
This seeks the shade, but that demands 

the light. 
Nor dreads the connoisseur's fastidious 

view, 
But ten times scrutinised — is ten times 

new. 

Parnassian pilgrims ! ye whom chance, 

or choice. 
Hath led to listen to the Muse's voice. 
Receive this counsel, and be timely wise; 
Few reach the Summit which before you 

lies. 580 

Our Church and State, our Courts and 

Camps, concede 
Reward to very moderate heads indeed ! 
In these plain common sense will travel 

far; 
All are not Erskines who mislead the Bar •,^ 
But Poesy between the best and worst 
No medium knows; you must be last or 

first; 
For middling Poets' miserable volumes 
Are damned alike by Gods, and Men, 

and Columns.^ 

' For the story of Billy Havard's tragedy, see 
Davies's Life of Garrick. I believe it is Regultts 
or Charles the First [1808, ii. 205]. The mo- 
ment it was known to be his the theatre thinned, 
and the bookseller refused to give the customary 
sum for the copyright. 

2 [Thomas Erskine, afterwards Lord Erskine 
(1750-1823). His power over a jury, "his little 
twelvers," as he would sometimes address them, 
was practically unlimited.] 

•5 [A MS. reads: — 
"Though what 'Gods, men, and columns' in- 
terdict. 
The Dei'il and Jeffrey pardon — in a Pict."] 
"The Devil and Jeffrey are here placed anti- 



142 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



Again, my Jeffrey — as that sound 

inspires, 
How wakes my bosom to its wonted 

fires ! 590 

Fires, such as gentle Caledonians feel 
When Southrons writhe upon their critic 

wheel, 

thetically to gods and men, such being their 
usual position, and their due one — according to 
the facetious saying, ' If God won't take you, the 
Devil must;' and I am sure no one durst object 
to his taking the poetry, which, rejected by 
Horace, is accepted by Jeffrey. That these 
gentlemen are in some cases kinder, — the one to 
countrymen, and the other from his odd pro- 
pensity to prefer evil to good, — than the ' gods, 
men, and columns' of Horace, may be seen by 
a reference to the Review of Campbell's Ger- 
trude of Wyoming; and in No. 31 of the Edin- 
burgh Review (given to me the other day by the 
captain of an English frigate off Salamis), 
there is a similar concession to the mediocrity 
of Jamie Graham's British Georgics. It is 
fortunate for Campbell, that his fame neither 
depends on his last poem, nor the puff of the 
Edinburgh Review. The catalogues of our 
English are also less fastidious than the pillars 
of the Roman librarians. A word more with the 
author of Gertrude oj Wyoming. At the end of a 
poem, and even of a couplet, we have generally 
'that unmeaning thing we call a thought'; so 
Mr Campbell concludes with a thought in such 
a manner as to fulfil the whole of Pope's pre- 
scription, and be as 'unmeaning' as the best of 
his brethren : — 

"'Because I may not stain with grief 
The death-song of an Indian chief.' 

"When I was in the fifth form, I carried to 
my master the translation of a chorus in Pro- 
metheus, wherein was a pestilent expression 
about 'staining a voice,' which met with no 
quarter. Little did I think that Mr Campbell 
would have adopted my fifth form 'sublime' — - 
at least in so conspicuous a situation. 'Sorrow' 
has been 'dry' (in proverbs), and 'wet' (in 
sonnets), this many a day; and now it 'stains,' 
and stains a sound, of all feasible things ! To 
be sure, death-songs might have been stained 
with that same grief to very good purpose, if 
Outalissi had clapped down his stanzas on 
wholesome paper for the Edinburgh Evening 
Post, or any other given hyperborean gazette; or 
if the said Outalissi had been troubled with the 
slightest second sight of his own notes embodied 
on the last proof of an overcharged quarto; but 
as he is supposed to have been an improvisatore 
on this occasion, and probably to the last tune he 
ever chanted in this world, it would have done 
him no discredit to have made his exit with a 
mouthful of common sense. Talking of 'stain- 
ing' (as Caleb Quotem says) .'puts me in mind' 
of a certain couplet, which Mr Campbell will 
find in a writer for whom he, and his school, 
have no small contempt: — 
"'E'en copious Dryden wanted, or forgot, 

The last and greatest art — the art to blot!'" 
— [MS. M.] 



Or mild Eclectics,^ when some, worse 

than Turks, 
Would rob poor Faith to decorate 

"Good Works." 
Such are the genial feelings thou canst 

claim — 
My Falcon flies not at ignoble game. 
Mightiest of all Dunedin's beasts of 

chase ! 
For thee my Pegasus would mend his pace. 
Arise, my Jeffrey ! or my inkless pen 
Shall never blunt its edge on meaner 

men ; 600 

' To the Eclectic or Christian Reviewers I 
have to return thanks for the fervour of that 
charity which, in 1809, induced them to express 
a hope that a thing then published by me might 
lead to certain consequences, which, although 
natural enough, surely came but rashly from 
reverend lips. I refer them to their own pages 
[Eclectic Review, May, 1809], where they con- 
gratulated themselves on the prospect of a tilt 
between Mr Jeffrey and myself, from which 
some great good was to accrue, provided one or 
both were knocked on the head. Having sur- 
vived two years and a half those "Elegies" 
which they were kindly preparing to review, 
I have no peculiar gusto to give them "so joyful 
a trouble," except, indeed, "upon compulsion, 
Hal"; but if, as David says in The Rivals, it 
should come to "bloody sword and gun fight- 
ing," we "won't run, will we, Sir Lucius?" 
[Byron, writing at Athens, away from his books, 
misquotes The Rivals. The words, "Sir Lucius, 
we — we — we — we won't run," are spoken 
by Acres, not by David.] I do not know what 
I had done to these Eclectic gentlemen: my 
works are their lawful perquisite, to be hewn in 
pieces like Agag, if it seem meet unto them : but 
why they should be in such a hurry to kill off 
their author, I am ignorant. "The race is not 
always to the swift nor the battle to the strong:" 
and now, as these Christians have "smote me on 
one cheek," I hold them up the other; and, in 
return for their good wishes, give them an oppor- 
tunity of repeating them. Had any other set of 
men expressed such sentiments, I should have 
smiled, and left them to the "recording angel"; 
but from the pharisees of Christianity decency 
might be expected. I can assure these brethren, 
that, publican and sinner as I am, I would not 
have treated "mine enemy's dog thus." To 
show them the superiority of my brotherly love, 
if ever the Reverend Messrs Simeon or Ramsden 
should be engaged in such a conflict as that in 
which they requested me to fall, I hope they 
may escape with being "winged" only, and that 
Heaviside may be at hand to extract the ball. — 
[Byron pretends to believe that the "Christian" 
Reviewers, actuated by stern zeal for piety, were 
making mischief in sober earnest. "Heaviside" 
(see last line of Byron's note) was the surgeon 
in attendance at the duel between Lord Falk- 
land and Mr A. Powell. (See English Bards. 
1. 68s, note 2.)] 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



'43 



Till thee or thine mine evil eye 

discerns, 
"Alas! I cannot strike at wretched 

kernes." 
Inhuman Saxon ! wilt thou then resign 
A Muse and heart by choice so wholly 

thine ? 
Dear d — d contemner of my schoolboy 

songs, 
Hast thou no vengeance for my Man- 



hood' 



s wrongs r 



If unprovoked thou once could bid me 

bleed, 
Hast thou no weapon for my daring 

deed? 
What ! not a word ! — and am I then 

so low ? 
Wilt thou forbear, who never spared a 

foe? 6io 

Hast thou no wrath, or wish to give it 

vent? 
No wit for Nobles, Dunces by descent ? 
No jest on "minors," quibbles on a 

name,^ 
Nor one facetious paragraph of blame ? 
Is it for this on I lion I have stood, 
And thought of Homer less than Holy- 
rood? 
On shore of Euxine or ^gean sea. 
My hate, untravelled, fondly turned to 

thee. 
Ah ! let me cease ! in vain my bosom 

burns. 
From Corydon unkind Alexis turns: ^ 
Thy rhymes are vain; thy Jeffrey then 

forego, 621 

Nor woo that anger which he will not 

show. 
What then ? — Edina starves some 

lanker son, 
To write an article thou canst not 

shun; 
Some less fastidious Scotchman shall be 

found, 
As bold in Billingsgate, though less 

renowned. 

As if at table some discordant dish. 
Should shock our optics, such as frogs 
for fish; 

' [See the critique of the Edinburgh Review 
on Hours of Idleness, January, 1808.] 

^"Invenies alium, si te hie fastidit, Alexin." 



As oil in lieu of butter men decry, 
And poppies please not in a modern 
pie; 630 

If all such mixtures then be half a crime. 
We must have excellence to relish 

rhyme. 
Mere roast and boiled no Epicure in- 
vites; 
Thus Poetry disgusts, or else delights. 

Who shoot not flying rarely touch a 

gun: 
Will he who swims not to the river run ? 
And men unpractised in exchanging 

knocks 
Must go to Jackson ^ ere they dare to 

box. 
Whate'er the weapon, cudgel, fist, or foil, 
None reach expertness without years of 

toil ; 640 

But fifty dunces can, with perfect ease, 
Tag twenty thousand couplets, when 

they please. 
Why not ? — shall I, thus qualified to sit 
For rotten boroughs, never show my 

wit? 
Shall I, whose fathers with the "Quo- 
rum" sate, 
And lived in freedom on a fair estate; 
Who left me heir, with stables, kennels, 

packs, 
To all their income, and to — twice its 

tax; 
Whose form and pedigree have scarce a 

fault, 
Shall I, I say, suppress my Attic Salt? 

Thus think " the Mob of Gentlemen " ; 

but you, 651 

Besides all this, must have some Genius 

too. 
Be this your sober judgment, and a rule. 
And print not piping hot from Southey's 

school, 

' [John Jackson (i 769-1845), bettgr known 
as "Gentleman" Jackson, was champion of 
England from 1795- 1803. Jackson's character 
stood high. "From the highest to the lowest 
person in the Sporting World, his decision is 
law." He was Byron's guest at Cambridge, 
Newstead, and Brighton, and is described by 
him, in a note to Don Juan (XI. xix.), as "my 
old friend and corporeal pastor and master." 
A monument, erected by public subscription, 
marks his resting-place in Brompton Cemetery.] 



144 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



Who (ere another Thalaba appears), 
I trust, will spare us for at least nine 

years. 
And ' hark'ye, Southey ! ^ pray — but 

don't be vexed — 
Burn all your last three works — and 

half the next. 

' Mr Southey has lately tied another canister 
to his tail in The Curse of Kehama, maugre the 
neglect of Madoc, etc., and has in one instance 
had a wonderful effect. A literary friend of 
mine, walking out one lovely evening last sum- 
mer, on the eleventh bridge of the Paddington 
canal, was alarmed by the cry of "one in jeop- 
ardy": he rushed along, collected a body of 
Irish haymakers (supping on butter-milk in an 
adjacent paddock), procured three rakes, one 
eel-spear and a landing net, and at last {horresco 
rejerens) pulled out — his own publisher. '?he 
unfortunate man was gone for ever, and so was 
a large quarto wherewith he had taken the leap, 
which proved, on enquiry, to have been Mr 
Southey's last work. Its "alacrity of sinking" 
was so great, that it has never since been heard 
of; though some maintain that it is at this 
moment concealed at Alderman Birch's pastry 
premises, Cornhill. Be this as it may, the 
coroner's inquest brought in a verdict of ''Felo 
de bihliopold" against a "quarto unknown"; 
and circumstantial evidence being since strong 
against The Curse of Kehama (of which the 
above words are an exact description), it will be 
tried by its peers next session, in Grub-street — 
Arthur, Alfred, Davideis, Richard Coeur de 
Lion, Exodus, Exodiad, Epigoniad, Calvary, 
Fall of Cambria, Siege of Acre, Don Roderick, 
and Tom Thumb the Great, are the names of 
the twelve jurors. The judges are Pye, Bowles, 
and the bell-man of St Sepulchre's. 

The same advocates, pro and con, will be 
employed as are now engaged in Sir F. Burdett's 
celebrated cause in the Scotch courts. The 
public anxiously await the result, and all live 
publishers will be subpoenaed as witnesses. — 
But Mr Southey has published The Curse of 
Kehama, — an inviting title to quibblers. By 
the bye, it is a good deal beneath Scott and 
Campbell, and not much above Southey, to 
allow the booby Ballantyne to entitle them, in 
the Edinburgh Annual Register (of which, by 
the bye, Southey is editor) "the grand poetical 
triumvirate of the day." But on second thoughts, 
it can be no great degree of praise to be the one- 
eyed leaders of the blind, though they might as 
well keep to themselves "Scott's thirty thousand 
copies sold," which must sadly discomfort 
poor Southey's unsaleables. Poor Southey, it 
should seem, is the "Lepidus" of this poetical 
triumvirate. I am only surprised to see him in 
such good company. 
" Such things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, 

But wonder how the devil he came there." 
The trio are well defined in the sixth proposition 
of Euclid: — "Because, in the triangles D B C, 
A C B; D B is equal to A C; and B C common 
to both; the two sides D B, B C, are equal to the 
wo A C, C B, each to each, and the angle D B C 



But why this vain advice? once pub- 
lished, books 

Can never be recalled — from pastry- 
cooks ! 660 

Though "Madoc," with "Pucelle,"^ 
instead of Punk, 

May travel back to Quito — on a 
trunk ! ^ 

Orpheus, we learn from Ovid and 
Lempriere, 
Led all wild beasts but Women by the 
ear; 



is equal to the angle A C B : therefore, the base 
D C is equal to the base A B, and the triangle 
D B C (Mr Southey) is equal to the triangle 
A C B, the less to the greater, which is absurd," 
etc. — The editor of the Edinburgh Register 
will find the rest of the theorem hard by his 
stabling; he has only to cross the river; 'tis the 
first turnpike t' other side Pons Asinorum* 

[The Curse of Kehama, by Robert Southey, 
was published 1810; Arthur, or The Northern 
Enchantment, by the Rev. Richard Hole, in 
1789; Alfred, by Joseph Cottle, in 1801; Da- 
videis, by Abraham Cowley, in 1636; Richard 
the First, by Sir James Bland Burges, in 1800; 
Exodiad, by Sir J. Bland Burges and R. Cumber- 
land, in 1807; Exodus, by Charles Hoyle, in 
1807; Epigoniad, by W. Wilkie, D.D., in 1757; 
Calvary, by R. Cumberland, in 1792; Fall of 
Cambria, by Joseph Cottle, in 1809; Siege of 
Acre, by Hannah Cowley, in 1801; The Vision 
of Don Roderick, by Sir Walter Scott, in 1811; 
Tom Thumb the Great, by Henry Fielding, in 
1730. 

(For the case Sir F. Burdett v. William Scott, 
see a contempx)rary pamphlet, Adultery and 
Patriotism, London, 181 1.)] 

1 Voltaire's Pucclle is not quite so immaculate 
as Mr Southey's Joan of Arc, and yet I am 
afraid the Frenchman has both more truth and 
poetry too on his side — (they rarely go together) 
— than our patriotic minstrel, whose first essay 
was in praise of a fanatical French strumpet, 
whose title of witch would be correct with the 
change of the first letter. 

2 Like Sir Bland Burges's Richard; the tenth 
book of which I read at Malta, on a trunk of 
Eyre's, 19, Cockspur-street. If this be doubted, 
I shall buy a portmanteau to quote from. 

[Sir James Bland Burges (1752-1824). In 
1787 he was returned M.P. for the borough of 
Helleston; and from 1789 to 1705 held office as 
Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In 1795, 



* This Latin has sorely puzzled the Univer- 
sity of Edinburgh. Ballantyne said it meant the 
"Bridge of Berwick," but Southey claimed it as 
half English; Scott swore it was the "Brig o' 
Stirling": he had just passed two King James's 
and a dozen Douglasses over it. At last it was 
decided by Jeffrey, that it meant nothing more nor 
less than the " counter of Archy Constable's shop." 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



MS 



And had he fiddled at the present 
hour, 

We d seen the Lions waltzing in the 
Tower; ^ 

And old Amphion, such were minstrels 
then, 

Had built St Paul's without the aid of 
Wren. 

Verse too was Justice, and the Bards of 
Greece 

Did more than constables to keep the 
peace; 670 

Abolished cuckoldom with much ap- 
plause. 

Called county meetings, and enforced 
the laws, 

Cut down crown influence with reform- 
ing scythes, 

And served the Church — without de- 
manding tithes; 

And hence, throughout all Hellas and 
the East, 

Each Poet was a Prophet and a 
Priest, 

Whose old-established Boarc^ of Joint 
Controls 

Included kingdoms in the cure of 
souls. 

Next rose the martial Homer, Epic's 

prince. 
And Fighting's been in fashion ever 

since; 680 

And old Tyrtaeus, when the Spartans 

warred 
(A limping leader, but a lofty bard) 
Though walled Ithome had resisted 

long. 
Reduced the fortress by the force of song. 

When Oracles prevailed, in times of 

old. 
In song alone Apollo's will M'as told, 
Then if your verse is what all verse 

should be. 
And Gods were not ashamed on't, why 

should we? 

at the instance of his chief, Lord Grenville. he 
vacated his post, and by way of compensa- 
tion was created a baronet with a sinecure post 
as Knight-Marshal of the Royal Household. 
Thenceforth he devoted himself to literature. 
(For Richard the First and the Exodiad, vide 
supra.)] 

' [Charles Lamb, in " Christ's Hospital Five 



The Muse, like mortal females, may 

be wooed; 
In turns she'll seem a Paphian, or a 

prude; 690 

Fierce as a bride when first she feels 

affright. 
Mild as the same upon the second 

night ; 
Wild as the wife of Alderman or Peer, 
Now for His Grace, and now a grenadier ! 
Her eyes beseem, her heart belies, her 

zone — 
Ice in a crowd — and Lava when alone. 

If Verse be studied with some show of 

Art, 
Kind Nature always will perform her 

part; 
Though without Genius, and a native 

vein 
Of wit, we loathe an artificial strain, 700 
Yet Art and Nature joined will win the 

prize. 
Unless they act like us and our allies. 

The youth who trains to ride, or run 

a race. 
Must bear privations with unruffled 

face. 
Be called to labour when he thinks to 

dine, 
And, harder still, leave wenching and 

his wine. 
Ladies who sing, at least who sing at 

sight, 
Have followed Music through her far- 
thest flight; 
But rhymers tell you neither more nor 

less, 
"I've got a pretty poem for the 

Press;" 
And that's enough; then write and print 

so fast; — 710 

If Satan take the hindmost, who'd be 

last? 
They storm the Types, they publish, 

one and all, 
They leap the counter, and they leave 

the stall. 

and Thirty Years Ago" (Prose Works, 1836, 
ii. 30), records his repeated visits, as a Blue 
Coat boy, "to the Lions in the Tower — to 
whose levee, by courtesy immemorial, we had 
a prescriptive title to admission."] 



14.6 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



Provincial Maidens, men of high com- 
mand, 

Yea! Baronets have inked the bloody 
hand! 

Cash cannot quell them; Pollio played 
this prank, 

(Then Phoebus first found credit in a 
Bank !) 

Not all the living only, but the dead. 

Fool on, as fluent as an Orpheus' 
Head; ^ 720 

Damned all their days, they posthu- 
mously thrive 

Dug up from dust, — though buried 
vv^hen alive ! 

Reviews record this epidemic crime, 

Those Books of Martyrs to the rage for 
rhyme. 

Alas! woe worth the scribbler! often 
seen 

In Morning Post, or Monthly Magazine. 

There lurk his earlier lays; but soon, 
hot pressed. 

Behold a Quarto ! — Tarts must tell the 
rest. 

Then leave, ye wise, the Lyre's pre- 
carious chords 

To muse-mad baronets, or madder 
lords, 730 

Or country Crispins, now grown some- 
what stale. 

Twin Doric minstrels, drunk with Doric 
ale! 

Hark to those notes, narcotically soft ! 

The Cobbler-Laureats 2 sing to Capel 
Lofft ! 3 

^ "Turn quoque, marmorea caput a cervice 
revulsum 
Gurgite cum medio portans CEagrius Hebrus 
Volveret, Eurydicen vox ipsa et frigida 

lingua, 
Ah miseram Eurydicen 1 anima fugiente 

vocabat ; 

Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripae." 

— Georgic. iv. 11. 523-527- 

' I beg Nathaniel's pardon: he is not a cobbler; 

it is a tailor, but begged Capel Lofft to sink the 

profession in his preface to two pair of panta — 

psha ! — of cantos, which he wished the public 

to try on; but the sieve of a patron let it out, and 

so far saved the expense of an advertisement to 

his country customers — Merry's " Moorfield's 

whine" was nothing to all this. The "Delia 

Cruscans" were people of some education, and 

no profession; but these Arcadians ("Arcades 

ambo " — bumpkins both) send out their native 

nonsense without the smallest alloy, and leave 



Till, lo ! that modern Midas, as he hears, 
Adds an ell growth to his egregious ears ! 

There lives one Druid, who prepares 

in time 
'Gainst future feuds his poor revenue of 

rhyme; 
Racks his dull Memory, and his duller 

Muse, 
To publish faults which Friendship 

should excuse. 740 

all the shoes and small-clothes in the parish 
unrepaired, to patch up Elegies on Enclosures, 
and Pagans to Gunpowder. Sitting on a shop- 
board, they descnoe the fields of battle, when 
the only blood they ever saw was shed from the 
finger; and an "Essay on War" is produced 
by the ninth part of a "poet"; 
"And own that nine such poets made a Tate." 
Did Nathan ever read that line of Pope? and if 
he did, why not take it as his motto? [An 
Essay on War ; Honington Green, a Ballad, . . . 
an Elegy and other Poems, was published in 
1803.] 

3 This well-meaning gentleman has spoiled 
some excellent shoemakers, and been accessory 
to the poetical undoing of many of the industrious 
poor. Nathaniel Bloomfield and his brother 
Bobby have set all Somersetshire singing; nor 
has the malady confined itself to one county. 
Pratt too (who once was wiser) has caught the 
contagion of patronage, and decoyed a poor 
fellow named Blackett into poetry; but he died 
during the operation, leaving one child and two 
volumes of "Remains" utterly destitute. The 
girl, if she don't take a poetical twist, and come 
forth as a shoemaking Sappho, may do well; 
but the "tragedies" are as rickety as if they had 
been the offspring of an Earl or a Seatonian 
prize poet. The patrons of this poor lad are 
certainly answerable for his end; and it ought 
to be an indictable offence. But this is the least 
they have done; for, by a refinement of bar- 
barity, they have made the (late) man post- 
humously ridiculous, by printing what he would 
have had sense enough never to print himself. 
Certes these rakers of "Remains" come under 
the statute against "resurrection men." What 
does it signify whether a poor dear dead dunce 
is to be stuck up in Surgeons' or in Stationers' 
Hall? Is it so bad to unearth his bones as his 
blunders? Is it not better to gibbet his body 
on a heath, than his soul in an octavo? ' We 
know what we are, but we know not what we 
may be;" and it is to be hoped we never shall 
know, if a man w'no has passed through life 
with a sort of eclat is to find himself a mounte- 
bank on the other side of Styx, and made, like 
poor Joe Blackett, the laughing-stock of pur- 
gatory. The plea of publication is to provide 
for the child; now, might not some of this Sutor 
ultra Crepidam^s friends and seducers have done 
a decent action without inveigling Pratt into 
biography? And then his inscription split into 
so many modicums! — "To the Duchess of 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



147 



If Friendship's nothing, Self-regard 

might teach 
More poUshed usage of his parts of 

speech. 
But what is shame, or what is aught to 

him? 
He vents his spleen, or gratifies his 

whim. 
Some fancied slight has roused his lurk- 
ing hate. 
Some folly crossed, some jest, or some 

debate; 
Up to his den Sir Scribbler hies, and 

soon 
The gathered gall is voided in Lampoon. 
Perhaps at some pert speech you've 

dared to frown. 
Perhaps your Poem may have pleased 

the Town: 750 

If so, alas ! 'tis nature in the man — 
May Heaven forgive you, for he never 

can ! 
Then be it so; and may his withering 

Bays 
Bloom fresh in satire, though they fade 

in praise. 
While his lost songs no more shall steep 

and stink, 
The dullest, fattest weeds on Lethe's 

brink, 
But springing upwards from the slug- 
gish mould, 
Be (what they never were before) be — 

sold! 
Should some rich Bard (but such a 

monster now. 
In modern Physics, we can scarce 

allow), 760 

Somuch, the Right Hon. So-and-So, and Mrs 
and Miss Somebody, these volumes are," etc. 
etc. — why, this is doling out the "soft milk of 
dedication" in gills, — there is but a,^uart, 
and he divides it among a dozen. Why, Pratt, 
hadst thou not a puff left? Dost thou think 
six families of distinction can share this in quiet ? 
There is a child, a book, and a dedication: 
send the girl to her grace, the volumes to the 
grocer, and the dedication to the devil. 

[For Robert Bloomiield, see English Bards, 
11- 773-785, and n-ole. For Joseph Blacket, see 
English Bards, 11. 764-769, and note. For 
Capel Lofift, see English Bards, 1. 773, and note. 
Blacket's Remains, with Life by Pratt, ap- 
peared in 1811. The work was dedicated "To 
Her Grace the Duchess of Leeds, Lady Mil- 
banke and Family, Benevolent Patrons of the 
Author," etc.] 



Should some pretending scribbler of the 
Court, 

Some rhyming Peer — there's plenty of 
the sort • — ■ ^ 

x\ll but one poor dependent priest with- 
drawn, 

(Ah! too regardless of his Chaplain's 
yawn !) 

Condemn the unlucky Curate to recite 

Their last dramatic work by candle- 
light. 

How would the preacher turn each rue- 
ful leaf. 

Dull as his sermons, but not half so 
brief ! 

Yet, since 'tis promised at the Rector's 
death. 

He'll risk no living for a little breath. 

Then spouts and foams, and cries at 
every line, 771 

(The Lord forgive him!) "Bravo! 
Grand! Divine!" 



' Here will Mr Gifford allow me to introduce 
once more to his notice the sole survivor, the 
"ultimus Romanorum," the last of the Cruscanti 
— "Edwin" the "profound," by our Lady of 
Punishment ! here he is, as lively as in the days 
of "well said Baviad the correct." I thought 
Fitzgerald had been the tail of poesy ; but, alas I 
he is only the penultimate. 



A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO THE EDITOR OF THE 
'morning CHRONICLE.' 

"'What reams of paper, floods of ink,' 
Do some men spoil, who never think! 
And so perhaps you'll say of me, 
In which your readers may agree. 

"Still I write on, and tell you why; 
Nothing's so bad, you can't deny, 
But may instruct or entertain 
Without the risk of giving pain," etc., etc. 

"on SOME MODERN QUACKS AND REFORMISTS. 

"In tracing of the human mind 
Through all its various courses. 
Though strange, 'tis true, we often find 
It knows not its resources: 

"And men through life assume a part 
For which no talents they possess, 
Yet wonder that, with all their art, 

They meet no better with success," etc., etc. 

[.4 Familiar Epistle, etc., by T. Vaughan, 
Esq., was published in the Morning Chronicle, 
October 7, 181 1. Gifford, in the Baviad (1. 350) 
speaks of "Edwin's mewlings," and, in a note, 
names "Edwin" as the "profound Mr T. 
Vaughan."] 



14^ 



HINTS FROM HORACE 



Hoarse with those praises (which, by 
Flatt'ry fed, 

Dependence barters for her bitter 
bread), 

He strides and stamps along with creak- 
ing boot. 

Till the floor echoes his emphatic foot. 

Then sits again, then rolls his pious 
eye, 

As when the dying vicar will not die ! 

Nor feels, forsooth, emotion at his 
heart; — 

But all Dissemblers overact their part. 

Ye, who aspire to "build the lofty 
rhyme," ^ 781 

BeUeve not all who laud your false 
"sublime"; 

B^it if some friend shall hear your work, 
and say, 

"Expunge that stanza, lop that line 
away," 

And, after fruitless efforts, you return 

Without amendment, and he answers, 
"Burn!" 

That instant throw your paper in the 
fire, 

Ask not his thoughts, or follow his 
desire; 

But (if true Bard !) you scorn to conde- 
scend. 

And will not alter what you can't de- 
fend, 790 

If you will breed this Bastard of your 
Brains,^ 

We'll have no words — I've only lost 
my pains. 

Yet, if you only prize your favourite 

thought. 
As critics kindly do, and authors 

ought; 
If your cool friend annoy you now and 

then. 
And cross whole pages with his plaguy 

pen; 
No matter, throw your ornaments 

aside, 
Better let him than all the world deride. 

' [See Milton's Lycidas.] 

' Minerva being the first by Jupiter's head- 
piece, and a variety of equally unaccountable 
parturitions upon earth, such as Madoc, etc., etc. 



Give light to passages too much in 

shade. 
Nor let a doubt obscure one verse you've 

made ; 800 

Your friend's a " Johnson," not to leave 

one word, 
However trifling, which may seem 

absurd ; 
Such erring trifles lead to serious ills. 
And furnish food for critics, or their 

quills.^ 

As the Scotch fiddle, with its touching 

tune, 
Or the sad influence of the angry Moon, 
All men avoid bad writers' ready 

tongues 
As yawning waiters fly ^ Fitzscribble's 

lungs; 
Yet on he mouths — ten minutes — 

tedious each 
As Prelate's homily, or placeman's 

speech; 810 

Long as the last year of a lingering lease. 
When Riot pauses until Rents increase. 
While such a minstrel, muttering fustian, 

strays 
O'er hedge and ditch, through unfre- 
quented ways. 
If bv some chance he walks into a 

well. 
And shouts for succour with stentorian 

yell, 
"A rope! help. Christians, as ye hope 

for grace !" 
Nor woman, man, nor child will stir a 

pace; 
For there his carcass he might freely 

fling, 
From frenzy, or the humour of the 

thing. 820 

Though this has happened to more 

Bards than one; 
I'll tell you Budgell's story, — and have 

done. 



' "A crust for the critics." — Bayes, in The 
Rehearsal [act ii. sc. 2]. 

^ And the "waiters" are the only fortunate 
people who can "fly" from them; all the rest, 
viz. the sad subscribers to the " Literary Fund," 
being compelled, by courtesy, to sit out the 
recitation without a hope of exclaiming, "Sic" 
(that is, by choking Fitz with bad wine, or 
worse poetry) "me servavit Apollo!" 



THE CURSE OF MINERVA 



149 



Budgell, a rogue and rhymester, for 

no good, 
(Unless his case be much misunder- 
stood) 
When teased with creditors' continual 

claims, 
"To die like Cato," ^ leapt into the 

Thames ! 
And, therefore, be it lawful through the 

town 
For any Bard to poison, hang, or drown. 
Who saves the intended Suicide receives 
Small thanks from him who loathes the 

life he leaves; 830 

And, sooth to say, mad poets must not 

lose 
The Glory of that death they freely 

choose. 

Nor is it certain that some sorts of 

verse 
Prick not the Poet's conscience as a 

curse; 
Dosed ^ with vile drams on Sunday he 

was found, 
Or got a child on consecrated ground ! 
And hence is haunted with a rhyming 

rage — 
Feared like a bear just bursting from 

his cage. 
If free, all fly his versifying fit, 
Fatal at once to Simpleton or Wit: 840 
But him, unhappy ! whom he seizes, — 

him 
He flays with Recitation limb by limb; 
Probes to the quick where'er he makes 

• his breach. 

And gorges like a Lawyer — or a Leech. 

» On his table were found these words : — 
"What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot 
be wrong." But Addison did not "approve"; 
and if he had, it would not have mended the 
matter. He had invited his daughter on the 
sartie water-party; but Miss Budgell, by some 
accident, escaped this last paternal attention. 
Thus fell the sycophant of "Atticus," and the 
enemy of Pope ! [Eustace Budgell (1686- 
1737), a friend and relative of Addison's, "leapt 
into the Thames" to escape the dishonour 
which attached to him in connection with the 
immediate pressure of money difficulties. He 
was, more or less, insane. BosweU's Life of 
Johnson (1886), p. 281.] 

* If "dosed with," etc. be censured as low, I 
beg leave to refer to the original for something 
still lower; and if any reader will translate 
" Minxerit in patrios cineres," etc. into a decent 



THE 
CURSE OF MINERVA.i 

" Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas 

Immolat, et poenara scelerato ex sanguine sumit. 
— JEneid, lib. xii. 11. 948, 949. 



Athens: Capuchin convent, 
March 17, 1811. 

Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be 

run,^ 
Along Morea's hills the setting Sun; 
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely 

bright. 
But one unclouded blaze of living light; 
O'er the hushed deep the yellow beam he 

throws. 
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it 

glows ; 
On old ^gina's rock and Hydra's isle 
The God of gladness sheds his parting 

smile; 
O'er his own regions lingering loves to 

shine. 
Though there his altars are no more 

divine. 10 

Descending fast, the mountain-shadows 

kiss 
Thy glorious Gulf, unconquered Sala- 

mis! 
Their azure arches through the long 

expanse. 
More deeply purpled, meet his mellow- 
ing glance, 
And tenderest tints, along their summits 

driven, 
Mark his gay course, and own the hues 

of Heaven; 

couplet, I will insert said couplet in lieu of the 
present. 

' [A fragment (in lines) of The Curse of 
Minerva, was first published in the New Monthly 
Magazine, for April, 1815. It was entitled The 
Malediction of Minerva; or The Athenian 
Marble Market. The full text was published, 
in 181 5, nominally in Philadelphia, but, prob- 
ablv, in London.] 

= [The lines (1-54) with which the Satire 
begins, down to "As thus, within the walls of 
Pallas' fane," first appeared (1814) as the open- 
ing stanza of the Third Canto of The Corsair. 
At that time the publication of The Curse of 
Minerva had been abandoned. (See Byron's 
note to The Corsair, Canto III. st. i. 1. i.)] 



50 



THE CURSE OF MINERVA 



Till, darkly shaded from the land and 

deep, 
Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to 

sleep. 

On such an eve his palest beam he 

cast 
When, Athens! here thy Wisest looked 

his last. 20 

How watched thy better sons his fare- 
well ray. 
That closed their murdered Sage's ^ 

latest day ! 
Not yet — not yet — Sol pauses on the 

hill. 
The precious hour of parting lingers 

still; 
But sad his light to agonising eyes, 
And dark the mountain's once delightful 

dyes; 
Gloom o'er the lovely land he seemed to 

pour. 
The land where Phoebus never frowned 

before ; 
But ere he sunk below Cithaeron's head, 
The cup of Woe was quaffed — the 

Spirit fled; 30 

The soul of Him that scorned to fear or 

fly- 

Who Hved and died as none can live or 
die. 

But lo! from high Hymettus to the 
plain 

The Queen of Night asserts her silent 
reign; ^ 

No murky vapour, herald of the storm. 

Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing 
form; 

With cornice glimmering as the moon- 
beams play. 

There the white column greets her grate- 
ful ray, 

And bright around, with quivering 
beams beset. 

Her emblem sparkles o'er the Minaret: 



' Socrates drank the hemlock a short time 
before sunset (the hour of execution), notwith- 
standing the entreaties of his disciples to wait 
till the sun went down. 

= The twilight in Greece is much shorter than 
in our own country; the days in winter are 
longer, but in summer of less duration. 



The groves of olive scattered dark and 

wide, 41 

Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty 

tide. 
The cypress saddening by the sacred 

mosque, 
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk, ^ 
And sad and sombre 'mid the holy 

calm, 
Near Theseus' fane, yon soHtary palm; 
All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the 

eye; 
And dull were his that passed them 

heedless by. 

Again the ^gean, heard no more afar. 
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental 

war: 50 

Again his waves in milder tints unfold 
Their long expanse of sapphire and of 

gold. 
Mixed with the shades of many a distant 

isle 
That frown, where gentler Ocean deigns 

to smile. 

As thus, within the walls of Pallas* 

fane, 
I marked the beauties of the land and 

main. 
Alone, and friendless, on the magic 

shore, 
Whose arts and arms but live in poets' 

lore; 
Oft as the matchless dome I turned to 

scan. 
Sacred to Gods, but not secure from 

Man, 60 

The Past returned, the Present seemed 

to cease. 
And Glory knew no clime beyond her 

Greece ! 

Hour rolled along, and Dian's orb on 
high 
Had gained the centre of her softest 

sky; 

' The kiosk is a Turkish summer-house; the 
palm is without the present walls of Athens, not 
far from the temple of Theseus, between which 
and the tree the wall intervenes. Cephisus' 
stream is indeed scanty, and Ilissus has no 
stream at all. 



THE CURSE OF MINERVA 



■5^ 



And yet unwearied still my footsteps 

trod 
O'er the vain shrine of many a vanished 

God: 
But chiefly, Pallas ! thine, when Hecate's 

glare 
Checked by thy columns, fell more sadly 

"fair 
O'er the chill marble, where the star- 
tling tread 
Thrills the lone heart like echoes from 

the dead. 70 

Long had I mused, and treasured every 

trace 
The wreck of Greece recorded of her 

race. 
When, lo ! a giant-form before me 

strode. 
And Pallas hailed me in her own 

Abode ! 

Yes, 'twas Minerva's self; but, ah ! 

how changed, 
Since o'er the Dardan field in arms she 

ranged ! 
Not such as erst, by her divine com- 
mand, 
Her form appeared from Phidias' 

plastic hand: 
Gone were the terrors of her awful 

brow. 
Her idle ^gis bore no Gorgon now ; 80 
Her helm was dinted, and the broken 

lance 
Seemed weak and shaftless e'en to mortal 

glance; 
The Olive Branch, which still she 

deigned to clasp. 
Shrunk from her touch, and withered in 

her grasp; 
And, ah ! though still the brightest of 

the sky. 
Celestial tears bedimmed her large blue 

eye ; 
Round the rent casque her owlet 

circled slow. 
And mourned his mistress with a shriek 

of woe ! 

" Mortal ! " — 'twas thus she spake — 
"that blush of shame 
Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble 
name; 90 



First of the mighty, foremost of the free, 
Now honoured less by all, and least by 

me: 
Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be 

found. 
Seek'st thou the cause of loathing? — 

look around. 
Lo ! here, despite of war and wasting 

fire, 
I saw successive Tyrannies expire; 
'Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and 

Goth, 
Thy country sends a spoiler worse than 

" both. 
Survey this vacant, violated fane; 
Recount the relics torn that yet remain: 
These Cecrops placed, this Pericles 

adorned,^ loi 

That Adrian reared when drooping 

Science mourned. 
What more I owe let Gratitude attest — 
Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest. 
That all may learn from whence the 

plunderer came. 
The insulted wall sustains his hated 

name: 
For Elgin's fame thus grateful Pallas 

pleads, 
Below, his name — above, behold his 

deeds ! 
Be ever hailed with equal honour here 
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish 

peer: no 

Arms gave the first his right, the last had 

none. 
But basely stole what less barbarians 

won . 
So when the Lion quits his fell repast, 
Next prowls the Wolf, the filthy Jackal 

last: 
Flesh, Umbs, and blood the former make 

their own, 
The last poor brute securely gnaws the 

bone. 
Yet still the Gods are just, and crimes 

are crossed; 
See here what Elgin won, and what he 

lost! 

' This is spoken of the city in general, and not 
of the Acropolis in particular. The temple of 
Jupiter Olympius, by some supposed the Pan- 
theon, was finished by Hadrian; sixteen columns 
are standing, of the most beautiful marble and 
architecture. 



152 



THE CURSE OF MINERVA 



Another name with his pollutes my 

shrine : 
Behold where Dian's beams disdain to 

shine! 120 

Some retribution still might Pallas claim, 
When Venus half avenged Minerva's 

shame." ^ 

She ceased awhile, and thus I dared 

reply. 
To soothe the vengeance kindling in her 

eye: 
"Daughter of Jove ! in Britain's injured 

name, 
A true-born Briton may the deed dis- 
claim. 
Frown not on England; England owns 

him not: 
Athena, no ! thy plunderer was a Scot. 
Ask'st thou the difference? From fair 

Phyle's towers 
Survey Boeotia; — Caledonia's ours. 130 
And, well I know, within that bastard 

land 2 
Hath Wisdom's goddess never held com- 
mand; 
A barren soil, where Nature's germs, 

confined 
To stern steriHty, can stint the mind; 
Whose thistle well betrays the niggard 

earth. 
Emblem of all to whom the Land gives 

birth; 
Each genial influence nurtured to resist; 
A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist. 
Each breeze from foggy mount and 

marshy plain 
Dilutes with drivel every drizzly brain, 
Till, burst at length, each wat'ry head 

o'erflows, 141 

Foul as their soil, and frigid as their 



' His lordship's name, and that of one who no 
longer bears it, are carved conspicuously on the 
Parthenon; above, in a part not far distant, are 
the torn remnants of the basso-relievos, destroyed 
in a vain attempt to remove them. [On the 
Erechtheum there was deeply cut in a plaster wall 
the words — 

"Quod non fecerunt Goti 

Hoc FECERUNT ScOTI."] 

= "Irish bastards," according to Sir Callaghan 
O'Brallaghan. ["A wild Irish soldier in the 
Prussian Army," in Macklin's Love-a-la-M ode 
(hrst played December 12, 1759).] 



Then thousand schemes of petulance 

and pride 
Despatch her scheming children far and 

wide ; 
Some East, some West, some — every- 
where but North ! 
In quest of lawless gain, they issue forth. 
And thus — accursed be the day and 

year ! — 
She sent a Pict to play the felon here. 
Yet Caledonia claims some native worth, 
As dull Boeotia gave a Pindar birth ; 1 50 
So may her few, the lettered and the 

brave. 
Bound to no cHme and victors of the 

grave, 
Shake off the sordid dust of such a land. 
And shine like children of a happier 

strand ; 
As once, of yore, in some obnoxious 

place. 
Ten names (if found) had saved a 

wretched race." 

"Mortal!" the blue-eyed maid re- 
sumed, "once more 

Bear back my mandate to thy native 
shore. 

Though fallen, alas ! this vengeance yet 
is mine, 

To turn my counsels far from lands like 
thine. 160 

Hear then in silence Pallas' stern behest; 

Hear and believe, for Time will tell the 
rest. 

"First on the head of him who did 

this deed 
My curse shall light, — on him and all 

his seed: 
Without one spark of intellectual fire, 
Be all the sons as senseless as the sire; 
If one with wit the parent brood dis- 
grace. 
Believe him bastard of a brighter race: 
Still with his hireling artists let him 

prate. 
And Folly's praise repay for Wisdom's 

hate; 170 

Long of their Patron's gusto let them 

tell. 
Whose noblest, native gusto is — to 

sell: 



THE CURSE OF MINERVA 



^S3> 



To sell, and make — may Shame record 

the day ! • — 
The State — receiver of his pilfered 

prey. 
Meantime, the flattering, feeble dotard, 

West, 
Europe's worst dauber, and poor 

Britain's best. 
With palsied hand shall turn each model 

o'er. 
And own himself an infant of four- 
score.^ 
Be all the Bruisers culled from all St 

Giles', 
That Art and Nature may compare their 

styles; i8o 

While brawny brutes in stupid wonder 

stare, 
And marvel at his Lordship's 'stone 

shop' there.^ 
Round the thronged gate shall saunter- 
ing coxcombs creep 
To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and 

peep; 
While many a languid maid, with long- 
ing sigh, 
On giant statues casts the curious 

eye; 
The room with transient glance appears 

to skim, 
Yet marks the mighty back and length 

of limb; 
Mourns o'er the difference of now and 

then; 
Exclaims, 'These Greeks indeed were 

proper men !' 190 

Draws slight comparisons of these with 

those. 
And envies Lais all her Attic beaux. 
When shall a modern maid have swains 

like these? 
Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules! 
And last of all, amidst the gaping 

crew, 
Some calm spectator, as he takes his 

view, 

' Mr West, on seeing the "Elgin Collection," 
(I suppose we shall hear of the "Abershaw" and 
"Jack Shepherc^' collection) declared himself a 
"mere tyro" in art. 

' Poor Crib was sadly puzzled when the 
marbles were first exhibited at Elgin House; he 
asked if it was not "a stone shop"? — He was 
right ; it is a shop. 



In silent indignation mixed with grief, 
Admires the plunder, but abhors the 

thief. 
Oh, loathed in life, nor pardoned in the 

dust, 
May Hate pursue his sacrilegious lust! 
Linked with the fool that fired the 

Ephesian dome, 201 

Shall vengeance follow far beyond the 

tomb,"- 
And Eratostratus ^ and Elgin shine 
In many a branding page and burning 

line; 
Alike reserved for aye to stand ac- 
cursed. 
Perchance the second blacker than the 

first. 

"So let him stand, through ages yet 

unborn, 
Fixed statue on the pedestal of Scorn; 
Though not for him alone revenge shall 

wait. 
But fits thy country for her coming fate : 
Hers were the deeds that taught her 

lawless son 211 

To do what oft Britannia's self had 

done. 
Look to the Baltic — blazing from afar, 
Your old ally yet mourns perfidious 

war.^ 
Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her 

aid. 
Or break the compact which herself had 

made; 
Far from such counsels, from the faith- 
less field 
She fled — but left behind her Gorgon 

shield, 
A fatal gift that turned your friends to 

stone, 
And left lost Albion hated and alone. 220 

' [Lines 202-265 are not in the MS.'] 
" [Herostratus or Eratostratus fired the 
temple of Artemis on the same night that Alex- 
ander the Great was born.] 

^ [Copenhagen was bombarded by sea by 
Admiral Lord Gambler, and, by land, by 
General Lord Cathcart, September^ 2-8, 1807. 
The citadel was given up to the English, and the 
Danes surrendered their fleet, with all the naval 
stores, and their arsenals and dockyards. _ The 
expedition was promptly andsecretlv equipped 
by the British Government, with a view to an- 
ticipate the seizure and appropriation of the 
Danish fleet by Napoleon and Alexander.] 



154 



THE CURSE OF MINERVA 



"Look to the East, where Ganges' 

swarthy race 
Shall shake your tyrant empire to its 

base; 
Lo ! there Rebellion rears her ghastly 

head, 
And glares the Nemesis of native 

dead; 
Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal 

flood. 
And claims his long arrear of northern 

blood. 
So may ye perish ! — Pallas, when she 

gave 
Your free-born rights, forbade ye to 

enslave. 

"Look on your Spain! — she clasps 

the hand she hates. 
But boldly clasps, and thrusts you from 

her gates. 230 

Bear witness, bright Barossa ! ^ thou 

canst tell 
Whose were the sons that bravely fought 

and fell. 
But Lusitania, kind and dear ally. 
Can spare a few to fight, and sometimes 

fly. 
Oh glorious field ! by Famine fiercely 

won. 
The Gaul retires for once, and all is 

done ! 
But when did Pallas teach, that one 

retreat 
Retrieved three long Olympiads of 

defeat ? 



' [The victory of "bright Barossa," March 5, 
181 1, was achieved by the sudden determination 
— "an inspiration rather than a resolution," — 
of the British commander. General Graham 
(Thomas, Lord Lynedoch), to counter-march 
his troops, and force the eminence known as 
the Cerro de Puerco, or hill of Barosa, which 
had fallen into the hands of the French under 
Ruffin. Napier affirms that the Spanish Cap- 
tain-General La Pena "looked idly on, neither 
sending his cavalry nor his horse artillery to the 
assistance of his ally"; and testifies "that no 
stroke in aid of the British was struck by a 
Spanish sabre that day." 

Two companies of the 20th Portuguese 
formed part of the British contingent, and took 
part in the engagement; but at Gebora (Febru- 
ary 10, 181 1) "Madden's Portuguese, regardless 
of his example and reproaches, shamefully 
turned their backs." (Napier's History of the 
Peninsular War (iSgo), iii. 26, 98, 102-107.)] 



"Look last at home — ye love not to 

look there 
On the grim smile of comfortless 

despair : 240 

Your city saddens: loud though Revel 

howls. 
Here Famine faints, and yonder Rapine 

prowls. 
See all alike of more or less bereft; 
No misers tremble when there's nothing 

left. 
'Blest paper credit' ^ — who shall dare 

to sing? 
It clogs like lead Corruption's weary 

wing. 
Yet Pallas plucked each Premier by the 

ear. 
Who Gods and men alike disdained to 

hear; 
But one, repentant o'er a bankrupt 

state. 
On Pallas calls, — but calls, alas ! too 

late: 250 

Then raves for **;2 to that Mentor 

bends. 
Though he and Pallas never yet were 

friends. 
Him Senates hear, whom never yet 

they heard, 
Contemptuous once, and now no less 

absurd. 
So, once of yore, each reasonable 

frog, 
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign 

' log.' 
Thus hailed your rulers their patrician 

clod. 
As Egypt chose an onion for a 

God. 



I "Blest paper credit ! last and best supply, 
That lends Corruption lighter wings to fly. 
— Pope. 

[In February, 1811, a select committee of the 
House of Commons "on commercial credit" 
recommended an advance of £6,000,000 to 
manufacturers who were suffering from over- 
speculation. " Did they not know," asked Lord 
Grenville, in the House of Lords, March 21, 
"that they were adding to the mass of paper at 
this moment in existence a sum of ;^6,ooo,ooo, 
as if there was not paper enough already in the 
country, in order to protect their commerce and 
manufacturers from destruction?" Neverthe- 
less, the measure passed.] 

= [It is possible that the asterisks stand for 
"Horner."] 



THE CURSE OF MINERVA 



155 



"Now fare ye well ! enjoy your little 
hour; 
Go, grasp the shadow of your vanished 



power; 



260 



Gloss o'er the failure of each fondest 

scheme : 
Your strength a name, your bloated 

wealth a dream. 
Gone is that Gold, the marvel of man- 
kind, 
And Pirates barter all that's left be- 
hind.^ 
No more the hirelings, purchased near 

and far. 
Crowd to the ranks of mercenary 

war. 
The idle merchant on the useless 

quay 
Droops o'er the bales no bark may bear 

away; 
Or, back returning, sees rejected 

stores 
Rot piecemeal on his own encumbered 

shores: 270 

The starved mechanic breaks his rusting 

loom. 
And desperate mans him 'gainst the 

coming doom. 
Then in the Senates of your sinking 

state 
Show me the man whose counsels may 

have weight. 
Vain is each voice where tones could 

once command; 
E'en factions cease to charm a factious 

land: 
Yet jarring sects convulse a sister Isle, 
And light with maddening hands the 

mutual pile. 

"'Tis done, 'tis past — since Pallas 
warns in vain; 

The Furies seize her abdicated reign: 

Wide o'er the realm they wave their 
kindling brands, 281 

And wring her vitals with their fiery 
hands. 

But one convulsive struggle still re- 
mains. 

And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear 
her chains, 

» The Deal and Dover traffickers in specie. 



The bannered pomp of war, the glitter- 
ing files, 
O'er whose gay trappings stern Bellona 

smiles; 
The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring 

drum. 
That bid the foe defiance ere they 

come; 
The hero bounding at his country's call. 
The glorious death that consecrates his 

fall, 290 

Swell the young heart with visionary 

charms. 
And bid it antedate the joys of arms. 
But know, a lesson you may yet be 

taught, 
With death alone are laurels cheaply 

bought; 
Not in the conflict Havoc seeks de- 
light. 
His day of mercy is the day of fight. 
But when the field is fought, the battle 

won. 
Though drenched with gore, his woes 

are but begun: 
His deeper deeds as yet ye know by 

name; 
The slaughtered peasant and the 

ravished dame, 300 

The rifled mansion and the foe-reaped 

field, 
111 suit with souls at home, untaught to 

yield. 
Say with what eye along the distant 

down 
Would flying burghers mark the blazing 

town? 
How view the column of ascending 

flames 
Shake his red shadow o'er the startled 

Thames ? 
Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch 

was thine 
That lit such pyres from Tagus to the 

Rhine: 
Now should they burst on thy devoted 

coast. 
Go, ask thy bosom who deserves them 

most? 310 

The law of Heaven and Earth is life for 

life, 
And she who raised, in vain regrets, 

the strife." 



iS6 



THE WALTZ 



THE WALTZ 1: 

AN APOSTROPHIC HYMN. 

By Horace Hornem, Esq. 

"Qualis in Eurotse ripis, aut per juga Cynthi, 
Exercet Diana choros." 

— Virgil. M,neid. i. 498, 499. 

"Such on Eurotas' banks, or Cynthus' height, 

Diana seems: and so she charms the sight. 

When in the dance the graceful goddess leads 

The quire of nymphs, and overtops their 

heads." 

— Dryden's Virgil. 

TO THE PUBLISHER. 

Sir, — I am a country Gentleman of a 
midland county. I might have been a 
Parliament-man for a certain borough; 
having had the offer of as many votes as 
General T. at the general election in 
1812.^ But I was all for domestic hap- 
piness; as, fifteen years ago, on a visit 
to London, I married a middle-aged 
Maid of Honour. We lived happily 
at Hornem Hall till last Season, when 
my wife and I were invited by the 
Countess of Waltzaway (a distant rela- 
tion of my Spouse) to pass the winter in 
town. Thinking no_ harm, and our 
Girls being come to a marriageable (or, 
as they call it, marketable) age, and hav- 
ing besides a Chancery suit inveterately 
entailed upon the family estate, we 
came up in our old chariot, — of which, 
by the bye, my wife grew so ashamed 
in less than a week, that I was obUged 
to buy a second-hand barouche, of 
which I might mount the box, Mrs H. 
says, if I could drive, but never see the 
inside — that place being reserved for 
the Honourable Augustus Tiptoe, her 
partner-general and Opera-knight. 
Hearing great praises of Mrs H.'s danc- 
ing (she was famous for birthnight 

' [The Waltz was written at Cheltenham, in 
the autumn of 1812, and published, anony- 
mously, February 18, 1813.] 

» State of the poll (last day) 5. [General 
Tarleton (1754-1833) contested Liverpool in 
October, 1812. For three days the poll stood 
at five, and on the last day, eleven. Canning 
and Gascoigne were the successful candidates.] 



minuets in the latter end of the last 
century), I unbooted, and went to a 
ball at the Countess's, expecting to see a 
country dance, or, at most, Cotillons, 
reels, and all the old paces to the newest 
tunes. But, judge of my surprise, on 
arriving, to see poor dear Mrs Hornem 
with her arms half round the loins of a 
huge hussar-looking gentleman I never 
set eyes on before; and his, to say truth, 
rather more than half round her waist, 

turning round, and round, to a d d 

see-saw up-and-down sort of tune, that 
reminded me of the "Black Joke," only 
more " affettuoso,'' ^ till it made me 
quite giddy with wondering they were 
not so. By and by they stopped a bit, 
and I thought they would sit or fall 
down: — but no; with Mrs H's. hand 
on his shoulder, "Quam familiar iter," ^ 
(as Terence said, when I was at school,) 
they walked about a minute, and then at 
it again, like two cock-chafers spitted 
on the same bodkin. I asked what all 
this meant, when, with a loud laugh, a 
child no older than our Wilhelmina (a 
name I never heard but in the Vicar of 
Wakefield, though her mother would call 
her after the Princess of Swappenbach,) 
said, "L — d! Mr Hornem, can't you 
see they're valtzing?" or waltzing (I 
forget which) ; and then up she got, and 
her mother and sister, and away they 
went, and round-abouted it till supper- 
time. Now that I know what it is, I 
like it of all things, and so does Mrs H. 
(though I have broken my shins, and 
four times overturned Mrs Hornem's 
maid, in practising the preliminary steps 
in a morning). Indeed, so much do I 
like it, that having a turn for rhyme, 
tastily displayed in some election bal- 
lads, and songs in honour of all the vic- 
tories (but till lately I have had little 

' More expressive. — [MS.] 

' My Latin is all forgotten, if a man can be 
said to have forgotten what he never remem- 
bered; but I bought my title-page motto of a 
Catholic priest for a three-shilling bank token, 
after much haggling for the even sixpence. I 
grudged the money to a papist, being all for the 
memory of Perceval and "No popery," and 
quite regretting the downfall of the pope, be- 
cause we can't burn him any more. ^ [Revise 
No. 2.] 



THE WALTZ 



157 



practice in that way), I sat down, and 
with the aid of William Fitzgerald, Esq., 
and a few hints from Dr Busby, (whose 
recitations I attend, and am monstrous 
fond of Master Busby's manner of 
delivering his father's late successful 
"Drury Lane Address,") I composed 
the following hymn, wherewithal to 
make my sentiments known to the 
Public; whom, nevertheless, I heartily 
despise, as well as the critics. I am. 
Sir, yours, etc., etc. 

HORACE HORNEM. 



Muse of the many-twinkling feet ! ^ 

whose charms 
Are now extended up from legs to 

arm's; 
Terpsichore ! — too long misdeemed a 

maid — 
Reproachful term — bestowed but to 

upbraid — 
Henceforth in all the bronze of bright- 
ness shine. 
The least a Vestal of the Virgin Nine. 
Far be from thee and thine the name of 

Prude: 
Mocked yet triumphant; sneered at, 

unsubdued; 
Thy legs must move to conquer as thev 

fly, 

If but thy coats are reasonably high ! 10 

Thy breast — if bare enough — requires 
no shield; 

Dance forth — sans armour thou shalt 
take the field 

And own — impregnable to most as- 
saults, 

Thy not too lawfully begotten "Waltz." 

Hail, nimble Nymph ! to whom the 

young hussar, 
The whiskered votary of Waltz and 

War, 
His night devotes, despite of spur and 

boots; 
A sight unmatched since Orpheus and 

his brutes: 

'"Glance their many-twinkling feet." — 
Gray. 



Hail, spirit-stirring Waltz ! — beneath 
whose banners 

A modern hero fought for modish man- 
ners; 20 

On Hounslow's heath to rival Welles- 
ley's ^ fame. 

Cocked, fired, and missed his man — 
but gained his aim; 

' To rival Lord Wellesley's, or his nephew's, 
as the reader pleases : — the one gained a pretty 
woman, whom he deserved, by fighting for; and 
the other has been lighting in the Peninsula 
many a long day, "by Shrewsbury clock," with- 
out gaining anything in that country but the title 
of "the Great Lord," and "the Lord"; which 
savours of profanation, having been hitherto 
applied only to that Being to whom " Te Deums" 
for carnage are the rankest blasphemy. — It is 
to be presumed the general will one day return 
to his Sabine farm: there 
"To tame the genius of the stubborn plain, 

Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain ! " 

The Lord Peterborough conquered con- 
tinents in a summer; we do more — we contrive 
both to conquer and lose them in a shorter 
season. If the "great Lord's" Cincinnatian 
progress in agriculture be no speedier than the 
proportional average of time in Pope's couplet, 
it will, according to the farmer's proverb, be 
"ploughing with dogs." 

By the bye — one of this illustrious person's 
new titles is forgotten — it is, however, worth 
remembering — ''Salvador del mtmdo!" cre- 
dite, posteri! If this be the appellation an- 
nexed by the inhabitants of the Peninsula to the 
name of a man who has not yet saved them — 
query — are they worth saving, even in this 
world? for, according to the mildest modifica- 
tions of any Christian Creed, those three words 
make the odds much against them in the next 
— "Saviour of the world," quotha! — it were 
to be wished that he, or any one else, could 
save a corner of it — his country. Yet this 
stupid misnomer, although it shows the near 
connection between superstition and impiety, 
so far has its use, that it proves there can be 
little to dread from those Catholics (inquisi- 
torial Catholics too) who can confer such an 
appellation on a Protestant. I suppose next 
year he will be entitled the "Virgin Mary"; if 
so. Lord George Gordon himself would have 
nothing to object to such liberal bastards of 
our Lady of Babylon. 

[William Pole Wellesley-Pole (i785?-i857), 
afterwards fourth Lord Mornington, a nephew 
of the great Duke of Wellington, married, in 
March, 181 2, Catharine, daughter and heiress 
of Sir Tylney Long, Bart. On his marriage he 
added his wife's double surname to his own, 
and, thereby, gave the wits their chance. In 
Rejected Addresses Fitzgerald is made to ex- 
claim — 

"Bless every man possess'd of aught to give, 
Long may Long-Tilney-Wellesley-Long-Pole 
live." 
The principals in the duel to which Byron 



158 



THE WALTZ 



Hail, moving Muse ! to whom the fair 

one's breast 
Gives all it can, and bids us take the 

rest. 
Oh ! for the flow of Busby,^ or of Fitz, 
The latter's loyalty, the former's wits. 
To "energise the object I pursue," 
And give both BeUal and his Dance their 

due ! 

Imperial Waltz! imported from the 

Rhine 
(Famed for the growth of pedigrees and 

wine), 30 

Long be thine import from all duty free. 
And Hock itself be less esteemed than 

thee ; 
In some few qualities alike — for Hock 
Improves our cellar — thou our living 

stock. 
The head to Hock belongs — thy subtler 

art 
Intoxicates alone the heedless heart: 
Through the full veins thy gentler 

poison swims. 
And wakes to Wantonness the wilUng 

limbs. 

Oh, Germany ! how much to thee we 

owe. 
As heaven-born Pitt can testify below, 40 
Ere cursed Confederation ^ made thee 

France's, 
And only left us thy d — d debts and 

dances ! 

alludes were Wellesley-Pole and Lord Kilworth. 
The occasion of the quarrel was a misconcep- 
tion of some expression of Wellesley-Pole's at an 
assembly at Lady Hawarden's (August 6, 181 1). 
Two meetings took place, the first (August 9), the 
second, August 15, 1811. On both occasions 
the seconds intervened, and matters were 
"amicably adjusted."] 

' [Thomas Busby, Mus. Doc. (1755-1838), 
musical composer, and author of A New and 
Complete Musical Dictionary, 1801, etc. His 
"rejected address" on the reopening of Drury 
Lane Theatre, would have been recited by his 
son (October 15), but the gallery refused to hear 
it out. On the next night (October 16) "Mas- 
ter" Busby was more successful. Byron's 
parody of Busby's address, which began with 
the line, " When energising objects men pursue," 
is headed, "Parenthetical Address. By Dr 
Plagiary."] 

» [The Confederation of the Rhine (1803- 
1813), by which the courts of Wiirtemberg and 
Baviria, together with some lesser principalities, 



Of subsidies and Hanover bereft. 

We bless thee still — for George the 

Third is left ! 
Of kings the best — and last, not least 

in worth, 
For graciously begetting George — the 

Fourth. 
To Germany, and Highnesses serene, 
Who owe us millions — don't we owe 

the Queen? 
To Germany, what owe we not besides ? 
So oft bestowing Brunswickers and 

brides; 50 

Who paid for vulgar, with her royal 

blood. 
Drawn from the stem of each Teutonic 

stud: 
Who sent us — so be pardoned all her 

faults — 
A dozen dukes, some kings, a Queen — • 

and Waltz. 

But peace to her — her Emperor and 
Diet, 

Though now transferred to Buona- 
parte's "fiat" ! 

Back to my theme — O muse of 
Motion ! say. 

How first to Albion found thy Waltz her 
way? 

Borne on the breath of Hyperborean 

gales. 
From Hamburg's port (while Hamburg 

yet had vtails), 60 

Ere yet unlucky Fame — compelled to 

creep 
To snowy Gottenburg — was chilled to 

sleep; 
Or, starting from her slumbers, deigned 

arise, 
Heligoland ! to stock thy mart with lies; 
While unburnt Moscow ' yet had news 

to send, 
Nor owed her fiery Exit to a friend, 

detached themselves from the Germanic Body, 
and accepted the immediate protection of 
France.] 

' The patriotic arson of our amiable allies 
cannot be sufficiently commended — nor sub- 
scribed for. Amongst other details omitted in 
the various despatches of our eloquent ambassa- 
dor, he did not state (being too much occupied 
with the exploits of Colonel C , in swim- 
ming rivers frozen, and galloping over roads im- 



THE WALTZ 



^59 



She came — Waltz came — and with 

her certain sets 
Of true despatches, and as true Ga- 
zettes; 
Then flamed of Austerlitz the blest 

despatch,^ 
Which Moniteur nor Morning Post can 

match; 70 

And — almost crushed beneath the 

glorious news — 
Ten plays, and forty tales of Kotze- 

bue's; ^ 
One envoy's letters, six composers' 

airs. 
And loads from Frankfort and from 

Leipsic fairs; 

passable,) that one entire province perished by 
famine in the most melancholy manner, as 
follows: — In General Rostopchin's consum- 
mate conflagration, the consumption of tallow 
and train oil was so great, that the market was 
inadequate to the demand: and thus one 
hundred .and thirty-three thousand persons 
were starved to death, by being reduced to 
wholesome diet ! the lamplighters of London 
have since subscribed a pint (of oil) apiece, and 
the tallow-chandlers have unanimously voted a 
quantity of best moulds (four to the pound), to 
the relief of the surviving Scythians; — the 
scarcity will soon, by such exertions, and a 
proper attention to the quality rather than the 
quantity of provision, be totally alleviated. It 
is said, in return, that the untouched Ukraine 
has subscribed sixty thousand beeves for a day's 
meal to our suffering manufacturers. 

[Hamburg fell to Napoleon's forces in 1810, 
and thenceforward the mails from the north of 
Europe were despatched from Anholt, or 
Gothenberg, or Heligoland. In 181 1 an attempt 
to enforce the conscription resulted in the emi- 
gration of numbers of young men of suitable 
age for military service. The unfortunate city 
was deprived of mails and males at the same 
time. Mails from Heligoland detailed rumours 
of what was taking place at the centres of war; 
but the newspapers occasionally threw doubts on 
the information obtained from this source. 
Lord Cathcart's despatch, dated November 23, 
appeared in the Gazette, December 16, 1812. 
The paragraph which appealed to Byron's 
sense of humour is as follows: "The expedi- 
tion of Colonel Chernichef_ {sic) [the Czar's 
aide-de-camp] was a continued and extra- 
ordinary exertion, he having marched seven 
hundred wersts {sic) in five days, and swam 
several rivers."] 

' [AusterHtz was fought on December 2, 
1805.] 

" [August Frederick Ferdinand von Kotzebue 
(i76i-i8ig), whom Coleridge appraised as "the 
German Beaumont and Fletcher without their 
poetic powers," and Carlyle as "a bundle of 
dyed rags," wrote over a hundred plays, publish- 
ing twenty within a few years.] 



Meiners' four volumes upon Woman- 

kind,i 
Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind; 
Brunck's heaviest tome for ballast,^ and, 

to back it, 
Of Heyne,^ such as should not sink the 

packet. 

Fraught vnth this cargo — and her 

fairest freight, 
Delightful Waltz, on tiptoe for a Mate, 
The welcome vessel reached the genial 

strand, 81 

And round her flocked the daughters of 

the land. 
Not decent David, when, before the ark, 
His grand Pas-seul excited some remark; 
Not love-lorn Quixote, when his Sancho 

thought 
The knight's Fandango friskier than it 

ought; 
Not soft Herodias, when, with winning 

tread, 
Her nimble feet danced off another's 

head; 
Not Cleopatra on her Galley's Deck, 
Displayed so much of leg or more of 

neck, 90 

Than Thou, ambrosial Waltz, when 

first the IVIoon 
Beheld thee twirling to a Saxon tune ! 

To You, ye husbands of ten years! 

whose brows 
Ache with the annual tributes of a 

spouse ; 
To you of nine years less, who only bear 
The budding sprouts of those that you 

shall wear, 

' [A translation of Christopher Meiners' 
History of the Female Sex, in four volumes, was 
published in London, in 1808. Lapland wiz- 
ards, not witches, were said to raise storms by 
knotting pieces of string, which they exposed to 
the wind.] 

' [Richard Franz Philippe Brunck (1729- 

1803). His editions of the Anthologia Grceca, 

and of the Greek dramatists are among his best 

known works. Compare Sheridan's doggerel — 

"Huge leaves of that great commentator, old 

Brunck, 

Perhaps is the paper that lined my poor 

Trunk."] 

3 [Christian Gottlob Heyne (1729-1812) 
published editions of Virgil (i 767-1775), and 
Fitidar (1773)-] 



i6o 



THE WALTZ 



With added ornaments around them 

rolled 
Of native brass, or law-awarded gold; 
To You, ye Matrons, ever on the watch 
To mar a son's, or make a daughter's 

match; loo 

To You, ye children of — whom chance 

accords — 
Always the Ladies, and sometimes their 

Lords; 
To You, ye single gentlemen, who seek 
Torments for life, or pleasures for a 

week; 
As Love of Hymen your endeavours 

guide. 
To gain your own, or snatch another's 

bride; — 
To one and all the lovely Stranger came, 
And every ball-room echoes with her 

name. 

Endearing Waltz ! — to thy more 

melting tune 
Bow Irish Jig, and ancient Rigadoon.^ 
Scotch reels, avaunt ! and Country- 
dance forego III 
Your future claims to each fantastic toe ! 
Waltz — Waltz alone — both legs and 

arms demands. 
Liberal of feet, and lavish of her hands; 
Hands which may freely range in pubUc 

sight 
Where ne'er before — but — pray "put 

out the light": 
Methinks the glare of yonder chandelier 
Shines much too far — or I am much too 

near; 
And true, though strange — Waltz 

whispers this remark, 
"My slippery steps are safest in the 

dark!" 120 

But here the Muse with due decorum 

halts. 
And lends her longest petticoat to 

"Waltz." 

Observant Travellers of every time ! 
Ye Quartos pubUshed upon every clime ! 
O say, shall dull Romaika's heavy round, 
Fandango's wriggle, or Bolero's bound; 

' [A lively dance for one couple, characterised 
by a peculiar jumping step. It probably origi- 
nated in Provence.] 



Can Egypt's Almas ^ — tantalising 

group — 
Columbia's caperers to the warlike 

Whoop — 
Can aught, from cold Kamschatka to 

Cape Horn, 
With Waltz compare, or after Waltz be 

born? 130 

Ah, no ! from Morier's pages down to 

Galt's,2 
Each tourist pens a paragraph for 

"Waltz." 

Shades of those Belles whose reign 

began of yore. 
With George the Third's — and ended 

long before ! — 
Though in your daughters' daughters 

yet you thrive, 
Burst from your lead, and be yourselves 

alive ! 
Back to the Ball-room speed your 

spectred host. 
Fool's Paradise is dull to that you 

lost. 
No treacherous powder bids Conjecture 

quake : 
No stiff-starched stays make meddling 

fingers ache; 140 

(Transferred to those ambiguous things 

that ape 
Goats in their visage,^ women in their 

shape;) 



' Dancing girls — vfho do for hire what 
Waltz doth gratis. [The Romaika is a modern 
Greek dance, characterised by serpentining 
figures and handkerchief-throwing among the 
dancers. The Fandango (Spaniards use the 
word "seguidilla") was of Moorish origin. 
The Bolero was brought from Provence, circ. 
1780. "The Bolero intoxicates, the Fandango 
inflames" (Hist, of Dancing, by G. Vuillier, 
Heinemann, 1898, ii. 239).] 

2 [For Morier, see note to line 211. Gait has 
a paragraph descriptive of the waltzing Dervishes 
{Voyages and Travels (181 2), p. 190).] 

3 It cannot be complained now, as in the Lady 
Baussiere's time, of the "Sieur de la Croix," that 
there be "no whiskers"; but how far these are 
indications of valour in the field, or elsewhere, 
may still be questionable. Much may be, and 
hath been, avouched on both sides. In the 
olden time philosophers had whiskers, and 
soldiers none — Scipio himself was shaven — 
Hannibal thought his one eye handsome enough 
without a beard; but Adrian, the emperor, 
wore a beard (having warts on his chin, which 
neither the Empress Sabina nor even the court- 



THE WALTZ 



i6i 



No damsel faints when rather closely 

pressed, 
But more caressing seems when most 

caressed ; 
Superfluous Hartshorn, and reviving 

Salts, 
Both banished bv the sovereign cordial 

"Waltz." 

Seductive Waltz ! — though on thy 

native shore 
Even Werter's self proclaimed thee half 

a whore; 
Werter — to decent vice though much 

inclined, 
Yet warm, not wanton; dazzled, but not 

blind — 150 

Though gentle Genlis,^ in her strife with 

Stael, 
Would even proscribe thee from a Paris 

ball; 
The fashion hails, from Countesses to 

Queens — 
And maids and valets waltz behind the 

scenes; 
Wide and more wide thy witching circle 

spreads. 
And turns — if nothing else — at least 

our heads ; 

iers could abide) — Turenne had whiskers, 
Marlborough none — Buonaparte is un- 
whiskered, the Regent whiskered; '' argal" 
greatness of mind and whiskers may or may not 
go together; but certainly the different occur- 
rences, since the growth of the last mentioned, 
go further in behalf of whiskers than the anath- 
ema of Anselm did against long hair in the 
reign of Hem-y I. — Formerly, red was a favour- 
ite colour. See Lodowick Barrey's comedy of 
Ram Alley, 1661; Act I. Scene i. 

" Taffeta. Now for a wager — What col- 
oured beard comes next by the window? 

'' Adriana. A black man's, I think. 

"Taffeta. I think not so: I think a red, for 
that is most in fashion." 

There is "nothing new under the sun": but 
red, then a favourite, has now subsided into a 
favourite's colour. [This is, doubtless, an al- 
lusion to Lord Yarmouth, whose fiery whiskers 
gained him the nickname of "Red Herrings."] 

■ [Madame Genlis maintains that the waltz 
"appears intolerable to German writers of 
superior merit, who are not accused of severity 
of manners," and instances Werther (Sorrows 
of Werther, Letter ix.), who swears that, "were 
he to perish for it, never should a girl for whom 
he entertained any affection, and on whom he 
had honourable views, dance the waltz with any 
other man besides himself." — Selections from 
the Works of Madame de Genlis (1806), p. 64.] 

M 



With thee even clumsy cits attempt to 

bounce. 
And cockneys practise what they can't 

pronounce. 
Gods ! how the glorious theme my 

strain exalts. 
And Rhyme finds partner Rhyme in 

praise of "Waltz"! 160 



Blest was the time Waltz chose for 

her debut! 
The Court, the Regent, like herself were 

new; ^ 
New face for friends, for foes some new 

rewards; 
New ornaments for black — and royal 

Guards; 
New laws to hang the rogues that roared 

for bread; 
New coins (most new) ^ to follow those 

that fled; 
New victories — nor can we prize them 

less. 
Though Jenky ^ wonders at his own 

success; 
New wars, because the old succeed so 

well, 
That most survivors envy those who 

fell; 170 

New mistresses — no, old — and yet 

'tis true. 
Though they be old, the thing is some- 
thing new; 



' An anachronism — Waltz and the battle of 
Austerlitz are before said to have opened the ball 
together; the bard means (if he means anything). 
Waltz was not so much in vogue till the Regent 
attained the acme of his popularity. Waltz, the 
comet, whiskers, and the new government, 
illuminated heaven and earth, in all their glory, 
much about the same time: of these the comet 
only has disappeared; the other three continue 
to astonish us still. — Printer's Devil. 

" Amongst others a new ninepence — a 
creditable coin now forthcoming, worth a pound, 
in paper, at the fairest calculation. _ [The "new 
ninepences" never passed into circulation at 
all. A single pattern coin is preserved in the 
British Museum.] 

3 [Robert Banks Jenkinson, second Earl of 
Liverpool, was Secretary at War and for the 
Colonies from 1809 to 181 2, in Spencer Perceval's 
administration, and, on the assassination of the 
premier, undertook the government. Both as 
Secretary at War and as Prime Minister his chief 
efforts were devoted to the support of Wellington 
in the Peninsula.] 



1 62 



THE WALTZ 



Each new, quite new — (except some 

ancient tricks)/ 
New white - sticks — gold - sticks — 

broom-sticks — all new sticks ! 
With vests or ribands — decked alike 

in hue, 
New troopers strut, new turncoats blush 

in blue: 
So saith the Muse: my ,^ what 

say you? 
Such was the time when Waltz might 

best maintain 
Her new preferments in this novel reign: 
Such was the time, nor ever yet was 

such; I 80 

Hoops are no more, and petticoats not 

much ; 
Morals and Minuets, Virtue and her 

stays. 
And tell-tale powder — all have had 

their days. 
The Ball begins — the honours of the 

house 
First duly done by daughter or by spouse, 
Some Potentate — or royal or serene — 
With Kent's gay grace, or sapient 

Gloster's mien. 
Leads forth the ready dame, whose rising 

flush 
Might once have been mistaken for a 

blush. 
From where the garb just leaves the 

bosom free, 190 

That spot where hearts ^ were once sup- 
posed to be; 

_' "Oh that right should thus overcome 
might!" Who does not remember the "delicate 
investigation" in the Merry Wives of Windsor ? — 
_ ''Ford. Pray you, come near; if I suspect 
without cause, why then make sport at me; then 
let me be your jest; I deserve it. How now? 
whither bear you this? 

''Mrs Ford. What have you to do whither 
they bear it ? — You were best meddle with 
buck- washing." [Act iii. sc. 3.] 

^ The gentle, or ferocious, reader may fill up 
the blank as he pleases — there are several dis- 
syllabic names at his service (being already in 
the Regent's): it would not be fair to back any 
peculiar initial against the alphabet, as every 
month will add to the list now entered for the 
sweep-stakes; — a distinguished consonant is 
said to be the favourite, much against the wishes 
of the knowing ones. — [Revise.] [In the Re- 
vise the line, which is not in the MS., ran, "So 

saith the Muse; my M what say you?" 

The name intended to be supplied is "Moira."] 

3 "We have changed all that," says the Mock 



Round all the confines of the yielded 
waist. 

The strangest hand may wander undis- 
placed: 

The lady's in return may grasp as much 

As princely paunches offer to her touch. 

Pleased round the chalky floor how well 
they trip. 

One hand reposing on the royal hip ! ' 

The other to the shoulder no less royal 

Ascending with affection truly loyal ! 

Thus front to front the partners move 
or stand, 200 

The foot may rest, but none withdraw 
the hand; 

And all in turn may follow in their rank. 

The Earl of — Asterisk — and Lady 
— Blank; 

Sir — Such-a-one — with those of Fash- 
ion's host. 

For whose blest surnames — vide 
"Morning Post": 

(Or if for that impartial print too late. 

Search Doctors' Commons six months 
from my date) — 

Doctor — 'tis all gone — Asmodeus knows 
where. After all, it is of no great importance 
how women's hearts are disposed of; they have 
nature's privilege to distribute them as absurdly 
as possible. But there are also some men with 
hearts so thoroughly bad, as to remind us of 
those phenomena often mentioned in natural 
history; viz. a mass of solid stone — only to be 
opened by force — ■ and when divided, you 
discover a toad in the centre, lively, and with the 
reputation of being venomous. 

[In the MS. the last sentence stood: "In 
this country there is one man with a heart so 
thoroughly bad that it reminds us of those un- 
accountable petrifactions often mentioned in 
natural history," etc. The couplet — 

"Such things we know are neither rich nor rare, 
But wonder how the Devil they got there," 

which was affixed to the note, was subsequently 
erased. The one man was, of course, the Prince 
Regent.] 

' [Compare Sheridan's lines on waltzing, 
which Moore heard him "repeat in a drawing- 
room" — 

" With tranquil step, and timid downcast glance, 
Behold the well-pair'd couple now advance. 
In such sweet posture our first parents moved, 
While, hand in hand, through Eden's bower 

they roved; 
Ere yet the devil, with promise fine and false, 
Turned their poor heads, and taught them how 

to waltz. 
One hand grasps hers, the other holds her hip, 

For so the law's laid down by Baron Trip."] 



THE WALTZ 



163 



Thus all and each, in movement swift 

or slow, 
The genial contact gently undergo; 
Till some might marvel, with the modest 

Turk, 210 

If "nothing follows all this palming 

work" ? ^ 
True, honest Mirza ! — you may trust 

my rhyme — 
Something does follow at a fitter time; 
The breast thus publicly resigned to man. 
In private may resist him — if it can. 

O ye who loved our Grandmothers of 

yore, 
Fitzpatrick,^ Sheridan, and many more ! 
And thou, my Prince ! whose sovereign 

taste and will 
It is to love the lovely beldames still ! 
Thou Ghost of Queensberry ! ^ whose 

judging Sprite 220 

Satan may spare to peep a single night, 
Pronounce — if ever in your days of 

bliss 
Asmodeus struck so bright a stroke as 

this; 
To teach the young ideas how to rise, 
Flush in the cheek, and languish in the 

eyes; 

' In Turkey a pertinent — here an imper- 
tinent and superfluous question — literally put, 
as in the text, by a Persian to Morier, on seeing 
a Waltz in Pera. [See A Journey through 
Persia, etc. By James Morier, London (1812), 
P- 365-] 

' [Richard Ficzpatrick (i 747-1813), second 
son of John, first Earl of Ossory. He was noted 
for his social gifts, and in recognition, it is said, 
of his "fine manners and polite address," 
inherited a handsome annuity from the Duke of 
Queensberry. Byron associates him with Sheri- 
dan as un hotnme galant and leader of ton of the 
past generation.] 

3 [William Douglas, third Earl of March and 
fourth Duke of Queensberry (1724-1810), 
otherwise "old Q.," was conspicuous as a 
"blood," and evil liver from youth to extreme 
old age. He was a patron of the turf, a con- 
noisseur of Italian Opera, and, surtout, an in- 
veterate libertine. As a Whig he held office in 
the Household during North's Coalition Minis- 
try, but throughout George the Third's first 
illness in 1788, displayed such indecent partisan- 
ship with the Prince of Wales, that, when the 
king recovered, he lost his post. His dukedom 
died with him, and his immense fortune was 
divided between the heirs to his other titles and 
his friends. Lord Yarmouth, whose wife, 
Maria Fagniani, he believed to be his natural 
daughter, was one of the principal legatees.] 



Rush to the heart, and lighten through 

the frame. 
With half-told wish, and ill-dissembled 

flame. 
For prurient Nature still will storm the 

breast — 
Who, tempted thus, can answer for the 

rest ? 

But ye — who never felt a single 

thought 230 

For what our Morals are to be, or ought ; 
Who wisely wish the charms you view 

to reap, 
Say — would you make those beauties 

quite so cheap? 
Hot from the hands promiscuously 

applied, 
Round the slight waist, or down the 

glowing side. 
Where were the rapture then to clasp 

the form 
From this lewd grasp and lawless con- 
tact warm? 
At once Love's most endearing thought 

resign. 
To press the hand so pressed by none 

but thine; 
To gaze upon that eye which never met 
Another's ardent look without regret; 241 
Approach the lip which all, without 

restraint, 
Come near enough — if not to touch — 

to taint; 
If such thou lovest — love her then no 

more, 
Or give — like her — caresses to a 

score ; 
Her Mind with these is gone, and with it 

go 
The little left behind it to bestow. 

Voluptuous Waltz ! and dare I thus 
blaspheme ? 

Thy bard forgot thy praises were his 
theme. 

Terpsichore forgive ! — at every Ball 

My wife now waltzes — and my daugh- 
ters shall; 251 

My son — (or stop — 'tis needless to 
inquire — 

These little accidents should ne'er 
transpire; 



t64 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



Some ages hence our genealogic tree 
Will wear as green a bough for him as 

me) — 
Waltzing shall rear, to make our name 

amends, 
Grandsons for me — in heirs to all his 

friends. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S 
PILGRIMAGE. 



ITINERARY OF LORD BYRON 
AND J. C. HOBHOUSE. 

1809, Canto I. 

July 2. Sail from Falmouth in Lis- 
bon packet. (Stanza xii. 
Letter 125.) 
July 6. Arrive Lisbon. (Stanzas xvi., 
xvii. Letter 126.) 
Visit Cintra. (Stanzas xviii- 

xxvi. Letter 128.) 
Visit Mafra. (Stanza xxix.) 
July 17. Leave Lisbon. (Stanza 

xxviii. Letter 127.) 
Ride through Portugal and 
Spain to Seville. (Stan- 
zas xxviii-xlii. Letter 127.) 
Visit Albuera. (Stanza xliii.) 
July 21. Arrive Seville. (Stanzas xlv., 

xlvi. Letters 127, 128.) 
July 25. Leave Seville. 

Ride to Cadiz, across the 
Sierra Morena. (Stanza 
li.) 
Cadiz. (Stanzas Ixv-lxxxiv. 
Letters 127, 128.) 

Canto IL 

Aug. 6. Arrive Gibraltar. (Letters 

127, 128.) 
Aug. 16. Sail from Gibraltar in Malta 

packet. (Stanzas xvii- 

xxviii.) 
Malta. (Stanzas xxix-xxxv. 

Letter 130.) 
Sept. 19. Sail from Malta in brig-of- 

wav Spider. (Letter 131.) 



Sept. 23. 



Sept. 
Sept. 


26 

27. 


Sept 


28 


Oct. 


I. 


Oct. 
Oct. 


3- 
4. 


Oct. 


5. 


Oct. 


8. 


Oct. 


II. 


Oct. 


13- 


Oct. 


14. 


Oct. 


15- 


Oct. 


17- 


Oct. 


18. 


Oct. 


19. 


Oct. 


'20. 


Oct. 


23- 


Oct. 


24. 


Oct. 


25- 


Oct. 
Oct. 


26. 

31- 


Nov 


3- 


Nov 


4. 


Nov 


5- 



Between Cephalonia and 
Zante. 

Anchor off Patras. 

In the channel between 
Ithaca and the mainland. 
(Stanzas xxxix-xlii.) 

Anchor off Prevesa (7 p.m.). 
(Stanza xlv.) 

Leave Prevesa, arrive Sala- 
khora (Salagoura). 

Leave Salakhora, arrive Arta. 

Leave Arta, arrive, han St 
Demetre (H. Dhimittrios). 

Arrive Janina. (Stanza xlvii. 
Letter 131.) 

Ride into the country. First 
day of Rarriazan. 

Leave Janina, arrive Zitza 
("Lines written during a 
Thunder-storm"). (Stan- 
zas xlviii-li. Letter 131.) 

Leave Zitza, arrive Mossiani 
(Moseri). 

Leave Mossiani, arrive 
Delvinaki (Dhelvinaki). 
(Stanza liv.) 

Leave Delvinaki, arrive 
Libokhovo. 

Leave Libokhovo, arrive Ces- 
arades (Kestourataes). 

Leave Cesarades, arrive 
Ereeneed (Irindi). 

Leave Ereeneed, arrive 
Tepeleni. (Stanzas Iv- 
Ixi.) 

Reception by Ali Pacha. 
(Stanzas Ixii-lxiv.) 

Leave Tepeleni, arrive 
Locavo (Lacovon). 

Leave Locavo, arrive Del- 
vinaki. 

Leave Delvinaki, arrive 
Zitza. 

Leave Zitza, arrive Janina. 

Byron begins the First Canto 
of Childe Harold. 

Leave Janina, arrive han St 
Demetre. 

Leave han St Demetre, ar- 
rive Arta. 

Leave Arta, arrive Sala- 
khora. 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



165 



Leave Salakhora, arrive Pre- 

vesa. 
Sail from Prevesa, anchor off 
mainland near Parga. 
(Stanzas Ixvii., Ixviii.) 
Leave Parga, and, returning 
by land, arrive Volondorako 
(Valanidorakhon). (Stanza 
Ixix.) 
Leave Volondorako, arrive 
Castrosikia (Kastrosykia). 
Leave Castrosikia, arrive Pre- 
vesa. 
Sail from Prevesa, anchor off 

Vonitsa. 
Sail from Vonitsa, arrive 
Lutraki(Loutraki). (Stan- 
zas Ixx., Ixxii., Song " Tam- 
bourgi, Tambourgi " ; 

Stanza vi^ritten in passing 
the Ambracian Gulph. Let- 
ter 131.) 
Leave Lutraki, arrive Katuna. 
Leave Katuna, arrive Makala 

(PMachalas). 
Leave Makala, arrive Guria. 
Leave Guria, arrive ^Etoli- 

kon. 
Leave ^tolikon, arrive Meso- 

longhi. 
Sail from Mesolonghi, arrive 

Patras. 
Leave Patras, sleep at Han 

on shore. 
Leave Han, arrive Vostitsa 

(CEgion). 
Sail from Vostitsa, arrive 

Larnaki (? Itea). 
Leave Larnaki (? Itea), ar- 
rive Chryso. 
Visit Delphi, the Pythian 
Cave, and stream of Cas- 
taly. (Canto I. stanza i.) 
Leave Chryso, arrive Ara- 

khova (Rhakova). 
Leave Arakhova, arrive 

Livadia (Livadhia). 
Leave Livadia, arrive Mazee 

(Mazi). 
Leave Mazee, arrive Thebes. 
Leave Thebes, arrive 
Skurta. 



1809. 
Dec. 25. 



Dec. 30. 

1810. 
Jan. 13. 
Jan. 16. 

Jan. 18. 

Jan. 19. 
Jan. 20. 
Jan. 23. 

Jan. 24. 

Jan. 25. 

Jan. 26. 

Mar. 5. 

Mar. 7. 
Mar. 13. 
Mar. 14. 
Mar. 15. 
Mar. 16. 
Mar. 28. 
April II. 



April 12. 
April 13. 

April 14, 
April 16. 



April 30 
May I. 



Leave Skurta, pass Phyle, 
arrive Athens. (Stanzas 
i-xv.; stanza Ixxiv.) 

Byron finishes the First 
Canto of Childe Harold. 

Visit Eleusis. 

Visit Mendeli (Pentelicus). 

(Stanza Ixxxvii.) 
Walk round the peninsula of 

Munychia. 
Leave Athens, arrive Vari. 
Leave Vari, arrive Keratea. 
Visit temple of Athene at 

Sunium. (Stanza Ixxxvi.) 
Leave Keratea, arrive plain 

of Marathon. 
Visit plain of Marathon. 

(Stanzas Ixxxix., xc.) 
Leave Marathon, arrive 

Athens. 
Leave Athens, embark on 

board the Pylades. (Let- 
ter 136.) 
Arrive Smyrna. (Letters 

132, I33-) 
Leave Smyrna, sleep at Han, 

near the river Halesus. 
Leave Han, arrive Aiasaluk 

(near Ephesus). 
Visit site of temple of Artemis 

at Ephesus. (Letter 132.) 
Leave Ephesus, return to 

Smyrna. (Letter 132.) 
Byron finishes the Second 

Canto of Childe Harold. 
Sail from Smyrna in the 

Salsette frigate. (Letter 

I34-) 
Anchor off Tenedos. 
Visit ruins of Alexandria 
Troas. 
. Anchor off Cape Janissary. 
, Byron attempts to swim 
across the Hellespont, ex- 
plores the Troad. (Let- 
ters 135, 136.) 
. Visit the springs of Bunar- 
bashi (Bunarbasi). 
Weigh anchor from off Cape 
Janissary, anchor eight 
miles from Dardanelles. 



1 66 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



May 2. Anchor off Castle Chanak 
Kalessia (Kale i Sultaniye). 

May 3. Byron and Mr Ekenhead 
swim across the Hellespont 
(lines " Written after swim- 
ming," etc.). 

May 13. Anchor off VenagUo Point, 
arrive Constantinople. 

(Stanzas Ixxvii-lxxxii. Let- 
ters 138-145.) 

July 14. Sail from Constantinople in 
Salsette frigate. 

July 18. Byron returns to Athens. 

Note to "Itinerary." 

[For dates and names of towns and 
villages, see Travels in Albania, and 
other Provinces of Turkey, in 1809 and 
1810, by the Right Hon. Lord Brough- 
ton, G.C.B. [John Cam Hobhouse], two 
volumes, 1858. The orthography is 
based on that of Longman's Gazetteer 
of the World, edited by G. G. Chisholm, 
1895. The alternative forms are taken 
from Heinrich Kiepert's Carte de V fipire 
et de la Thessalie, BerUn, 1897, and 
from Dr. Karl Peucker's Griechenland, 
Wien, 1897.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIM- 
AGE. 

A ROM AUNT. 

"L'univers est une espece de livre, 
dont on n'a lu que la premiere page 
quand on n'a vu que son pays. J'en 
ai feuillete un assez grand nombre, que 
j'ai trouve egalement mauvaises. Cet 
examen ne m'a point ete infructueux. 
Je haissais ma patrie. Toutes les 
impertinences des peuples divers, parmi 
lesquels j'ai vecu, m'ont reconciUe avec 
elle. Quand je n'aurais tire d'autre 
benefice de mes voyages que celui-la, 
je n'en regretterais ni les frais ni les 
fatigues." — Le Cosmopolite, ou, le 
Citoyen du Monde, par Fougeret de 
Monbron. Londres, 1753. 



PREFACE. 

[to the first and second cantos.] 

The following poem was written, for 
the most part, amidst the scenes which 
it attempts to describe. It was begun 
in Albania; and the parts relative to 
Spain and Portugal were composed 
from the author's observations in those 
countries. Thus much it may be neces- 
sary to state for the correctness of the 
descriptions. The scenes attempted to 
be sketched are in Spain, Portugal, 
Epirus, Acarnania and Greece. There, 
for the present, the poem stops: its 
reception will determine whether the 
author may venture to conduct his 
readers to the capital of the East, 
through Ionia and Phrygia: these two 
cantos are merely experimental. 

A fictitious character is introduced for 
the sake of giving some connection to 
the piece; which, however, makes no 
pretension to regularity. It has been 
suggested to me by friends, on whose 
opinions I set a high value, that in this 
fictitious character, "Childe Harold," 
I may incur the suspicion of having 
intended some real personage: this I 
beg leave, once for all, to disclaim — 
Harold is the child of imagination, for 
the purpose I have stated. 

In some very trivial particulars, and 
those merely local, there might be 
grounds for such a notion ; but in the main 
points, I should hope, none whatever. 

It is almost superfluous to mention 
that the appellation "Childe," as 
"Childe Waters," "Childe Childers," 
etc., is used as more consonant with the 
old structure of versification which I 
have adopted. The "Good Night" in 
the beginning of the first Canto, was 
suggested by Lord Maxwell's "Good 
Night" in the Border Minstrelsy, edited 
by Mr Scott. 

With the different poems ^ which have 

' [Amongst others, The Battle of Talavera, by 
John Wilson Croker, appeared in 1809; The 
Vision of Don Roderick, by Walter Scott, in 181 1 , 
and Portugal, a Poem, by Lord George Gren- 
ville, in 1812.] 



CHI IDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



167 



been published on Spanish subjects, 
there may be found some slight coinci- 
dence in the first part, which treats of 
the Peninsula, but it can only be casual; 
as, with the exception of a few conclud- 
ing stanzas, the whole of the poem was 
written in the Levant. 

The stanza of Spenser, according to 
one of our most successful poets, admits 
of every variety. Dr Beattie makes 
the following observation : — 

" Not long ago I began a poem in the 
style and stanza of Spenser, in which I 
propose to give full scope to my inclina- 
tion, and be either droll or pathetic, 
descriptive or sentimental, tender or 
satirical, as the humour strikes me; 
for, if I mistake not, the measure 
which I have adopted admits equally 
of all these kinds of composition." ^ 
Strengthened in my opinion by such 
authority, and by the example of some 
in the highest order of Italian poets, I 
shall make no apology for attempts at 
similar variations in the following com- 
position; satisfied that, if they are un- 
successful, their failure must be in the 
execution, rather than in the design 
sanctioned by the practice of Ariosto, 
Thomson, and Beattie. 

London, February, 181 2. 



ADDITION TO THE PREFACE. 

I have now waited till almost all our 
periodical journals have distributed 
their usual portion of criticism. To the 
justice of the generaUty of their criti- 
cisms I have nothing to object; it 
would ill become me to quarrel with 
their very slight degree of censure, when, 
perhaps, if they had been less kind they 
had been more candid. Returning, 
therefore, to all and each my best 
thanks for their liberality, on one point 
alone I shall venture an observation. 
Amongst the many objections justly 
urged to the very indifferent character 

' Beattie's Letters. [See letter to Dr Black- 
lock, September 22, 1766 {Lije of Beattie, by 
Sir W. Forbes, 1806, i. 89).] 



of the "vagrant Childe" (whom, not- 
withstanding many hints to the contrary, 
I still maintain to be a fictitious per- 
sonage), it has been stated, that, besides 
the anachronism, he is very unknightly, 
as the times of the Knights were times 
of Love, Honour, and so forth. Now 
it so happens that the good old times, 
when "I'amour du bon vieux tems, 
I'amour antique," flourished, were the 
most profligate of all possible centuries. 
Those who have any doubts on this 
subject may consult Sainte-Palaye, pas- 
sim, and more particularly vol. ii. p. 69. 
The vows of chivalry were no better 
kept than any other vows whatsoever; 
and the songs of the Troubadours were 
not more decent, and certainly were 
much less refined, than those of Ovid. 
The "Cours d' Amour, parlemens 
d'amour, ou de courtoisie et de gen- 
tilesse" had much more of love than of 
courtesy or gentleness. See Rolland on 
the same subject with Sainte-Palaye. 

Whatever other objection may be 
urged to that most unamiable personage 
Childe Harold, he was so far perfectly 
knightly in his attributes — "No waiter, 
but a knight templar." ^ By the bye, I 
fear that Sir Tristrem and Sir Lancelot 
were no better than they should be, 
although very poetical personages and 
true knights, "sans peur," though not 
"sans reproche." If the story of the 
institution of the "Garter" be not a 
fable, the knights of that order have for 
several centuries borne the badge of a 
Countess of SaUsbury, of indifferent 
memory. So much for chivalry. Burke 
need not have regretted that its days are 
over, though Marie-Antoinette was 
quite as chaste as most of those in 
whose honour lances were shivered, and 
knights unhorsed.^ 

' [The phrase occurs in The Rollers, or the 
Double Arrangement (Poetry of the Anti- Jacobin, 
1854, p. 199), by J. Hookham Frere, etc.; a skit 
on the "moral inculcated by the German dramas 
— the reciprocal duties of one or more husbands 
to one or more wives."] 

=* ["But the age of chivalry is gone — the 
.unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of 
nations," etc. (Reflections on the Revolution 
in France, by the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, 
M.P., 1868, p. 89).] 



1 68 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto i. 



Before the days of Bayard, and down 
to those of Sir Joseph Banks (the most 
chaste and celebrated of ancient and 
modern times) few exceptions will be 
found to this statement; and I fear a 
little investigation will teach us not to 
regret these monstrous mummeries of 
the middle ages. 

I now leave "Childe Harold" to live 
his day such as he is; it had been more 
agreeable, and certainly more easy, to 
have drawn an amiable character. It 
had been easy to varnish over his 
faults, to make him do more and express 
less, but he never was intended as an 
example, further than to show, that early 
perversion of mind and morals leads to 
satiety of past pleasures and disappoint- 
ment in new ones, and that even the 
beauties of nature and the stimulus of 
travel (except ambition, the most power- 
ful of all excitements) are lost on a soul 
so constituted, or rather misdirected. 
Had I proceeded with the Poem, this 
character would have 'deepened as he 
drew to the close ; for the outline which 
I once meant to fill up for him was, with 
some exceptions, the sketch of a modern 
Timon,^ perhaps a poetical Zeluco. 



TO IANTHE.2 



Not in those climes where I have late 
been straying. 

Though Beauty long hath there been 
matchless deemed, 

Not in those visions to the heart dis- 
playing 

' [John Moore (1729-1802), the father of the 
celebrated Sir John Moore, published Zeluco. 
Various views 0} Human Nature, taken from 
Life and Manners, Foreign and Domestic, in 
1789. Zeluco was an unmitigated scoundrel, 
who led an adventurous life; but the prolix 
narrative of his villanies does not recall Childe 
Harold. There is, perhaps, some resemblance 
between Zeluco's unbridled childhood and 
youth, due to the indulgence of a doting mother, 
and Byron's early emancipation from discipline 
and control.] 

^ [The Lady Charlotte Mary Harley, second 
daughter of Edward, fifth Earl of Oxford and 
Mortimer, was born 1801. She married, in 
1823, Captain Anthony Bacon (died July 2, 



Forms which it sighs but to have only 
dreamed. 

Hath aught like thee in Truth or Fancy 
seemed: 

Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek 

To paint those charms which varied as 
they beamed — 

To such as see thee not my words were 
weak; 

To those who gaze on thee what lan- 
guage could they speak? 

Ah ! may'st thou ever be what now thou 

art, 
Nor unbeseem the promise of thy 

Spring — 
As fair in form, as warm yet pure in 

heart. 
Love's image upon earth without his 

wing, 
And guileless beyond Hope's imagining ! 
And surely she who now so fondly 

rears 
Thy youth, in thee, thus hourly bright- 
ening. 
Beholds the Rainbow of her future 

years. 
Before whose heavenly hues all Sorrow 

disappears. 

Young Peri of the West ! — 'tis well for 

me 
My years already doubly number 

thine; ^ 
My loveless eye unmoved may gaze on 

thee. 
And safely view thy ripening beauties 

shine; 
Happy, I ne'er shall see them in decline; 
Happier, that, while all younger hearts 

shall bleed. 
Mine shall escape the doom thine eyes 

assign 

1864), who had followed "young, gallant 
Howard" (see Childe Harold, III. xxix.) in his 
last fatal charge at Waterloo, and who, subse- 
quently, held command as a general officer in 
the Portuguese Army. Lady Charlotte Bacon 
died May 9, 1880. Byron's acquaintance with 
her probably dated from his visit to Lord and 
Lady Oxford, at Eywood House, in Hereford- 
shire, in October-November, 181 2.] 

• [In 1814, when the dedication was pub- 
lished, Byron completed his twenty-sixth year, 
lanthe her thirteenth.] 



Canto i.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



169 



To those whose admiration shall suc- 
ceed, 

But mixed with pangs to Love's even 
loveHest hours decreed. 

Oh! let that eye, which, wild as the 
Gazelle's, 

Now brightly bold or beautifully shy, 

Wins as it wanders, dazzles where it 
dwells. 

Glance o'er this page, nor to my verse 
deny 

That srnile for which my breast might 
vainly sigh 

Could I to thee be ever more than friend : 

This much, dear Maid, accord; nor 
question why 

To one so young my strain I would com- 
mend, 

But bid me with my wreath one match- 
less Lily blend. 

Such is thy name with this my verse 

entwined ; 
And long as kinder eyes a look shall cast 
On Harold's page, lanthe's here en- 
shrined 
Shall thus he first beheld, forgotten last: 
My days once numbered — should this 

homage past 
Attract thy fairy fingers near the Lyre 
Of him who hailed thee loveUest, as thou 

wast — 
Such is the most my Memory may 

desire ; 
Though more than Hope can claim, 
could Friendship less require? 



CANTO THE FIRST. 

. ' " I- 

Oh, t1iou! in Hellas deemed of heav- 
enly birth, 

Muse ! formed or fabled at the Min- 
strel's will ! 

Since shamed full oft by later lyres on 
earth, 

' [The First Canto of Childe Harold was 
begun at Janina, in Albania, October 31, 1809, 
and the Second Canto was finished at Sm\Tna, 
March 28, 1810. The two first Cantos were 
published by John Murray, Albemarle Street, 
(Quarto) — Tuesday, March 10, 1812.] 



Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred 

Hill: 
Yet there I've wandered by thy vaunted 

rill; 
Yes ! sighed o'er Delphi's long deserted 

shrine, 
Where, save that feeble fountain, all is 

still; 
Nor mote my shell awake the weary 

Nine 
To grace so plain a tale — this lowly 

lay of mine. 



Whilhome in Albion's isle there dwelt a 

youth. 
Who ne in Virtue's ways did take 

delight; 
But spent his days in riot most uncouth, 
And vexed with mirth the drowsy ear of 

Night. 
Ah me ! in sooth he was a shameless 

wight. 
Sore given to revel, and ungodly glee; 
Few earthly things found favour in his 

sight 
Save concubines and carnal companie, 
And flaunting wassailers of high and low 

degree. 



III. 



but 



Childe Harold ^ was he hight: 

whence his name 
And lineage long, it suits me not to say; 
Suffice it, that perchance they were of 

fame. 
And had been glorious in another day: 
But one sad losel soils a name for ay,^ 
However mighty in the olden time; 
Nor all that heralds rake from coffined 

clay, 

' [In the MS. the name was first written 
"Childe Burun."] 

^ [William, fifth Lord Byron (the poet's 
grand-uncle), mortally wounded his kinsman, 
Mr Chaworth, in a duel which was fought, 
without seconds or witnesses, at the Star and 
Garter Tavern, Pall Mall, January 29, 1765. 
He was convicted of wilful murder by the 
coroner's jury, and of manslaughter by _ the 
House of Lords; but, pleading his privilege 
as a peer, he was set at liberty. He was known 
to the country-side as the "wicked Lord," and 
many tales, true and apocryphal, were told to 
his discredit {Life of Lord Byron, by Karl Elze, 
1872, pp. s, 6.)] 



lyo 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto i. 



Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of 

rhyme, 
Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a 

crime. 

IV. 

Childe Harold basked him in the Noon- 
tide sun, 

Disporting there like any other fly; 

Nor deemed before his little day was 
done 

One blast might chill him into misery. 

But long ere scarce a third of his passed 

by, 

Worse than Adversity the Childe befell; 

He felt the fulness of Satiety: 

Then loathed he in his native land to 

dwell, 
Which seemed to him more lone than 

Eremite's sad cell. 



For he through Sin's long labyrinth had 

run. 
Nor made atonement when he did amiss. 
Had sighed to many though he loved 

but one,^ 
And that loved one, alas ! could ne'er 

be his. 
Ah, happy she ! to 'scape from him 

whose kiss 
Had been pollution unto aught so chaste ; 
Who soon had left her charms for vulgar 

bliss, 
And spoiled her goodly lands to gild his 

waste. 
Nor calm domestic peace had ever 

deigned to taste. 

VI. 

And now Childe Harold was sore sick at 

heart, 
And from his fellow Bacchanals would 

flee; 
'Tis said, at times the sullen tear would 

start. 
But Pride congealed the drop within 

his ee: 
Apart he stalked in joyless reverie. 
And from his native land resolved to go. 
And visit scorching climes beyond the 

sea; 

• [Mary Chaworth.] 



With pleasure drugged, he almost 

longed for woe. 
And e'en for change of scene would seek 

the shades below. 



The Childe departed from his father's 

hall: 
It was a vast and venerable pile; 1 

So old, it seemed only not to fall, .| 

Yet strength was pillared in each massy 

aisle. 
Monastic dome ! condemned to uses 

vile ! 
Where Superstition once had made her 

den 
Now Paphian girls were known to sing 

and smile; 
And monks might deem their time was 

come agen. 
If ancient tales say true, nor wrong these 

holy men. 

VIII. 

Yet oft-times in his maddest mirthful 

mood 
Strange pangs would flash along Childe 

Harold's brow. 
As if the Memory of some deadly feud 
Or disappointed passion lurked below: 
But this none knew, nor haply cared to 

know; 
For his was not that open, artless soul 
That feels relief by bidding sorrow flow, 
Nor sought he friend to counsel or con- 
dole, 
Whate'er this grief mote be, which he 
could not controul. 

IX. 

And none did love him ! — though to 

hall and bower 
He gathered revellers from far and near, 
He knew them flatterers of the festal 

hour. 
The heartless Parasites of present cheer. 
Yea ! none did love him — not his 

lemans dear — 
But pomp and power alone are Woman's 

care. 
And where these are light Eros finds a 

feere; ^ 

' "Feere," a consort or mate. 



Canto i.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



171 



Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by 

glare, 
And Mammon wins his way where 

Seraphs might despair. 



Childe Harold had a mother — not for- 
got, 
Though parting from that mother he 

did shun; 
A sister whom he loved, but saw her not 
Before his weary pilgrimage begun: 
If friends he had, he bade adieu to 

none. 
Yet deem not thence his breast a breast 

of steel: 
Ye, who have known what 'tis to dote 

upon 
A few dear objects, will in sadness feel 
Such partings break the heart they 
fondly hope to heal. 



His house, his home, his heritage, his 
lands, 

The laughing dames in whom he did 
delight. 

Whose large blue eyes, fair locks, and 
snowy hands. 

Might shake the Saintship of an Ancho- 
rite, 

And long had fed his youthful appetite ; 

His goblets brimmed with every costly 
wine. 

And all that mote to luxury invite. 

Without a sigh he left, to cross the brine, 

And traverse Paynim shores, and pass 
Earth's central line. 

XII. 

The sails were filled, and fair the light 

winds blew, 
As glad to waft him from his native 

home; 
And fast the white rocks faded from his 

view. 
And soon were lost in circumambient 

foam: 
And then, it may be, of his wish to roam 
Repented he, but in his bosom slept 
The silent thought, nor from his lips did 

come 



One word of wail, whilst others sate and 

wept. 
And to the reckless gales unmanly 

moaning kept. 

XIII. 

But when the Sun was sinking in the sea 
He seized his harp, which he at times 

could string. 
And strike, albeit with untaught 

melody. 
When deemed he no strange ear was 

listening : 
And now his fingers o'er it he did fling, 
And tuned his farewell in the dim twi- 
light; 
While flew the vessel on her snowy wing, 
And fleeting shores receded from his 

sight. 
Thus to the elements he poured his last 
"Good Night." 

CHILDE HAROLD'S GOOD 
NIGHT. 



"Adieu, adieu! my native shore 

Fades o'er the waters blue; 
The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar, 

And shrieks the wild sea-mew. 
Yon Sun that sets upon the sea 

We follow in his flight; 
Farewell awhile to him and thee. 

My native Land — Good Night ! 



"A few short hours and He will rise 

To give the Morrow birth; 
And I shall hail the main and skies, 

But not my mother Earth. 
Deserted is my own good Hall, 

Its hearth is desolate; 
Wild weeds are gathering on the wall; 

My Dog howls at the gate. 



" Come hither, hither, my little page ! ^ 
Why dost thou weep and wail? 

Or dost thou dread the billows' rage, 
Or tremble at the gale ? 

' [Robert Rushton, the son of one of the 
Newstead tenants.] 



172 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto i. 



But dash the tear-drop from thine eye; 

Our ship is swift and strong: 
Our fleetest falcon scarce can fly 

More merrily along." 



"Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high, 

I fear not wave nor wind : 
Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I 

Am sorrowful in mind; 
For I have from my father gone, 

A mother whom I love. 
And have no friends, save these alone, 

But thee — and One above. 



"My father blessed me fervently, 

Yet did not much complain; 
But sorely will my mother sigh 

Till I come back again." — 
"Enough, enough, my little lad! 

Such tears become thine eye; 
If I thy guileless bosom had, 

Mine own would not be dry. 



"Come hither, hither, my staunch 
yeoman,^ 

Why dost thou look so pale? 
Or dost thou dread a French foeman ? 

Or shiver at the gale?" — 
"Deem'st thou I tremble for my life? 

Sir Childe, I'm not so weak; 
But thinking on an absent wife 

Win blanch a faithful cheek. 



"My spouse and boys dwell near thy 
hall. 

Along the bordering Lake, 
And when they on their father call. 

What answer shall she make?" — 
"Enough, enough, my yeoman good. 

Thy grief let none gainsay; 
But I, who am of lighter mood, 

Will laugh to flee away. 



"For who would trust the seeming sighs 

Of wife or paramour? 
Fresh feeres will dry the bright blue eyes 

We late saw streaming o'er. 

' [William Fletcher, Byron's valet.] 



For pleasures past I do not grieve, 
Nor perils gathering near; 

My greatest grief is that I leave 
No thing that claims a tear. 



"And now I'm in the world alone. 

Upon the wide, wide sea: 
But why should I for others groan, 

When none will sigh for me? 
Perchance my Dog will whine in vain, 

Till fed by stranger hands; 
But long ere I come back again. 

He'd tear me where he stands.' 



"With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go 

Athwart the foaming brine; 
Nor care what land thou bear'st me to. 

So not again to mine. 
Welcome, welcome, ye dark-blue waves ! 

And when you fail my sight. 
Welcome, ye deserts, and ye caves ! 

My native Land — Good Night!" 



On, on the vessel flies, the land is gone, 
And winds are rude in Biscay's sleepless 

bay. 
Four days are sped, but with the fifth, 

anon. 
New shores descried make every bosom 

gay; 

And Cintra's mountain greets them on 

their way, 
And Tagus dashing onward to the Deep, 
His fabled golden tribute bent to pay; 
And soon on board the Lusian pilots 

leap, 
And steer 'twixt fertile shores where yet 

few rustics reap. 



Oh, Christ ! it is a goodly sight to see 
What Heaven hath done for this 
delicious land ! 

I [Byron was recalling an incident which had 
befallen him some time previously (see letter to 
Moore, January ig, 1815): "When I thought 
he was going to enact Argus, he bit away the 
backside of my breeches, and never would 
consent to any kind of recognition, in despite 
of all kinds of bones which I offered him."] 



Canto i.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



173 



What fruits of fragrance blush on every 

tree! 
What goodly prospects o'er the hills 

expand ! 
But man would mar them with an 

impious hand: 
And when the Almighty lifts his fiercest 

scourge 
'Gainst those who most transgress his 

high command, 
With treble vengeance will his hot shafts 

urge 
Gaul's locust host, and earth from fellest 

foeman purge. 

XVI. 

What beauties doth Lisboa first unfold ! 
Her image floating on that noble tide. 
Which poets vainly pave with sands of 

gold, 
But now whereon a thousand keels did 

ride 
Of mighty strength, since Albion was 

allied. 
And to the Lusians did her aid afford : — 
A nation swoln with ignorance and pride, 
Who lick yet loathe the hand that waves 

the sword 
To save them from the wrath of Gaul's 

unsparing Lord. 



But whoso entereth within this town. 
That, sheening far, celestial seems to 

be, 
Disconsolate will wander up and down, 
'Mid many things unsightly to strange 

ee; 
For hut and palace show like filthily : 
The dingy denizens are reared in dirt; 
Ne personage of high or mean degree 
Doth care for cleanness of surtout or 

shirt. 
Though shent with Egypt's plague, un- 
kempt, unwashed, unhurt. 



Poor, paltry slaves! yet born 'midst 

noblest scenes — 
Why, Nature, waste thy wonders on 

such men? 
Lo ! Cintra's glorious Eden intervenes 
In variegated maze of mount and glen. 



Ah, me ! what hand can pencil guide, or 

pen, 
To follow half on which the eye dilates 
Through views more dazzling unto 

mortal ken 
Than those whereof such things the 

Bard relates. 
Who to the awe-struck world unlocked 

Elysium's gates ! 

XIX. 

The horrid crags, by toppling convent 

crowned, 
The cork-trees hoar that clothe the 

shaggy steep. 
The mountain-moss by scorching skies 

imbrowned, 
The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs 

must weep, 
The tender azure ' of the unruflQed deep. 
The orange tints that gild the greenest 

bough, 
The torrents that from cliff to valley 

leap, 
The vine on high, the willow branch 

below. 
Mixed in one mighty scene, with varied 

beauty glow. 

XX. 

Then slowly climb the many-winding 

way, 
And frequent turn to linger as you go. 
From loftier rocks new loveliness survey, 
And rest ve at "Our Lady's house of 

Woe;'" 
Where frugal monks their little relics 

show, 
And sundry legends to the stranger tell : 
Here impious men have punished been, 

and lo ! 
Deep in yon cave Honorius long did 

dwell, 
In hope to merit Heaven by making 

earth a Hell. 



And here and there, as up the crags you 

spring, 
Mark many rude-carved crosses near 

the path: 

' " The sky-worn robes of tenderest blue." 

— Collins' Ode to Pity. 



174 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto i. 



Yet deem not these Devotion's offer- 
ing — 

These are memorials frail of murderous 
wrath : 

Forwheresoe'er the shrieking victim hath 

Poured forth his blood beneath the 
assassin's knife, 

Some hand erects a cross of mouldering 
lath; 

And grove and glen with thousand such 
are rife 

Throughout this purple land, where 
Law secures not life. 



On sloping mounds, or in the vale 

beneath. 
Are domes where whilome kings did 

make repair; 
But now the wild flowers round them 

only breathe: 
Yet ruined Splendour still is lingering 

there. 
And yonder towers the Prince's palace 

fair : ^ 
There thou too, Vathek! England's 

wealthiest son,^ 
Once formed thy Paradise, as not aware 
When wanton Wealth her mightiest 

deeds hath done, 
Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever 

wont to shun. 

XXIII. 

Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of 

pleasure plan, 
Beneath yon mountain's ever beauteous 

brow: 
But now, as if a thing unblest by Man, 
Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as Thou ! 
Here giant weeds a passage scarce allow 
To Halls deserted, portals gaping wide : 
Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how 
Vain are the pleasaunces on earth sup- 
plied. 
Swept into wrecks anon by Time's un- 
gentle tide ! 

• [The royal palace at Cintra, "the Alhambra 
of the Moorish kings."] 

^[William Beckford, 1760 (? i759)-i844, 
published Vathek in French in 1784, and in 
English in 1787. He spent two years (1794-96) 
in retirement at Quinta de Monserrate, three 
miles from Cintra.] 



Behold the hall where chiefs were late 

convened ! 
Oh ! dome displeasing unto British eye ! 
With diadem hight Foolscap, lo ! a 

Fiend, 
A little Fiend that scoffs incessantly, 
There sits in parchment robe arrayed, 

and by 
His side is hung a seal and sable 

scroll, 
Where blazoned glare names known to 

chivalry. 
And sundry signatures adorn the roll 
Whereat the Urchin points and laughs 

with all his soul. 

XXV. 

Convention is the dwarfish demon 

styled 
That foiled the knights in Marialva's 

dome: 
Of brains (if brains they had) he them 

beguiled, 
And turned a nation's shallow joy to 

gloom. 
Here Folly dashed to earth the victor's 

plume. 
And Policy regained what arms had 

lost: 
For chiefs like ours in vain may laurels 

bloom ! 
Woe to the conquering, not the con- 
quered host, 
Since baffled Triumph droops on Lusi- 

tania's coast ! 



And ever since that martial Synod met, 
Britannia sickens, Cintra ! at thy name; 
And folks in office at the mention fret, 
And fain would blush, if blush they 

could, for shame. 
How will Posterity the deed proclaim ! 
Will not our own and fellow-nations 

sneer. 
To view these champions cheated of 

their fame, 
By foes in fight o'erthrown, yet victors 

here. 
Where Scorn her finger points through 

many a coming year? 



I-] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



175 



So deemed the Childe, as o'er the 

mountains he 
Did take his way in solitary guise: 
Sweet was the scene, yet soon he thought 

to flee, 
More restless than the swallow in the 

skies : 
Though here awhile he learned to 

moralise, 
For Meditation fixed at times on him ; 
And conscious Reason whispered to 

despise 
His early youth, misspent in maddest 

whim; 
But as he gazed on truth his aching eyes 

grew dim. 



To horse ! to horse ! he quits, for ever 

quits 
A scene of peace, though soothing to his 

soul: 
Again he rouses from his moping fits, 
But seeks not now the harlot and the 

bowl. 
Onward he flies, nor fixed as yet the 

goal 
Where he shall rest him on his pil- 
grimage ; 
And o'er him many changing scenes 

must roll 
Ere toil his thirst for travel can assuage. 
Or he shall calm his breast, or learn 

experience sage. 

XXIX. 

Yet Mafra shall one moment claim 
delay. 

Where dwelt of yore the Lusians' luck- 
less queen; ^ 

And Church and Court did mingle their 
array, 

And Mass and revel were alternate seen ; 

Lordlings and freres — ill-sorted fry I 
ween! 

1 Her luckless Majesty went subsequently 
mad; and Dr Willis, who so dexterously cud- 
gelled kingly pericraniums, could make nothing 
of hers. 

[Maria I. (b. 1734), who married her uncle, 
Pedro III., reigned with him 1777-86, and, as. 
sole monarch, from 1786 to 1816.] 



But here the Babylonian Whore hath 

built 
A dome, where flaunts she in such 

glorious sheen. 
That men forget the blood which she 

hath spilt. 
And bow the knee to Pomp that loves 

to varnish guilt. 



O'er vales that teem with fruits, roman- 
tic hills, 
(Oh, that such hills upheld a freeborn 

race !) 
Whereon to gaze the eve with joyaunce 

fills, 
Childe Harold wends through many a 

pleasant place. 
Though sluggards deem it but a foolish 

chase. 
And marvel men should quit their easy 

chair. 
The toilsome way, and long, long league 

to trace. 
Oh ! there is sweetness in the mountain 

air. 
And Life, that bloated Ease can never 

hope to share. 



More bleak to view the hills at length 

recede. 
And, less luxuriant, smoother vales 

extend : 
Immense horizon-bounded plains suc- 
ceed ! 
Far as the eye discerns, withouten end, 
Spain's realms appear whereon her 

shepherds tend 
Flocks, whose rich fleece right well the 

trader knows — 
Now must the Pastor's arm his lambs 

defend : 
For Spain is compassed by unyielding 

foes, 
And all must shield their all, or share 

Subjection's woes. 

XXXII. 

Where Lusitania and her Sister meet. 
Deem ye what bounds the rival realms 
divide ? 



176 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto i. 



1^1- 



Or ere the jealous Queens of Nations 

greet, 
Doth Tayo interpose his mighty tide? 
Or dark Sierras rise in craggy pride? 
Or fence of art, like China's vasty 

wall? 
Ne barrier wall, ne river deep and 

wide, 
Ne horrid crags, nor mountains dark 

and tall, 
Rise like the rocks that part Hispania's 

land from Gaul: 

XXXIII. 

But these between a silver streamlet * 
glides, 

And scarce a name distinguisheth the 
brook, 

Though rival kingdoms press its ver- 
dant sides. 

Here leans the idle shepherd on his 
crook, 

And vacant on the rippling waves doth 
look. 

That peaceful still 'twixt bitterest foe- 
men flow; 

For proud each peasant as the noblest 
duke: 

Well doth the Spanish hind the differ- 
ence know 

'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest 
of the low. 

XXXIV. 

But ere the mingling bounds have far 
been passed. 

Dark Guadiana rolls his power along 

In sullen billows, murmuring and vast 

So noted ancient roundelays among. 

Whilome upon his banks did legions 
throng 

Of Moor and Knight, in mailed splen- 
dour drest: 

Here ceased the swift their race, here 
sunk the strong; 

The Paynim turban and the Christian 
crest 

Mixed on the bleeding stream, by float- 
ing hosts oppressed. 

1 [The "silver streamlet" may possibly be 
identified as the Caia.] 



Oh, lovely Spain ! renowned, romantic 

Land ! 
Where is that Standard ^ which Pelagio 

bore. 
When Cava's traitor-sire first called the 

band 
That dyed thy mountain streams with 

Gothic gore? 
Where are those bloody Banners which 

of yore 
I Waved o'er thy sons, victorious to the 

gale, 
And drove at last tu'^ spoilers to their 

shore ? ^ 
1 Red gleamed the Cross, and waned the 
\ Crescent pale. 

While Afric's echoes thrilled with 

Moorish matrons' wail. 

XXXVI. 

Teems not each ditty with the glorious 

tale ? 3 
Ah ! such, alas ! the hero's amplest fate ! 
When granite moulders and when 

records fail, 
A peasant's plaint prolongs his dubious 

date. 
Pride ! bend thine eye from Heaven to 

thine estate. 
See how the Mighty shrink into a song ! 
Can Volume, Pillar, Pile preserve thee 

great ? 
Or must thou trust Tradition's simple 

tongue, 
When Flattery sleeps with thee, and 

History does thee wrong? 

XXXVII. 

Awake, ye Sons of Spain ! awake ! 

advance ! 
Lo ! Chivalry, your ancient Goddess, 

cries. 
But wields not, as of old, her thirsty 

lance, 

1 [The standard, a cross made of Asturian 
oak {La Cruz de la Victoria), which was said to 
have fallen from heaven before Pelayo gained 
the victory over the Moors at Cangas, a.d. 718, 
is preserved at Oviedo.] 

2 [The Moors were finally expelled from 
Granada in 1492, in the reign of Ferdinand and 
Isabella.] 

3 [The reference is to the Romanceros and 
Caballerias of the sixteenth century.] 



Canto i.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



177 



Nor shakes her crimson plumage in the 

skies : 
Now on the smoke of blazing bolts she 

flies, 
And speaks in thunder through yon 

engine's roar: 
In every peal she calls — "Awake! 

arise !" 
Say, is her voice more feeble than of 

yore, 
When her war-song was heard on 

Andalusia's shore? 

XXXVIII. 

Hark ! — heard you not those hoofs of 

dreadful note? 
Sounds not the clang of conflict on the 

heath ? 
Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre 

smote, 
Nor saved your brethren ere they sank 

beneath 
Tyrants and Tyrants' slaves ? — the 

fires of Death, 
The Bale-fires flash on high : — from 

rock to rock 
Each volley tells that thousands cease to 

breathe ; 
Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc, 
Red Battle stamps his foot, and Nations 

feel the shock. 

XXXIX. 

Lo ! where the Giant on the mountain 

stands, 
His blood-red tresses deepening in the 

Sun, 
With death-shot glowing in his fiery 

hands. 
And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon ; 
Restless it rolls, now fixed, and now anon 
Flashing afar, — and at his iron feet 
Destruction cowers, to mark what deeds 

are done; 
For on this morn three potent Nations 

meet. 
To shed before his Shrine the blood he 

deems most sweet. 

XL. 

By Heaven ! it is a splendid sight to see 
(For one who hath no friend, no brother 
there) 

N 



Their rival scarfs of mixed embroidery, 
Their various arms that glitter in the air ! 
What gallant War-hounds rouse them 

from their lair. 
And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for 

the prey ! 
All join the chase, but few the triumph 

share ; 
The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize 

away. 
And Havoc scarce for joy can number 

their array. 



Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice; 
Three tongues prefer strange orisons on 

high; 
Three gaudy standards flout the pale 

blue skies; 
The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, 

Victory ! 
The Foe, the Victim, and the fond Ally 
That fights for all, but ever fights in 

vain,^ 
Are met — as if at home they could not 

die — 
To feed the crow on Talavera's plain, 
And fertilise the field that each pretends 

to gain. 



There shall they rot — Ambition's 

honoured fools ! 
Yes, Honour decks the turf that wraps 

their clay ! 
Vain Sophistry ! in these behold the tools. 
The broken tools, that Tyrants cast away 
By myriads, when they dare to pave 

their way 
With human hearts — to what ? — a 

dream alone. 
Can Despots compass aught that hails 

their sway ? 
Or call with truth one span of earth 

their own, 
Save that wherein at last they crumble 

bone by bone? 

1 ["The battle of Talavera [July 27; 28, 1809] 
was certainly the hardest fought of modern 
days. ... it is lamentable that, owing to the 
miserable inefficiency of the Spaniards, . . . 
the glory of the action is the only benefit which 
we have derived from it." — Wellington Dis- 
patches, 1844, iii. 621.] 



178 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto i. 



XLIII. 

Oh, Albuera ! glorious field of grief ! ^ 
As o'er thy plain the Pilgrim pricked his 

steed, 
Who could foresee thee, in a space so 

brief, 
A scene where mingling foes should 

boast and bleed ! 
Peace to the perished ! may the warrior's 

meed 
And tears of triumph their reward pro- 
long! 
Till others fall where other chieftains 

lead. 
Thy name shall circle round the gaping 

throng. 
And shine in worthless lays, the theme 

of transient song. 



Enough of Battle's minions! let them 

play 
Their game of lives, and barter breath 

for fame: 
Fame that will scarce reanimate their 

clay. 
Though thousands fall to deck some 

single name. 
In sooth 'twere sad to thwart their noble 

aim 
Who strike, blest hirelings! for their 

country's good. 
And die, that living might have proved 

her shame; 
Perished, perchance, in some domestic 

feud. 
Or in a narrower sphere wild Rapine's 

path pursued. 

XLV. 

Full swiftly Harold wends his lonely 
way 

Where proud Sevilla triumphs unsub- 
dued: 

Yet is she free? the Spoiler's wished- 
for prey ! 

i[The battle of Albuera (May i6, 1811), at 
which the English, under Lord Beresford, re- 
pulsed Soult, was somewhat of a PjTrhic victory. 
"Another such a battle," vvrote the Duke, 
"would ruin us. I am working hard to put all 
right again." The French are said to have lost 
between 8000 and 9000 men, the English 4158, 
the Spaniards 1365.] 



Soon, soon shall Conquest's fiery foot 

intrude. 
Blackening her lovely domes with traces 

rude. 
Inevitable hour! 'Gainst fate to 

strive 
Where Desolation plants her famished 

brood 
Is vain, or Ilion, Tyre might yet 

survive. 
And Virtue vanquish all, and Murder 

cease to thrive. 

XLVI. 

But all unconscious of the coming 

doom,^ 
The feast, the song, the revel here 

abounds; 
Strange modes of merriment the hours 

consume. 
Nor bleed these patriots with their 

country's wounds: 
Nor here War's clarion, but Love's 

rebeck ^ sounds; 
Here Folly still his votaries inthralls; 
And young-eyed Lewdness walks her 

midnight rounds: 
Girt with the silent crimes of Capi- 
tals, 
Still to the last kind Vice clings to the 

tott'ring walls. 



Not so the rustic — with his trembling 
mate 

He lurks, nor casts his heavy eye 
afar. 

Lest he should view his vineyard deso- 
late, 

Blasted below the dun hot breath of 
War. 



^ [Byron, en route for Gibraltar, passed three 
days at Seville at the end of July or the beginning 
of August, 1809. By the end of January, 1810, 
the French had appeared in force before Seville. 
Unlike Zaragoza and Gerona, the pleasure- 
loving city, "after some negotiations, sur- 
rendered with all its stores, founderies, and 
arsenals complete, and on the 1st of February 
the king [Joseph] entered in triumph" (Napier's 
History of the War in the Peninsula, ii. 295).] 

- A kind of fiddle with only two strings, 
played on by a bow, said to have been brought 
by the Moors into Spain. 



Canto i.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



179 



No more beneath soft eve's consenting 

star 
Fandango twirls his jocund castanet: 
Ah, Monarchs ! could ye taste the mirth 

ye mar, 
Not in the toils of Glory would ye 

fret; 
The hoarse dull drum would sleep, and 

Man be happy yet ! 



How carols now the lusty muleteer? 
Of Love, Romance, Devotion is his 

lay, 
As whilome he was wont the leagues to 

cheer, 
His quick bells wildly jingling on the 

way? 
No! as he speeds, he chants "Viva el 

Rey!" 
And checks his song to execrate Godoy, 
The royal wittol Charles, and curse the 

day 
When first Spain's queen beheld the 

black-eyed boy, 
And gore-faced Treason sprung from 

her adulterate joy. 

XLIX. 

On yon long level plain, at distance 

crowned ^ 
With crags, whereon those Moorish 

turrets rest, 
Wide-scattered hoof-marks dint the 

wounded ground; 
And, scathed by fire, the greensward's 

darkened vest 
Tells that the foe was Andalusia's guest : 
Here was the camp, the watch-flame, 

and the host, 
Here the bold peasant stormed the 

Dragon's nest; 
Still does he mark it with triumphant 

boast, 
And points to yonder cliffs, which oft 

were won and lost. 

^ [The scene is laid on the heights of the 
Sierra Morena. The "Dragon's nest" (line 7) 
is the ancient city of Jaen, which guards the 
skirts of the Sierras "like a watchful Cerberus." 
It was taken by the French, but recaptured by 
the Spanish, early in July, 1808 {History of the 
War in the Peninsula, i. 71-80).] 



And whomsoe'er along the path you meet 
Bears in his cap the badge of crimson 

hue. 
Which tells you whom to shun and 

whom to greet: 
Woe to the man that walks in public 

view 
Without of loyalty this token true: 
Sharp is the knife, and sudden is the 

stroke ; 
And sorely would the Gallic foeman rue. 
If subtle poniards, wrapt beneath the 

cloke, 
Could blunt the sabre's edge, or clear 

the cannon's smoke. 



At every turn Morena's dusky height ^ 
Sustains aloft the battery's iron load; 
And, far as mortal eye can compass sight. 
The mountain-howitzer, the broken 

road. 
The bristling palisade, the fosse o'er- 

flowed. 
The stationed bands, the never-vacant 

watch. 
The magazine in rocky durance stowed, 
The bolstered steed beneath the shed of 

thatch, 
The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing 

match, 

LII. 

Portend the deeds to come : — but he 

whose nod 
Has tumbled feebler despots from their 

sway, 
A moment pauseth ere he lifts the rod; 
A little moment deigneth to delay: 
Soon will his legions sweep through 

these their way; 
The West must own the Scourger of the 

world. 
Ah ! Spain ! how sad will be thy reckon- 
ing-day. 
When soars Gaul's Vulture, with his 

wings unfurled. 
And thou shalt view thy sons in crowds 

to Hades hurled. 

1 [The Sierra Morena gets its name from the 
classical Monies Mariani; not, as Byron seems 
to imply, from its dark and dusky aspect.] 



i8o 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto i. 



And must they fall? the young, the 

proud, the brave. 
To swell one bloated Chief's unwhole- 
some reign? 
No step between submission and a 

grave ? 
The rise of Rapine and the fall of 

Spain ? 
And doth the Power that man adores 

ordain 
Their doom, nor heed the suppHant's 

appeal ? 
Is all that desperate Valour acts in 

vain? 
And Counsel sage, and patriotic 

Zeal — 
The Veteran's skill — Youth's fire — 

and Manhood's heart of steel ? 

LIV. 

Is it for this the Spanish maid, aroused. 
Hangs on the willow her unstrung 

guitar. 
And, all unsexed, the Anlace ^ hath 

espoused, 
Sung the loud song, and dared the deed 

of war? 
And she, whom once the semblance of a 

scar 
Appalled, an owlet's 'larum chilled with 

dread. 
Now views the column-scattering bay'net 

jar, 
The falchion flash, and o'er the yet 

warm dead 
Stalks with Minerva's step where Mars 

might quake to tread. 

LV. 

Ye who shall marvel when you hear her 

tale, 
Oh ! had you known her in her softer 

hour. 
Marked her black eye that mocks her 

coal-black veil, 
Heard her light, lively tones in Lady's 

bower, 

^ [The "anlace" of the Spanish heroines was 
the national weapon, the puna!, or cuchillo, 
which was sometimes stuck in the sash.] 



Seen her long locks that foil the painter's 

power, 
Her fairy form, with more than female 

grace, 
Scarce would you deem that Saragoza's 

tower 
Beheld her smile in Danger's Gorgon face. 
Thin the closed ranks, and lead in 

Glory's fearful chase. 



LVI. 



she sheds no ill- 
— she fills his fatal 



Her lover sinks — 

timed tear; 
Her Chief is slain 

post; 
Her fellows flee — she checks their base 

career; 
The Foe retires — she heads the sally- 
ing host: 
Who can appease like her a lover's 

ghost ? 
Who can avenge so well a leader's fall ? 
What maid retrieve when man's flushed 

hope is lost? 
Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul, 
Foiled by a woman's hand, before a 

battered wall? 

LVII. 

Yet are Spain's maids no race of 

Amazons, 
But formed for all the witching arts of 

love: 
Though thus in arms they emulate her 

sons, 
And in the horrid phalanx dare to move, 
'Tis but the tender fierceness of the dove, 
Pecking the hand that hovers o'er her 

mate: 
In softness as in firmness far above 
Remoter females, famed for sickening 

prate ; 
Her mind is nobler sure, her charms per- 
chance as great. 

LVIII. 

The seal Love's dimpling finger hath 

impressed 
Denotes how soft that chin which bears 

his touch : 
Her lips, whose kisses pout to leave their 

nest. 
Bid man be valiant ere he merit such : 



Canto i.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



i8i 



Her glance how wildly beautiful ! how 

much 
Hath Phoebus wooed in vain to spoil her 

cheek, 
Which glows yet smoother from his 

amorous clutch ! 
Who round the North for paler dames 

would seek? 
How poor their forms appear! how 

languid, wan, and weak! 



Match me, ye climes ! which poets love 

to laud; 
Match me, ye harems of the land ! where 

now 
I strike my strain, far distant, to 

applaud 
Beauties that ev'n a cynic must avow; 
Match me those Houries, whom ye 

scarce allow 
To taste the gale lest Love should ride 

the wind, 
With Spain's dark-glancing daughters 

— deign to know, 
There your wise Prophet's Paradise we 

find, 
His black-eyed maids of Heaven, 

angelically kind. 



Oh, thou Parnassus ! whom I now sur- 
vey,i 

Not in the phrensy of a dreamer's 
eye. 

Not in the fabled landscape of a lay, 

But soaring snow-clad through thy 
native sky, 

In the wild pomp of mountain-majesty ! 

What marvel if I thus essay to sing? 

The humblest of thy pilgrims pass- 
ing by 

Would gladly woo thine Echoes with his 
string. 

Though from thy heights no more one 
Muse will wave her wing. 

^ [The summit of Parnassus is not visible 
from Delphi or the neighbourhood. "The 
Echoes" (line 8), which were celebrated by the 
ancients, are those made by the Pha?driades, or 
"gleaming peaks," a lofty precipitous escarp- 
ment of red and grey limestone at the head of 
the valley of the Pleistus, facing southwards.] 



Oft have I dreamed of Thee ! whose 

glorious name 
Who knows not, knows not man's 

divinest lore: 
And now I view thee — 'tis, alas ! with 

shame 
That I in feeblest accents must adore. 
When I recount thy worshippers of yore 
I tremble, and can only bend the knee; 
Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to 

soar. 
But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy 
In silent joy to think at last I look on 

Thee ! 

LXII. 

Happier in this than mightiest Bards 

have been. 
Whose Fate to distant homes confined 

their lot. 
Shall I unmoved behold the hallowed 

scene. 
Which others rave of, though they know 

it not? 
Though here no more Apollo haunts his 

Grot, 
And thou, the Muses' seat, art now their 

grave. 
Some gentle Spirit still pervades the 

spot, 
Sighs in the gale, keeps silence in the 

Cave, 
And glides with glassy foot o'er yon 

melodious wave. 



Of thee hereafter. Ev'n amidst my 

strain 
I turned aside to pay my homage here; 
Forgot the land, the sons, the maids of 

Spain; 
Her fate, to every freeborn bosom dear; 
And hailed thee, not perchance without 

a tear. 
Now to my theme — but from thy holy 

haunt 
Let me some remnant, some memorial 

bear; 
Yield me one leaf of Daphne's deathless 

plant, 
Nor let thy votary's hope be deemed an 

idle vaunt. 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto i. 



LXIV. 

But ne'er didst thou, fair Mount ! when 

Greece was young, 
See round thy giant base a brighter 

choir. 
Nor e'er did Delphi, when her Priestess 

sung 
The Pythian hymn with more than 

mortal fire. 
Behold a train more fitting to inspire 
The song of love, than Andalusia's 

maids 
Nurst in the glowing lap of soft 

Desire : 
Ah ! that to these were given such peace- 
ful shades 
As Greece can still bestow, though 

Glory fly her glades. 



Fair is proud Seville; let her country 

boast 
Her strength, her wealth, her site of 

ancient days; 
But Cadiz, rising on the distant coast, 
Calls forth a sweeter, though ignoble 

praise. 
Ah, Vice ! how soft are thy voluptuous 

ways ! 
While boyish blood is mantling, who can 

'scape 
The fascination of thy magic gaze? 
A Cherub-Hydra round us dost thou 

gape. 
And mould to every taste thy dear 

delusive shape. 



When Paphos fell by Time — accursed 

Time! 
The Queen who conquers all must yield 

to thee — 
The Pleasures fled, but sought as warm 

a clime; 
And Venus, constant to her native 

Sea, 
To nought else constant, hither deigned 

to flee, 
And fixed her shrine within these walls 

of white: 
Though not to one dome circum- 

scribeth She 



Her worship, but, devoted to her rite, 
A thousand Altars rise, for ever blazing 
bright. 

LXVII. 

From morn till night, from night till 

startled Morn 
Peeps blushing on the Revel's laughing 

crew. 
The Song is heard, the rosy Garland 

worn; 
Devices quaint, and Frolics ever new. 
Tread on each other's kibes. ^ A long 

adieu 
He bids to sober joy that here sojourns : 
Nought interrupts the riot, though in 

lieu 
Of true devotion monkish incense burns. 
And Love and Prayer unite, or rule the 

hour by tiirns. 

LXVIII. 

The Sabbath comes, a day of blessed 
rest: 

What hallows it upon this Christian 
shore ? 

Lo ! it is sacred to a solemn Feast : 

Hark ! heard you not the forest-mon- 
arch's roar? 

Crashing the lance, he snuffs the spout- 
ing gore 

Of man and steed, o'erthrown beneath 
his horn; 

The thronged arena shakes with shouts 
for more; 

Yells the mad crowd o'er entrails 
freshly torn. 

Nor shrinks the female eye, nor ev'n 
affects to mourn. 

LXIX. 

The seventh day this — the Jubilee of 

man ! 
London ! right well thou know'st the 

day of prayer: 
Then thy spruce citizen, washed artisan. 
And smug apprentice gulp their weekly 



^ [Byron is thinking of Hamlet's gibe on the 
corruption of manners, "The age is grown so 
picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near 
the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe" (act v. 
sc. I, lines 131-133), and he forgets that_ a kibe 
is not a heel or a part of a heel, but a chilblain.] 



Canto i.] 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



183 



Thy coach of hackney, whiskey/ one- 
horse chair, 

And humblest gig through sundry 
suburbs whirl. 

To Hampstead, Brentford, Harrow 
make repair; 

Till the tired jade the wheel forgets to 
hurl. 

Provoking envious gibe from each 
pedestrian churl. 

LXX. 

Some o'er thy Thamis row the ribboned 

fair, 
Others along the safer turnpike fly; 
Some Richmond-hill ascend, some scud 

to Ware, 
And many to the steep of Highgate 

hie. 
Ask ye, Boeotian Shades ! the reason 

why? 
'Tis to the worship of the solemn Horn,^ 
Grasped in the holy hand of Mystery, 
In whose dread name both men and 

maids are sworn. 
And consecrate the oath with draught, 

and dance till morn. 

LXXI. 

All have their fooleries — not alike are 
thine, 

Fair Cadiz, rising o'er the dark blue 
sea! 

Soon as the Matin bell proclaimeth 
nine. 

Thy Saint-adorers count the Rosary: 

Much is the Virgin teased to shrive 
them free 

(Well do I ween the only virgin there) 

From crimes as numerous as her beads- 
men be; 

^ [A whiskey is a light carriage in which the 
traveller is whisked along.] 

_ 2 [Hone's Everyday Book (1838, ii. 80-87) 
gives a detailed account of the custom of "swear- 
ing on the horns" at the "Gate House," High- 
gate. "The horns, fixed on a pole of about 
five feet in height, were erected, by placing the 
pole upright on the ground, near the person to 
be pworn." The oath, or rather a small part 
of it, ran as follows: "You must not drink 
small beer while you can get strong, except you 
like the small best. You must not kiss the 
maid while you can kiss the mistress, but sooner 
than lose a good chance you may kiss them 
both," etc.] 



Then to the crowded circus forth they 

fare: 
Young, old, high, low, at once the same 

diversion share. 



The lists are oped, the spacious area 

cleared. 
Thousands on thousands piled are 

seated round; 
Long ere the first loud trumpet's note is 

heard, 
Ne vacant space for lated wight is found : 
Here Dons, Grandees, but chiefly 

Dames abound. 
Skilled in the ogle of a roguish eye, 
Yet ever well inclined to heal the wound ; 
None through their cold disdain are 

doomed to die, 
As moon-struck bards complain, by 

Love's sad archery. 



Hushed is the din of tongues — on 

gallant steeds. 
With milk-white crest, gold spur, and 

light-poised lance. 
Four cavaliers prepare for venturous 

deeds 
And lowly-bending to the lists advance; 
Rich are their scarfs, their chargers 

featly prance: 
If in the dangerous game they shine 

to-day. 
The crowd's loud shout and ladies' 

lovely glance. 
Best prize of better acts ! they bear 

away ; 
And all that kings or chiefs e'er gain 

their toils repay. 



In costly sheen and gaudy cloak 

arrayed. 
But all afoot, the light-limbed Matadore 
Stands in the centre, eager to invade 
The lord of lowing herds ; but not before 
The ground, with cautious tread, is 

traversed o'er. 
Lest aught unseen should lurk to thwart 

his speed: 
His arms a dart, he fights aloof, no 

more 



784 



CHI IDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto i. 



Can Man achieve without the friendly 

steed — 
Alas! too oft condemned for him to 

bear and bleed. 

LXXV. 

Thrice sounds the Clarion; lo! the 

signal falls, 
The den expands, and Expectation mute 
Gapes round the silent circle's peopled 

walls : 
Bounds with one lashing spring the 

mighty brute, 
And, wildly staring, spurns, with sound- 
ing foot, 
The sand, nor blindly rushes on his foe : 
Here, there, he points his threatening 

front, to suit 
His first attack, wide-waving to and fro 
His angry tail; red rolls his eye's 
dilated glow. 

LXXVI. 

Sudden he stops — his eye is fixed — 

away — 
Away, thou heedless boy ! prepare the 

spear; 
Now is thy time, to perish, or display 
The skill that yet may check his mad 

career ! 
With well-timed croupe ^ the nimble 

coursers veer; 
On foams the Bull, but not unscathed 

he goes; 
Streams from his flank the crimson 

torrent clear: 
He flies, he wheels, distracted with his 

throes; 
Dart follows dart — lance, lance — 

loud bellowings speak his woes. 



Again he comes; nor dart nor lance 

avail. 
Nor the wild plunging of the tortured 

horse ; 
Though Man and Man's avenging arms 

assail. 
Vain are his weapons, vainer is his force. 

^[Croupe is here used for "croupade," a 
high curvet in which the hind legs are brought 
up under the belly of the horse" {N. Eng. Diet.).] 



One gallant steed is stretched a mangled 

corse; 
Another, hideous sight ! unseamed 

appears. 
His gory chest unveils life's panting 

source ; 
Though death-struck, still his feeble 

frame he rears; 
Staggering, but stemming all, his Lord 

unharmed he bears. 



Foiled, bleeding, breathless, furious to 

the last. 
Full in the centre stands the Bull at bay, 
'Mid wounds, and clinging darts, and 

lances brast,^ 
And foes disabled in the brutal fray: 
And now the Matadores ^ around him 

play. 
Shake the red cloak, and poise the ready 

brand : 
Once more through all he bursts his 

thundering way — 
Vain rage ! the mantle quits the conynge 

hand. 
Wraps his fierce eye — 'tis past — he 

sinks upon the sand ! 

LXXIX. 

Where his vast neck just mingles with 

the spine. 
Sheathed in his form the deadly weapon 

lies. 
He stops — he starts — disdaining to 

decline : 
Slowly he falls, amidst triumphant cries, 
Without a groan, without a struggle dies. 
The decorated car appears — on high 
The corse is piled — sweet sight for 

vulgar eyes — 
Four steeds that spurn the rein, as swift 

as shy. 
Hurl the dark bulk along, scarce seen in 

dashing by. 

i["Brast" for "burst" is found in Spenser, 
and is still current in the Lancashire dialect.] 

2 [One bull-fight, one matador. In describ- 
ing the last act Byron confuses the chulos or 
cloak-waving footmen, who had already played 
their part, with the single champion, the mata- 
dor, who is about to administer the coup de 
grdce.] 



Canto i.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



i8S 



LXXX. 

Such the ungentle sport that oft invites 
The Spanish maid, and cheers the 

Spanish swain. 
Nurtured in blood betimes, his heart 

delights 
In vengeance, gloating on another's pain. 
What private feuds the troubled village 

stain ! 
Though now one phalanxed host should 

meet the foe, 
Enough, alas ! in humble homes remain, 
To meditate 'gainst friend the secret 

blow, 
For some slight cause of wrath, whence 

Life's warm stream must flow. 



But Jealousy has fled: his bars, his 

bolts, 
His withered Centtnel, Duenna sage ! 
And all whereat the generous soul 

revolts, 
Which the stern dotard deemed he 

could encage; 
Have passed to darkness with the van- 
ished age. 
Who late so free as Spanish girls were 

seen, 
(Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage,) 
With braided tresses bounding o'er the 

green, 
While on the gay dance shone Night's 

lover-loving Queen? 



Oh ! many a time and oft, had Harold 

loved, 
Or dreamed he loved, since Rapture is a 

dream; 
But now his wayward bosom was un- 
moved. 
For not yet had he drunk of Lethe's 

stream ; 
And lately had he learned with truth to 

deem 
Love has no gift so grateful as his wings : 
How fair, how young, how soft soe'er 

he seem, 
Full from the fount of Joy's delicious 

springs 
Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling 

venom flings. 



LXXXIII. 

Yet to the beauteous form he was not 

blind, 
Though now it moved him as it moves 

the wise; 
Not that Philosophy on such a mind 
E'er deigned to bend her chastely-awful 

eyes: 
But Passion raves herself to rest, or 

flies; 
And Vice, that digs her own voluptuous 

tomb. 
Had buried long his hopes, no more to 

rise: 
Pleasure's palled Victim ! life-abhorring 

Gloom 
Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain's 

unresting doom. 

LXXXIV. 

Still he beheld, nor mingled with the 

throng ; 
But viewed them not with misanthropic 

hate: 
Fain would he now have joined the 

dance, the song; 
But who may smile that sinks beneath 

his fate? 
Nought that he saw his sadness could 

abate : 
Yet once he struggled 'gainst the 

Demon's sway. 
And as in Beauty's bower he pensive 

sate. 
Poured forth his unpremeditated lay. 
To charms as fair as those that soothed 

his happier day. 

TO INEZ. 



Nay, smile not at my sullen brow; 

Alas! I cannot smile again: 
Yet Heaven avert that ever thou 

Shouldst weep, and haply weep in 



And dost thou ask what secret woe 
I bear, corroding Joy and Youth? 

And wilt thou vainly seek to know 
A pang, ev'n thou must fail to soothe ? 



1 86 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto i. 



It is not love, it is not hate, 

Nor low Ambition's honours lost, 

That bids me loathe my present state. 
And fly from all I prized the most: 



It is that weariness which springs 
From all I meet, or hear, or see: 

To me no pleasure Beauty brings; 
Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me. 



It is that settled, ceaseless gloom 
The fabled Hebrew Wanderer bore; 

That will not look beyond the tomb, 
But cannot hope for rest before. 



What Exile from himself can flee ? 
To zones though more and more 
remote. 
Still, still pursues, where'er I be, 

The blight of Life — the Demon 
Thought. 

7- 
Yet others rapt in pleasure seem. 
And taste of all that I forsake ; 
Oh ! may they still of transport dream, 
And ne'er — at least like me — 
awake ! 

8. 

Through many a clime 'tis mine to go. 

With many a retrospection curst; 
And all my solace is to know, 

Whate'er betides, I've known the 
worst. 

9- 
What is that worst ? Nay do not ask — 

In pity from the search forbear: 
Smile on — nor venture to unmask 
Man's heart, and view the Hell that's 
there. 

Janttary 25, 1810. — [MS.] 



* Adieu, fair Cadiz ! yea, a long adieu ! 
Who may forget how well thy walls have 
stood ? 



When all were changing thou alone wert 

true. 
First to be free and last to be subdued : ' 
And if amidst a scene, a shock so 

rude. 
Some native blood was seen thy streets 

to dye, 
A Traitor only fell beneath the feud: 
Here all were noble, save Nobility; 
None hugged a Conqueror's chain, save 

fallen Chivalry ! 



Such be the sons of Spain, and strange 

her Fate ! 
They fight for Freedom who were never 

free, 
A Kingless people for a nerveless state ; ^ 
Her vassals combat when their Chief- 
tains flee. 
True to the veriest slaves of Treachery : 
Fond of a land which gave them nought 

but life, 
Pride points the path that leads to 

Liberty ; 
Back to the struggle, baffled in the 

strife. 
War, war is still the cry, "War even to 

the knife!" 

LXXXVII. 

Ye, who would more of Spain and 

Spaniards know. 
Go, read whate'er is writ of bloodiest 

strife : 
Whate'er keen Vengeance urged on 

foreign foe 
Can act, is acting there against man's 

life: 

^ [Cadiz was captured from the Moors by 
Alonso el Sabio, in 1262. It narrowly escaped 
a siege, January-February, 1810. Soult com- 
menced a "serious bombardment," May 16, 1812, 
but, three months later, August 24, the siege 
was broken up.] 

2 [Charles IV. abdicated March ig, 1808, in 
favour of his son Ferdinand VII.; and, in the 
following May, Charles once more abdicated on 
his own behalf, and Ferdinand for himself and 
his heirs, in favour of Napoleon. Thencefor- 
ward Charles was an exile, and Ferdinand a 
prisoner at Valen(iay, and Spain, so far as the 
Bourbons were concerned, remained "kingless," 
uiitil motives of policy procured the release of 
Ferdinand, who re-entered his kingdom March 
22, 1814.] 



Canto i.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



187 



From flashing scimitar to secret knife, 
War mouldeth there each weapon to his 

need — 
So may he guard the sister and the wife, 
So may he make each curst oppressor 

bleed — 
So may such foes deserve the most 

remorseless deed ! 

LXXXVIII. 

Flows there a tear of Pity for the 

dead? 
Look o'er the ravage of the reeking 

plain ; 
Look on the hands with female slaughter 

red; 
Then to the dogs resign the unburied 

slain, 
Then to the vulture let each corse 

remain, 
Albeit unworthy of the prey-bird's maw; 
Let their bleached bones, and blood's 

unbleaching stain, 
Long mark the battle-field with hideous 

awe: 
Thus only may our sons conceive the 

scenes we saw ! 

LXXXIX. 

Nor yet, alas ! the dreadful work is 
done ; 

Fresh legions pour adown the Pyrenees : 

It deepens still, the work is scarce 
begun. 

Nor mortal eye the distant end foresees. 

Fall'n nations gaze on Spain; if freed, 
she frees 

More than her fell Pizarros once en- 
chained ; 

Strange retribution ! now Columbia's 
ease 

Repairs the wrongs that Quito's sons 
sustained,^ 

While o'er the parent clime prowls Mur- 
der unrestrained. 



' [Spain's weakness during the Napoleonic 
invasion was the opportunity of her colonies. 
Quito, which had been captured and annexed 
by Francisco Pizarro and his brothers (i=;,3o- 
1532), the capital of Ecuador, rose in rebellion, 
August 10. i8ro, and during the same year 
Mexico and La Plata began their long struggle 
for independence.] 



Not all the blood at Talavera shed, 
Not all the marvels of Barossa's fight, 
Not Albuera lavish of the dead. 
Have won for Spain her well asserted 

right. 
When shall her Olive-Branch be free 

from blight? 
When shall she breathe her from the 

blushing toil? 
How many a doubtful day shall sink 

in night. 
Ere the Frank robber turn him from his 

spoil, 
And Freedom's stranger-tree grow 

native of the soil ! ' 



And thou, my friend ! — since unavail- 
ing woe 

Bursts from my heart, and mingles with 
the strain — 

Had the sword laid thee with the mighty 
low. 

Pride might forbid e'en Friendship to 
complain : 

But thus unlaurelled to descend in vain, 

By all forgotten, save the lonely breast. 

And mix unbleeding with the boasted 
slain. 

While Glory crowns so many a meaner 
crest ! 

What hadst thou done to sink so peace- 
fully to rest? 



Oh, known the earliest, and esteemed 

the most ! 
Dear to a heart where nought was left 

so dear ! 
Though to my hopeless days for ever 

lost. 
In dreams deny me not to see thee here ! 
And Morn in secret shall renew the tear 
Of Consciousness awaking to her woes, 
And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless 

bier, 

' [During the American War of Independence 
(1775-83), and, afterwards, during the French 
Revolution, it was the custom to plant trees as 
"symbols of growing freedom." The French 
trees were decorated with "caps of Liberty." 
No such trees had ever been planted in Spain.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto i. 



Till my frail frame return to whence it 

rose, 
And mourned and mourner lie united in 

repose. 

XCIII. 

Here is one fytte of Harold's pilgrimage : 
Ye who of him may further seek to 

know, 
Shall find some tidings in a future page. 
If he that rhymeth now may scribble 

moe. 
Is this too much ? stern Critic ! say not 

so: 
Patience ! and ye shall hear what he 

beheld 
In other lands, where he was doomed 

to go: 
Lands that contain the monuments of 

Eld, 
Ere Greece and Grecian arts by bar- 
barous hands were quelled. 

NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S 
PILGRIMAGE. 

CANTO I 



Yes ! sighed o'er Delphi's long deserted shrine. 
Stanza i. line 6. 

The little village of Castri stands par- 
tially on the site of Delphi. Along the 
path of the mountain, from Chrysso, 
are the remains of sepulchres hewn in 
and from the rock: — "One," said the 
guide, "of a king who broke his neck 
hunting." His majesty had certainly 
chosen the fittest spot for such an 
achievement. 

A little above Castri is a cave, sup- 
posed the Pythian, of immense depth; 
the upper part of it is paved, and now 
a cowhouse. 

On the' other side of Castri stands a 
Greek monastery; some way above 
which is the cleft in the rock, with a 
range of caverns difficult of ascent, and 
apparently leading to the interior of the 
mountain; probably to the Corycian 
Cavern mentioned by Pausanias. From 
this part descend the fountain and the 
" Dews of Castalie." 



2. 

And rest ye at "Our Lady's house of Woe." 
Stanza xx. line 4. 

The convent of "Our Lady of Pun- 
ishment," Nossa Senora de Pena, on the 
summit of the rock. Below, at some 
distance, is the Cork Convent, where 
St. Honorius dug his den, over which is 
his epitaph. From the hills, the sea 
adds to the beauty of the view. — [Note 
to First Edition.] Since the publication 
of this poem, I have been informed [by 
W. Scott, July I, 181 2] of the mis- 
apprehension of the term Nossa Senora 
de Pena. It was owing to the want of 
the tilde, or mark over the n, which alters 
the signification of the word: with it, 
Peiia signifies a rock; without it, Pena 
has the sense I adopted. / do not think 
it necessary to alter the passage; as, 
though the common acceptation affixed 
to it is " Our Lady of the Rock," I may 
well assume the other sense from the 
severities practised there. — [Note to 
Second Edition.] 



Throughout this purple land, where Law secures 
not life. 

Stanza xxi. line 9. 

It is a well-known fact that in the year 
1809, the assassinations in the streets of 
Lisbon and its vicinity were not con- 
fined by the Portuguese to their country- 
men; but that Englishmen were daily 
butchered: and so far from redress 
being obtained, we were requested not 
to interfere if we perceived any com- 
patriot defending himself against his 
allies. I was once stopped in the way 
to the theatre at eight o'clock in the 
evening, when the streets were not 
more empty than they generally are 
at that hour, opposite to an open shop, 
and in a carriage with a friend : had 
we not fortunately been armed, I have 
not the least doubt that we should have 
"adorned a tale" instead of telling one. 
The crime of assassination is not con- 
fined to Portugal; in Sicily and Malta 
we are knocked on the head at a hand- 
some average nightly, and not a Sicil- 
ian or Maltese is ever punished ! 



Canto i.] 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened ! 
Stanza xxiv. line i. 

The Convention of Cintra was signed 
in the palace of the Marchese Marialva. 
The late exploits of Lord Wellington 
have effaced the follies of Cintra. He 
has, indeed, done wonders; he has per- 
haps changed the character of a nation, 
reconciled rival superstitions, and baffled 
an enemy who never retreated before his 
predecessor. 

[The Convention was not signed at 
Cintra. The "suspension of arms" is 
dated "Head Quarters of the British 
Army, August 22, 1808." The " Defini- 
tive Convention for the Evacuation of 
Portugal by the British Army" is dated 
"Head Quarters, Lisbon, August 30, 
1808."] 

S- 

Yet Mafra shall one moment claim delay. 
Stanza xxix. line i. 

The extent of Mafra is prodigious; it 
contains a palace, convent, and most 
superb church. The six organs are the 
most beautiful I ever beheld, in point 
of decoration : we did not hear them, 
but were told that their tones were cor- 
respondent to their splendour. Mafra 
is termed the Escurial of Portugal. 



Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know 
'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the 
low. Stanza xxxiii, lines 8 and 9. 

As I found the Portuguese, so I have 
characterised them. That they are 
since improved, at least in courage, is 
evident. 

7- 
When Cava's traitor-sire first called the band 
That dyed thy mountain streams with Gothic 
gore. Stanza xxxv. lines 3 and 4. 

Count Julian's daughter, the Helen 
of Spain. Pelagius preserved his inde- 
pendence in the fastnesses of the 
Asturias, and the descendants of his 
followers, after some centuries, com- 
pleted their struggle by the conquest of 
Granada. 

[Roderick the Goth violated Florinda, 
or Caba, or Cava, daughter of Count 



Julian, one of his principal lieutenants. 
In revenge for this outrage, Julian allied 
himself with Musca, the Caliph's lieu- 
tenant in Africa, and countenanced the 
invasion of Spain by a body of Saracens 
and Africans commanded by Tarik, 
from whom Jebel Tarik, Tarik's Rock, 
that is, Gibraltar, is said to have been 
named. The issue was the defeat and 
death of Roderick and the Moorish 
occupation of Spain. A Spaniard, ac- 
cording to Cervantes, may call his dog, 
but not his daughter, Florinda. (See 
Vision of Don Roderick, by Sir W. Scott, 
stanza iv. note 5.)] 



No! as he speeds, he chants "Viva el Rey!" 
Stanza xlviii. line 5. 

"Viva el Rey Fernando!" Long 
live King Ferdinand ! is the chorus of 
most of the Spanish patriotic songs. 
They are chiefly in dispraise of the old 
King Charles, the Queen, and the 
Prince of Peace. I have heard many 
of them : some of the airs are beautiful. 
Godoy, the Principe de la Paz, of an 
ancient but decayed family, was born 
at Badajoz, on the frontiers of Portugal, 
and was originally in the ranks of the 
Spanish guards; till his person attracted 
the queen's eyes, and raised him to the 
dukedom of Alcudia, etc., etc. It is to 
this man that the Spaniards universally 
impute the ruin of their country. 

[Manuel de Godoy (1767-1851) re- 
ceived the title of Principe de la Paz, 
Prince of the Peace, in 1795, after the 
Treaty of Basle, which ceded more than 
half St Domingo to France.] 



Bears in his cap the badge of crimson hue, 
Which tells you whom to shun and whom to 
greet. Stanza 1. lines 2 and 3. 

The red cockade, with "Fernando 
Septimo" in the centre. 

10. 

The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match. 
Stanza li. line 9. 

All who have seen a battery will recol- 
lect the pyramidal form in which shot 



igo 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto i. 



and shells are piled. The Sierra Morena 
was fortified in every defile through 
which I passed in my way to Seville. 



Foiled by a woman's hand, before a battered wall. 
Stanza Ivi. line 9. 

Such were the exploits of the Maid of 
Saragoza, who by her valour elevated 
herself to the highest rank of heroines. 
When the author was at Seville, she 
walked daily on the Prado, decorated 
with medals and orders, by command 
of the Junta. 

[The story, as told by Southey (who 
seems to have derived his information 
from The Narrative of the Siege of 
Zaragoza, by Charles Richard Vaughan, 
M.B., 1809), is that "Augustina Zara- 
goza (sic), a handsome woman of the 
lower class, about twenty-two years of 
age," a vivandiere, in the course of her 
rounds came with provisions to a battery 
near the Portello gate. The gunners 
had all been killed, and, as the citizens 
held back, "Augustina sprung forward 
over the dead and dying, snatched a 
match from the hand of a dead artillery- 
man, and fired off a twenty-six pounder; 
then, jumping upon the gun, made a 
solemn vow never to quit it alive during 
the siege." 

After the retreat of the French, "a. 
pension was settled upon Augustina 
and the daily pay of an artilleryman. 
She was also to wear a small shield of 
honour, embroidered upon the sleeve of 
her gown, with 'Zaragoza' inscribed 
upon it" (Southey 's Peninsular War, 
ii- 14, 34)-] 



The seal Love's dimpling finger hath impressed 
Denotes how soft that chin which bears his touch. 
Stanza Iviii. Hnes i and 2. 

"Sigilla in mento impressa Amoris digitulo 
Vestigio demonstrant mollitudinem." 

Aul. Gel. 

[The quotation does not occur in 
Aulus Gellius, but is a fragment of 
M. Terentius Varro, cited by the gram- 
marian Nonius Marcellus.] 



13- 
Oh, thou Parnassus ! 

Stanza Ix. line i. 

These stanzas were written in Castri 
(Delphos), at the foot of Parnassus, now 
called AiaKvpa (Liakura), Dec. [16], 
1809. 

14- 

Fair is proud Seville; let her country boast 
Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days. 
Stanza Ixv. lines i and 2. 

Seville was the Hispalis of the Romans. 

15- 
Ask ye, Boeotian Shades! the reason why? 
Stanza Ixx. line 5. 

This was written at Thebes, and con- 
sequently in the best situation for asking 
and answering such a question ; not as 
the birthplace of Pindar, but as the 
capital of Boeotia, where the first riddle 
was propounded and solved. 

[Byron reached Thebes December 22, 
1809. By the first riddle he means, of 
course, the famous enigma of (Edipus — 
the prototype of Boeotian wit.] 

16. 

Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom 
flings. Stanza Ixxxii. line 9. 

"Medio de fonte leporum 
Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipseis floribus angat." 
Lucr., iv. 1 1 33. 

17- 
A Traitor only fell beneath the feud. 

Stanza Ixxxv. Hne 7. 

Alluding to the conduct and death of 
Solano, the governor of Cadiz, in May, 
1808. 

18. 

" War even to the knife !" 

Stanza Ixxxvi. line 9. 

"War to the knife." Palafox's answer 
to the French general at the siege of 
Saragoza. 

19. 

And thou, my friend ! etc. 

Stanza xci. line i. 

The Honourable John Wingfield, of 
the Guards, who died of a fever at 
Coimbra (May 14, 181 1). I had known 



Canto ii.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



191 



him ten years, the better half of his Hfe, 
and the happiest part of mine. In the 
short space of one month I have lost 
her who gave me being, and most of 
those who had made that being tolerable. 
To me the lines of Young are no 
fiction — 

"Insatiate archer! could not one suflSce? 
Thy shaft flew thrice; and thrice my peace was 

slain; 
And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had fiU'd her 
horn." 

Night Thoughts: The Complaint, Night i. 
(London, 1825, p. 5.) 

I should have ventured a verse to the 
memory of the late Charles Skinner 
Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, 
Cambridge, were he not too much above 
all praise of mine. His powers of mind, 
shown in the attainment of greater 
honours, against the ablest candidates, 
than those of any graduate on record at 
Cambridge, have sufficiently established 
his fame on the spot where it was 
acquired; while his softer qualities live 
in the recollection of friends who loved 
him too well to envy his superiority. 
[C. S. Matthews, elder son of John 
Matthews, M.P. for Herefordshire, was 
drowned in the Cam, August 181 1 : the 
Hon. John Wingfield, the "Alonzo" of 
■Childish Recollections, was a younger 
son of Richard, Viscount Powerscourt 
{Letters, 1898, i. 150 note, 180 note).] 



CANTO THE SECOND. 



Come, blue-eyed Maid of Heaven ! — 

but Thou, alas ! 
Didst never yet one mortal song in- 
spire — 
Goddess of Wisdom ! here thy temple was, 
And is, despite of War and wasting fire. 
And years, that bade thy worship to 

expire : 
But worse than steel, and flame, and 

ages slow, 
Is the dread sceptre and dominion dire 
Of men who never felt the sacred glow- 
That thoughts of thee and thine on 
polished breasts bestow. 



Ancient of days ! august Athena ! 

where. 
Where are thy men of might ? thy grand 

in soul? 
Gone — glimmering through the dream 

of things that were: 
First in the race that led to Glory's 

goal. 
They won, and passed away — is this 

the whole? 
A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an 

hour! 
The Warrior's weapon and the Sophist's 

stole 
Are sought in vain, and o'er each moul- 
dering tower, 
Dim with the mist of years, grey flits the 

shade of power. 

m. 

Son of the Morning,^ rise ! approach you 

here I 
Come — but molest not yon defenceless 

Urn: 
Look on this spot — a Nation's sepul- 
chre ! 
Abode of Gods, whose shrines no longer 

burn. 
Even Gods must yield — Religions take 

their turn: 
'Twas Jove's — 'tis Mahomet's — and 

other Creeds 
Will rise with other years, till Man 

shall learn 
Vainly his incense soars, his victim 

bleeds; 
Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose 

hope is built on reeds. 

IV. 

Bound to the Earth, he lifts his eye to 

Heaven — 
Is 't not enough, Unhappy Thing! to 

know 
Thou art? Is this a boon so kindly 

given. 
That being, thou would'st be again, 

and go, 

' ["Son of the Morning" stands for an Orien- 
tal — -possibly a Moslem vendor of antiquities.] 



192 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto ii. 



Thou know'st not, reck'st not to what 

region, so 
On Earth no more, but mingled with the 

skies ? 
Still wilt thou dream on future Joy and 

Woe? 
Regard and weigh yon dust before it 

flies: 
That little urn saith more than thousand 

Homilies. 



Or burst the vanished Hero's lofty 

mound; 
Far on the solitary shore he sleeps : 
He fell, and falling nations mourned 

around ; 
But now not one of saddening thousands 

weeps, 
Nor warlike worshipper his vigil 

keeps 
Where demi-gods appeared, as records 

tell.^ 
Remove yon skull from out the scattered 

heaps : 
Is that a Temple where a God may 

dwell ? 
Why ev'n the Worm at last disdains her 

shattered cell ! 



Look on its broken arch, its ruined 

wall, 
Its chambers desolate, and portals 

foul: 
Yes, this was once Ambition's airv 

hall. 
The Dome of Thought, the Palace of 

the Soul: 
Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless 

hole. 
The gay recess of Wisdom and of 

Wit 
And Passion's host, that never brooked 

control : 
Can all Saint, Sage, or Sophist ever 

writ. 
People this lonely tower, this tenement 

refit? 

' [The demigods ErechtheUS and Theseus 
"appeared" at Marathon, and fought side by 
side with Miltiades.] 



Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest 

son ! ^ 
"All that we know is, nothing can be 

known." 
Why should we shrink from what we 

cannot shun ? 
Each hath its pang, but feeble sufferers 

groan 
With brain-born dreams of Evil all 

their own. 
Pursue what Chance or Fate pro- 

claimeth best — 
Peace waits us on the shores of Acheron : 
There no forced banquet claims the 

sated guest, 
But Silence spreads the couch of ever 

welcome Rest. 



Yet if, as holiest men have deemed, 

there be 
A land of Souls beyond that sable shore, 
To shame the Doctrine of the Sadducee 
And Sophists, madly vain of dubious 

lore; 
How sweet it were in concert to adore 
With those who made our mortal 

labours light ! 
To hear each voice we feared to hear no 

more ! 
Behold each mighty shade revealed to 

sight, _ 
The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who 

taught the Right! 



There, Thou ! ^ — whose Love and Life 

together fled. 
Have left me here to love and live in 

vain — 
Twined with my heart, and can I deem 

thee dead 
When busy Memory flashes on my 

brain ? 

' [Socrates affirmed that true self-knowledge 
was to know that we know nothing, and in his 
own case he denied any other knowledge;' but 
"this confession of ignorance was certainly not 
meant to be a sceptical denial of all knowledge." 
(Socrates, etc., by Dr E. Zeller, 1868, p. 102).] 

^ [The reference cannot be traced. We have 
Byron's authority {letter to R. C. Dallas, October 
31, 181 1) for connecting stanza ix. with stanzas 



Canto ii.] 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



^93 



Well — I will dream that we may meet 

again, 
And woo the vision to my vacant 

breast : 
If aught of young Remembrance then 

remain, 
Be as it may Futurity's behest, 
For me 'twere bliss enough to know thy 

spirit blest ! 



Here let me sit upon this massy stone, 
The marble column's yet unshaken 

base; 
Here, son of Saturn ! was thy favourite 

throne : 
Mightiest of many such ! Hence let me 

trace 
The latent grandeur of thy dwelling- 
place. 
It may not be : nor ev'n can Fancy's eye 
Restore what Time hath laboured to 

deface : 
Yet these proud Pillars claim no passing 

sigh; 
Unmoved the Moslem sits, the light 

Greek carols by. 



But w^ho, of all the plunderers of yon 

Fane 
On high — where Pallas lingered, loth 

to flee 
The latest relic of her ancient reign — 
The last, the worst, dull spoiler, who 

was he ? ^ 
Blush, Caledonia ! such thy son could 

be! 
England ! I joy no child he was of 

thine : 
Thy free-born men should spare what 

once was free; 
Yet they could violate each saddening 

shrine, 
And bear these altars o'er the long-re- 
luctant brine. 

xcv., xcvi. and, inferentially, his authority for 
connecting stanzas ix., xcv., xcvi. with the group 
of "Thyrza" poems. And there our knowledge 
ends. We must leave the mystery where Byron 
willed that it should be left. " All that we know 
is, nothing can be known."] 

' [Lord Elgin. See Byron's note to stanza 
^W, 1. a.] 



But most the modern Pict's ignoble 

boast,^ 
To rive what Goth, and Turk, and 

Time hath spared: 
Cold as the crags upon his native coast, 
His mind as barren and his heart as 

hard. 
Is he whose head conceived, whose 

hand prepared, 
Aught to displace Athena's poor re- 
mains : 
Her Sons too weak the sacred shrine to 

guard, 
Yet felt some portion of their Mother's 

pains. 
And never knew, till then, the weight of 

Despot's chains. 



What! shall it e'er be said by British 

tongue, 
Albion was happy in Athena's tears? 
Though in thy name the slaves her 

bosom wrung. 
Tell not the deed to blushing Europe's 

ears; 
The Ocean Queen, the free Britannia, 

bears 
The last poor plunder from a bleeding 

land: 
Yes, she, whose generous aid her name 

endears. 
Tore down those remnants with a 

Harpy's hand. 
Which envious Eld forbore, and tyrants 

left to stand. 

XIV. 

Where was thine -^gis, Pallas! that 

appalled 
Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way? 

' [" On the plaster wall of the Chapel of 
Pandrosos adjoining the Erechtheum, these 
words have been very deeply cut — 
'Quod non fecerunt Goti, 
Hoc fecerunt Scoti'" 
{Travels in Albania, by J. C. Hobhouse, 1858, 
i. 299). The "boast" was not original. Com- 
pare the saying "Quod non fecere Barbari, 
Fecere Barberini." It may be added that 
Scotchmen are named among the volunteers 
who joined the Hanoverian niercenaries in the 
Venetian invasion of Greece in 1686.] 



194 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto ii. 



Where Peleus' son? whom Hell in vain 

enthralled, 
His shade from Hades upon that dread 

day 
Bursting to light in terrible array ! 
What ! could not Pluto spare the Chief 

once more, 
To scare a second robber from his 

prey? 
Idly he wandered on the Stygian shore, 
Nor now preserved the walls he loved to 

shield before. 

XV. 

Cold is the heart, fair Greece ! that 

looks on Thee, 
Nor feels as Lovers o'er the dust they 

loved; 
Dull is the eye that will not weep 

to see 
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering 

shrines removed 
By British hands, which it had best 

behoved 
To guard those relics ne'er to be re- 
stored : — 
Curst be the hour when from their isle 

they roved. 
And once again thy hapless bosom 

gored, 
And snatched thy shrinking Gods to 

Northern climes abhorred ! ^ 



But where is Harold? shall I then forget 
To urge the gloomy Wanderer o'er the 

wave? 
Little recked he of all that Men regret; 
No loved-one now in feigned lament 

could rave; 
No friend the parting hand extended 

gave. 
Ere the cold Stranger passed to other 

climes : 
Hard is his heart whom charms may not 

enslave; 
But Harold felt not as in other times, 
And left without a sigh the land of War 

and Crimes. 

' [The Athenians believed, or feigned to be- 
lieve, that the marbles themselves shrieked out 
in shame and agony at their removal from their 
ancient shrines.] 



He that has sailed upon the dark blue 

sea 
Has viewed at times, I ween, a full fair 

sight. 
When the fresh breeze is fair as breeze 

may be. 
The white sail set, the gallant Frigate 

tight — 
Masts, spires, and strand retiring to the 

right, 
The glorious Main expanding o'er the 

bow. 
The Convoy spread like wild swans in 

their flight, 
The dullest sailer wearing bravely now — 
So gaily curl the waves before each 

dashing prow. 

XVIII. 

And oh, the little warlike world within ! 

The well- reeved guns, the netted canopy. 

The hoarse command, the busy hum- 
ming din. 

When, at a word, the tops are manned 
on high: 

Hark, to the Boatswain's call, the cheer- 



mg cry 



While through the seaman's hand the 
tackle glides; 

Or schoolboy Midshipman that, stand- 
ing by. 

Strains his shrill pipe as good or ill 
betides. 

And well the docile crew that skilful 
Urchin guides. 

XIX. 

White is the glassy deck, without a 

stain. 
Where on the watch the staid Lieuten- 
ant walks: 
Look on that part which sacred doth 

remain 
For the lone Chieftain, who majestic 

stalks. 
Silent and feared by all — not oft he 

talks 
With aught beneath him, if he would 

preserve 
That strict restraint, which broken, 

ever balks 



Canto ii.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



195 



Conquest and Fame: but Britons rarely 

swerve 
From law, however stern, which tends 

their strength to nerve. 



Blow ! swiftly blow, thou keel-com- 
pelling gale ! 

Till the broad Sun withdraws his lessen- 
ing ray; 

Then must the Pennant-bearer slacken 
sail, 

That lagging barks may make their lazy 
way. 

Ah ! grievance sore, and listless dull 
delay. 

To waste on sluggish hulks the sweetest 
breeze ! 

What leagues are lost, before the dawn 
of day, 

Thus loitering pensive on the willing 
seas, 

The flapping sail hauled down to halt 
for logs like these ! 



The Moon is up; by Heaven, a lovely 

eve ! 
Long streams of light o'er dancing 

waves expand; 
Now lads on shore may sigh, and maids 

believe : 
Such be our fate when we return to 

land! 
Meantime some rude Arion's restless 

hand 
Wakes the brisk harmony that sailors 

love; 
A circle there of merry listeners stand 
Or to some well-known measure featly 

move. 
Thoughtless, as if on shore they still 

were free to rove.' 

XXII. 

Through Calpe's straits survey the 

steepy shore; 
Europe and Afric on each other gaze ! 
Lands of the dark-eyed Maid and dusky 

Moor 
Alike beheld beneath pale Hecate's 

blaze : 



How softly on the Spanish shore she 
plays ! 

Disclosing rock, and slope, and forest 
brown, 

Distinct, though darkening with her 
waning phase; 

But Mauritania's giant-shadows frown, 

From mountain-cliff to coast descend- 
ing sombre down. 



'Tis night, when Meditation bids us feel 
We once have loved, though Love is at 

an end: 
The Heart, lone mourner of its baffled 

zeal. 
Though friendless now, will dream it 

had a friend. 
Who with the weight of years would 

wish to bend. 
When Youth itself survives young Love 

and Joy? 
Alas ! when mingling souls forget to 

blend. 
Death hath but Httle left him to destroy ! 
Ah ! happy years ! once more who 

would not be a boy? 



Thus bending o'er the vessel's laving side, 
To gaze on Dian's wave-reflected sphere. 
The Soul forgets her schemes of Hope 

and Pride, 
And flies unconscious o'er each back- 
ward year; 
None are so desolate but something 

dear. 
Dearer than self, possesses or possessed 
A thought, and claims the homage of a 

tear; 
A flashing pang! of which the weary 

breast 
Would still, albeit in vain, the heavy 
heart divest. 



To sit on rocks — to muse o'er flood 

and fell — 
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, 
Where things that own not Man's 

dominion dwell, 
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely 

been; 



196 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto ii. 



To climb the trackless mountain all 

unseen, 
With the wild flock that never needs a 

fold; 
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to 

lean; 
This is not Solitude — 'tis but to hold 
Converse with Nature's charms, and 

view her stores unrolled. 



But midst the crowd, the hum, the 

shock of men. 
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess. 
And roam along, the World's tired 

denizen, 
With none who bless us, none whom we 

can bless; 
Minions of Splendour shrinking from 

distress ! 
None that, with kindred consciousness 

endued, 
If we were not, would seem to smile the 

less. 
Of all that flattered — followed — 

sought, and sued; 
This is to be alone — This, This is 

Solitude ! 

XXVII. 

More blest the life of godly Eremite, 
Such as on lonely Athos may be seen, 
Watching at eve upon the Giant Height, 
Which looks o'er waves so blue, skies so 

serene, 
That he who there at such art hour hath 

been 
Will wistful linger on that hallowed spot ; 
Then slowly tear him from the 'witch- 
ing scene. 
Sigh forth one wish that such had been 

his lot. 
Then turn to hate a world he had almost 
forgot. 

XXVIII. 

Pass we the long unvarying course, the 

track 
Oft trod, that never leaves a trace behind ; 
Pass we the calm — the gale — the 

change — the tack. 
And each well known caprice of wave 

and wind; 



Pass we the joys and sorrows sailors 

find. 
Cooped in their winged sea-girt citadel ; 
The foul — the fair — the contrary — 

the kind — 
As breezes rise and fall and billows 

swell, 
Till on some jocund morn — lo, Land ! 

and All is well! 

XXIX. 

But not in silence pass Calypso's isles, 
The sister tenants of the middle deep; 
There for the weary still a Haven 

smiles, 
Though the fair Goddess long hath 

ceased to weep. 
And o'er her cliffs a fruitless watch to 

keep 
For him who dared prefer a mortal 

bride : 
Here, too, his boy essayed the dreadful 

leap 
Stern Mentor urged from high to yonder 

tide; 
While thus of both bereft, the Nymph- 
Queen doubly sighed.^ 



Her reign is past, her gentle glories gone : 
But trust not this; too easy Youth, 

beware ! 
A mortal Sovereign holds her dangerous 

throne. 
And thou may'st find a new Calypso 

there. j 

Sweet Florence ! ^ could another ever 

share 
This wayward, loveless heart, it would 

be thine: 
But checked by every tie, I may not 

dare 
To cast a worthless offering at thy shrine, 
Nor ask so dear a breast to feel one pang 

for mine. 



' [" Le sage Mentor, poussant Telemaque, 

aui etait assis sur le bord du rocher, le prdcipite 
ans le mer, et s'y jette avec lui. . . . Calypso, 
inconsolable, rentra dans sa grotte, qu'elle 
remplit de ses hurlements." — Fenelon's Tele- 
maque, vi., Paris, 1837, "i- 43-] 

» [For Mrs Spencer Smitii, see ttote to " Lines 
written in an Album, at Malta."! 



Canto II.] 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



197 



XXXI. 

Thus Harold deemed, as on that Lady's 

eye 
He looked, and met its beam without 

a thought, 
Save Admiration glancing harmless by: 
Love kept aloof, albeit not far remote. 
Who knew his Votary often lost and 

caught. 
But knew him as his Worshipper no 

more. 
And ne'er again the Boy his bosom 

sought : 
Since now he vainly urged him to adore. 
Well deemed the little God his ancient 

sway was o'er. 

XXXII. 

Fair Florence found, in sooth with some 
amaze. 

One who, 'twas said, still sighed to all 
he saw. 

Withstand, unmoved, the lustre of her 
gaze. 

Which others hailed with real or mimic 
awe. 

Their hope, their doom, their punish- 
ment, their law; 

All that gay Beauty from her bondsmen 
claims: 

And much she marvelled that a youth 
so raw 

Nor felt, nor feigned at least, the oft- 
told flames. 

Which, though sometimes they frown, 
yet rarely anger dames. 

XXXIII. 

Little knew she that seeming marble 

heart, 
Now masked in silence or withheld by 

Pride, 
Was not unskilful in the spoiler's art. 
And spread its snares licentious far and 

wide ; 
Nor from the base pursuit had turned 

aside. 
As long as aught was worthy to pursue : 
But Harold on such arts no more reHed ; 
And had he doted on those eyes so blue, 
Yet never would he join the lovers' 

whining crew. 



Not much he kens, I ween, of Woman's 

breast. 
Who thinks that wanton thing is won by 

sighs; 
What careth she for hearts when once 

possessed ? 
Do proper homage to thine Idol's eyes, 
But not too humbly — or she will 

despise 
Thee and thy suit, though told in mov- 
ing tropes: 
Disguise ev'n tenderness, if thou art 

wise ; 
Brisk Confidence still best with woman 

copes : 
Pique her and soothe in turn — soon 

Passion crowns thy hopes. 

XXXV. 

'Tis an old lesson — Time approves it 

true. 
And those who know it best, deplore it 

most; 
When all is won that all desire to woo, 
The paltry prize is hardly worth the 

cost: 
Youth wasted — Minds degraded — 

Honour lost — 
These are thy fruits, successful Passion ! 

these ! 
If, kindly cruel, early Hope is crost, 
Still to the last it rankles, a disease, 
Not to be cured when Love itself forgets 

to please. 

XXXVI. 

Away ! nor let me loiter in my song. 
For we have many a mountain-path to 

tread, 
And many a varied shore to sail along, 
By pensive Sadness, not by Fiction, 

led — 
Climes, fair withal as ever mortal head 
Imagined in its little schemes of thought, 
Or e'er in new Utopias were ared,^ 
To teach Man what he might be, or he 

ought — 
If that corrupted thing could ever such 

be taught. 

'["Were counselled or advised." The pas- 
sive "were ared" seems to lack authority.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto ii. 



Dear Nature is the kindest mother 

still ! 
Though always changing, in her aspect 

mild; 
From her bare bosom let me take my 

fill, 
Her never-weaned, though not her 

favoured child. 
Oh ! she is fairest in her features wild. 
Where nothing polished dares pollute 

her path: 
To me by day or night she ever 

smiled. 
Though I have marked her when none 

other hath. 
And sought her more and more, and 

loved her best in wrath. 

XXXVIII. 

Land of Albania ! where Iskander 

rose,^ 
Theme of the young, and beacon of the 

wise,^ 
And he his namesake, whose oft-bafHed 

foes 
Shrunk from his deeds of chivalrous 

emprize : 
Land of Albania ! let me bend mine 

eyes 
On thee, thou rugged Nurse of savage 

men ! 
The Cross descends, thy Minarets 

arise, 
And the pale Crescent sparkles in the 

glen, . 
Through many a cypress-grove within 

each city's ken. 

• [Alexander's mother, Olympias, was an 
Epiriote.] 

^ [The antithesis lies between Alexander the 
ideal of the young, and Alexander the deterrent 
example of the old. The phrase "beacon of 
the wise," if Hector in Troilus and Cressida 
(act ii. _ sc. 2, line i6) is an authority, is 
proverbial : — 

"... Modest doubt is call'd 
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches 
To the bottom of the worst." 

The beauty, the brilliance, the glory of Alex- 
ander kindle the enthusiasm of the young; but 
the murder of Clvtus and the early death which 
he brought upon himself are held up by the wise, 
as beacon-lights to save others from shipwreck.] 



Childe Harold sailed, and passed the 

barren spot, 
Where sad Penelope o'erlooked the 

wave; 
And onward viewed the mount, not yet 

forgot, 
The Lover's refuge, and the Lesbian's 

grave. 
Dark Sappho ! could not Verse immortal 

save 
That breast imbued with such immortal 

fire? 
Could she not live who life eternal gave ? 
If life eternal may await the lyre. 
That only Heaven to which Earth's 

children may aspire. 



'Twas on a Grecian autumn's gentle eve 
Childe Harold hailed Leucadia's cape 

afar; 
A spot he longed to see, nor cared to 

leave : 
Oft did he mark the scenes of vanished 

war, 
Actium — Lepanto — fatal Trafalgar ; 
Mark them unmoved, for he would not 

delight 
(Born beneath some remote inglorious 

star) 
In themes of bloody fray, or gallant 

fight, 
But loathed the bravo's trade, and 

laughed at martial wight. 



But when he saw the Evening star above 
Leucadia's far-projecting rock of woe, 
And hailed the last resort of fruitless 

love, 
He felt, or deemed he felt, no common 

glow: 
And as the stately vessel glided slow 
Beneath the shadow of that ancient 

mount, 
He watched the billows' melancholy 

flow. 
And, sunk albeit in thought as he was 

wont. 
More placid seemed his eye, and smooth 

his pallid front. 



Canto ii.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



igg 



XLII. 

Morn dawns; and with it stern Al- 
bania's hills, 
Dark Suli's rocks, and Pindus' inland 

peak,^ 
Robed hnlf in mist, bedewed with snowy 

rills. 
Arrayed in many a dun and purple 

streak, 
Arise; and, as the clouds along them 

break, 
Disclose the dwelling of the mountaineer : 
Here roams the wolf — the eagle whets 

his beak — 
Birds — beasts of prey — and wilder 

men appear. 
And gathering storms around convulse 

the closing year. 

XLIII. 

Now Harold felt himself at length 

alone. 
And bade to Christian tongues a long 

adieu ; 
Now he adventured on a shore un- 
known. 
Which all admire, but many dread to 

view : 
His breast was armed 'gainst fate, his 

wants were few; 
Peril he sought not, but ne'er shrank to 

meet: 
The scene was savage, but the scene was 

new; 
This made the ceaseless toil of travel 

sweet. 
Beat back keen Winter's blast, and 

welcomed Summer's heat. 



Here the red Cross, for still the Cross is 
here. 

Though sadly scofifed at by the cir- 
cumcised, 

Forgets that Pride to pampered priest- 
hood dear, — 

Churchman and Votary alike despised, 

' [By "Suli's rocks" Byron means the moun- 
tainous district in the south of the Epirus. 
"Pindus' inland peak," Monte Metsovo, which 
forms part of the ridge which divides Epirus 
from Thessaly, is not visible from the sea-coast.] 



Foul Superstition ! howsoe'er disguised, 
Idol — Saint — Virgin — Prophet — 

Crescent — Cross — 
For whatsoever symbol thou art prized, 
Thou sacerdotal gain, but general loss! 
Who from true Worship's gold can 

separate thy dross? 

XLV. 

Ambracia's gulf behold, where once was 

lost 
A world for Woman, lovely, harmless 

thing ! 
In yonder rippling bay, their naval host 
Did many a Roman chief and Asian 

King 
To doubtful conflict, certain slaughter 

bring: 
Look where the second Caesar's trophies 

rose ! ^ 
Now, like the hands that reared them, 

withering: 
Imperial Anarchs, doubling human 

woes ! 
God ! was thy globe ordained for such 

to win and lose? 

XLVI. 

From the dark barriers of that rugged 

clime, 
Ev'n to the centre of Illyria's vales, 
Childe Harold passed o'er many a 

mount sublime, 
Through lands scarce noticed in historic 

tales : 
Yet in famed Attica such lovely dales 
Are rarely seen ; nor can fair Tem.pe 

boast 
A charm they know not;, loved Par- 
nassus fails. 
Though classic ground and consecrated 

most. 
To match some spots that lurk within 

this lowering coast. 

XLVII. 

He passed bleak Pindus, Acherusia's 

lake. 
And left the primal city of the land, 

' [Nicopolis, "the city of victory," which 
Augustus, "the second Caesar," built to com- 
memorate Actium, is some five miles to the 
north of Prevesa.] 



CHI IDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto ii. 



And onwards did his further journey 
take 1 

To greet Albania's Chief, whose dread 
command 

Is lawless law ; for with a bloody hand 

He sways a nation, turbulent and bold: 

Yet here and there some daring moun- 
tain-band 

Disdain his power, and from their rocky 
hold 

Hurl their defiance far, nor yield, unless 
to gold. 

XLVIII. 

Monastic Zitza ! from thy shady brow, 
Thou small, but favoured spot of holy 

ground ! 
Where'er we gaze — around — above 

— below, — 
What rainbow tints, what magic charms 

are found ! 
Rock, river, forest, mountain, all 

abound, 
And bluest skies that harmonise the 

whole : 
Beneath, the distant Torrent's rushing 

sound 
Tells where the volumed Cataract doth 

roll 
Between those hanging rocks, that 

shock yet please the soul. 

XLIX. 

Amidst the grove that crowns yon tufted 

hill, 
Which, were it not for many a mountain 

nigh 
Rising in lofty ranks and loftier still. 
Might well itself be deemed of dignity. 
The Convent's white walls glisten fair 

on high: 
Here dwells the caloyer, nor rude is he, 
Nor niggard of his cheer; ^ the passer-by 

' [The travellers left Prevesa on October i, 
and arrived at Janina on October 5. They left 
Janina on October 11, and reached Zitza at 
nightfall (Byron at 3 a.m., October 12). They 
left Zitza on October 13, and arrived at Tepeleni 
on October 10.] 

= ["The Prior of the monastery, a humble, 
meek-mannered man, entertained us in a warm 
chamber with grapes and a pleasant white wine. 
. . . We were so well pleased with everything 
about us that we agreed to lodge with him." — 
Hobhouse's Travels in Albania, i. 73.] 



Is welcome still; nor heedless will he 

flee 
From hence, if he delight kind Nature's 

sheen to see. 



Here in the sultriest season let him rest, 
Fresh is the green beneath those aged 

trees ; 
Here winds of gentlest wing will fan his 

breast, 
From Heaven itself he may inhale the 

breeze : 
The plain is far beneath — oh ! let him 

seize 
Pure pleasure while he can; the scorch- 
ing ray 
Here pierceth not, impregnate v/ith 

disease : 
Then let his length the loitering pilgrim 

lay, 
And gaze, untired, the Morn — the 

Noon — the Eve away. 



Dusky and huge, enlarging on the sight, 
Nature's volcanic Amphitheatre, 
Chimaera's Alps extend from left to 

right: 
Beneath, a living valley seems to stir; 
Flocks play, trees wave, streams flow 

— the mountain-fir 
Nodding above; behold black Acheron ! 
Once consecrated to the sepulchre. 
Pluto ! if this be Hell I look upon, 
Close shamed Elysium's gates — my 

shade shall seek for none. 

LII. 

Ne city's towers pollute the lovely view; 
Unseen is Yanina, though not remote. 
Veiled by the screen of hills: here men 

are few. 
Scanty the hamlet, rare the lonely cot: 
But, peering down each precipice, the 

goat 
Browseth; and, pensive o'er his scat- 
tered flock. 
The little shepherd in his white capote 
Doth lean his boyish form along the 

rock. 
Or in his cave awaits the Tempest's 
short-lived shock. 



Canto ii.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



201 



LIII. 

Oh ! where, Dodona ! ^ is thine aged 

Grove, 
Prophetic Fount, and Oracle divine? 
What valley echoed the response of 

Jove? 
What trace remaineth of the Thunderer's 

shrine ? 
All, all forgotten — and shall Man 

repine 
That his frail bonds to fleeting life are 

broke ? 
Cease, Fool ! the fate of Gods may well 

be thine: 
Wouldst thou survive the marble or the 

oak? 
When nations, tongues, and worlds 

must sink beneath the stroke ! 



Epirus' bounds recede, and mountains 

fail; 2 
Tired of up-gazing still, the wearied eye 
Reposes gladly on as smooth a vale 
As ever Spring yclad in glassy dye: 
Ev'n on a plain no humble beauties 

lie, 
Where some bold river breaks the long 

expanse, 
And woods along the banks are waving 

high, 
Whose shadows in the glassy waters 

dance, 
Or with the moonbeam sleep in Mid- 
night's solemn trance. 

' [The site of Dodona, a spot " at the foot of 
Mount Tomaros" (Mount Olytsika) in the 
valley of Tcharacovista, was finally determined, 
in 1876. Behind Dodona, on the summit of 
the many-named chain of hills which confronts 
Mount Tomaros, are "bouquets de chene," 
sprung it may be from the offspring of the 
"talking oaks," which declared the will of Zeus. 

Byron and Hobhouse, on one of their ex- 
cursions from Janina, explored and admired the 
ruins of the "amphitheatre," but knew not that 
"here and nowhere else" was Dodona.] 

^ [The six days' journey from Zitza to Tepe- 
leni is compressed into a single stanza. The 
vale (line 3) may be that of the Kalama, through 
which the travellers passed (October 13) soon 
after leaving Zitza, or, more probably, the plain 
of Deropoli ("well-cultivated, divided by rails 
and low hedges, and having a river flowing 
through it to the south"), which they crossed 
(October 15) on their way from Delvinaki, the 
frontier village of Illyria, to Libokhovo.] 



LV. 

The Sun had sunk behind vast 

Tomerit, 
And Laos wide and fierce came roaring 

The shades of wonted night were gather- 
ing yet. 

When, down the steep banks winding 
warily, 

Childe Harold saw, like meteors in the 
sky, 

The glittering minarets of Tepalen,^ 

Whose walls o'erlook the stream; and 
drawing nigh. 

He heard the busy hum of warrior- 
men 

Swelling the breeze that sighed along the 
lengthening glen. 



He passed the sacred Haram's silent 

tower. 
And underneath the wide o'erarching 

gate 
Surveyed the dwelling of this Chief of 

power, 
Where all around proclaimed his high 

estate. 
Amidst no common pomp the Despot 

sate. 
While busy preparation shook the court, 
Slaves, eunuchs, soldiers, guests, and 

santons ^ wait : — 
Within, a palace, and without, a fort — 
Here men of every clime appear to make 

resort. 



Richly caparisoned, a ready row 

Of armed horse, and many a warlike 

store. 
Circled the wide-extending court below; 
Above, strange groups adorned the 

corridore : 



' ["During the fast of the Ramazan, _. . . 
the gallery of each minaret is decorated with a 
circlet of small lamps. When seen from a 
distance, each minaret presents a point of light, 
'like meteors in the sky'; and in a large city, 
where they are numerous, they resemble a 
swarm of fireflies." — H. F. Tozer. (Compare 
Tlie Giaour, lines 449-452.] 

' [A dervish or recluse ] 



202 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto ii. 



And oft-times through the area's echo- 
ing door 

Some high-capped Tartar spurred his 
steed away: 

The Turk — the Greek — the Albanian 

— and the Moor, 

Here mingled in their many-hued array, 
While the deep war-drum's sound an- 
nounced the close of day. 

LVIII. 

The wild Albanian kirtled to his knee, 
With shawl-girt head and ornamented 

gun, 
And gold-embroidered garments, fair to 

see; 
The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon; 
The Delhi with his cap of terror on. 
And crooked glaive — the lively, supple 

Greek, 
And swarthy Nubia's mutilated son; 
The bearded Turk that rarely deigns to 

speak, 
Master of all around, too potent to be 

meek, 

LIX. 

Are mixed conspicuous: some recline 

in groups. 
Scanning the motley scene that varies 

round ; 
There some grave Moslem to devotion 

stoops. 
And some that smoke, and some that 

play, are found; 
Here the Albanian proudly treads the 

ground ; 
Half-whispering there the Greek is 

heard to prate; 
Hark! from the Mosque the nightly 

solemn sound, 
The Muezzin's call doth shake the 

minaret, 
"There is no god but God ! — to prayer 

— lo! God is great!" 



Just at this season Ramazani's fast^ 
Through the long day its penance did 
maintain : 

' ["The Ramadan or Rhamazan [the Turkish 
Lent] is the ninth month of the Mohammedan 
year. As the Mohammedans reckon by lunar 



But when the lingering twilight hour 
was past, 

Revel and feast assumed the rule again : 

Now all was bustle, and the menial train 

Prepared and spread the plenteous 
board within; 

The vacant Gallery now seemed made 
in vain. 

But from the chambers came the min- 
gling din, 

As page and slave anon were passing out 
and in. 



Here woman's voice is never heard: 

apart. 
And scarce permitted — guarded, veiled 

— to move, 
She yields to one her person and her 

heart. 
Tamed to her cage, nor feels a wish to 

rove: 
For, not unhappy in her Master's love. 
And joyful in a mother's gentlest cares. 
Blest cares ! all other feelings far above ! 
Herself more sweetly rears the babe she 

bears, 
Who never quits the breast — no 

meaner passion shares. 



In marble-paved pavilion, where a 

spring 
Of living water from the centre rose. 
Whose bubbling did a genial freshness 

fling. 
And soft voluptuous couches breathed 

repose, 
Ali reclined, a man of war and woes : ^ 
Yet in his lineaments ye cannot trace, 
While Gentleness her milder radiance 

throws 
Along that aged venerable face, 
The deeds that lurk beneath, and stain 

him with disgrace. 

time, it begins each year eleven days earlier than 
in the preceding year, so that in thirty-three 
years it occurs successively in all the seasons." — 
Imp. Dictionary. In 1809 the Rhamazan fell 
in October.] 

' [Ali Pasha (i 741-1822) acquired supreme 
power over Epirus and Albania. His final 
conquest of Parga, in 1810, aroused the jealousy 
of the Porte, and he was surprised by the Turkish 
troops, and shut up in Janina.] 



Canto ii.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



203 



It is not that yon hoary lengthening 

beard 
111 suits the passions which belong to 

Youth; 
Love conquers Age — so Hafiz hath 

averred, 
So sings the Teian, and he sings in 

sooth — 
But crimes that scorn the tender voice 

of ruth, 
Beseeming all men ill, but most the man 
In years, have marked him. w^ith a 

tiger's tooth; 
Blood follows blood, and, through their 

mortal span. 
In bloodier acts conclude those who 

with blood began. ^ 

LXIV. 

'Mid many things most new to ear and 

eye 
The Pilgrim rested here his weary feet. 
And gazed around on Moslem luxury. 
Till quickly wearied with that spacious 

seat 
Of Wealth and Wantonness, the choice 

retreat 
Of sated Grandeur from the city's 

noise : 
And were it humbler it in sooth were 

sweet ; 
But Peace abhorreth artificial joys. 
And Pleasure, leagued with Pomp, the 

zest of both destroys. 

LXV. 

Fierce are Albania's children, yet they 

lack 
Not virtues, were those virtues more 

mature. 

'[This was prophetic. "On the sth of 
February, 1822, a meeting took place between 
Ali and Mohammed Pasha. . . . When Mo- 
hammed rose to depart, the two viziers, being of 
equal rank, moved together towards the door. 
. . . As they parted, Ali bowed low to his 
visitor, and Mohammed, seizing the moment 
when the watchful eye of the old man was turned 
away, drew his hanjar, and plunged it in Ali's 
heart. He walked on calmly to the gallery, 
and said to the attendants, 'Ali of Tepalen is 
dead.' . . . The head of Ali was exposed at 
the gate of the serai." — Finlay's Hist, of 
Greece, 1877, vi. 94, 95.] 



Where is the foe that ever saw their 

back? 
Who can so well the toil of War endure ? 
Their native fastnesses not more secure 
Than they in doubtful time of troublous 

need : 
Their wrath how deadly! but their 

friendship sure. 
When Gratitude or Valour bids them 

bleed — 
Unshaken rushing on where'er their 

Chief may lead. 



Childe Harold saw them in their Chief- 
tain's tower 

Thronging to War in splendour and 
success; 

And after viewed them, when, within 
their power, 

Himself awhile the victim of distress; 

That saddening hour when bad men 
hotlier press: 

But these did shelter him beneath their 
roof, 

When less barbarians would have- 
cheered him less, 

And fellow-countrymen have stood 
aloof — 

In aught that tries the heart, how few 
withstand the proof! 



It chanced that adverse winds once 

drove his bark 
Full on the coast of Suli's shaggy shore, 
When all around was desolate and dark ; 
To land was perilous, to sojourn more; 
Yet for awhile the mariners forbore, 
Dubious to trust where Treachery 

might lurk: 
At length they ventured forth, though 

doubting sore 
That those who loathe alike the Frank 

and Turk 
Might once again renew their ancient 

butcher-work. 

LXVIII. 

Vain fear! the Suliotes stretched the 

welcome hand, 
Led them o'er rocks and past the 

dangerous swamp, 



204 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto ii. 



Kinder than polished slaves though not 

so bland, 
And piled the hearth, and wrung their 

garments damp, 
And filled the bowl, and trimmed the 

cheerful lamp, 
And spread their fare — though homely, 

all they had: 
Such conduct bears Philanthropy's rare 

stamp : 
To rest the weary and to soothe the sad. 
Doth lesson happier men, and shames at 

least the bad. 

LXIX. 

It came to pass, that when he did 

address 
Himself to quit at length this mountain- 
land. 
Combined marauders half-way barred 

egress, 
And wasted far and near with glaive and 

brand; 
And therefore did he take a trusty band 
To traverse Acarnania's forest wide, 
In war well-seasoned, and with labours 

tanned. 
Till he did greet white Achelous' tide. 
And from his further bank ^tolia's 
wolds espied.^ 

LXX. 

Where lone Utraikey forms its circling 

cove. 
And weary waves retire to gleam at rest, 
How brown the foliage of the green 

hill's grove. 
Nodding at midnight o'er the calm bay's 

breast. 
As winds come lightly whispering from 

the West, 
Kissing, not ruffling, the blue deep's 

serene : — 
Here Harold was received a welcome 

guest ; 

» [The route from Utraikey to Gouria (No- 
vember 15-18) lay through "thick woods of 
oak," with occasional peeps of the open culti- 
vated district of ^tolia on the further side of 
the Aspropotamo, "white Achelous' tide." 
The Albanian guard was not dismissed until 
the travellers reached Mesolonghi (November 



Nor did he pass unmoved the gentle 

scene. 
For many a joy could he from Night's 

soft presence glean. 

LXXI. 

On the smooth shore the night-fires 

brightly blazed, 
The feast was done, the red wine circling 

fast. 
And he that unawares had there 

ygazed 
W^ith gaping wonderment had stared 

aghast ; 
For ere night's midmost, stillest hour 

was past. 
The native revels of the troop began; 
Each Palikar his sabre from him 

cast. 
And bounding hand in hand, man 

linked to man. 
Yelling their uncouth dirge, long 

daunced the kirtled clan.^ 

LXXII. 

Childe Harold at a little distance 

stood 
And viewed, but not displeased, the 

revelrie. 
Nor hated harmless mirth, however 

rude: 
In sooth, it was no vulgar sight to 

see 



' ["In the evening the gates [of the courtyard 
of a barrack on the shore] were secured, and 
preparations were made for feeding our Al- 
banians. A goat was killed and roasted whole, 
and four fires were kindled in the yard, round 
which the soldiers seated themselves in parties. 
After eating and drinking, the greater part of 
them assembled round the largest of the fires, 
and, whilst ourselves and the elders of the party 
were seated on the ground, danced round the 
blaze to their own songs, in the manner before 
described, but with astonishing energy. All 
their songs were relations of some robbing ex- 
ploits. One of them . . . began thus: 'When 
we set out from Parga there were sixty of us I* 
then came the burden of the verse — 

' Robbers all at Parga ! 
Robbers all at Parga ! ' 

And as they roared out this stave, they whirled 
round the fire, dropped, and rebounded from 
their knees, and again whirled round as the 
chorus was again repeated." — Travels in 
Albania, i. 166, 167.] 



Canto ii.J 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



205 



Their barbarous, yet their not indecent, 
glee; 

And, as the flames along their faces 
gleamed, 

Their gestures nimble, dark eyes flash- 
ing free, 

The long wild locks that to their girdles 
streamed. 

While thus in concert they this lay half 
sang, half screamed : — 



Tambourgi ! ^ Tambourgi ! thy 'larum 

afar 
Gives hopes to the valiant, and promise 

of war ; 
All the Sons of the mountains arise at 

the note, 
Chimariot, Illyrian, and dark Suliote ! 



Oh ! who is more brave than a dark 

Suliote, 
In his .snowy camese ^ and his shaggy 

capote ? 
To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his 

wild flock, 
And descends to the plain like the 

stream from the rock. 



Shall the sons of Chimari, who never 
forgive 

The fault of a friend, bid an enemy live ? 

Let those guns so unerring such ven- 
geance forego? 

What mark is so fair as the breast of a 
foe? 3 

4- 

Macedonia sends forth her invincible 
race; 

For a time they abandon the cave and 
the chase; 

' [Tambourgi, from the French tambour, is 
a Turkish word for a drummer.] 

' [The camese is the jiistanella or white kilt 
of the Toska, a branch of the Albanian, or 
Shkipetar, race.] 

3 [The Suliotes, after a protracted and often 
successful resistance, were finally reduced by 
Ali, in December, 1803. They are adjured to 
forget their natural desire for vengeance, and 
to unite with the Albanians against their com- 
mon foe, the Russians.] 



But those scarfs of blood-red shall be 

redder, before 
The sabre is sheathed and the battle is 

o'er. 

5- 
Then the Pirates of Parga that dwell by 

the waves. 
And teach the pale Franks what it is to 

be slaves, 
Shall leave on the beach the long galley 

and oar. 
And track to his covert the captive on 

shore, 

6. 

I ask not the pleasures that riches 

supply. 
My sabre shall win what the feeble 

must buy; 
Shall win the young bride with her long 

flowing hair, 
And many a maid from her mother shall 

tear. 

7- 
I love the fair face of the maid in her 

youth. 
Her caresses shall lull me, her music 

shall soothe; 
Let her bring from the chamber her 

many-toned lyre. 
And sing us a song on the fall of her 

Sire. 

8. 

Remember the moment when Previsa 
fell,i 

The shrieks of the conquered, the con- 
querors' yell; 

The roofs that we fired, and the plunder 
we shared, 

The wealthy we slaughtered, the lovely 
we spared. 



I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear; 
He neither must know who would serve 
the Vizier: 

^ [Prevesa, which, with other Venetian pos- 
sessions, had fallen to the French in 1797, was 
taken in the Sultan's name by Ali, in October, 
1798. The troops in the garrison (300 French, 
460 Greeks) encountered and were overwhelmed 
by 5000 Albanians, on the plain of Nicopolis. 
The victors entered and sacked the town.] 



2o6 



CIIILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto ii. 



Since the days of our Prophet the Cres- 
cent ne'er saw 
A chief ever glorious like Ali Pashaw. 



Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is 
sped/ 

Let the yellow-haired ^ Giaours ^ view 
his horse-tail * with dread ; 

When his Delhis ^ come dashing in 
blood o'er the banks, 

How few shall escape from the Mus- 
covite ranks ! 



Selictar ! ^ unsheathe then our chief's 

Scimitar; 
Tambourgi ! thy 'larum gives promise 

of War. 
Ye Mountains, that see us descend to 

the shore. 
Shall view us as Victors, or view us no 

more! 



Fair Greece ! sad relic of departed 

Worth ! 
Immortal, though no more; though 

fallen, great ! 
Who now shall lead thy scattered 

children forth. 
And long accustomed bondage un- 

create ? 
Not such thy sons who whilome did 

await, 
The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, 
In bleak Thermopylae's sepulchral 

strait — 
Oh! who that gallant spirit shall 

resume. 
Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call 

thee from the tomb ? ^ 

» [All's eldest son, Mukhtar, the Pasha of 
Berat, had been sent against the Russians, who, 
in 1809, invaded the trans-Danubian provinces 
of the Ottoman Empire.] 

' Yellow is the epithet given to the Russians. 

3 Infidel. 

■♦ The insignia of a Pacha. 

s [The literal meaning of Delhi or Deli, is 
madman.] 

^ Sword-bearer. 

' [The meaning is, " When shall another 
Lysander spring from Laconia ('Eurotas' 
banks') and revive the heroism of the ancient 
Spartans?"] 



Spirit of Freedom ! when on Phyle's 

brow 
Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his 

train, 
Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour 

which now 
Dims the green beauties of thine Attic 

plain ? 
Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, 
But every carle can lord it o'er thy land ; 
Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain. 
Trembling beneath the scourge of 

Turkish hand. 
From birth till death enslaved — in 

word, in deed, unmanned. 



In all save form alone, how changed ! 

and who 
That marks the fire still sparkling in 

each eye, 
Who but would deem their bosoms 

burned anew 
With thy unquenched beam, lost 

Liberty ! 
And many dream withal the hour is nigh 
That gives them back their fathers' 

heritage : 
For foreign arms and aid they fondly 

sigh. 
Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage, 
Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's 

mournful page. 

LXXVI. 

Hereditary Bondsmen ! know ye not 
Who would be free themselves must 

strike the blow? 
By their right arms the conquest must 

be wrought? 
Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye ? No ! 
True — they may lay your proud de- 
spoilers low, 
But not for you will Freedom's Altars 

flame. 
Shades of the Helots ! triumph o'er your 

foe! 
Greece ! change thy locds, thy state is 

still the same; 
Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thine 

years of shame. 



Canto ii.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



207 



LXXVII. 

The city won for Allah from the Giaour 
The Giaour from Othman's race again 

may wrest; 
And the Serai's impenetrable tower 
Receive the fiery Frank, her former 

guest ; 
Or Wahab's ^ rebel brood who dared 

divest 
The Prophet's tomb of all its pious 

spoil, 
May wind their path of blood along the 

West; 
But ne'er will Freedom seek this fated 

soil, 
But slave succeed to slave through years 

of endless toil. 



Yet mark their mirth — ere Lenten days 

begin, 
That penance which their holy rites 

prepare 
To shrive from Man his weight of 

mortal sin. 
By daily abstinence and nightly prayer; 
But ere his sackcloth garb Repentance 

wear, 
Some days of joyaunce are decreed to 

all. 
To take of pleasaunce each his secret 

share, 
In motley robe to dance at masking ball, 
And join the mimic train of merry 

Carnival. 

LXXIX. 

And whose more rife with merriment 

than thine, 
Oh Stamboul ! ^ once the Empress of 

their reign? 
Though turbans now pollute Sophia's 

shrine, 
And Greece her very altars eyes in vain : 

' [The Wahabees, who took their name from 
the Arab sheik Mohammed ben Abd-el-Wahab, 
arose in the province of Nedj, in Central Arabia, 
about 1760. Half-socialists, half -puritans, they 
insisted on fulfilling to the letter the precepts of 
the Koran. In 1803-4 they attacked and 
ravaged Mecca and Medinah, and in 1808 
they invaded S5Tia and took Damascus. Dur- 
ing Byron's residence in the East they were at 
the height of their power, and seemed to threaten 
the very existence of the Turkish empire.] 

^ [Byron spent two months in Constantinople 



(Alas ! her woes will still pervade my 

strain !) 
Gay were her minstrels once, for free 

her throng. 
All felt the common joy they now must 

feign. 
Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor heard 

such song, 
As wooed the eye, and thrilled the 

Bosphorus along. 

LXXX. 

Loud was the lightsome tumult on the 

shore ; 
Oft Music changed, but never ceased 

her tone. 
And timely echoed back the measured oar, 
And rippling waters made a pleasant 

moan: 
The Queen of tides on high consenting 

shone. 
And when a transient breeze swept o'er 

the wave, 
'Twas, as if darting from her heavenly 

throne, 
A brighter glance her form reflected gave, 
Till sparkling billows seemed to light 

the banks they lave. 



Glanced many a light Caique along the 

foam. 
Danced on the shore the daughters of 

the land. 
No thought had man or maid of rest or 

home, 
While many a languid eye and thrilling 

hand 
Exchanged the look few bosoms may 

withstand, 
Or gently prest, returned the pressure 

still : 
Oh Love ! young Love ! bound in thy 

rosy band, 
Let sage or cynic prattle as he will. 
These hours, and only these, redeem 

Life's years of ill ! 

(Stamboul, i.e. ei? Trjv 7r6A.1v) — from May 14 to 
July 14, 1810. The "Lenten days," which were 
ushered in by a carnival, were those of the 
second "great" Lent of the Greek Church, that 
of St Peter and St Paul, which begins on the 
first Monday after Trinity, and ends on the 29th 
of June.] 



2o8 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto ii. 



But, 'midst the throng in merry mas- 
querade, 
Lurk there no hearts that throb with 

secret pain. 
Even through the closest searment half 

betrayed ? 
To such the gentle murmurs of the 

main 
Seem to re-echo all they mourn in vain; 
To such the gladness of the gamesome 

cro-wd 
Is source of w^ayvi^ard thought and stern 

disdain : 
How do they loathe the laughter idly 

loud. 
And long to change the robe of revel for 

the shroud ! 

LXXXIII. 

This must he feel, the true-born son of 

Greece, 
If Greece one true-born patriot still can 

boast : 
Not such as prate of War, but skulk in 

Peace, 
The bondsman's peace, who sighs for 

all he lost, 
Yet with smooth smile his Tyrant can 

accost. 
And wield the slavish sickle, not the 

sword : 
Ah ! Greece ! they love thee least who 

owe thee most — 
Their birth, their blood, and that sub- 
lime record 
Of hero Sires, who shame thy now 

degenerate horde ! 

LXXXIV. 

When riseth Lacedemon's Hardihood, 
When Thebes Epaminondas rears again, 
When Athens' children are with hearts 

endued, 
When Grecian mothers shall give birth 

to men. 
Then may'st thou be restored; but not 

till then. 
A thousand years scarce serve to form 

a state; 
An hour may lay it in the dust: and 

when 



Can Man its shattered splendour reno- 
vate, 

Recall its virtues back, and vanquish 
Time and Fate? 

LXXXV. 

And yet how lovely in thine age of 

woe, 
Land of lost Gods and godlike men, art 

thou! 
Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow. 
Proclaim thee Nature's varied favourite 

now: 
Thy fanes, thy temples to thy surface 

bow, 
Commingling slowly with heroic earth, 
Broke by the share of every rustic 

plough : 
So perish monuments of mortal birth. 
So perish all in turn, save well-re- 
corded Worth: 

LXXXVI. 

Save where some solitary column 

mourns 
Above its prostrate brethren of the 

cave; 
Save where Tritonia's * airy shrine 

adorns 
Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the 

wave; 
Save o'er some warrior's half-forgotten 

grave. 
Where the grey stones and unmolested 

grass 
Ages, but not Oblivion, feebly brave ; 
While strangers, only, not regardless 

pass. 
Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, 

and sigh "Alas!" 

LXXXVII. 

Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as 

wild; 
Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are 

thy fields, 
Thine olive ripe as when Minerva 

smiled, 
And still his honied wealth Hymettus 

yields; 

' [Tritonia, or Tritogenia, one of Athene's 
names of uncertain origin.] 



Canto ii.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



209 



There the blithe Bee his fragrant fortress 
builds, 

The free-born wanderer of thy moun- 
tain-air; 

Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds. 

Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles 
glare : 

Art, Glory, Freedom fail — but Nature 
still is fair. 



Where'er we tread 'tis haunted, holy 

ground ; 
No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould. 
But one vast realm of Wonder spreads 

around. 
And all the Muse's tales seem truly 

told, 
Till the scene aches with gazing to 

behold 
The scenes our earliest dreams have 

dwelt upon; 
Each hill and dale, each deepening glen 

and wold 
Defies the power which crushed thy 

temples gone: 
Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares 

grey Marathon. 



The Sun, the soil — but not the slave, 

the same; 
Unchanged in all except its foreign 

Lord — 
Preserves alike its bounds and boundless 

fame 
The Battle-field, where Persia's victim 

horde 
First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' 

sword, 
As on the morn to distant Glory dear, 
When Marathon became a magic word ; 
Which uttered, to the hearer's eye 

appear 
The camp, the host, the fight, the Con- 
queror's career. 



The flying Mede, his shaftless broken 

bow — 
The fiery Greek, his red pursuing 

spear ; 



Mountains above — Earth's, Ocean's 
plain below — 

Death in the front. Destruction in the 
rear! 

Such was the scene — what now re- 
maineth here? 

What sacred Trophy marks the hal- 
lowed ground, 

Recording Freedom's smile and Asia's 
tear? 

The rifled urn, the violated mound, 

The dust thy courser's hoof, rude 
stranger! spurns around. 

xci. 

Yet to the remnants of thy Splendour 

past 
Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, 

throng; 
Long shall the voyager, with th' Ionian 

blast,' 
Hail the bright clime of Battle and of 

Song: 
Long shall thine annals and immortal 

tongue 
Fill with thy fame the youth of many a 

shore ; 
Boast of the aged! lesson of the 

young ! 
Which Sages venerate and Bards adore. 
As Pallas and the Muse unveil their 

awful lore. 



The parted bosom clings to wonted 

home. 
If aught that's kindred cheer the wel- 
come hearth; 
He that is lonely — hither let him roam. 
And gaze complacent on congenial 

earth. 
Greece is no lightsome land of social 

mirth : 
But he whom Sadness sootheth may 

abide, 
And scarce regret the region of his birth, 
When wandering slow by Delphi's 

sacred side. 
Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek 

and Persian died. 

I [The "Ionian blast" is the western wind 
that brings the voyager across the Ionian Sea.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto ii. 



Let such approach this consecrated 

Land, 
And pass in peace along the magic 

waste ; 
But spare its rehcs — let no busy hand 
Deface the scenes, already how defaced ! 
Not for such purpose were these altars 

placed : 
Revere the remnants Nations once 

revered : 
So may our Country's name be undis- 

graced, 
So may'st thou prosper where thy youth 

was reared. 
By every honest joy of Love and Life 

endeared ! 

xciv. 

For thee, who thus in too protracted 

song 
Hath soothed thine Idlesse with in- 
glorious lays, 
Soon shall thy voice be lost amid the 

throng 
Of louder Minstrels in these later days : 
To such resign the strife for fading 

Bays — 
111 may such contest now the spirit move 
Which heeds nor keen Reproach nor 

partial Praise, 
Since cold each kinder heart that might 

approve — 
And none are left to please when none 

are left to love. 

xcv. 

Thou too art gone, thou loved and 

lovely one ! ^ 
Whom Youth and Youth's affections 

bound to me; 
Who did for me what none beside have 

done, 
Nor shrank from one albeit unworthy 

thee. 
What is my Being ! thou hast ceased to 

be! 
Nor staid to welcome here thy wanderer 

home. 
Who mourns o'er hours which we no 

more shall see — 

» [Vide ante, note to Stanza ix.] 



Would they had never been, or were to 

come ! 
Would he had ne'er returned to find 

fresh cause to roam ! 



xcvi. 

Oh ! ever loving, lovely, and beloved ! 
How selfish Sorrow ponders on the 

past, 
And clings to thoughts now better far 

removed ! 
But Time shall tear thy shadow from 

me last. 
All thou couldst have of mine, stern 

Death! thou hast; 
The Parent, Friend, and now the more 

than friend : 
Ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so 

fast. 
And grief with grief continuing still to 

blend. 
Hath snatched the little joy that Life 

had yet to lend. 

xcvir. 

Then must I plunge again into the 

crowd. 
And follow all that Peace disdains to 

seek? 
Where Revel calls, and Laughter, vainly 

loud, 
False to the heart, distorts the hollow 

cheek, 
To leave the flagging spirit doubly 

weak ; 
Still o'er the features, which perforce 

they cheer, 
To feign the pleasure or conceal the 

pique : 
Smiles form the channel of a future 

tear. 
Or raise the writhing lip with ill-dis- 
sembled sneer. 

XCVIII. 

What is the worst of woes that wait on 

Age? 
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the 

brow ? 
To view each loved one blotted from 

Life's page. 
And be alone on earth, as I am now: 



Canto ii.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



2ii 



Before the Chastener humbly let me 

bow, 
O'er Hearts divided and o'er Hopes 

destroyed : 
Roll on, vain days ! full reckless may ye 

flow. 
Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul 

enjoyed. 
And with the ills of Eld mine earlier 

years alloyed. 



NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S 
PILGRIMAGE. 

CANTO II. 



Despite of War and wasting fire. • 

Stanza i. line 4. 

Part of the Acropolis was destroyed by 
the explosion of a magazine during the 
Venetian siege. [Under Francesco Mo- 
rosini (1618-1694).] 

2. 

But worse than steel, and flame, and ages slow, 
Is the dread sceptre and dominion dire. 

Stanza i. lines 6, 7. 

We can all feel, or imagine, the regret 
with which the ruins of cities,' once the 
capitals of empires, are beheld : the re- 
flections suggested by such objects are 
too trite to require recapitulation. But 
never did the littleness of man, and the 
vanity of his very best virtues, of patri- 
otism to exalt, and of valour to defend 
his country, appear more conspicuous 
than in the record of what Athens was, 
and the certainty of what she now is. 
This theatre of contention between 
mighty factions, of the struggles of 
orators, the exaltation and deposition 
of tyrants, the triumph and punishment 
of generals, is now become a scene of 
petty intrigue and perpetual disturb- 
ance, between the bickering agents of 
certain British nobility and gentry. 
"The wild foxes, the owls and serpents 
in the ruins of Babylon," were surely 
less degrading than such inhabitants. 



The Turks have the plea of conquest for 
their tyranny, and the Greeks have only 
sufi'ered the fortune of war, incidental 
to the bravest; but how are the mighty 
fallen, when two painters contest the 
privilege of plundering the Parthenon, 
and triumph in turn, according to the 
tenor of each succeeding firman ! 
Sylla could but punish, Philip subdue, 
and Xerxes burn Athens ; but it remained 
for the paltry antiquarian, and his 
despicable agents, to render her con- 
temptible as himself and his pursuits. 
The Parthenon, before its destruction, 
in part, by fire during the Venetian 
siege, had been a temple, a church, and 
a mosque. In each point of view it is 
an object of regard: it changed its 
worshippers; but still it was a place of 
worship thrice sacred to devotion: its 
violation is a triple sacrifice. But — 

"Man, proud man, 
Drest in a little brief authority . . . 
Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven 
As make the angels weep." 

[Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, act ii. sc. 2, 
lines 1 17-122.] 



Far on the solitary shore he sleeps. 

Stanza v. line 2. 
It was not always the custom of the 
Greeks to burn their dead; the greater 
Ajax, in particular, was interred entire. 
Almost all the chiefs became gods after 
their decease ; and he was indeed neg- 
lected, who had not annual games near 
his tomb, or festivals in honour of his 
memory by his countrymen, as Achilles, 
Brasidas, etc., and at last even Antinous, 
whose death was as heroic as his life 
was infamous. 



Here, son of Saturn ! was thy favourite throne. 
Stanza x. line 3. 

The Temple of Jupiter O'ympius, of 
which sixteen columns, ent'r?ly of 
marble, yet survive; originally there 
were one hundred and fifty. These 
columns, however, are by many sup- 
posed to have belonged to the Pan- 
theon. 



CHI IDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto ii. 



And bear these altars o'er the long-reluctant 
brine. 

Stanza xi. line 9. 

The ship was wrecked in the Archi- 
pelago. 

[The Mentor, which Lord Elgin had 
chartered to convey to England a cargo 
consisting of twelve chests of antiquities, 
was wrecked off the Island of Cerigo, 
in 1803. His secretary, W. R. Hamil- 
ton, set divers to work, and rescued four 
chests; but the remainder were not 
recovered till 1805.] 

6. 

To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath 
spared. 

Stanza xii. line 2. 

At this moment (January 3, 1810), 
besides what has been already deposited 
in London, an Hydriot vessel is in the 
Pyraeus to receive every portable relic. 
Thus, as I heard a young Greek observe, 
in common with many of his country- 
men — for, lost as they are, they yet 
feel on this occasion — thus may Lord 
Elgin boast of having ruined Athens. 
An Italian painter of the first eminence, 
named Lusieri, is the agent of devasta- 
tion ; and like the Greek finder of Verres 
in Sicily, who followed the same profes- 
sion, he has proved the able instrument 
of plunder. Between this artist and the 
French Consul Fauvel, who wishes to 
rescue the remains for his own govern- 
ment, there is now aviolent dispute con- 
cerning a car employed in their con- 
veyance, the wheel of which — I wish 
they were both broken upon it ! — has 
been locked up by the Consul, and 
Lusieri has laid his complaint before the 
Waywode. Lord Elgin has been ex- 
tremely happy in his choice of Signor 
Lusieri. During a residence of ten 
years in Athens, he never had the 
curiosity to proceed as far as Sunium 
(now Cape Colonna),^ till he accom- 

' In all Attica, if we except Athens itself and 
Marathon, there is no scene more interesting 
than Cape Colonna. To the antiquary and 
artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible 
source of observation and design; to the phi- 
losopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato's 



panied us in our second excursion. 
However, his works, as far as they go, 
are most beautiful : but they are almost 
all unfinished. While he and his 
patrons confine themselves to tasting 
medals, appreciating cameos, sketching 
columns, and cheapening gems, their 
little absurdities are as harmless as in- 
sect- or fox-hunting, maiden-speechify- 
ing, barouche-driving, or any such pas- 
time; but when they carry away three 
or four ship-loads of the most valuable 
and massy relics that time and bar- 
barism have left to the most injured 
and most celebrated of cities : when they 
destroy, in a vain attempt to tear down, 
those works which have been the admira- 
tion of ages, I know no motive which can 
excuse, no name which can designate, 
the perpetrators of this dastardly de- 
vastation. It was not the least of the 
crimes laid to the charge of Verres, that 
he had plundered Sicily, in the manner 

conversations will not be unwelcome; and the 
traveller will be struck with the beauty of the 
prospect over "Isles that crown the ^gean 
deep": but, for an Englishman, Colonna has 
yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of 
Falconer's shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are 
forgotten in the recollection of Falconer and 
Campbell : — 

"Here in the dead of night, by Lonna's steep, 
The seaman's cry was heard along the deep." 

This temple of Minerva may be seen at sea from 
a great distance. In two journeys which I 
rnade, and one voyage to Cape Colonna, the 
view from either side, by land, was less striking 
than the approach from the isles. In our 
second land excursion, we had a narrow escape 
from a party of Mainotes, concealed in the 
caverns beneath. We were told afterwards, by 
one of their prisoners, subsequently ransomed, 
that they were deterred from attacking us by 
the appearance of my two Albanians: con- 
jecturing very sagaciously, but falsely, that we 
had a complete guard of these Arnaouts at 
hand, they remained stationary, and thus saved 
our party, which was too small to have opposed 
any effectual resistance. Colonna is no less 
a resort of painters than of pirates; there 

"The hireling artist plants his paltry desk. 
And makes degraded nature picturesque." 

See Hodgson's Lady Jane Grey, etc. [1809, p. 214]. 

But there Nature, with the aid of Art, has done 
that for herself. I was fortunate enough to 
engage a very superior German artist ; and hope 
to renew my acquaintance with this and many 
other Levantine scenes, by the arrival of his 
performances. 



Canto ii.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



213 



since imitated at Athens. The most 
unblushing impudence could hardly go 
farther than to affix the name of its 
plunderer to the walls of the Acropolis; 
while the wanton and useless deface- 
ment of the whole range of the basso- 
relievos, in one compartment of the 
temple, will never permit that name to 
be pronounced by an observer without 
execration. 

On this occasion I speak impartially : 
I am not a collector or admirer of col- 
lections, consequently no rival; but I 
have some early prepossession in favour 
of Greece, and do not think the honour 
of England advanced by plunder, 
whether of India or Attica. 

Another noble Lord [Aberdeen] has 
done better, because he has done less: 
but some others, more or less noble, yet 
"all honourable men," have done best, 
because, after a deal of excavation and 
execration, bribery to the Waywode, 
mining and countermining, they have 
done nothing at all. We had such ink- 
shed, and wine-shed, which almost 
ended in bloodshed! Lord E.'s "prig" 
— see Jonathan Wild for the definition 
of "priggism"^- — quarrelled with an- 
other, Gropius ^ by name (a very good 
name too for his business), and mut- 
tered something about satisfaction, in a 
verbal answer to a note of the poor 
Prussian: this was stated at table to 

' This word, in the cant language, signifies 
thieving. — Fielding's History of Jonathan 
Wild, i. 3, note. 

' This Sr Gropius was employed by a noble 
Lord for the sole purpose of sketching, in which 
he excels: but I am sorry to say, that he has, 
through the abused sanction of that most re- 
spectable name, been treading at humble dis- 
, tance in the steps of Sr Lusieri. — A shipful of 
i his trophies was detained, and I believe con- 
{ nscated, at Constantinople in 1810. I am most 
happy to be now enabled to state, that "this 
was not in his bond"; that he was employed 
solely as a painter, and that his noble patron 
disavows all connection with him, except as an 
artist. If the error in the first and second 
edition of this poem has given the noble Lord 
a moment's pain, I am very sorry for it: Sr 
Gropius has assumed for years the name of 
his agent; and though I cannot much condemn 
myself for sharing in the mistake of so many, I 
am happy in being one of the first to be un- 
deceived. Indeed, I have as much pleasure in 
contradicting this as I felt regret in stating it. 



Gropius, who laughed, but could eat no 
dinner afterwards. The rivals were 
not reconciled when I left Greece. I 
have reason to remember their squabble, 
for they wanted to make me their 
arbitrator. 

7- 
Her Sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard, 
Yet felt some portion of their Mother's pains. 
Stanza xii. lines 7 and 8. 

I cannot resist availing myself of the 
permission of my friend Dr Clarke, 
whose name requires no comment with 
the public, but whose sanction will add 
tenfold weight to my testimony, to in- 
sert the following extract from a very 
obliging letter of his to me, as a note to 
the above lines: — "When the last of 
the Metopes was taken from the Par- 
thenon and, in moving of it, great part 
of the superstructure with one of the 
triglyphs was thrown down by the work- 
men whom Lord Elgin employed, the 
Disdar, who beheld the mischief done 
to the building, took his pipe from his 
mouth, dropped a tear, and in a sup- 
plicating tone of voice, said to Lusieri, 
T^Xos ! — I was present." The Disdar 
alluded to was the father of the present 
Disdar. 

[Disdar, or Dizdar, i.e. castle-holder 
— the warden of a castle or fort.] 



Where was thine ^gis, Pallas! that appalled 
Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way? 

Stanza xiv. lines i and 2. 

According to Zosimus, Minerva and 
Achilles frightened Alaric fromi the 
Acropolis: but others relate that the 
Gothic king was nearly as mischievous 
as the Scottish peer. — See Chandler. 

9- 

The netted canopy. 

Stanza xviii. line 2. 

To prevent blocks or splinters from 
falling on deck during action. 

10. 

But not in silence pass Calypso's isles. 
Stanza xxix. line i. 

Goza is said to have been the island 
of Calypso. 



214 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto ii. 



Land of Albania ! let me bend mine eyes 
On thee, thou rugged Nurse of savage men ! 
Stanza xxxviii. lines 5 and 6. 

Albania comprises part of Macedonia, 
Illyria, Chaonia, and Epirus. Iskander 
is the Turkish word for Alexander; and 
the celebrated Scanderbeg ^ (Lord Alex- 
ander) is alluded to in the third and 
fourth lines of the thirty-eighth stanza. 
I do not know whether I am correct in 
making Scanderbeg the countryman of 
Alexander, who was born at Pella in 
Macedon, but Mr Gibbon terms him 
so, and adds Pyrrhus to the list, in 
speaking of his exploits. 

Of Albania Gibbon remarks that a 
country "within sight of Italy is less 
known than the interior of America." 
Circumstances, of little consequence to 
mention, led Mr Hobhouse and myself 
into that country before w^e visited any 
other part of the Ottoman dominions; 
and with the exception of Major Leake, 
then officially resident at Joannina, no 
other Englishmen have ever advanced 
beyond the capital into the interior, as 
that gentleman very lately assured me. 
Ali Pacha was at that time (October, 
1809) carrying on war against Ibrahim 
Pacha, whom he had driven to Berat, a 
strong fortress, which he was then be- 
sieging: on our arrival at Joannina we 
were invited to Tepaleni, his highness's 
birthplace, and favourite Serai, only one 
day's distance from Berat; at this junc- 
ture the Vizier had made it his head- 
quarters. After some stay in the capital, 
we accordingly followed; but though 
furnished with every accommodation, 
and escorted by one of the Vizier's 
secretaries, we were nine days (on 
account of the rains) in accomplishing 
a journey which, on our return, barely 
occupied four. On our route we passed 
two cities, Argyrocastro and Libochabo, 
apparently little inferior to Yanina in 
size; and no pencil or pen can ever do 
justice to the scenery in the vicinity of 
Zitza and Delvinachi, the frontier village 
of Epirus and Albania Proper. 

On Albania and its inhabitants I am 

- [George Castriota (1404-1467).] 



unwilling to descant, because this will be 
done so much better by my fellow- 
traveller, in a work which may probably 
precede this in publication, that I as 
little wish to follow as I would to antici- 
pate him. But some few observations 
are necessary to the text. The Arna- 
outs, or Albanese, struck me forcibly by 
their resemblance to the Highlanders of 
Scotland, in dress, figure, and manner of 
living. Their very mountains seemed 
Caledonian, with a kinder climate. The 
kilt, though white; the spare, active 
form; their dialect, Celtic in its sound; 
and their hardy habits, all carried me 
back to Morven. No nation are so 
detested and dreaded by their neigh- 
bours as the Albanese; the Greeks 
hardly regard them as Christians, or the 
Turks as Moslems; and in fact they 
are a mixture of both, and sometimes 
neither. Their habits are predatory — 
all are armed; and the red-shawled 
Arnaouts, the Montenegrins, Chimari- 
ots, and Gegdes, are treacherous; the 
others differ somewhat in garb, and 
essentially in character. As far as my 
own experience goes, I can speak favour- 
ably. I was attended by two, an Infidel 
and a Mussulman, to Constantinople 
and every other part of Turkey which 
came within my observation; and more 
faithful in peril, or indefatigable in ser- 
vice, are rarely to be found. The 
Infidel was named Basilius; the Moslem, 
Dervish Tahiri; the former a man of 
middle age, and the latter about my own. 
Basili was strictly charged by Ali Pacha 
in person to attend us; and Dervish 
was one of fifty who accompanied us 
through the forests of Acarnania to the 
banks of Achelous, and onward to Mes- j 
salonghi in ^toHa. There I took him 
into my own service, and never had 
occasion to repent it till the moment of 
my departure. 

When, in 18 10, after the departure of 
my friend Mr Hobhouse for England, 
I was seized with a severe fever in the 
Morea, these men saved my life by 
frightening away my physician, whose f 
throat they threatened to cut if I was l 
not cured within a given time. To this ; 



Canto ii.] 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



215 



consolatory assurance of posthumous 
retribution, and a resolute refusal of 
Dr Romanelli's prescriptions, I attrib- 
uted my recovery. I had left my last 
remaining English servant at Athens; 
my dragoman was as ill as myself, and 
my poor Arnaouts nursed me with an 
attention which would have done hon- 
our to civilisation. They had a variety 
of adventures; for the Moslem, Dervish, 
being a remarkably handsome man, was 
always squabbling with the husbands of 
Athens; insomuch that four of the prin- 
cipal Turks paid me a visit of remon- 
strance at the Convent on the subject of 
his having taken a woman from the 
bath '- — whom he had lawfully bought, 
however — a thing quite contrary to 
etiquette. Basili also was extremely 
gallant amongst his own persuasion, 
and had the greatest veneration for the 
church, mixed with the highest contempt 
of churchmen, whom he cuffed upon 
occasion in a most heterodox manner. 
Yet he never passed a church without 
crossing himself; and I remember the 
risk he ran in entering St Sophia, in 
Stambol, because it had once been a 
place of his worship. On remonstrating 
with him on his inconsistent proceedings, 
he invariably answered, " Our church is 
holy, our priests are thieves:" and then 
he crossed himself as usual, and boxed 
the ears of the first "papas" who re- 
fused to assist in any required operation, 
as was always found to be necessary 
where a priest had any influence with 
the Cogia Bashi of his village. Indeed, 
a more abandoned race of miscreants 
cannot exist than the lower orders of 
the Greek clergy. 

When preparations were made for my 
return, my Albanians were summoned 
to receive their pay. Basili took his 
with an awkward show of regret at my 
intended departure, and marched away 
to his quarters with his bag of piastres. 
I sent for Dervish, but for some time 
he was not to be found; at last he 
entered, just as Signor Logotheti, father 
to the ci-devant Anglo-consul of Athens, 
and some other of my Greek acquaint- 
ances, paid me a visit. Dervish took 



the money in his hand, but on a sudden 
dashed it to the ground; and clasping 
his hands, which he raised to his fore- 
head, rushed out of the room weeping 
bitterly. From that moment to the 
hour of my embarkation, he continued 
his lamentations, and all our efforts to 
console him only produced this answer, 
"M' a(p€LU€L,'' "He leaves me." Signor 
Logotheti, who never wept before for 
anything less than the loss of a para 
(about the fourth of a farthing), melted; 
the padre of the convent, my attendants, 
my visitors — and I verily believe that 
even Sterne's "foolish fat scullion" 
would have left her "fish-kettle" to 
sympathise with the unaffected and 
unexpected sorrow of this barbarian. 

For my own part, when I remembered 
that, a short time before my departure 
from England, a noble and most inti- 
mate associate had excused himself 
from taking leave of me because he had 
to attend a female relation "to a milli- 
ner's," I felt no less surprised than 
humiliated by the present occurrence 
and the past recollection. That Der- 
vish would leave me with some regret 
was to be expected; when master and 
man have been scrambling over the 
mountains of a dozen provinces together, 
they are unwilling to separate; but his 
present feelings, contrasted with his 
native ferocity, improved my opinion of 
the human heart. I believe this almost 
feudal fidelity is frequent amongst 
them. One day, on our journey over 
Parnassus, an Englishman in my 
service gave him a push in some dis- 
pute about the baggage, which he un- 
luckily mistook for a blow; he spoke 
not, but sat down leaning his head upon 
his hands. Foreseeing the conse- 
quences, we endeavoured to explain 
away the affront, which produced the 
following answer: — "I have been a 
robber; I am a soldier; no captain ever 
struck me; you are my master, I have 
eaten your bread, but by thai bread ! 
(a usual oath) had it been otherwise, 
I would have stabbed the dog, your 
servant, and gone to the mountains." 
So the affair ended, but from that day 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto ii. 



forward he never thoroughly forgave the 
thoughtless fellow who insulted him. 
Dervish excelled in the dance of his 
country, conjectured to be a remnant of 
the ancient Pyrrhic : be that as it may, 
it is manly, and requires wonderful 
agility. It is very distinct from the 
stupid Romaika, the dull round-about 
of the Greeks, of which our Athenian 
party had so many specimens. 

The Albanians in general (I do not 
mean the cultivators of the earth in the 
provinces, who have also that appella- 
tion, but the mountaineers) have a fine 
cast of countenance; and the most 
beautiful women I ever beheld, in 
stature and in features, we saw levelling 
the road broken down by the torrents 
between Delvinachi and Libochabo. 
Their manner of walking is truly 
theatrical; but this strut is probably 
the effect of the capote, or cloak, 
depending from one shoulder. Their 
long hair reminds you of the Spartans, 
and their courage in desultory warfare 
is unquestionable. Though they have 
some cavalry amongst the Gegdes, I 
never saw a good Arnaout horseman; 
my own preferred the English saddles, 
which, however, they could never keep. 
But on foot they are not to be subdued 
by fatigue. 



And passed the barren spot, 
Where sad Penelope o'erlooked the wave. 
Stanza xxxix. lines i and 2. 



Ithaca. 



13- 



Actium — Lepanto — fatal Trafalgar. 

Stanza xl. line 5. 

Actium and Trafalgar need no further 
mention. The battle of Lepanto [Octo- 
ber 7, 15 71], equally bloody and con- 
siderable, but less known, was fought in 
the Gulf of Patras. Here the author of 
Don Quixote lost his left hand. 

["His [Cervantes'] galley, the Mar- 
quesa, was in the thick of the fight, and 
before it was over he had received three 
gun-shot wounds, two in the breast and 
one on the left hand or arm." In con- 



sequence of his wound "he was seven 
months in hospital before he was dis- 
charged. He came out with his left 
hand permanently disabled ; he had lost 
the use of it, as Mercury told him in the 
' Viaje del Parnase,' for the greater glory 
of the right." — Don Quixote, A Trans- 
lation by John Ormsby, 1885, Intro- 
duction, i. 22, 23.] 



14. 

And hailed the last resort of fruitless love. 
Stanza xli. line 3. 

Leucadia, now Santa Maura. From 
the promontory (the Lover's Leap) 
Sappho is said to have thrown herself. 



15- 
Many a Roman chief and Asian King. 

Stanza xlv. line 4. 

It is said, that on the day previous to 
the battle of Actium, Antony had thir- 
teen kings at his levee. 



Look where the second Caesar's trophies rose. 
Stanza xlv. line 6. 

Nicopolis, whose ruins are most ex- 
tensive, is at some distance from Actium, 
where the wall of the Hippodrome sur- 
vives in a few fragments. These ruins 
are large masses of brickwork, the bricks 
of which are joined by interstices of 
mortar, as large as the bricks them- 
selves, and equally durable. 

17- 

Acherusia's lake. 

Stanza xlvii. line i. 

According to Pouqueville, the lake of 
Yaniha; but Pouqueville is always out. 



To greet Albania's Chief. _ 

Stanza xlvii. line 4. 

The celebrated Ali Pacha. Of this 
extraordinary man there is an incorrect 
account in Pouqueville's Travels. [For 
note on Ali Pasha (1741-1822), see 
Letters, 1898, i. 246.] 



Canto ii." 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



217 



19. 

Yet here and there some daring mountain-band 
Disdain his power, and from their rocky hold 
Hurl their defiance far, nor yield, unless to gold. 
Stanza xlvii. lines 7, 8, and 9. 

Five thousand Suliotes, among the 
rocks and in the castle of Suli, withstood 
thirty thousand Albanians for eighteen 
years; the castle at last was taken by 
bribery. In this contest there were 
several acts performed not unworthy of 
the better days of Greece. 

[AH Pasha assumed the government 
of Janina in 1788, but it was not till 
December 12, 1803, that the Suliotes, 
who were betrayed by their leaders, 
Botzaris and Koutsonika and others, 
finally surrendered. — Finlay's History 
of Greece, 1877, vi. 45-5°-] 



Monastic Zitza ! etc. 

Stanza xlviii. line i. 

The convent and village of Zitza are 
four hours' journey from Joannina, or 
Yanina, the capital of the Pachalick. 
In the valley the river Kalamas (once 
the Acheron) flows, and, not far from 
Zitza, forms a fine cataract. The situa- 
tion is perhaps the finest in Greece, 
though the approach to Delvinachi and 
parts of Acarnania and ^Etolia may con- 
test the palm. Delphi, Parnassus, and, 
in Attica, even Cape Colonna and Port 
Raphti, are very inferior; as also every 
scene in Ionia, or the Troad : I am 
almost inclined to add the approach to 
Constantinople; but, from the different 
features of the last, a comparison can 
hardly 'be made. 



Here dwells the caloyer. 

Stanza xlix. line 6. 

The Greek monks are so called. 



Nature's volcanic Amphitheatre. 

Stanza li. line 2. 

The Chimariot mountains appear to 
have been volcanic. 



Behold black Acheron! 

Stanza li. line 6. 



Now called Kalamas. 



24. 



In his white capote. 

Stanza lii. line 7. 
Albanese cloak. 

25- 
The Sun had sunk behind vast Tomerit. 
Stanza Iv. line i. 

Anciently Alount Tomarus. 

["Mount Tomerit, or Tomohr," says 
Mr Tozer, "lies north-east of Tepalen, 
and therefore the sun could not set 
behind it" {Childe Harold, 1885, p. 242). 
But, writing to Drury, May 3, 1810, 
Byron says that "he penetrated as far 
as Mount Tomarit." Probably by 
"Tomarit" he does not mean Mount 
Tomohr, which lies to the north-east of 
Berat, but Mount Olytsika, ancient 
Tomaros, which lies to the west of 
Janina, between the valley of Tcharaco- 
vista and the sea.] 

26. 

And Laos wide and fierce came roaring by. 
Stanza Iv. Ime 2. 

The river Laos was full at the time 
the author passed it; and, immediately 
above Tepaleen, was to the eye as wide 
as the Thames at Westminster; at least 
in the opinion of the author and his 
fellow-traveller. In the summer it must 
be much narrower. It certainly is the 
finest river in the Levant; neither 
Achelous, Alpheus, Acheron, Scamander, 
nor Cayster, approached it in breadth 
or beauty. 

27. 

And fellow-countrymen have stood aloof. 
Stanza Ixvi. line 8. 

Alluding to the wreckers of Cornwall. 

28. 

The red wine circling fast. 

Stanza Ixxi. line 2. 

The Albanian Mussulmans do not 
abstain from wine, and, indeed, very few 
of the others. 



2l8 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto hi. 



29. 

Each Palikar his sabre from him cast. 

Stanza Ixxi. line 7. 

Palikar, shortened when addressed to a 
single person, from IlaXi/ca/ot [7raXX7j/cdpt], 
a general name for a soldier amongst 
the Greeks and Albanese, who speak 
Romaic: it means, properly, "a lad." 



Tambourgi ! Tambourgi ! thy 'larum afar. 
Song, stanza i, Hne i. 

These stanzas are partly taken from 
different Albanese songs, as far as I was 
able to make them out by the exposition 
of the Albanese in Romaic and Italian. 

31- 
Remember the moment when Previsa fell. 
Song, stanza 8, line i. 

It was taken by storm from the French 
[October, 1798]. 

32. 

Spirit of Freedom ! when on Phyle's brow 

Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train. 

Stanza Ixxiv. lines i and 2. 

Phyle, which commands a beautiful 
view of Athens, has still considerable 
remains: it was seized by Thrasybulus, 
previous to the expulsion of the Thirty. 

Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest. 
Stanza Ixxvii. line 4. 

When taken by the Latins, and re- 
tained for several years. See Gibbon. 
[From A.D. 1204 to 1261.] 

34- 
The Prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil. 
Stanza Ixxvii. line 6. 

Mecca and Medina were taken some 
time ago by the Wahabees, a sect yearly 
increasing. 

35- 
Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow. 
Stanza Ixxxv. line 3. 

On many of the mountains, particu- 
larly Liakura, the snow never is entirely 
melted, notwithstanding the intense heat 
of the summer; but I never saw it lie 
on the plains, even in winter. 



36. 

Save where some solitary column mourns 
Above its prostrate brethren of the cave. 
Stanza Ixxxvi. lines i and 2. 

Of Mount Pentelicus, from whence 
the marble was dug that constructed the 
pubUc edifices of Athens. The modern 
name is Mount Mendeli. An immense 
cave, formed by the quarries, still re- 
mains, and will till the end of time. 

37- 
When Marathon became a magic word. 
Stanza Ixxxix. line 7. 

"Siste Viator — heroa calcas!" was 
the epitaph on the famous Count Merci; 
— what then must be our feelings when 
standing on the tumulus of the two hun- 
dred (Greeks) who fell on Marathon? 
The principal barrow has recently been 
opened by Fauvel: few or no relics, as 
vases, etc. were found by the excavator. 
The plain of Marathon was offered to 
me for sale at the sum of sixteen thou- 
sand piastres, about nine hundred 
pounds! Alas! — "Expende — quot 
libras in duce summo — invenies ! " — 
was the dust of Miltiades worth no 
more ? It could scarcely have fetched 
less if sold by weight. [Francois Mercy 
de Lorraine, who fought against the 
Protestants in the Thirty Years' War, 
was mortally wounded at the battle of 
Nordlingen, August 3, 1645.] 



CANTO THE THIRD.^ 

"Afin que cette application vous forqat a 
penser a autre chose. II n'y a en verite de 
remede que celui-la et le temps." — L'ellres du 
Roi de Frusse et de M. D'Alembert.^ [Lellre 
cxlvi. Sept. 7, 1776.] 

I. 

Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair 

child! 
Ada ! sole daughter of my house and 

heart ? ^ 

I [The Third Canto of Childe Harold, begun 
early in May, was finished at Ouchy, near 
Lausanne, on the 27th of June, 1816. It was 
published November 18, 1816.] 

= [D'Alembert (Jean-le-Rond, philosopher, 
mathematician, and belletrist, 1717-1783) had 



Canto hi.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



219 



When last I saw thy young blue eyes 

they smiled, 
And then we parted, — not as now we 

part. 
But with a hope. — 

Awaking with a start. 
The waters heave around me; and on 

high 
The winds lift up their voices: I depart. 
Whither I know not; but the hour's 

gone by, 
When Albion's lessening shores could 

grieve or glad mine eye. 

II. 

Once more upon the waters ! yet once 

more ! 
And the waves bound beneath me as a 

steed 
That knows his rider. Welcome to their 

roar! 
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it 

lead! 

recently lost his friend. Mile (Claire Fran9oise) 
L'Espinasse, who died Alay 23, 1776. Fred- 
erick prescribes quelqiie probleme bien difficile a 
resoudre as a remedy for vain regrets {GEiivres de 
Frederic II., Roi de Prusse, 1790, xiv. 64, 65).] 

3 [The Honourable Augusta Ada Byron was 
born December 10, 1815; was married July 8, 
1835, to William King Noel (1805-1893), eighth 
Baron King, created Earl of Lovelace, 1838; 
and died November 27, 1852. There were 
three children of the marriage — Viscount 
Ockham (d. 1862), the present Earl of Lovelace, 
and the Lady Anna Isabella Noel, who was 
married to Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Esq., in 1869. 

"The Countess of Lovelace," wrote a contrib- 
utor to the Examiner, December 4, 1852, "was 
thoroughly original, and the poet's tempera- 
ment was all that was hers in common with her 
father. Her genius, for genius she possessed, 
was not poetic, but metaphysical and mathe- 
matical, her mind having been in the constant 
practice of investigation, and with rigour and 
exactness." Of her devotion to science, and 
her original powers as a mathematician, her 
translation and explanatory notes of F. L. 
Menabrea's Notices sur la machine Analytique 
de Mr Babbage, 1842, a defence of the famous 
"calculating machine," remain as evidence. 

It would seem, however, that she "wore her 
learning lightly as a flower." "Her manners 
[Examiner], her tastes, her accomplishments, in 
many of which, music especially, she was pro- 
ficient, were feminine in the nicest sense of the 
word." Unlike her father in features, or in the 
bent of her mind, she inherited his mental vigour 
and intensity of purpose. Like him, she ditd in 
her thirty-seventh year, and, at her own request, 
her coffin was placed by his in the vault at 
Hucknall Torkard. 



Though the strained mast should quiver 

as a reed. 
And the rent canvass fluttering strew 

the gale. 
Still must I on; for I am as a weed, 
Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, 

to sail 
Where'er the surge may sweep, the 

tempest's breath prevail. 



In my youth's summer I did sing of One, 
The wandering outlaw of his own dark 

mind; 
Again I seize the theme, then but begun, 
And bear it with me, as the rushing 

wind 
Bears the cloud onwards: in that Tale 

I find 
The furrows of long thought, and dried- 

up tears. 
Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track 

behind, 
O'er which all heavily the journeying 

years 
Plod the last sands of life, — where not 

a flower appears. 

IV. 

Since my young days of passion — joy 

or pain — 
Perchance my heart and harp have lost 

a string — 
And both may jar: it may be that in 

vain 
I would essay, as I have sung, to sing: 
Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I 

cUng_; 
So that it wean me from the weary 

dream 
Of selfish grief or gladness — so it fling 
Forgetfulness around me — it shall seem 
To me, though to none else, a not un- 
grateful theme. 



'■ He, who grown aged in this world of woe, 
' In deeds, not years, piercing the depths 
of life, 
So that no wonder waits him — nor 

below 
Can Love or Sorrow, Fame, Ambition, 
Strife, 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto hi. 



Cut to his heart again with the keen 

knife 
Of silent, sharp endurance — he can tell 
Why Thought seeks refuge in lone 

caves, yet rife 
With airy images, and shapes which 

dwell 
Still unimpaired, though old, in the 

Soul's haunted cell. 

VI. 

'Tis to create, and in creating live 
A being more intense, that we endow 
With form our fancy, gaining as we 

give 
The life we image, even as I do now — 
What am I? Nothing: but not so art 

thou, 
Soul of my thought ! with whom I 

traverse earth, 
Invisible but gazing, as I glow 
Mixed with thy spirit, blended with thy 

birth, 
And feeling still with thee in my crushed 

feelings' dearth. 

VII. 

Yet must I think less wildly: — I have 
thought 

Too long and darkly, till my brain be- 
came, 

In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, 

A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame: 

And thus, untaught in youth my heart 
to tame. 

My springs of life were poisoned. 'Tis 
too late ! 

Yet am I changed; though still enough 
the same 

In strength to bear what Time can not 
abate, 

And feed on bitter fruits without accus- 
ing Fate. 



Something too much of this: — but now 

'tis past, 
And the spell closes with its silent seal: 
Long absent Harold re-appears at 

last — 
He of the breast which fain no more 

would feel, 



Wrung with the wounds which kill not, 

but ne'er heal; 
Yet Time, who changes all, had altered 

him ] 

un soul and aspect as in age: years steal 
r ire from the mind as vigour from the 
\ limb; 
And Life's enchanted cup but sparkles \ 

near the brim. \ 



His had been quaffed too quickly, and he 

found 
The dregs were wormwood ; but he filled 

again. 
And from a purer fount, on holier 

ground. 
And deemed its spring perpetual — but 

in vain ! 
Still round him clung invisibly a chain 
Which galled for ever, fettering though 

unseen. 
And heavy though it clanked not; worn 

with pain. 
Which pined although it spoke not, and 

grew keen, 
Entering with every step he took through 

many a scene. 



Secure in guarded coldness, he had 

mixed 
Again in fancied safety with his kind. 
And deemed his spirit now so firmly 

fixed 
And sheathed with an invulnerable 

mind. 
That, if no joy, no sorrow lurked be- 
hind; 
And he, as one, might 'midst the many 

stand 
Unheeded, searching through the crowd 

to find 
Fit speculation — such as in strange 

land 
He found in wonder-works of God and 

Nature's hand. 



But who can view the ripened rose, nor 

seek 
To wear it? who can curiously behold 



Canto hi.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



The smoothness and the sheen of 

Beauty's cheek, 
Nor feel the heart can never all grow 

old? 
Who can contemplate Fame through 

clouds unfold 
The star which rises o'er her steep, nor 

climb? 
Harold, once more within the vortex, 

rolled 
On with the giddy circle, chasing 

Time, 
Yet with a nobler aim than in his 

Youth's fond prime. 



fr^ut soon he knew himself the most 
■ i? unfit 
Of men to herd with Man, with whom 

he held 
Little in common; untaught to submit 
His thoughts to others, though his soul 

was quelled 
In youth by his own thoughts; still un- 

compelled, 
He would not yield dominion of his 

mind 
To Spirits against whom his own 

rebelled, 
Proud though in desolation — which 

could find 
A life within itself, to breathe without 

mankind. 

XIII. 

Where rose the mountains, there to him 

were friends; 
Where rolled the Ocean, thereon was his 

home; 
Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, 

extends, 
He had the passion and the power to 

roam; 
The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's 

foam. 
Were unto him companionship; they 

spake 
A mutual language, clearer than the 

tome 
Of his land's tongue, which he would oft 

forsake 
For Nature's pages glassed by sun- 
beams on the lake. 



Like the Chaldean, he could watch the 

stars, 
Till he had peopled them with beings 

bright 
As their own beams; and earth, and 

earth-born jars, 
And human frailties, Vv'ere forgotten 

quite: 
Could he have kept his spirit to that 

flight 
He had been happy; but this clay will 

sink 
Its spark immortal, envying it the light 
To which it mounts, as if to break the 

Hnk 
That keeps us from yon heaven which 

woos us to its brink. 



But in Man's dwellings he became a 

thing 
Restless and worn, and stern and weari-^ 

some, / 

Drooped as a wild-born falcon with! 

cUpt wing, I 

To whom the boundless air alone were 

home : 
Then came his fit again, which to o'er- 

come, 
As eagerly the barred-up bird will beat 
His breast and beak against his wiry 

dome 
Till the blood tinge his plumage — so 

the heat 
Of his impeded Soul would through his 

bosom eat. 

XVI. 

Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again, 
With nought of Hope left — but with 

less of gloom; 
The very knowledge that he lived in vain. 
That all was over on this side the tomb. 
Had made Despair a smilingness assume, 
Which, though 'twere wild, — as on the 

plundered wreck 
When mariners would madly meet their 

doom 
With draughts intemperate on the sink- 
ing deck, — 
Did yet inspire a cheer, which he for- 
bore to check. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto hi. 



Stop ! — for thy tread is on an Empire's 
dust ! 

An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred 
below ! 

Is the spot marked with no colossal 
bust ? ^ 

Nor column trophied for triumphal 
show? 

None; but the moral's truth tells 
simpler so. 

As the ground was before, thus let it 
be; — 

How that red rain hath made the har- 
vest grow ! 

And is this all the world has gained by 
thee, 

Thou first and last of Fields! king- 
making Victory? 



And Harold stands upon this place of 

skulls. 
The grave of France, the deadly Water- 
loo ! 
How in an hour the Power which gave 

annuls 
Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting 

too ! — 
In "pride of place" here last the Eagle 

flew. 
Then tore with bloody talon the rent 

plain. 
Pierced by the shaft of banded nations 

through; 
Ambition's life and labours all were 

vain — 
He wears the shattered links of the 

World's broken chain. 



Fit retribution ! Gaul may champ the 
bit 

And foam in fetters; — but is Earth 
more free ? 

Did nations combat to make One sub- 
mit? 

Or league to teach all Kings true 
Sovereignty ? 

' [The mound with the Belgian lion was 
erected by William I. of Holland, in 1823.] 



What ! shall reviving Thraldom again be 
The patched-up Idol of enlightened 

days? 
Shall we, who struck the Lion down, 

shall we 
Pay the Wolf homage ? proffering lowly 

gaze 
And servile knees to Thrones ? No ! 

prove before ye praise ! 

XX. 

If not, o'er one fallen Despot boast no 

more ! 
In vain fair cheeks were furrowed with 

hot tears 
For Europe's flowers long rooted up 

before 
The trampler of her vineyards; in vain, 

years 
Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears, 
Have all been borne, and broken by the 

accord 
Of roused-up millions: all that most 

endears 
Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a 

Sword — 
Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' 



tyrant Lord. 



■A^Jv^ri^ 



There was k sound of revelry by night,^ 
AndBelgium'sCapital had gathered then 
Her Beauty and her Chivalry — and 

bright 
The lamps shone o'er fair women and 

brave men; 
A thousand hearts beat happily; and 

when 
Music arose with its voluptuous swell. 
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which 

spake again, 
j And all went merry as a marriage bell; 
But hush ! hark ! a deep sound strikes 

like a rising knell ! 

' [The most vivid and the best authenticated 
account of the Duchess of Richmond's ball, 
which took place June 15, the eve of the Battle 
of Quatrebras, in the duke's house in the Rue de 
la Blanchisserie, is to be found in A Sketch of the 
Lije of Georgiana, Lady de Ros, by her daughter, 
the Hon. Mrs J. R. Swinton (John Murray, 
1893). "My -mother's now famous ball," 
writes Lady de Ros (.4 Sketch, etc., pp. 122. 123), 
"took place in a large room on the ground-floor 



Canto hi.] 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



223 



Did ye not hear it ? — No — 'twas but 
'' the Wind, 

Or the car rattling o'er the stony street; 
On with the dance ! let joy be uncon- 

fined; 
No sleep till morn, when Youth and 

Pleasure meet 
To chase the glowing Hours with flying 

feet — 
But hark ! — that heavy sound breaks in 

once more. 
As if the clouds its echo would repeat; 
And nearer — clearer — deadlier than 

before ! 
Arm ! Arm ! it is — it is — the cannon's 

opening roar ! 



Within a windowed niche of that high 

hall 
Sate Brunswick's fated Chieftain; he 

did hear ^ 
That sound the first amidst the festival, 
And caught its tone with Death's 

prophetic ear; 
And when they smiled because he 

deemed it near, 
His heart more truly knew that peal too 

well 
Which stretched his father on a bloody 

bier, 
And roused the vengeance blood alone 

could quell; 
He rushed into the field, and, foremost 

fighting, fell. 

on the left of the entrance, connected with the 
rest of the house by an ante-room. It had 
been used by the coach-builder, from whom 
the house was hired, to put carriages in, but it 
was papered before we came there; and 1 re- 
collect the paper — a trellis pattern with roses. 
. . . When the Duke arrived, rather late, at 
the ball, I was dancing, but at once went up to 
him to ask about the rumours. . . . 'Yes, 
they are true; we are off to-morrow.' This 
terrible news was circulated directly, and while 
some of the officers hurried away, others re- 
mained at the ball, and actually had not time 
to change their clothes, but fought in evening 
costume."] 

' [Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick 
(1771-1815), brother to Caroline, Princess of 
Wales, and nephew of George III., fighting at 
Quatrebras in the front of the line, "fell almost 
in the beginning of the battle." His father, 
Charles William Ferdinand, born 1735, the 



Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and 

fro — 
And gathering tears, and tremblings of 

distress, 
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour 

ago 
Blushed at the praise of their own 

loveliness — 
And there were sudden partings, such 

as press 
The life from out young hearts, and 

choking sighs 
Which ne'er might be repeated; who 

could guess 
If ever more should meet those mutual 

eyes. 
Since upon night so sweet such awful 

morn could rise ! 

XXV. 

And there was mounting in hot haste — 
the steed. 

The mustering squadron, and the clat- 
tering car. 

Went pouring forward with impetuous 
speed. 

And swiftly forming in the ranks of 
war — 

And the deep thunder peal on peal 
afar; 

And near, the beat of the alarming drum 

Roused up the soldier ere the Morning 
Star; 

author of the fatal manifesto against the army 
of the French Republic (July 15, 1792), was 
killed at Auerbach, October 14, 1806. In the 
plan of the Duke of Richmond's house, which 
Airs Swinton included in .4 Sketch, etc., the 
actual spot is marked (the door of the ante- 
room leading to the ball-room) where her 
mother took leave of the Duke of Brunswick. 
"It was a dreadful evening," writes Lady de 
Ros, "taking leave of friends and acquaintances, 
many never to be seen again. The Duke of 
Brunswick, as he took leave of me . . . made 
me a civil speech as to the Brunswick ers being 
sure to distinguish themselves after 'the honour' 
done them by my having accompanied the Duke 
of Wellington to their review ! I remember 
being quite provoked with poor Lord Hay, a 
dashing, merry youth, full of military ardom, 
whom I knew very well, for his delight at the 
idea of going into action . . . and the first news 
we had on the i6th was that he and the Duke of 
Brunswick were killed." — A Sketch, etc., pp. 
132, I33-] 



224 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto hi. 



While thronged the citizens with terror 

dumb, 
Or whispering, with white Ups — "The 

foe! They come! they come!" 

XXVI. 

And wild and high the "Cameron's 

Gathering" rose! 
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's 

hills 
Have heard, and heard, too, have her 

Saxon foes: — 
How in the noon of night that pibroch 

thrills. 
Savage and shrill ! But with the 

breath which fills 
Their mountain pipe, so fill the m^oun- 

taineers 
With the fierce native daring which 

instils 
The stirring memory of a thousand 

years. 
And Evan's — Donald's — fame rings 

in each clansman's ears! 

XXVII. 

And Ardennes waves above them her 

green leaves. 
Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they 

pass — 
Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er 

grieves. 
Over the unreturning brave, — alas ! 
Ere' evening to be trodden like the 

grass 
Which noiu beneath them, but above 

shall grow 
In its next verdure, when this fiery 

mass 
Of living Valour, rolling on the foe 
And burning with high Hope, shall 

moulder cold and low. 

XXVIII. 

Last noon beheld them full of lusty 

life; — 
Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly 

gay; 
The Midnight brought the signal-sound 

of strife, 
The Morn the marshalling in arms — 

the Day 



Battle's magnificently-stern array ! 
The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which 

when rent 
The earth is covered thick with other 

clay 
Which her own clay shall cover, heaped 

and pent. 
Rider and horse, — friend, — foe — 

in one red burial blent ! 



Their praise is hymned by loftier harps 

than mine; 
Yet one I would select from that proud 

throng. 
Partly because they blend me with his 

line. 
And partly that I did his Sire some 

wrong. 
And partly that bright names will hallow 

song; 
And his was of the bravest, and when 

showered 
The death-bolts deadliest the thinned 

files along. 
Even where the thickest of War's tem- 
pest lowered. 
They reached no nobler breast than 

thine, young, gallant Howard ! ^ 



There have been tears and breaking 

hearts for thee. 
And mine were nothing, had I such to 

give; 
But when I stood beneath the fresh 

green tree. 
Which living waves w^here thou didst 

cease to live. 
And saw around me the wide field revive 
With fruits and fertile promise, and the 

Spring 
Come forth her work of gladness to 

contrive. 
With all her reckless birds upon the 

wing, 
I turned from all she brought to those 

she could not bring. 

' [The Hon. Frederick Howard (1785-1815), 
third son of Frederick, fifth Earl of Carlisle, 
fell late in the evening of the iSth of June, in 
a final charge of the left square of the French 
Guard, in which Vivian brought up Howard's 
I hussars against the French.] 



Canto hi. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



225 



XXXI. 

I turned to thee, to thousands, of whom 

each 
And one as all a ghastly gap did make 
In his own kind and kindred, whom to 

teach 
Forgetf ulness were mercy for their sake ; 
The Archangel's trump, not Glory's, 

must awake 
Those whom they thirst for; though 

the sound of Fame 
May for a moment soothe, it cannot 

slake 
The fever of vain longing, and the name 
So honoured but assumes a stronger, 

bitterer claim. 



They mourn, but smile at length — and, 

smiling, mourn: 
The tree will wither long before it fall; 
The hull drives on, though mast and 

sail be torn; 
The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on 

the hall 
In massy hoariness; the ruined wall 
Stands when its wind-worn battlements 

are gone; 
The bars survive the captive they 

enthral; 
The day drags through though storms 

keep out the sun; 
And thus the heart will break, yet 

brokenly live on: 

XXXIII. 

Even as a broken Mirror, which the 

glass 
In every fragment multiplies — and 

makes 
A thousand images of one that was 
The same — and still the more, the 

more it breaks; 
And thus the heart will do which not 

forsakes, 
Living in shattered guise; and still, 

and cold, 
And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow 

aches. 
Yet withers on till all without is old. 
Showing no visible sign, for such things 

are untold. 



XXXIV. 

There is a very life in our despair, 
Vitality of poison, — ■ a quick root 
Which feeds these deadly branches; 

for it were 
As nothing did we die; but Life will 

suit 
Itself to Sorrow's most detested fruit, 
Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's 

shore, 
All ashes to the taste : Did man compute 
Existence by enjoyment, and count o'er 
Such hours 'gainst years of life, — say, 

would he name threescore? 

XXXV. 

The Psalmist numbered out the years 

of man: 
They are enough; and if thy tale be true, 
Thou, who didst grudge him even that 

fleeting span, 
More than enough, thou fatal Waterloo ! 
Millions of tongues record thee, and 

anew 
Their children's lips shall echo them, 

and say — 
"Here, where the sword united nations 

drew. 
Our countrymen were warring on that 

day !" 
And this is much — and all — which 

will not pass away. 

XXXVI. 

There sunk the greatest, nor the worst 

of men. 
Whose Spirit, antithetically mixed. 
One moment of the mightiest, and again 
On little objects with like firmness 

fixed; 
Extreme in all things ! hadst thou been 

betwixt. 
Thy throne had still been thine, or 

never been; 
For Daring made thy rise as fall : thou 

seek'st 
Even now to re-assume the imperial 

mien,^ 
And shake again the world, the Thun- 
derer of the scene ! 

' [The stanza was written while Napoleon 
was still under the guardianship of Admiral Sir 



226 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto in. 



XXXVII. 

Conqueror and Captive of the Earth art 

thou! 
She trembles at thee still, and thy wild 

name 
Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds 

than now 
That thou art nothing, save the jest of 

Fame, 
Who wooed thee once, thy Vassal, and 

became 
The flatterer of thy fierceness — till 

thou wert 
A God unto thyself; nor less the same 
To the astounded kingdoms all inert. 
Who deemed thee for a time whate'er 

thou didst assert; 

XXXVIII. 

Oh, more or less than man — in high 
or low — 

Battling with nations, flying from the 
field; 

Now making monarchs' necks thy foot- 
stool, now 

More than thy meanest soldier taught 
to yield; 

An Empire thou couldst crush, com- 
mand, rebuild, 

But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor. 

However deeply in men's spirits skilled. 

Look through thine own, nor curb the 
lust of War, 

Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave 
the loftiest Star. 



Yet well thy soul hath brooked the 

turning tide 
With that untaught innate philosophy, 
Which, be it Wisdom, Coldness, or deep 

Pride, 
Is gall and wormwood to an enemy. 
When the whole host of hatred stood 

hard by, 
To watch and mock thee shrinking, 

thou hast smiled 
With a sedate and all-enduring eye; — 

George Cockburn. and before Sir Hudson Lov/e 
had landed at St Helena; but complaints were 
made from the first that imperial honours which 
were paid to him by his own suite were not ac- 
corded by the British authorities.] 



When Fortune fled her spoiled and 

favourite child, 
He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon 

him piled. 

XL. 

Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them 
Ambition steeled thee on too far to show 
That just habitual scorn, which could 

contemn 
Men and their thoughts; 'twas wise to 

feel, not so 
To wear it ever on thy lip and brow. 
And spurn the instruments thou wert 

to use 
Till they were turned unto thine over- 
throw: 
'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose ; 
So hath it proved to thee, and all such 
lot who choose. 

XLI. 

If, like a tower upon a headlong rock. 
Thou hadst been made to stand or fall 

alone. 
Such scorn of man had helped to brave 

the shock; 
But men's thoughts were the steps 

which paved thy throne. 
Their admiration thy best weapon 

shone ; 
The part of Philip's son was thine — 

not then 
(Unless aside thy Purple had been 

thrown) 
Like stern Diogenes to mock at men: 
For sceptred Cynics Earth were far too 

wide a den. 



But Quiet to quick bosoms is a Hell, 
And there hath been thy bane; there is 

a fire 
And motion of the Soul which will not 

dwell 
In its own narrow being, but aspire 
Beyond the fitting medium of desire; 
And, but once kindled, quenchless ever- 
more, 
Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire 
Of aught but rest; a fever at the core. 
Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever 
bore. 



Canto hi.] 



CHJLDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



227 



This makes the madmen who have 

made men mad 
By their contagion; Conquerors and 

Kings, 
Founders of sects and systems, to whom 

add 
Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet 

things 
Which stir too strongly the soul's secret 

springs, 
And are themselves the fools to those 

they fool; 
Envied, yet how unenviable i what stings 
Are theirs ! One breast laid open were 

a school 
Which would unteach Mankind the 

lust to shine or rule: 



Their breath is agitation, and their life 
A storm whereon they ride, to sink at 

last, 
And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife. 
That should their days, surviving perils 

past. 
Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast 
With sorrow and supineness, and so die; 
Even as a flame unfed, which runs to 

waste 
With its own flickering, or a sword laid 

by, 

Which eats into itself, and rusts in- 
gloriously. 

He who ascends to mountain tops, shall 

find 
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds 

and snow; 
He who surpasses or subdues mankind. 
Must look down on the hate of those 

below. 
Though high above the Sun of Glory 

glow, 
And far beneath the Earth and Ocean 

spread. 
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly 

blow 
Contending tempests on his naked head. 
And thus reward the toils which to 
• those summits led. 



XLVI. 

Away with these ! true Wisdom's world 

will be 
Within its own creation, or in thine, 
Maternal Nature ! for who teems like 

thee, 
Thus on the banks of thy majestic 

Rhine? 
There Harold gazes on a work divine, 
A blending of all beauties; streams and 

dells. 
Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, 

mountain, vine. 
And chiefless castles breathing stern 

farewells 
From grey but leafy walls, where Ruin 

greenly dwells. 



And there they stand, as stands a lofty 

mind. 
Worn, but unstooping to the baser 

crowd. 
All tenantless, save to the crannying 

Wind, 
Or holding dark communion with the 

Cloud. 
There was a day when they were young 

and proud; 
Banners on high, and battles passed 

below; 
But they who fought are in a bloody 

shroud, 
And those which waved are shredless 

dust ere now. 
And the bleak battlements shall bear 

no future blow. 



Beneath these battlements, within those 

walls. 
Power dwelt amidst her passion; in 

proud state 
Each robber chief upheld his armed halls, 
Doing his evil will, nor less elate 
Than mightier heroes of a longer date. 
What want these outlaws conquerors 

should have. 
But History's purchased page to call 

them great? 
A wider space — an ornamented grave ? 
Their hopes were not less warm, their 

souls were full as brave. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto hi. 



In their baronial feuds and single fields, 

What deeds of prowess unrecorded died ! 

And Love, which lent a blazon to their 
shields/ 

With emblems well devised by amorous 
pride, 

Through all the mail of iron hearts 
would glide; 

But still their flame was fierceness, and 
drew on 

Keen contest and destruction near allied. 

And many a tower for some fair mis- 
chief won. 

Saw the discoloured Rhine beneath its 
ruin run. 

L. 

But Thou, exulting and abounding 

river ! 
Making thy waves a blessing as they 

flow 
Through banks whose beauty would 

endure for ever 
Could man but leave thy bright creation 

so, 
Nor its fair promise from the surface 

mow 
With the sharp scythe of conflict, — 

then to see 
Thy valley of sweet waters, were to 

know 
Earth paved Hke Heaven — and to 

seem such to me. 
Even now what wants thy stream ? — 

that it should Lethe be. 



A thousand battles have assailed thy 

banks. 
But these and half their fame have 

passed away, 
And Slaughter heaped on high his wel- 
tering ranks: 
Their very graves are gone, and what 

are they? 
Thy tide washed down the blood of 

yesterday. 
And all was stainless, and on thy clear 

stream 
Glassed, with its dancing light, the 

sunny ray; 

' [The most usual device is a bleeding heart.] 



But o'er the blackened Memory's 
bUghting dream 

Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweep- 
ing as they seem. 



Thus Harold inly said, and passed along, 
Yet not insensible to all which here 
Awoke the jocund birds to early song 
In glens which might have made even 

exile dear: 
Though on his brow were graven lines 

austere, 
And tranquil sternness, which had ta'en 

the place 
Of feelings fierier far but less severe — 
Joy was not always absent from his face, 
But o'er it in such scenes would steal 

with transient trace. 



Nor was all Love shut from him, though 

his days 
Of Passion had consumed themselves 

to dust. 
It is in vain that we would coldly gaze 
On such as smile upon us; the heart 

must 
Leap kindly back to kindness, though 

Disgust 
Hath weaned it from all worldings: 

thus he felt, 
For there was soft Remembrance, and 

sweet Trust 
In one fond breast, to which his own 

would melt. 
And in its tenderer hour on that his 

bosom dwelt. 

LIV. 

And he had learned to love, — I know 
not why. 

For this in such as him seems strange of 
mood, — 

The helpless looks of blooming Infancy, 

Even in its earhest nurture; what sub- 
dued, 

To change like this, a mind so far im- 
bued 

With scorn of man, it Httle boots to 
know ; 

But thus it was; and though in solitude 



Canto hi. 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



229 



Small power the nipped affections have 

to grow, 
In him this glowed when all beside had 

ceased to glow. 



And there was one soft breast, as hath 

been said, 
Which unto his was bound by stronger 

ties 
Than the church links withal; and, — 

though unwed, 
That love was pure — and, far above 

disguise. 
Had stood the test of mortal enmities. 
Still undivided, and cemented more 
By peril, dreaded most in female eyes; 
But this was firm, and from a foreign 

shore 
Well to that heart might his these 

absent greetings pour ! 



The castled Crag of Drachenfels 
Frowns o'er the wide and winding 

Rhine, 
i Whose breast of waters broadly swells 
Between the banks which bear the 

vine; 
And hills all rich with blossomed trees, 
And fields which promise corn and 
, wine. 

And scattered cities crowning these. 
Whose far white walls along them shine. 
Have strewed a scene, which I should 

see 
With double joy wert thou with me. 



And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes, 
And hands which offer early flowers. 
Walk smiling o'er this Paradise; 
Above, the frequent feudal towers 
Through green leaves lift their walls of 

grey; 
And many a rock which steeply lowers, 
And noble arch in proud decay. 
Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers; 
But one thing want these banks of 

Rhine, — 
Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine ! 



I send the lilies given to me — 
Though long before thy hand they 

touch, 
I know that they must withered be, 
But yet reject them not as such; 
For I have cherished them as dear, 
Because they yet may meet thine eye, 
And guide thy soul to mine even here, — 
When thou behold'st them drooping 

nigh. 
And know'st them gathered by the 

Rhine, 
And offered from my heart to thine ! 



The river nobly foams and flows — 
The charm of this enchanted ground, 
And all its thousand turns disclose 
Some fresher beauty's varying round : 
The haughtiest breast its wish might 

bound 
Through life to dwell delighted here; 
Nor could on earth a spot be found 
To Nature and to me so dear — 
Could thy dear eyes in following mine 
Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine ! 



By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground, 
There is a small and simple Pyramid, 
Crowning the summit of the verdant 

mound; 
Beneath its base are Heroes' ashes hid — 
Our enemy's — but let not that forbid 
Honour to Marceau ! o'er whose early 

tomb 
Tears, big tears, gushed from the rough 

soldier's lid, 
Lamenting and yet envying such a 

doom. 
Falling for France, whose rights he 

battled to resume. 

LVII. 

Brief, brave, and glorious was his 

young career, — 
His mourners were two hosts, his 

friends and foes; 
And fitly may the stranger lingering here 
Pray for his gallant Spirit's bright 

repose; — 



230 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto hi. 



For he was Freedom's Champion, one 

of those 
The few in number, who had not o'er- 

stept 
The charter to chastise which she 

bestows 
On such as wield her weapons; he had 

kept 
The whiteness of his soul — and thus 

men o'er him wept. 

LVIII. 

Here Ehrenbreitstein, with her shat- 
tered wah 

Black with the miner's blast, upon her 
height 

Yet shows of what she was, when shell 
and ball 

Rebounding idly on her strength did 
light: — 

A Tower of Victory ! from whence the 
flight 

Of baffled foes was watched along the 
plain : 

But Peace destroyed what War could 
never blight. 

And laid those proud roofs bare to Sum- 
mer's rain — 

On which the iron shower for years had 
poured in vain. 

LIX. 

Adieu to thee, fair Rhine ! How long 

delighted 
The stranger fain would linger on his way ! 
Thine is a scene alike where souls 

united, 
Or lonely Contemplation thus might 

stray; 
And could the ceaseless vultures cease 

to prey 
On'self-condemning bosoms, it were here, 
Where Nature, nor too sombre nor too 

gay, 

Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere. 
Is to the mellow Earth as Autumn to the 
year. 

LX. 

Adieu to thee again ! a vain adieu ! 
There can be no farewell to scene like 

thine ; 
The mind is coloured by thy every hue; 
And if reluctantly the eyes resign 



Their cherished gaze upon thee, lovely 

Rhine ! 
'Tis with the thankful glance of parting 

praise; 
More mighty spots may rise — more 

glaring shine. 
But none unite, in one attaching maze, 
The brilliant, fair, and soft, — the 

glories of old days. 

LXI. 

The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom 
Of coming ripeness, the white city's 

sheen. 
The rolling stream, the precipice's 

gloom, 
The forest's growth, and Gothic walls 

between, — 
The wild rocks shaped, as they had 

turrets been, 
In mockery of man's art; and these 

withal 
A race of faces happy as the scene, 
Whose fertile bounties here extend to all, 
Still springing o'er thy banks, though 

Empires near them fall. 

LXII. 

But these recede. Above me are the 

Alps, 
The Palaces of Nature, whose vast walls 
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy 

scalps. 
And throned Eternity in icy halls 
Of cold Sublimity, where forms and 

falls 
The Avalanche — the thunderbolt of 

snow ! 
All that expands the spirit, yet appals. 
Gather around these summits, as to 

show 
How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet 

leave vain man below. 



But ere these matchless heights I dare 

to scan, 
There is a spot should not be passed in 

vain, — 
Morat ! the proud, the patriot field ! 

where man 
May gaze on ghastly trophies of the 

slain. 



Canto hi.] 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



231 



Nor blush for those who conquered on 
that plain; 

Here Burgundy bequeathed his tomb- 
less host, 

A bony heap, through ages to remain, 

Themselves their monument; — the 
Stygian coast 

Unsepulchred they roamed, and 
shrieked each wandering ghost. 



While Waterloo with Cannae's carnage 

vies, 
Morat and Marathon twin names shall 

stand ; 
They were true Glory's stainless vic- 
tories. 
Won by the unambitious heart and hand 
Of a proud, broiherly, and civic band. 
All unbought champions in no princely 

cause 
Of vice-entailed Corruption; they no 

land 
Doomed to bewail the blasphemy of laws 
Making Kings' rights divine, by some 
Draconic clause. 

LXV. 

By a lone wall a lonelier column rears 
A grey and grief-worn aspect of old 

days; 
'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of 

years. 
And looks as with the wild-bewildered 

gaze 
Of one to stone converted by amaze, 
Yet still with consciousness; and there 

it stands 
Making a marvel that it not decays, 
When the coeval pride of human hands. 
Levelled Aventicum, hath strewed her 

subject lands. 

LXVI. 

And there — oh ! sweet and sacred be 

the name ! 
Julia — the daughter — the devoted — 

gave 
Her youth to Heaven; her heart, 

beneath a claim 
Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a 

father's grave. 



Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and hers 

would crave 
The life she lived in — but the Judge 

was just — 
And then she died on him she could not 

save. 
Their tomb was simple, and without a 

bust. 
And held within their urn one mind — 

one heart — one dust. 



But these are deeds which should not 

pass away, 
And names that must not wither, though 

the Earth 
Forgets her empires with a just decay, 
The enslavers and the enslaved — their 

death and birth; 
The high, the mountain-majesty of 

Worth 
Should be — and shall, survivor of its woe, 
And from its immortality, look forth 
In the Sun's face, like yonder Alpine 

snow, 
Imperishably pure beyond all things 

below. 

LXVIII. 

Lake Leman woos me with its crystal 

face. 
The mirror where the stars and moun- 
tains view 
The stillness of their aspect in each 

trace 
Its clear depth yields of their far height 

and hue: 
There is too much of Man here, to look 

through 
With a fit mind the might which I 

behold; 
But soon in me shall Loneliness renew 
Thoughts hid, but not less cherished that 

of old, 
Ere mingling with the herd had penned 

me in their fold. 



To fly from, need not be to hate, man- 
kind : 
All are not fit with them to stir and toil, 
Nor is it discontent to keep the mind 
Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil 



232 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto hi. 



In the hot throng, where we become the 

spoil 
Of our infection, till, too late and long. 
We may deplore and struggle with the 

coil, 
In wretched interchange of wrong for 

wrong 
Midst a contentious world, striving 

where none are strong. 

LXX. 

There, in a moment, we may plunge our 

years 
In fatal penitence, and in the blight 
Of our own Soul turn all our blood to 

tears. 
And colour things to come with hues of 

Night; 
The race of life becomes a hopeless 

. flight 
To those that walk in darkness: on the 

sea 
The boldest steer but where their ports 

invite — 
But there are wanderers o'er Eternity, 
Whose bark drives on and on, and 

anchored ne'er shall be. 



Is it not better, then, to be alone. 

And love Earth only for its earthly sake ? 

By the blue rushing of the arrowy 

Rhone, 
Or the pure bosom of its nursing Lake, 
Which feeds it as a mother who doth 

make 
A fair but froward infant her own care, 
Kissing its cries away as these awake ; — 
Is it not better thus our lives to wear, 
Than join the crushing crowd, doomed 

to inflict or bear? 



I live not in myself, but I become 
Portion of that around me; and to me 
' High mountains are a feeling, but the 
hum 
Of human cities torture: I can see 
V Nothing to loathe in Nature, save to be 
^ |A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, 
r I Classed among creatures, when the soul 
•^ I can flee. 



And with the sky — the peak — the 

heaving plain 
Of ocean, or the stars, mingle — and not 

in vain. 

LXXIII. 

And thus I am absorbed, and this is 

life : — 
I look upon the peopled desert past. 
As on a place of agony and strife, 1 

Where, for some sin, to Sorrow I was I 

cast. 
To act and suffer, but remount at last 
With a fresh pinion; which I feel to 

spring. 
Though young, yet waxing vigorous as 

the Blast 
Which it would cope with, on delighted 

wing. 
Spurning the clay-cold bonds which 

round our being cling. 



And when, at length, the mind shall be 

all free 
From what it hates in this degraded form, 
Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be 
Existent happier in the fly and worm, — 
When Elements to Elements conform. 
And dust is as it should be, shall I not 
Feel all I see less dazzling but more 

warm? 
The bodiless thought? the Spirit of 

each spot? 
Of which, even now, I share at times 

the immortal lot? 



/ 



LXXV. 

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, 
a part 

Of me and of my Soul, as I of them ? 

Is not the love of these deep in my heart 

With a pure passion ? should I not con- 
temn 

All objects, if compared with these ? and 
stem 

A tide of suffering, rather than forego 

Such feelings for the hard and worldly 
phlegm 

Of those whose eyes are only turned 
below. 

Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts 
which dare not glow? 



Canto hi. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



233 



LXXVI. 

But this is not my theme; and I return 
To that which is immediate, and require 
Those who find contemplation in the 

urn, 
To look on One, whose dust was once 

all fire, — 
A native of the land where I respire 
The clear air for a while — a passing 

guest. 
Where he became a being, — whose 

desire 
Was to be glorious; 'twas a foolish 

quest, 
The which to gain and keep, he sacri- 
ficed all rest. i--'-* 

Y Here the self-torturing sophist, wild 
/ Rousseau, 

The apostle of AfHiction, he who threw 
Enchantment over Passion, and from 

Woe 
Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first 

drew 
The breath which made him wretched; 

yet he knew 
How to make Madness beautiful, and 

cast 
O'er erring deeds and thoughts, a 

heavenly hue 
Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as 

they past 
The eyes, which o'er them shed tears 

feelingly and fast. 

LXXVIII. 

His love was Passion's essence — as a 

tree 
On fire by lightning; with ethereal 

flame 
Kindled he was, and blasted; for to 

be 
Thus and enamoured, were in him the 

same. 
But his was not the love of living dame. 
Nor of the dead who rise upon our 

dreams. 
But of ideal Beauty, which became 
In him existence, and o'erflowing teems 
Along his burning page, distempered 

though it seems. 



This breathed itself to life in Julie, this 
Invested her with all that's wild and 

sweet; 
This hallowed, too, the memorable kiss 
Which every morn his fevered lip would 

greet. 
From hers, who but with friendship his 

would meet; 
But to that gentle touch, through brain 

and breast 
Flashed the thrilled Spirit's love-devour- 
ing heat; 
In that absorbing right perchance more 

blest 
Than vulgar minds may be with all they 

seek possest. 

LXXX. 

His life was one long war with self- 
sought foes. 
Or friends by him self-banished; for his 

mind 
Had grown Suspicion's sanctuary, and 

chose, 
For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind, 
'Gainst whom he raged with fury strange 

and blind. 
But he was phrensied, — wherefore, 

who may know ? 
Since cause might be which Skill could 

never find; 
But he was phrensied by disease or woe, 
To that worst pitch of all, which wears a 

reasoning show. 

LXXXI. 

For then he was inspired, and from him 

came. 
As from the Pythian's mystic cave of 

yore. 
Those oracles which set the world in 

flame. 
Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were 

no more: 
Did he not this for France ? which lay, 

before. 
Bowed to the inborn tyranny of years. 
Broken and trembling to the yoke she 

bore. 
Till by the voice of him and his compeers, 
Roused up to too much wrath which 

follows o'ergrown fears? 



234 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto hi. 



LXXXII. 

They made themselves a fearful monu- 
ment ! 
The wreck of old opinions — things 

which grew, 
Breathed from the birth of Time: the 

veil they rent, 
And what behind it lay, all earth shall 

view ; 
But good with ill they also overthrew, 
Leaving but ruins, wherewith to rebuild. 
Upon the same foundation, and renew 
Dungeons and thrones, which the same 

hour refilled. 
As heretofore, because Ambition was 
self-willed. 

LXXXIII. 

But this will not endure, nor be endured ! 
Mankind have felt their strength, and 

made it felt. 
They might have used it better, but, 

allured 
By their new vigour, sternly have they 

dealt 
On one another; Pity ceased to melt 
With her once natural charities. But 

they, 
Who in (Dppression's darkness caved had 

dwelt. 
They were not eagles, nourished with 

the day; 
What marvel then, at times, if they mis- 
took their prey ? 

LXXXIV. 

What deep wounds ever closed without 

a scar? 
The heart's bleed longest, and but heal 

to wear 
That which disfigures it ; and they who 

war 
With their own hopes, and have been 

vanquished, bear 
Silence, but not submission: in his lair 
Fixed Passion holds his breath, until 

the hour 
Which shall atone for years; none need 

despair : 
It came — it cometh — and will come, 

— the power 
To punish or forgive — in one we shall 

be slower. 



LXXXV. 

Clear, placid Leman ! thy contrasted 
lake, 

With the wide world I dwelt in is a 
thing 

Which warns me, with its stillness, to 
forsake 

Earth's troubled waters for a purer 
spring. 

This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing 

To waft me from distraction; once I 
loved 

Torn Ocean's roar, but thy soft mur- 
muring 

Sounds sweet as if a Sister's voice re- 
proved. 

That I with stern delights should e'er 
have been so moved. 

LXXXVI. 

It is the hush of night, and all between 
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, 

yet clear. 
Mellowed and mingling yet distinctly 

seen. 
Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights 

appear 
Precipitously steep; and drawing near, 
There breathes a living fragrance from 

the shore. 
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood ; on 

the ear 
Drops the light drip of the suspended 

oar. 
Or chirps the grasshopper one good- 
night carol more. 



He is an evening reveller, who makes 
His life an infancy, and sings his fill; 
At intervals, some bird from out the 

brakes 
Starts into voice a moment, then is still. 
There seems a floating whisper on the 

hill, 
But that is fancy — for the Starlight 

dews 
All silently their tears of Love instil, 
Weeping themselves away, till they 

infuse 
Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of 

her hues. 



Caxto hi] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



235 



LXXXVIII. 

Ye Stars ! which are the poetry of 

Heaven ! 
If in your bright leaves we would read 

the fate 
Of men and empires, — 'tis to be for- 
given, 
That in our aspirations to be great, 
Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, 
And claim a kindred with you ; for ye are 
A Beauty and a Mystery, and create 
In us such love and reverence from afar. 
That Fortune, — Fame, — Power, — 
Life, have named themselves a Star. 

LXXXIX. 

All Heaven and Earth are still — 

though not in sleep. 
But breathless, as we grow when feeling 

most; 
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too 

deep: — 
All Heaven and Earth are still: From 

the high host 
Of stars, to the lulled lake and moun- 
tain-coast, 
All is concentered in a life intense, 
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, 
But hath a part of Being, and a sense 
Of that which is of all Creator and 
Defence. 

xc. 

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt 
In solitude, where we are least alone; 
A truth, which through our being then 

doth melt. 
And purifies from self: it is a tone. 
The soul and source of Music, which 

makes known 
Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm 
Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone. 
Binding all things with beauty; — 

'twould disarm 
The spectre Death, had he substantial 

power to harm. 



Not vainly did the early Persian make 
His altar the high places, and the peak 
Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus 

take 
A fit and unwalled temple, there to seek 



The Spirit, in whose honour shrines are 

weak, 
Upreared of human hands. Come, and 

compare 
Columns and idol-dwellings — Goth or 

Greek — 
With Nature's realms of worship, earth 

and air — 
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe 

thy prayer ! 

xcii. 

The sky is changed ! — and such a 

change ! Oh Night, 
And Storm, and Darkness, ye are 

wondrous strong. 
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the 

light 
Of a dark eye in W^oman ! Far along. 
From peak to peak, the rattling crags 

among 
Leaps the live thunder ! Not from one 

lone cloud. 
But every mountain now hath found a 

tongue. 
And Jura answers, through her misty 

shroud, 
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her 

aloud ! 

XCIII. 

And this is in the Night : — Most 

glorious Night ! 
Thou wert not sent for slumber ! let me 

be 
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, - 
A portion of the tempest and of thee ! 
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric' 

sea, 
And the big rain comes dancing to the 

earth ! 
And now again 'tis black, — and now, 

the glee 
Of the loud hills shakes with its moun- 
tain-mirth. 
As if they did rejoice o'er a young 

Earthquake's birth. 

xciv. 

Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his 

way between 
Heights which appear as lovers who 

have parted 



236 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIM AG, 

Tr^ 



^GJ\ 



[Canto hi. 



In hate, whose mining depths so inter- 
vene, 
That they can meet no more, though 

broken-hearted : 
Though in their souls, which thus each 

other thwarted. 
Love was the very root of the fond 

rage 
Which blighted their life's bloom, and 

then departed: — 
Itself expired, but leaving them an 

age 
Of years all winters, — war within 

themselves to wage: 



Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath 
cleft his way, 

The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en 
his stand: 

For here, not one, but many, make their 
play 

And fling their thunder-bolts from hand 
to hand, 

Flashing and cast around: of all the 
band, 

The brightest through these parted hills 
hath forked 

His lightnings, — as if he did under- 
stand. 

That in such gaps as Desolation worked. 

There the hot shaft should blast what- 
ever therein lurked. 



Sky — Mountains — River — Winds — 

Lake — - Lightnings ! ye ! 
With night, and clouds, and thunder — 

and a Soul 
To make these felt and feeling, well may 

be 
Things that have made me watchful; 

the far roll 
Of your departing voices, is the knoll 
Of what in me is sleepless, — if I 

rest. 
But where of ye, O Tempests! is the 

goal? 
Are ye Hke those within the human 

breast ? 
Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, 

some high nest? 



^^..v^ XCVII. 

Could rSsmbody and unbosom now 
That which is most within me, — could 

I wreak 
My thoughts upon expression, and thus 

throw 
Soul — heart — mind — passions — 

feeUngs — strong or weak — 
All that I would have sought, and all I 

seek, 
Bear, know, feel — and yet breathe — 

into one word. 
And that one word were Lightning, I 

would speak; 
But as it is, I live and die unheard. 
With a most voiceless thought, sheathing 

it as a sword. 



The Morn is up again, the dewy Morn, 
With breath all incense, and with cheek 

all bloom — • 
Laughing the clouds away with playful 

scorn. 
And Uving as if earth contained no 

tomb, — ■ 
And glowing into day: we may resume 
The march of our existence: and thus I, 
Still on thy shores, fair Leman ! may 

find room 
And food for meditation, nor pass by 
Much, that may give us pause, if pon- 
dered fittingly. 



Clarens ! sweet Clarens, birthplace of 

deep Love ! 
Thine air is the young breath of pas- 
sionate Thought; 
Thy trees take root in Love; the snows 

above. 
The very Glaciers have his colours 

caught. 
And Sun-set into rose-hues sees them 

wrought 
By rays which sleep there lovingly: the 

rocks. 
The permanent crags, tell here of Love, 

who sought 
In them a refuge from the worldly 

shocks, 
Which stir and sting the Soul with Hope 

that woos, then mocks. 



Canto hi.] 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



237 



c. 


cm. 


Clarens ! by heavenly feet thy paths are 


He who hath loved not, here would learn 


trod, — 


that lore. 


Undying Love's, who here ascends a 


And make his heart a spirit; he who 


throne 


knows 


To which the steps are mountains; 


That tender mystery, will love the 


where the God 


more; 


Is a pervading Life and Light, — so shown 


For this is Love's recess, where vain 


Not on those summits solely, nor alone 


men's woes. 


In the still cave and forest ; o'er the f!o\ver 


And the world's waste, have driven him 


His eye is sparkling, and his breath 


far from those. 


hath blown. 


For 'tis his nature to advance or die; 


His soft and summer breath, whose 


He stands not still, but or decays, or 


tender power 


grows 


Passes the strength of storms in their 


Into a boundless blessing, which may 


most desolate hour. 


vie 


CI. 


With the immortal lights, in its eternity ! 


All things are here of Him; from the 


CIV. 


black pines. 


'Twas not for fiction chose Rousseau 


Which are his shade on high, and the 


the spot, 


loud roar 


Peopling it with affections; but he 


Of torrents, where he listeneth, to the 


found 


vines 


It was the scene which Passion must 


Which slope his green path downward 


allot 


to the shore, 


To the Mind's purified beings; 'twas 


Where the bowed Waters meet him, and 


the ground 


adore. 


Where early Love his Psyche's zone 


Kissing his feet with murmurs; and the 


unbound, 


Wood, 


And hallowed it with loveliness: 'tis 


The covert of old trees, with trunks all 


lone, 


hoar, 


And wonderful, and deep, and hath a 


But light leaves, young as joy, stands 


■ sound. 


where it stood. 


And sense, and sight of sweetness; here 


Offering to him, and his, a populous 


the Rhone 


soHtude. 


Hath spread himself a couch, the Alps 


CII. 


have reared a throne. 


A populous solitude of bees and birds. 




And fairy-formed and many-coloured 


cv. 


things. 


Lausanne ! and Ferney ! ye have been 


Who worship him with notes more 


the abodes 


sweet than words. 


Of Names which unto you bequeathed 


And innocently 6pen their glad wings. 


a name; 


Fearless and full of life: the gush of 


Mortals, who sought and found, by 


springs, 


dangerous roads, 


And fall of lofty fountains, and the bend 


A path to perpetuity of Fame: 


Of stirring branches, and the bud which 


They were gigantic minds, and their 


brings 


steep aim 


The swiftest thought of Beauty, here 


Was, Titan-like, on daring doubts to 


extend 


pile 


Mingling — and made by Love — unto 


Thoughts which should call down thun- 


one mighty end. 


der, and the flame 



238 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto hi. 



Of Heaven again assailed — if Heaven, 

the while, 
On man and man's research could deign 

do more than smile. 

CVI. 

The one was fire and fickleness, a child 
Most mutable in wishes, but in mind 
A wit as various, — gay, grave, sage, 

or wild, — 
Historian, bard, philosopher, combined; 
He multiplied himself among mankind, 
The Proteus of their talents: But his 

own 
Breathed most in ridicule, — which, as 

the wind. 
Blew where it Usted, laying all things 

prone, — 
Now to o'erthrow a fool, and now to 

shake a throne. 

CVII. 

The other, deep and slow, exhausting 

thought. 
And hiving wisdom with each studious 

year. 
In meditation dwelt — with learning 

wrought, 
And shaped his weapon with an edge 

severe. 
Sapping a solemn creed with solemn 

sneer; 
The lord of irony, — that master spell. 
Which stung his foes to wrath, which 

grew from fear, 
And doomed him to the zealot's ready 

Hell, 
Which answers to all doubts so elo- 
quently well. 



Yet, peace be with their ashes, — for by 
them 

If merited, the penalty is paid; 

It is not ours to judge, — far less con- 
demn; 

The hour must come when such things 
shall be made 

Known unto all, — or hope and dread 
allayed 

By slumber, on one pillow, in the dust, 

Which, thus much we are sure, must lie 
decayed; 



And when it shall revive, as is our 

trust, 
'Twill be to be forgiven — or suffer what 

is just. 

Cix. 

But let me quit Man's works, again to 

read 
His Maker's, spread around me, and 

suspend 
This page, which from my reveries I 

feed. 
Until it seems prolonging without end. 
The clouds above me to the white Alps 

tend. 
And I must pierce them, and survey 

whate'er 
May be permitted, as my steps I bend 
To their most great and growing region, 

where 
The earth to her embrace compels the 

powers of air. 



Italia, too ! Italia ! looking on thee, 
Full flashes on the Soul the light of 

ages. 
Since the fierce Carthaginian almost 

won thee. 
To the last halo of the Chiefs and Sages 
Who glorify thy consecrated pages; 
Thou wert the throne and grave of 

empires — still. 
The fount at which the panting Mind 

assuages 
Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there 

her fill. 
Flows from the eternal source of Rome's 

imperial hill. 

CXI. 

Thus far have I proceeded in a theme 
Renewed with no kind auspices: — to 

feel 
We are not what we have been, and to 

deem 
We are not what we should be, — and 

to steel 
The heart against itself; and to conceal, 
With a proud caution, love, or hate, or 

aught, — 
Passion or feeling, purpose, grief, or 

zeal. 



(.AX TO III.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



239 



Which is the tyrant Spirit of our 

thought, — 
Is a stern task of soul : — No matter, — 

it is taught. 



And for these words, thus woven into 

song, 
It may be that they are a harmles wile, — 
The colouring of the scenes which fleet 

along, 
Which I would seize, in passing, to 

beguile 
My breast, or that of others, for a while. 
Fame is the thirst of youth, — but I am 

not 
So young as to regard men's frown or 

smile. 
As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot; — 
I stood and stand alone, — remembered 

or forgot. 

CXIII. 

I have not loved the World, nor the 

World me; 
I have not flattered its rank breath, nor 

bowed 
To its idolatries a patient knee. 
Nor coined my cheek to smiles, — nor 

cried aloud 
In worship of an echo: in the crowd 
They could not deem me one of such — 

I stood 
Among them, but not of them — in a 

shroud 
Of thoughts which were not their 

thoughts, and still could. 
Had I not filed my mind, which thus 

itself subdued. 



I have not loved the World, nor the 

World me, — 
But let us part fair foes; I do believe, 
Though I have found them not, that 

there may be 
Words which are things, — hopes which 

will not deceive, 
And Virtues which are merciful, nor 

weave 
Snares for the failing: I would also 

deem 
O'er others' griefs that some sincerely 

grieve — 



That two, or one, are almost what they 

seem, — 
That Goodness is no name — and 

Happiness no dream. 



My daughter ! with thy name this song 

begun ! 
My daughter ! with thy name thus 

much shall end ! — 
I see thee not — I hear thee not — but 

none 
Can be so wrapt in thee; Thou art the 

Friend 
To whom the shadows of far years 

extend: 
Albeit my brow thou never should'st 

behold. 
My Voice shall with thy future visions 

blend, 
And reach into thy heart, — when mine 

is cold, — 
A token and a tone, even from thy 

father's mould. 

cxvi. 

To aid thy mind's development, — to 

watch 
Thy dawn of little joys, — to sit and see 
Almost thy very growth, — to view thee 

catch 
Knowledge of objects, — wonders yet 

to thee ! 
To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee. 
And print on thy soft cheek a parent's 

kiss, — 
This, it should seem, was not reserved 

for me — 
Yet this was in my nature : — as it is, 
I know not what is there, yet something 

like to this. 

CXVII. 

Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be 

taught,^ 
I know that thou wilt love me, — though 

mv name 
Should be shut from thee, as a spell still 

fraught 
With desolation, and a broken claim: 

' [" His allusions to me in Childe Harold are 
cruel and cold, but with such a semblance as to 
make me appear so, and to attract sympathy to 



2.\0 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto hi. 



Though the grave closed between us, — 

'twere the same — 
I know that thou wilt love me — though 

to drain ^ 
My blood from out thy being were an 

aim, 
And an attainment, — all would be in 

vain, — 
Still thou would'st love me, still that 

more than life retain. 

CXVIII. 

The child of Love ! though born in bit- 
terness, 
And nurtured in Convulsion ! Of thy 

sire 
These were the elements, — and thine 

no less. 
As yet such are around thee, — but thy 

fire 
Shall be more tempered, and thy hope 

far higher. 
Sweet be thy cradled slumbers! O'er 

the sea 
And from the mountains where I now 

respire, 
Fain would I waft such blessing upon 

thee. 
As — with a sigh — I deem thou 

might' St have been to me ! 

himself. It is said in this poem that hatred of 
him will be taught as a lesson to his child. I 
might appeal to all who have ever heard me 
speak of him, and still more to my own heart, to 
witness that there has been no moment when 
I have remembered injury otherwise than 
affectionately and sorrowfully. It is not my 
duty to give way to hopeless and wholly un- 
requited affection, but so long as I live my 
chief struggle will probably be not to remember 
him too kindly." — Letter of Lady Byron to 
Lady Anne Lindsay, extracted from Lord 
Lindsay's letter to the Times, September 3, 
i86g.) 

According to Mrs Leigh, Murray paid Lady 
Byron "the compliment" of showing her the 
transcription of the Third Canto, by Jane Claire 
Clairmont, a day or two after it came into his 
possession. Most probably she did not know or 
recognise the handwriting, but she could not 
fail to remember that but one short year ago she 
had herself been engaged in transcribing The 
Siege of Corinth and Parisina for the press. 
Between the making of those two "fair copies," 
a tragedy had intervened.] 

" [The Countess Guiccioli is responsible for 
the statement that Byron looked forward to a 
time when his daughter "would know her father 
by his works." "Then," said he, "shall I 



NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S 
PILGRIMAGE. 

CANTO III. 



In "pride of place" here last the Eagle flew. 
Stanza xviii. line 5. 

"Pride of place" is a term of falconry, 
and means the highest pitch of flight. 
See Macbeth, etc. — 

"An eagFe towering in his pride of place 
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and killed." 

["A falcon towering in her pride of place," etc. 
Macbeth, act ii. sc. 4, line 12.] 



Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant Lord. 
Stanza xx. line 9. 

See the famous song on Harmodius 
and Aristogeiton. The best English 
translation is in Bland's Anthology, by 
Mr Denman — 

" With myrtle my sword will I wreathe," etc. 
{Translations chiefly from the Greek 
Anthology, etc., 1806, pp. 24, 25.] 



And all went merry as a marriage bell. 
Stanza xxi. line 8. 

On the night previous to the action, 
it is said that a ball was given at Brussels. 



And Evan's — Donald's fame rings in each 
clansman's ears ! Stanza xxvi. line 9. 

Sir Evan Cameron, and his descend- 
ant, Donald, the "gentle Lochiel" of 
the "forty-five." 

[Sir Evan Cameron (1629-1719) 
fought against Cromwell, finally yield- 
ing on honourable terms to Monk, 
June 5, 1658, and, for James II., at 

triumph, and the tears which my daughter will 
then shed, together with the knowledge that she 
will have the feelings with which the various 
allusions to herself and me have been written, 
will console me in my darkest hours. Ada's 
mother may have enjoyed the smiles of her 
youth and childhood, but the tears of her maturer 
age will be for me." — My Recollections of Lord 
Byron, by the Countess Guiccioli, 1869, p. 172.] 



Canto iii.l 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



241 



Killiecrankie, June 17, 1689. His 
grandson, Donald Cameron of Lochiel 
(1695--1748), celebrated by Campbell, in 
Lochiel's Warning, 1802, was wounded 
at Culloden, April 16, 1746. His 
great-great-grandson, John Cameron, 
of Fassieferne (b. 1771), in command 
of the 92nd Highlanders, was mortally 
wounded at Quatre-Bras, June 16, 
1815.] 

5- 
And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves. 
Stanza xxvii. line i. 

The wood of Soignies is supposed to 
be a remnant of the forest of Ardennes, 
famous in Bojardo's Orlando, and 
immortal in Shakespeare's As You Like 
It. It is also celebrated in Tacitus, as 
being the spot of successful defence by 
the Germans against the Roman 
encroachments. I have ventured to 
adopt the name connected with nobler 
associations than those of mere slaughter. 



I turned from all she brought to those she could 
not bring. Stanza xxx. line 9. 

My guide from Mount St Jean over 
the field seemed intelligent and accurate. 
The place where Major Howard fell 
was not far from two tall and solitary 
trees (there was a third cut down, or 
shivered in the battle), which stand a 
few yards from each other at a path- 
way's side. Beneath these he died and 
was buried. The body has since been 
removed to England. A small hollow 
for the present marks where it lay, but 
will probably soon be effaced; the 
plough has been upon it, and the grain 
is. After pointing out the different 
spots where Picton and other gallant 
men had perished, the guide said, 
"Here Major Howard lay: I was near 
him when wounded." I told him my 
relationship, and he seemed then still 
more anxious to point out the particular 
spot and circumstances. The place is 
one of the most marked in the field, 
from the peculiarity of the two trees 
above mentioned. I went on horseback 
twice over the field, comparing it with 
R 



my recollection of similar scenes. As 
a plain, Waterloo seems marked out for 
the scene of some great action, though 
this may be mere imagination : I have 
viewed with attention those of Platea, 
Troy, Mantinea, Leuctra, Chaeronea, 
and Marathon; and the field around 
Mount St Jean and Hougoumont ap- 
pears to want little but a better cause, 
and that undefinable but impressive 
halo which the lapse of ages throws 
around a celebrated spot, to vie in 
interest with any or all of these, except, 
perhaps, the last mentioned. 

[For particulars of the death of Major 
Howard, see Personal Memoirs, etc., by 
Pryse Lockhart Gordon, 1830, ii. 322, 
323-] 

7- 
Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore. 
Stanza xxxiv. line 6. 

The (fabled) apples on the brink of 
the lake Asphaltites were said to be fair 
without, and, within, ashes. 

[They are a species of gall-nut, and are 
described by Curzon (Visits to Monas- 
teries of the Levant, 1897, P- 141); who 
met with the tree that bears them, near 
the Dead Sea, and, mistaking the fruit 
for a ripe plum, proceeded to eat one, 
whereupon his mouth was filled "with 
a dry bitter dust." 

"The apple of Sodom ... is sup- 
posed by some to refer to the fruit of 
Solanum Sodomeum (allied to the 
tomato), by others to the Calotropis 
procera" {N. Eng. Diet.).] 



For sceptred Cynics Earth were far too wide a 
den. Stanza xli. line 9. 

The great error of Napoleon, "if we 
have writ our annals true," was a con- 
tinued obtrusion on mankind of his 
want of all community of feeling for or 
with them; perhaps more offensive to 
human vanity than the active cruelty of 
more trembling and suspicious tyranny. 
Such were his speeches to public assem- 
blies as well as individuals; and the 
single expression which he is said to 
have used on returning to Paris after the 



242 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto hi. 



Russian winter had destroyed his army, 
rubbing his hands over a fire, "This is 
pleasanter than Moscow," would prob- 
ably alienate more favour from his 
cause than the destruction and reverses 
which led to the remark. 



What want these outlaws conquerors should have ? 
Stanza xlviii. line 6. 

"What wants that knave that a king 
should have?" was King James's ques- 
tion on meeting Johnny Armstrong and 
his followers in full accoutrements. See 
the Ballad. 

[Johnie Armstrong, the laird of 
Gilnockie, on the occasion of an en- 
forced surrender to James V. (1532), 
came before the king somewhat too 
richly accoutred, and was hanged for 
his effrontery. — 

" There hang nine targats at Johnie's hat, 
And ilk ane worth three hundred pound — • 

' What wants that knave a King suld have, 
But the sword of honour and the crown' ? " 

Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 1821, i. 127.] 

10. 

The castled Crag of Drachenfels. 

Song, stanza i, line i. 

The castle of Drachenfels stands on 
the highest summit of "the Seven 
Mountains," over the Rhine banks; it 
is in ruins, and connected with some 
singular traditions. It is the first in 
view on the road from Bonn, but on the 
opposite side of the river: on this bank, 
nearly facing it, are the remains of 
another, called the Jew's Castle, and a 
large cross, commemorative of the mur- 
der of a chief by his brother. The 
number of castles and cities along the 
course of the Rhine on both sides is 
very great, and their situations re- 
markably beautiful. 

[The castle of Drachenfels (Dragon's 
Rock) stands on the summit of one, 
but not the highest, of the Siebengebirge, 
an isolated group of volcanic hills on the 
right bank of the Rhine between Re- 
magen and Bonn. The legend runs 
that in one of the caverns of the rock 
dwelt the dragon which was slain by 



Siegfried, the hero of the Nibelungen 
Lied. Hence the vin du pays is called 
Drachenblut.] 

II. 

The whiteness of his soul — and thus men o'er 
him wept. Stanza Ivii. line 9. 

The monument of the young and 
lamented General Marceau (killed by 
a rifle-ball at Alterkirchen, on the last 
day of the fourth year of the French 
Republic) still remains as described. 
The inscriptions on his monument are 
rather too long, and not required: his 
name was enough; France adored, and 
her enemies admired; both wept over 
him. His funeral was attended by 
the generals and detachments from both 
armies. In the same grave General 
Hoche is interred, a gallant man also in 
every sense of the word; but though he 
distinguished himself greatly in battle, 
he had not the good fortune to die 
there: his death was attended by sus- 
picions of poison. 

A separate monument (not over his 
body, which is buried by Marceau's) is 
raised for him near Andernach, op- 
posite to which one of his most memor- 
able exploits was performed, in throw- 
ing a bridge to an island on the Rhine 
[April 18, 1797]. The shape and style 
are different from that of Marceau's, 
and the inscription more simple and 
pleasing. 

"The Army of the Sambre and Meuse 

to its Commander-in-Chief 

Hoche." 

This is all, and as it should be. 
Hoche was esteemed among the first of 
France's earher generals, before Buo- 
naparte monopolised his triumphs. 
He was the destined commander of the 
invading army of Ireland. 

[The tomb of Francois Severin Des- 
gravins Marceau (i 769-1 796, general 
of the French Republic) bears the fol- 
lowing epitaph and inscription: — 
'Hie cineres, ubique nomen.' 

"Ici repose Marceau, ne a Chartres, Eure-et- 
Loir, soldat a seize ans, general a vingtdeux ans. 
II mourut en combatant pour sa patrie, le dernier 
jour de I'an iv. de la Republique fran^aise. 
Qui que tu sois, ami ou ennemi de ce jeune 
heros, respecte ces cendres." 



Canto hi.] 



CHI IDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



243 



A bronze statue at Versailles, raised 
to the memory of General Hoche (1768 
-1797) bears a very similar record — 

"A Lazare Hoche, ne a Versailles le 24 juin, 
1768, sergent a seize ans, general en chef a vingt- 
cinq, mort a vingt-neuf, pacificateur de la 
Vendee."] 



Here Ehrenbreitstein with her shattered wall. 
Stanza Iviii. line i. 

Ehrenbreitstein, i.e. "the broad stone 
of honour," one of the strongest for- 
tresses in Europe, was dismantled and 
blown up by the French at the truce of 
Leoben. It had been, and could only 
be, reduced by famine or treachery. 
It yielded to the former, aided by sur- 
prise. After having seen the fortifica- 
tions of Gibraltar and Malta, it did not 
much strike by comparison; but the 
situation is commanding. General 
Marceau besieged it in vain for some 
time, and I slept in a room where I was 
shown a window at which he is said to 
have been standing observing the prog- 
ress of the siege by moonlight, when 
a ball struck immediately below it. 

[Ehrenbreitstein, which had resisted 
the French under Marshal Boufflers in 
1680, and held out against Marceau 
(1795-96), finally capitulated to the 
French after a prolonged siege in 1799. 
The fortifications were dismantled 
when the French evacuated the fortress 
after the Treaty of Luneville in 1801. 
The Treaty of Leoben was signed 
April 18, 1797.] 

13- 
Unsepulchr'd they roamed, and shrieked each 
wandering T;host. Stanza Ixiii. line 9. 

The chapel is destroyed, and the 
pyramid of bones diminished to a small 
number by the Burgundian Legion in 
the service of France; who anxiously 
effaced this record of their ancestors' 
less successful invasions. A few still 
remain, notwithstanding the pains 
taken by the Burgundians for ages (all 
who passed that way removing a bone 
to their own country), and the less 
justifiable larcenies of the Swiss postil- 
ions, who carried them off to sell for 



knife-handles; a purpose for which 
the whiteness imbibed by the bleaching 
of years had rendered them in great 
request. Of these reUcs I ventured to 
bring away as much as may have made 
a quarter of a hero, for which the sole 
excuse is, that if I had not, the next 
passer-by might have perverted them 
to worse uses than the careful preserva- 
tion which I intend for them. 

[Charles the Bold was defeated by 
the Swiss at the Battle of Morat, June 
22, 1476. It has been computed that 
more than twenty thousand Burgun- 
dians fell in the battle. 

Mr Murray still has in his possession 
the parcel of bones — the "quarter of 
a hero" — which Byron sent home 
from the field of Morat.] 

14. 

Levelled Aventicum, hath strewed her subject 
lands. Stanza Ixv. line 9. 

Aventicum, near Morat, was the 
Roman capital of Helvetia, where 
Avenches now stands. 



And held within their urn one mind — one 
heart — one dust. Stanza Ixvi. line 9. 

Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian 
priestess, died soon after a vain en- 
deavour to save her father, condemned 
to death as a traitor by Aulus Caecina. 
Her epitaph was discovered many years 
ago; — it is thus: — "Julia Alpinula: 
Hie jaceo. Infelicis patris, infelix 
proles. Deae Aventiae Sacerdos. Ex- 
orare patris necem non potui: Male 
mori in fatis ille erat. Vixi annos 
XXIII." — I know of no human com- 
position so affecting as this, nor a 
history of deeper interest. These are 
the names and actions which ought not 
to perish, and to which we turn with 
a true and healthy tenderness, from 
the wretched and glittering detail of 
a confused mass of conquests and 
battles, with which the mind is roused 
for a time to a false and feverish sym- 
pathy, from whence it recurs at length 
with all the nausea consequent on such 
intoxication. 



244 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto hi. 



[Julia Alpinula and her epitaph were 
the happy inventions of a sixteenth- 
century scholar. "It appears," writes 
Lord Stanhope, "that this inscription 
was given by one Paul Wilhelm, a 
noted forger {fal sarins), to Lipsius, 
and by Lipsius handed over to Gruterus. 
Nobody, either before or since Wilhelm, 
has even pretended to have seen the 
stone ... as to any son or daughter 
of Julius Alpinus, history is wholly 
silent." {Historical Essays, by Lord 
Mahon, 1849, PP- 297, 298.)] 

16. 

In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow. 
Stanza Ixvii. line 8. 

This is written in the eye of Mont 
Blanc (June 3rd, 1816), which even at 
this distance dazzles mine. — (July 
20th.) I this day observed for some 
time the distinct reflection of Mont 
Blanc and Mont Argentiere in the calm 
of the lake, which I was crossing in my 
boat; the distance of these mountains 
from their mirror is sixty miles. 

[The first lines of the note dated 
June 3, 1816, were written at "Dejean's 
Hotel de I'Angleterre, at Secheron, a 
small suburb of Geneva, on the northern 
side of the lake." On the loth of June 
Byron removed to the Villa Diodati, 
about two miles from Geneva, on the 
south shore of the lake. {Life of Shelley, 
by Edward Dowden, 1896, pp. 307- 
309-)] 

17- 

By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone. 
Stanza Ixxi. line 3. 

The colour of the Rhone at Geneva is 
blue, to a depth of tint which I have 
never seen equalled in water, salt or 
fresh, except in the Mediterranean and 
Archipelago. 



This hallowed, too, the memorable kiss. 
Stanza Ixxix. line 3. 

This refers to the account, in his 
Confessions, of his passion for the 
Comtesse d'Houdetot (the mistress of 
St Lambert), and his long walk every 
morning, for the sake of the single kiss 



which was the common salutation of 
French acquaintance. Rousseau's 
description of his feelings on this occa- 
sion may be cc isidered as the most 
passionate, yet not impure, description 
and expression of love that ever kindled 
into words; which, after all, must be 
felt, from their very force, to be inade- 
quate to the deUneation; a painting 
can give no sufficient idea of the 
ocean. 

19. 

Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and_ thus take. 
Stanza xci. line 3. 

It is to be recollected, that the most 
beautiful and impressive doctrines of 
the divine Founder of Christianity 
were delivered, not in the Temple, but 
on the Mount. To waive the question 
of devotion, and turn to human elo- 
quence, — the most effectual and splen- 
did specimens were not pronounced 
within walls. Demosthenes addressed 
the pubHc and popular assemblies. 
Cicero spoke in the forum. That this 
added to their effect on the mind of 
both orator and hearers, may be con- 
ceived from the difference between 
what we read of the emotions then and 
there produced, and those we ourselves 
experience in the perusal in the closet. 
It is one thing to read the Iliad at 
Sigaeum and on the tumuU, or by the 
springs with Mount Ida above, and 
the plain and rivers and Archipelago 
around you; and another to trim your 
taper over it in a snug library — this 
I know. Were the early and rapid 
progress of what is called Methodism 
to be attributed to any cause beyond 
the enthusiasm excited by its vehement 
faith and doctrines (the truth or error 
of which I presume neither to canvass 
nor to question), I should venture to 
ascribe it to the practice of preaching in 
the fields, and the unstudied and ex- 
temporaneous effusions of its teachers. 
The Mussulmans, whose erroneous 
devotion (at least in the lower orders) is 
most sincere, and therefore impressive, 
are accustomed to repeat their pre- 
scribed orisons and prayers, wherever 



Canto hi.] 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



245 



they may be, at the stated hours — 
of course, frequently in the open air, 
kneeling upon a light mat (which they 
carry for the purpose C'. a bed or cushion 
as required) ; the ceremony lasts some 
minutes, during which they are totally 
absorbed, and only living in their sup- 
plication: nothing can disturb them. 
On me the simple and entire sincerity 
of these men, and the spirit which 
appeared to be within and upon them, 
made a far greater impression than 
any general rite which was ever per- 
formed in places of worship, of which 
I have seen those of almost every per- 
suasion under the sun; including most 
of our own sectaries, and the Greek, 
the Catholic, the Armenian, the Lu- 
theran, the Jewish, and the Mahome- 
tan. Many of the negroes, of whom 
there are numbers in the Turkish 
empire, are idolaters, and have free 
exercise of their belief and its rites; 
some of these I had a distant view of 
at Patras; and, from what I could 
make out of them, they appeared to 
be of a truly Pagan description, and 
not very agreeable to a spectator. 



The sky is changed ! — and such a change ! Oh 
Night ! 

Stanza xcii. line i. 

The thunder-storm to which these 
lines refer occurred on the 13th of 
June, 1816, at midnight. I have seen, 
among the Acroceraunian mountains 
of Chimari, several more terrible, but 
none more beautiful. 



And Sun-set into rose-hues sees them wrought. 
Stanza xcix. line 5. 

Rousseau's Heloise, Lettre 17, Part 
IV., note, "Ces montagnes sont si 
hautes, qu'une demi-heure apres le 
soleil couche, leurs sommets sont 
eclaires de ses rayons, dont le rouge 
forme sur ces cimes blanches une belle 
couleur de rose, qu'on apergoit de fort 
loin." This applies more particularly 
to the heights over Meillerie. — " J'allai 



a Vevay loger a la Clef; ^ et pendant 
deux jours que j'y restai sans voir per- 
sonne, je pris pour cette ville un amour 
qui m'a suivi dans tous mes voyages, 
et qui m'y a fait etablir enfin les heros 
de mon roman. Je dirois volontiers a 
ceux qui ont du gout et qui sont sensi- 
bles: Allez a Vevay — visitez le pays, 
examinez les sites, promenez-vous sur 
le lac, et dites si la Nature n'a pas fait 
ce beau pays pour une Julie, pour une 
Claire,^ et pour un St Preux; mais ne 
les y cherchez pas." — Les Confessions 
[P. I. liv. 4, Qiiivres, etc., 1837, i. 78]. — 
In July [June 23-27], 1816, I made a 
voyage round the Lake of Geneva; 
and, as far as my own observations have 
led me in a not uninterested nor inat- 
tentive survey of all the scenes most 
celebrated by Rousseau in his Heloise, 
I can safely say, that in this there is no 
exaggeration. It would be difficult to 
see Clarens (with the scenes around it, 
Vevay, Chillon, Boveret, St Gingo, 
Meillerie, Evian, and the entrances of 
the Rhone) without being forcibly 
struck with its peculiar adaptation to 
the persons and events with which it 
has been peopled. But this is not all; 
the feeling with which all around 
Clarens, and the opposite rocks of 
Meillerie, is invested, is of a still higher 
and more comprehensive order than the 
mere sympathy with individual passion; 
it is a sense of the existence of love in its 
most extended and sublime capacity, 
and of our own participation of its good 
and of its glory: it is the great principle 
of the universe, which is there more 
condensed,' but not less manifested; 
and of which, though knowing ourselves 
a part, we lose our individuality, and 
mingle in the beauty of the whole. — 
If Rousseau had never written, nor 
lived, the same associations would not 



' [The Clef is now a cafe on the Grande 
Place, and still distinguished by the sign of the 
Key.] 

= [Claire, afterwards Madame Orbe, is Julie's 
cousin and confidante. She is represented as 
whimsical and humorous. It is not impossible 
that "Claire" in La NouveUe Helo'ise, "be- 
queathed her name" to Claire, otherwise Jane 
Clair mont.] 



246 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto hi. 



less have belonged to such scenes. He 
has added to the interest of his works by 
their adoption; he has shown his sense 
of their beauty by the selection; but 
they have done that for him which no 
human being could do for them. — I 
had the fortune (good or evil as it might 
be) to sail from Meillerie ^ (where we 
landed for some time) to St Gingo 
during a lake storm, which added to 
the magnificence of all around, although 
occasionally accompanied by danger to 
the boat, which was small and over- 
loaded. It was over this very part of 
the lake that Rousseau has driven the 
boat of St Preux and Madame Wolmar 
to Meillerie for shelter during a tempest. 
On gaining the shore at St Gingo, I 
found that the wind had been sufficiently 
strong to blow down some fine old 
chestnut trees on the lower part of the 
mountains. On the opposite height 
of Clarens is a chateau [Chateau des 
Cretes]. The hills are covered with 
vineyards, and interspersed with some 
small but beautiful woods; one of these 
was named the "Bosquet de Julie;" 
and it is remarkable that, though long 
ago cut down by the brutal selfishness 
of the monks of St Bernard (to whom 
the land appertained), that the ground 
might be enclosed into a vineyard for 
the miserable drones of an execrable 
superstition, the inhabitants of Clarens 
still point out the spot where its trees 
stood, calling it by the name which 
consecrated and survived them. Rous- 
seau has not been particularly fortunate 
in the preservation of the "local habita- 
tions" he has given to "airy nothings." 
The Prior of Great St Bernard has cut 
down some of his woods for the sake 
of a few casks of wine, and Buonaparte 
has levelled part of the rocks of Meil- 
lerie in improving the road to the 
Simplon. The road is an excellent 
one; but I cannot quite agree with a 
remark which I heard made, that "La 
route vaut mieux que les souvenirs.'' 



'[Byron mentions the "squall off Meillerie" 
in a letter to Murray, dated Ouchy, near Lau- 
sanne, June 27, 1816. Compare, too, Shelley's 
version of the incident: "The wind gradually 



Of Names which unto you bequeathed a name. 
Stanza cv. line 2. 

Voltaire and Gibbon. 

[Franfois Marie Arouet de Voltaire 
(1694-17 78) Uved on his estate at Fer- 
nex, fiye miles north of Geneva, from 
1759 to 1777. "In the garden at Fer- 
nex is a long herceau walk, closely 
arched over with clipped horn-beam 
— a verdant cloister, with gaps cut 
here and there, admitting a glimpse of 
the prospect. Here Voltaire used to 
walk up and down, and dictate to his 
secretary." — Handbook for Switzer- 
land, p. 174. 

Previous to this he had lived for some 
time at Lausanne, at "Monrepos, a 
country house at the end of a suburb"; 
at Monrion, "a square building of two 
storeys, and a high garret, with wings, 
each fashioned like the letter L"; and 
afterwards, in the spring of 1757, at 
No. 6, Rue du Grand Chene. — 
Historic Studies, in Vaud, by General 
Meredith Read, 1897, ii. 210, 218, 
219. 

Edward Gibbon (173 7-1 794) finished 
(1788) The Decline and Fall of the 
Roman Empire at "La Grotte, an an- 
cient and spacious mansion behind the 
church of St Francis, at Lausanne," 
which was demolished by the Swiss 
authorities in 1879. Not only has the 
mansion ceased to exist, but the garden 
has been almost entirely changed. The 
wall of the Hotel Gibbon occupies the 
site of the famous wooden pavilion, or 
summer-house, and of the "berceau of 
plum trees, which formed a verdant 
gallery completely arched overhead," 

increased in violence until it blew tremendously, 
and, as it came from the remotest extremity of 
the lake, produced waves of a frightful height, 
and covered the whole surface with a chaos of 
foam. ... I felt in this near prospect of death 
a mixture of sensations, among which terror 
entered, though but subordinate! y. My feel- 
ings would have been less painful had I been 
alone; but I know that my companion would 
have attempted to save me, and I was overcome 
with humiliation, when I thought that his life 
might have been risked to preserve mine." — 
Essays, Letters from Abroad, etc., by Percy 
Bysshe Shelley, edited by Mrs. Shelley 1840, 
ii. 68, 69.] 






Canto iv.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



247 



and which "were called after Gibbon, 
La Gibboniere." — Historic Studies, 
i. i; ii. 493. 

In 1816 the pavilion was "utterly 
decayed," and the garden neglected, 
but Byron gathered "a sprig of Gib- 
bon's acacia," and some rose leaves 
from his garden and enclosed them in 
a letter to Murray (June 27, 18 16). 
Shelley, on the contrary, "refrained 
from doing so, fearing to outrage the 
greater and more sacred name of 
Rousseau; the contemplation of whose 
imperishable creations had left no 
vacancy in my heart for mortal things. 
Gibbon had a cold and unimpassioned 
spirit." — Essays, etc., 1840, ii. 76.] 

23- 

Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself sub- 
dued. Stanza cxiii. line 9. 

" -If 't be so, 

For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind." 
Macbeth [act ill. sc. i, line 64.] 

24. 

O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve. 
Stanza cxiv. line 7. 

It is said by Rochefoucault, that 
"there is always something in the 
misfortunes of men's best friends not 
displeasing to them." 

["Dans I'adversite de nos meilleurs 
amis, nous trouvons toujours quelque 
chose qui ne nous deplait pas." — Ap- 
pendice aux Maximes de La Roche- 
foucauld, Pantheon Litteraire, Paris, 
1836, p. 460.] 



CANTO THE FOURTH. 



"Visto ho Toscana, Lombardia, Romagna, 
Quel monte che divide, e quel che serra 
Italia, e un mare e 1' altro, che la bagna." 
4riosto, Satira iv. lines 59-61. 



TO 

JOHN HOBHOUSE, Esq., A.M., 
F.R.S., &c., &c., &c. 

Venice, January 2, 18 18. 

My dear Hobhouse, 

After an interval of eight years 
between the composition of the first and 



last cantos of Childe Harold, the con- 
clusion of the poem is about to be sub- 
mitted to the pubhc. In parting with 
so old a friend, it is not extraordinary 
that I should recur to one still older 
and better, — to one who has beheld 
the birth and death of the other, and to 
whom I am far more indebted for the 
social advantages of an enlightened 
friendship, than — though not ungrate- 
ful — I can, or could be, to Childe 
Harold, for any public favour reflected 
through the poem on the poet, — to 
one, whom I have known long, and 
accompanied far, whom I have found 
wakeful over my sickness and kind in 
my sorrow, glad in my prosperity and 
firm in my adversity, true in counsel 
and trusty in peril, — to a friend often 
tried and never found wanting; — to 
yourself. 

In so doing, I recur from fiction to 
truth; and in dedicating to you in its 
complete, or at least concluded state, a 
poetical work which is the longest, thfe 
most thoughtful and comprehensive of 
my compositions, I wish to do honour to 
myself by the record of many years' 
intimacy with a man of learning, of 
talent, of steadiness, and of honour. 
It is not for minds' like ours to give or 
to receive flattery; yet the praises of 
sincerity have ever been permitted to 
the voice of friendship; and it is not 
for you, nor even for others, but to 
relieve a heart which has not elsewhere, 
or lately, been so much accustomed to 
the encounter of good-will as to with- 
stand the shock firmly, that I thus 
attempt to commemorate your good 
qualities, or rather the advantages 
which I have derived from their ex- 
ertion. Even the recurrence of the 
date of this letter, the anniversary of 
the most unfortunate day of my past 
existence,^ but which cannot poison 
my future while I retain the resource of 

I [His marriage. Compare the epigram, 
"On my Wedding-Day," sent in a letter to 
Moore, January 2, 1820 — 

"Here's a happy new year ! — but with reason 
I beg you'll permit me to say — 
Wish me many returns of the season. 
But as Jew as you please of the day."] 



248 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



your friendship, and of my own faculties, 
will henceforth have a more agreeable 
recollection for both, inasmuch as it will 
remind us of this my attempt to thank 
you for an indefatigable regard, such 
as few men have experienced, and no 
one could experience without thinking 
better of his species and of himself. 

It has been our fortune to traverse 
together, at various periods, the coun- 
tries of chivalry, history, and fable — 
Spain, Greece, Asia Minor, and Italy; 
and what Athens and Constantinople 
were to us a few years ago, Venice and 
Rome have been more recently. The 
poem also, or the pilgrim, or both, have 
accompanied me from first to last; 
and perhaps it may be a pardonable 
vanity which induces me to reflect with 
complacency on a composition which 
in some degree connects me with the 
spot where it was produced, and the 
objects it would fain describe; and 
however unworthy it may be deemed 
<3f those magical and memorable abodes, 
however short it may fall of our distant 
conceptions and immediate impres- 
sions, yet as a mark of respect for what 
is venerable, and of feeling for what is 
glorious, it has been to me a source of 
pleasure in the production, and I part 
with it with a kind of regret, which I 
hardly suspected that events could 
have left me for imaginary objects. 

With regard to the conduct of the 
last canto, there will be found less of 
the pilgrim than in any of the preced- 
ing, and that little slightly, if at all, 
separated from the author speaking in 
his own person. The fact is, that I 
had become weary of drawing a Une 
which every one seemed determined 
not to perceive: like the Chinese in 
Goldsmith's Citizen of the World,^ 
whom nobody would believe to be a 

' ["Some fancy me no Chinese, because I am 
formed more like a man than a monster; and 
others wonder to lind one born five thousand 
miles from England, endued with common 
sense. ... He must be some Englishman in 
disguise." — The Citizen oj the World; or a 
Series of Letters from a Chinese Philosopher at 
Lndon, to his Friends in tlie East, 1762, Letter 
xxxii., i. 135.] 



Chinese, it was in vain that I asserted, 
and imagined that I had drawn, a dis- 
tinction between the author and the 
pilgrim; and the very anxiety to pre- 
serve this difference, and disappoint- 
ment at finding it unavailing, so far 
crushed my efforts in the composition, 
that I determined to abandon it alto- 
gether — and have done so. The 
opinions which have been, or may be, 
formed on that subject are now a matter 
of indifference: the work is to depend 
on itself, and not on the writer; and 
the author, who has no . resources in 
his own mind beyond the reputation, 
transient or permanent, which is to 
arise from his literary efforts, deserves 
the fate of authors. 

In the course of the following canto 
it was my intention, either in the text 
or in the notes, to have touched upon 
the present state of Italian Uterature, 
and perhaps of manners. But the 
text, within the limits I proposed, I 
soon found hardly sufficient for the 
labyrinth of external objects, and the 
consequent reflections: and for the 
whole of the notes, excepting a few of 
the shortest, I am indebted to yourself, 
and these were necessarily limited to 
the elucidation of the text. 

It is also a deUcate, and no very 
grateful task, to dissert upon the litera- 
ture and manners of a nation so dis- 
similar; and requires an attention and 
impartiality which would induce us, — 
though perhaps no inattentive ob- 
servers, nor ignorant of the language or 
customs of the people amongst whom 
we have recently abode — to distrust, 
or at least defer our judgment, and 
more narrowly examine our informa- 
tion. The state of literary, as well as 
political party, appears to run, or to 
have run, so high, that for a stranger to 
steer impartially between them, is next 
to impossible. It may be enough, 
then, at least for my purpose, to quote 
from their own beautiful language — 
"Mi pare che in un paese tutto poetico, 
che vanta la lingua la piii nobile ed 
insieme la piii dolce, tutte tutte le vie 
diverse si possono tentare, e che sinche 



Canto iv.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



249 



la patria di Aifieri e dl Monti non ha 
perduto I'antico valore, in tutte essa 
dovrebbe essere ia prima." Italy has 
great names still — Canova/ Monti, 
Ugo Foscolo, Pindemonte, Visconti, 
Morelli, Cicognara, Albrizzi, Mezzo- 
fanti, Mai, Mustoxidi, Aglietti, and 
Vacca, will secure to the present genera- 
tion an honourable place in most of the 
departments of Art, Science, and Belles 
Lettres; and in some the very highest 
— Europe — the World — has but one 
Canova. 

It has been somewhere said by Aifieri, 
that "La pianta uomo nasce piii ro- 
busta in Italia che in qualunque altra 
terra — e che gli stessi atroci delitti 
che vi si commettono ne sono una 
prova." Without subscribing to the 
latter part of his proposition, a danger- 
ous doctrine, the truth of which m.ay 
be disputed on better grounds, namely, 
that the Italians are in no respect more 
ferocious than their neighbours, that 
man must be wilfully blind, or ignorantly 
heedless, who is not struck with the 
extraordinary capacity of this people, 
or, if such a word be admissible, their 
capabilities, the facility of their acqui- 
sitions, the rapidity of their conceptions, 
the fire of their genius, their sense of 
beauty, and, amidst all the disad- 
vantages of repeated revolutions, the 
desolation of battles, and the despair 
of ages, their still unquenched "longing 
after immortality," ^ — the immortality 
of independence. And when we our- 

' [Antonio Canova, sculptor, 1757-1822; 
Vincenzo Monti, 1754-1828; Ugo Foscolo, 
1776-1827; Ippolito Pindemonte, 1 753-1828, 
poets; Ennius Quirinus Visconti, 1751-1818, 
the valuer of the Elgin marbles, archaeologist; 
Giacomo Morelli, 1745-1819, bibliographer 
and scholar (the architect Cosimo Morelli, born 
1732, died in 1812); Leopoldo Conte de Cicog- 
nara, 1 767-1834, archaeologist; the Contessa 
Albrizzi, i769?-i836, authoress of Ritratti di 
Uomini Illustri; Giuseppe Mezzofanti, 1774- 
1849, linguist; Angelo Mai (cardinal), 1782- 
1854, philologist; Andreas Moustoxides, 1787 
-i860, a Greek archaeologist, who wrote in 
Italian; Francesco Aglietti, 1757-1836; Andrea 
Vacca Berlinghieri, 1772-1826 (see Life, p. 339).] 
= [Addison, CatOy act v. sc. i, lines 1-3 — 
" It must be so — • Plato, thou reason'st well ! — 

Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 

This longing after immortality?"] 



selves, in riding round the walls of 
Rome, heard the simple lament of the 
labourers' chorus, " Roma ! Roma ! 
Roma! Roma non e piii come era 
prima ! " it was difficult not to contrast 
this melancholy dirge with the bac- 
chanal roar of the songs of exultation 
still yelled from the London taverns, 
over thfe carnage of Mont St Jean, 
and the betrayal of Genoa, of Italy, of 
France, and of the world, by men 
whose conduct you yourself have ex- 
posed in a work worthy of the better 
days of our history.^ For me, — 

"Non movero mai cor da 
Ova la turba di sue ciance assorda." 

What Italy has gained by the late 
transfer of nations, it were useless for 
Englishmen to enquire, till it becomes 
ascertained that England has acquired 
something more than a permanent 
army and a suspended Habeas Corpus; 
it is enough for them to look at home. 
For what they have done abroad, and 
especially in the South, "Verily they 
will have their reward," and at no very 
distant period. 

Wishing you, my dear Hobhouse, a 
safe and agreeable return to that coun- 
try whose real welfare can be dearer to 
none than to yourself, I dedicate to 
you this poem in its completed state; 
and repeat once more how truly I am 
ever 

Your obliged 

And affectionate friend, 

BYRON. 



I STOOD in Venice, on the "Bridge of 

Sighs"; 
A Palace and a prison on each 

hand: 
I saw from out the wave her structures 

rise 
As from the stroke of the Enchanter's 

wand : 

' [The Substance of some Letters written by an 
Englishman resident in Paris during the last 
Reign of the Emperor Napoleon, 1816. 2 vols.] 



250 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



A thousand Years their cloudy wings 

expand 
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles 
O'er the far times, when many a subject 

land 
Looked to the winged Lion's marble 

piles, 
Where Venice sate in state, throned on 

her hundred isles ! 



She looks a sea Cybele,^ fresh from 

Ocean, 
Rising with her tiara of proud towers 
At airy distance, with majestic motion, 
A Ruler of the waters and their 

powers: 
And such she was; — her daughters 

had their dowers 
From spoils of nations, and the ex- 

haustless East 
Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling 

showers : 
In purple was she robed, and of her 

feast 
Monarchs partook, and deemed their 

dignity increased. 



In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, 
And silent rows the songless Gondolier;^ 
Her palaces are crumbUng to the shore, 
And Music meets not always now the 
ear: 

' Sabellicus, describing the appearance of 
Venice, has made use of the above image, which 
would not be poetical were it not true. — "Quo 
fit ut qui superne [ex specula aliqua eminentiore] 
urbem contempletur, turritam telluris imaginem 
medio Oceano figuratam se putet inspicere." 
("And hence it is that whoso regard the City 
from above, as from a watch tower or loftier 
eminence, might fancy that he beheld a towery 
counterfeit of Mother Earth erected in midmost 
Ocean.") De Veneta Urbis situ Narratio, lib. i. 

[Cybele, the "mother of the Goddesses," 
wa«, represented as wearing a mural crown. 
Venice with her tiara of proud towers is the 
earth-goddess Cybele, having "suffered a sea- 
change."] 

== [The gondoliers used to sing alternate 
stanzas of the Gerusalemme Liherata, capping 
each other like the shepherds in Virgil's Bn- 
cohcs. The rival reciters were sometimes at- 
tached to the same gondola; but often the 
response came from a passing gondolier, a 
stranger to the singer who challenged the contest. 



Those days are gone — but Beauty still 

is here. 
States fall — Arts fade — but Nature 

doth not die. 
Nor yet forget how Venice once was 

dear. 
The pleasant place of all festivity, 
The Revel of the earth — the Masque 

of Italy! 

IV. 

But unto us she hath a spell beyond 
Her name in story, and her long array 
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms 

despond 
Above the Dogeless city's vanished 

sway; 
Ours is a trophy which will not decay 
With the Rialto; ^ Shy lock and the 

Moor, 
And Pierre,^ cannot be swept or worn 

away — 
The keystones of the Arch! though 

all were o'er, 
For us repeopled were the solitary shore- 



The Beings of the Mind are not of clay : 
Essentially immortal, they create 
And multiply in us a brighter ray 
And more beloved existence: that which 

Fate 
Prohibits to dull life in this our state 
Of mortal bondage, by these Spirits 

supplied, 
First exiles, then replaces what we hate; 

Rogers, in his Italy, laments the silence which 
greeted the swan-song of his own gondolier -^ 

"He sung, 
As in the time when Venice was Herself, 
Of Tancred and Erminia. On our oars 
We rested ; and the verse was verse divine ! 
We could not err — Perhaps he was the last — 
For none took up the strain, none answer'd him; 
And, when he ceased, he left upon my ear 
A something like the dying voice of Venice ! " 
— The Gondola {Poems, i8.';2, ii. 79).] 

' [The Rialto, or Rivo alto, " the middle 
group of islands between the shore and the 
mainland," on the left of the Grand Canal, was 
the site of the original city, and till the sixteenth 
century its formal and legal designation ._ Byron 
uses the word incorrectly for the Ponte di Rialto.] 

2 [Pierre is the hero of Otway's Venice 
Preserved, or The Plot Discovered, first played 
1682, and, after twenty revivals, as late as Octo- 
ber 27, 1837, when Macready played "Pierre," 
and Phelps "Jaffier."] 



Canto iv.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



251 



Watering the heart whose early flowers 
have died, 

And with a fresher growth replenish- 
ing the void. 



Such is the refuge of our youth and 

age — 
The first from Hope, the last from 

Vacancy ; 
And this wan feeling peoples many a 

page — 
And, may be, that which grows beneath 

mine eye: 
Yet there are things whose strong 

reality 
Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and 

hues 
More beautiful than our fantastic sky. 
And the strange constellations which 

the Muse 
O'er her wild universe is skilful to 

diffuse : 



I saw or dreamed of such, — but let 

them go, — 
They came like Truth — and disap- 
peared like dreams; 
And whatsoe'er they were — are now 

but so: 
I could replace them if I would; still 

teems 
My mind with many a form which aptly 

seems 
Such as I sought for, and at moments 

found; 
Let these too go — for waking Reason 

deems 
Such over-weening phantasies unsound, 
And other voices speak, and other 

sights surround. 

VIII. 

I've taught me other tongues — and 
in strange eyes 

Have made me not a stranger; to the 
mind 

Which is itself, no changes bring sur- 
prise; 

Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to 
find 



A country with — aye, or without man- 
kind; 

Yet was I born where men are proud to 
be, — 

Not without cause; and should I leave 
behind 

The inviolate Island of the sage and 
free. 

And seek me out a. home by a remoter 
sea, 

IX. 

Perhaps I loved it well; and should I 

lay 
My ashes in a soil which is not mine, 
My Spirit shall resume it — if we may 
Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine 
My hopes of being remembered in my 

line 
With my land's language: if too fond 

and far 
These aspirations in their scope in- 
cline, — 
If my Fame should be, as my fortunes 

are, 
Of hasty growth and blight, and dull 
Oblivion bar 

X. 

My name from out the temple where thej 

dead 
Are honoured bv the Nations — let it 

be — 
And light the Laurels on a loftier head ! 
And be the Spartan's epitaph on me — 
"Sparta hath many a worthier son than 

he." ' 

Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor 
. need — "">y_/^'^ 

I The thorns which I have reaped are of 

the tree 
I planted, — they have torn me, — and 

I bleed: 
I should have known what fruit would 

spring from such a seed. 

XI. 

The spouseless Adriatic mourns her 

Lord, 
And annual marriage now no more 

renewed — 

I The answer of the mother of Brasidas, the 
Lacedemonian general, to the strangers who 
praised the memory of her son. 



252 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



The Bucentaur ' lies rotting unrestored, 

Neglected garment of her widowhood ! 

St Mark yet sees his Lion ^ where he 
stood 

Stand, but in mockery of his withered 
power, 

Over the proud Place where an Em- 
peror sued,^ 

And monarchs gazed and envied in the 
hour 

When Venice was a Queen with an un- 
equalled dower. 

XII. 

The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian 
reigns — 

An Emperor tramples where an Em- 
peror knelt; 

Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and 
chains 

Clank over sceptred cities; Nations 
melt 

From Power's high pinnacle, when they 
have felt 

The sunshine for a while, and down- 
ward go 

Like Lauwine loosened from the 
mountain's belt; 

Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo ! •* 

Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's 
conquering foe. 



Before St Mark still glow his Steeds of 

brass. 
Their gilded collars glittering in the sun ; 

' [The Bucentaur, the state barge in which, 
on Ascension Day, the Doge of Venice used to 
wed the Adriatic by dropping a ring into it, 
"was broken up and rifled by the French in 
1797" (note, by Rev. E. C. Owen, Childe 
Harold, 1897, P- i97)-] 

= [The "Horses of St Mark" which, accord- 
ing to the history or legend, Augustus "con- 
veyed" from Alexandria to Rome, Constantine 
from Rome to Constantinople, _ Dandolo, in 
1204, from Constantinople to Venice, Napoleon, 
in 1797, from Venice to Paris, were restored to 
the Venetians by the Austrians in 18 15.] 

3 [The humiliation of Barbarossa at the 
Church of St Mark took place on Tuesday, 
July 24, 1 1 77.] 

4 ["Oh, for one hour of Dundee!" was the 
exclamation of a Highland chieftain at the battle 
of Sheriff-muir, November 13, 1715. See, too, 
Wordsworth's Sonnet, "In the Pass of Killi- 
cranky." — Works, 1888, p. 201.] 



But is not Doria's menace ^ come to 

pass ? 
Are they not bridled ? — Venice, lost 

and won, 
Her thirteen hundred years of freedom 

done. 
Sinks, like a sea-weed, unto whence she 

rose! 
Better be whelmed beneath the waves, 

and shun. 
Even in Destruction's depth, her foreign 

foes, 
From whom Submission wrings an in- 
famous repose. 

XIV. 

In youth She was all glory, — a new 

Tyre, — 
Her very by-word sprung from Victory, 
The "Planter of the Lion," ^ which 

through fire 
And blood she bore o'er subject Earth 

and Sea; 
Though making many slaves. Herself 

still free. 
And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the 

Ottomite; ^ 
Witness Troy's rival, Candia ! ^ Vouch 

it, ye 
Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's 

fight ! 5 
For ye are names no Time nor Tyranny 

can blight. 

' [The myth or legend is that, in 1379, the 
Genoese admiral, Pietro Doria, threatened the 
Venetians that he would " put a rein on those 
unbridled horses of yours."] 

2 That is, the Lion of St Mark, the standard 
of the republic, which is the origin of the word 
Pantaloon — Piantaleone, Pantaleon, Pantaloon. 

[The Venetians were nicknamed Pantaloni, 
not, in the first instance, because they were 
"planters of the lion," because Venetian com- 
merce followed the Venetian flag, but, on the 
analogy of Paddy and Sandy, because Venetian 
children were often christened " Pantaleone," 
after St Pantaleon.] 

3 Shakespeare is my authority for the word 
"Ottomite" for Ottoman. "Which Heaven 
hath forbid the Ottomites" (see Othello, act ii. 
sc. 3, line 161). 

4 ["On 29th September (1669) Candia, and 
the island of Candia, passed away from Venice, 
after a defence which had lasted twenty-five 
years, and was unmatched for bravery in the 
annals of the Republic." — Venice, an Histori- 
cal Sketch, by Horatio F. Brown, 1893, p. 378.] 

s ["The battle of Lapento (October 7, 1571) 
lasted five hoiurs. . . . The losses are esti- 



Canto iv.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



253 



Statues of glass — all shivered — the 

long file 
Of her dead Doges are declined to 

dust ; « 

But where they dwelt, the vast and 

sumptuous pile 
Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid 

trust; 
Their sceptre broken, and their sword 

in rust, 
Have yielded to the stranger: empty 

halls, 
Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such 

as must 
Too oft remind her who and what 

enthrals. 
Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' 

lovely walls. 

XVI. 

When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse, 
And fettered thousands bore the yoke 

of war. 
Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,^ 
Her voice their only ransom from afar: 
See ! as they chant the tragic hymn, the 

car 
Of the o'ermastered Victor stops — the 

reins 
Fall from his hands — his idle scimitar 
Starts from its belt — he rends his cap- 
tive's chains. 
And bids him thank the Bard for Free- 
dom and his strains. 

XVII. 

Thus, Venice ! if no stronger claim were 
thine. 

Were all thy proud historic deeds for- 
got — 

Thy choral memory of the Bard divine. 

Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the 
knot 

mated at 8000 Christians and 30,000 Turks. . . . 
The chief glory of the victory rests with . . . 
the Venetians." Venice, etc., 1893, p. 368.] 

I ["The dramas of Euripides were so popular 
throughout all Sicily, that those Athenian 
prisoners who knew . . . portions of them, 
won the affections of their masters. ... I 
cannot refrain from mentioning this story, 
though I fear its trustworthiness ... is much 
inferior to its pathos and interest." — Grote's 
History of Greece, 1869, vii. 186.] 



Which ties thee to thv tyrants; and thy 

lot 
Is shameful to the nations, — most of 

all, 
Albion! to thee: ^ the Ocean queen 

should not 
Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall 
Of Venice think of thine, despite thy 

watery wall. 

XVIII. 

I loved her from my boyhood — she to 

me 
Was as a fairy city of the heart. 
Rising like water-columns from the 

sea — 
Of Joy the sojourn, and of Wealth the 

mart; 
And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shake- 
speare's art,^ 
Had stamped her image in me, and even 

so, 
x^lthough I found her thus, we did not 

part; 
Perchance even dearer in her day of 

woe, 
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, 

and a show. 

XIX. 

I can repeople with the past — and of 
The present there is still for eye and 

thought. 
And meditation chastened down, 

enough; 
And more, it may be, than I hoped or 

sought; 
And of the happiest moments which 

were wrought 
Within the web of my existence, some 
From thee, fair Venice ! have their 

colours caught: 

' [By the Treaty of Paris, May 3, 18 14, 
Lombardy and Venice, which since tlae battle of 
Austerlitz had formed part of the French king- 
dom of Naples, were once more handed over to 
Austria.] 

2 Venice Preserved; Mysteries of Udolpho; 
The Ghost-Seer, or Armenian; The Merchant 
of Venice; Othello. 

[The Mysteries of Udolpho by Mrs Anne 
Radcliffe, to which Byron was indebted for 
more than one suggestion, was published in 
1794. The scene of Schiller's Der Geisterseher 
(the Ghost-Seer) is laid at Venice.] 



254 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



There are some feelings Time cannot 

benumb, 
Nor Torture shake, or mine would now 

be cold and dumb. 

XX. 

But, from their nature, will the Tannen ^ 

grow 
Loftiest on loftiest and least sheltered 

rocks, 
Rooted in barrenness, where nought 

below 
Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine 

shocks 
Of eddying storms; yet springs the 

trunk, and mocks 
The howling tempest, till its height and 

frame 
Are worthy of the mountains from whose 

blocks 
Of bleak, grey granite into life it came. 
And grew a giant tree; — the Mind may 

grow the same. 

XXI. 

Existence may be borne, and the deep 

root 
Of Ufe and sufferance make its firm 

abode 
In bare and desolated bosoms: mute 
The camel labours with the heaviest 

load. 
And the wolf dies in silence, — not 

bestowed 
In vain should such example be; if they, 
Things of ignoble or of savage mood. 
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay 
May temper it to bear, — it is but for a 

day. 

XXII. 

All suffering doth destroy, or is de- 
stroyed. 

Even by the sufferer — and, in each 
event, 

' Tannen is the plural of ianne, a species of 
fir peculiar to the Alps, which only thrives in 
very rocky parts, where scarcely soil sufficient 
for its nourishment can be found. On these 
spots it grows to a greater height than any other 
mountain tree. 

[The reference is to the Edeltanne {Abies 
pectinala), which is not a native of this country, 
but grows at a great height on the Swiss Alps 
and throughout the mountainous region of 
Central Europe.] 



Ends: — Some, with hope replenished 

and rebuoyed, 
Return to whence they came — with 

like intent, 
And weave their web again; some, 

bowed and bent, 
Wax grey and ghastly, withering ere 

their time. 
And perish with the reed on which they 

leant; 
Some seek devotion — toil — war — 

good or crime, 
According as their souls were formed to 

sink or climb. 

XXIII. 

But ever and anon of griefs subdued 
There comes a token like a Scorpion's 

sting. 
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness 

imbued; 
And slight withal may be the things 

which bring 
Back on the heart the weight which it 

would fling 
Aside for ever: it may be a sound — 
A tone of music — summer's eve — or 

spring — 
A flower — the wind — the Ocean — 

which shall wound, 
Striking the electric chain wherewith 

we are darkly bound; 

XXIV. 

And how and why we know not, nor can 

trace 
Home to its cloud this lightning of the 

mind. 
But feel the shock renewed, nor can 

efface 
The blight and blackening which it 

leaves behind. 
Which out of things familiar, unde- 
signed. 
When least we deem of such, calls up to 

view 
The Spectres whom no exorcism can 

bind, — • 
The cold — the changed — perchance 

the dead, anew — 
The mourned — the loved — the lost — 

too many ! yet how few ! 



Canto iv.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



255 



But my Soul wanders; I demand it back 
To meditate amongst decay, and stand 
A ruin amidst ruins; there to track 
Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er 

a land 
Which was the mightiest in its old com- 
mand. 
And is the loveliest, and must ever be 
The master-mould of Nature's heavenly 

hand; 
Wherein v^ere cast the heroic and the 

free, — 
The beautiful — the brave — the Lords 
of earth and sea, 



The Commonwealth of Kings — the 
Men of Rome ! 

And even since, and now, fair Italy ! 

Thou art the Garden of the World, the 
Home 

Of all Art yields, and Nature can 
decree; 

Even in thy desert, what is like to thee ? 

Thy very weeds are beautiful — thy 
waste 

More rich than other climes' fertihty; 

Thy wreck a glory — and thy ruin 
graced 

With an immaculate charm which can- 
not be defaced. 

'.pi' Y\ XXVII. 

The Moon is up, and yet it is not night — 
Sunset divides the sky with her — a sea 
Of glory streams along the Alpine height 
Of blue Friuli's mountains; Heaven is 

free 
PVom clouds, but of all colours seems to 

be, — 
Melted to one vast Iris of the West, — 
Where the Day joins the past Eternity; 
While, on the other hand, meek Dian's 

crest 
Floats through the azure air — an 

island of the *blest ! ^ 

' The above description may seem fantastical 
or exaggerated to those who have never seen an 
Oriental or an Italian sky; yet it is but a literal 
and hardly sufficient delineation of an August 
evening (the eighteenth), as contemplated in 
one of manv rides along the banks of the Brenta, 
near La Mira. 



XXVIII, 

A single star is at her side, and reigns 
With her o'er half the lovely heaven; 

but still 
Yon sunny Sea heaves brightly, and 

remains 
Rolled o'er the peak of the far Rhaetian 

hill. 
As Day and Night contending were, until 
Nature reclaimed her order: — gently 

flows 
The deep-dyed Brenta,^ where their 

hues instil 
The odorous purple of a new-born rose. 
Which streams upon her stream, and 

glassed within it glows, 



Filled with the face of heaven, which, 

from afar. 
Comes down upon the waters ! all its 

hues. 
From the rich sunset to the rising star, 
Their magical variety diffuse : 
And now they change — a paler 

Shadow strews 
Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting 

Day 
Dies like the Dolphin, whom each pang 

imbues 
With a new colour as it gasps away — 
The last still loveliest, till — 'tis gone — 

and all is grey. 



There is a tomb in Arqua; — reared in 

air. 
Pillared in theiV sarcophagus, repose 
Th^ bones of Laura's lover: here repair 
Many familiar with his well-sung woes. 
The Pilgrims of his Genius. He arose 
To raise a language, and his land reclaim 
From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes: 
Watering the tree which bears his Lady's 

name 
With his melodious tears, he gave him- 
self to Fame. 

' [The Brenta rises in T\to1, and flowing past 
Padua falls into the Lagoon at Fusma. _Mira, 
or La Mira, where Byron "colonised" m the 
summer of 1817, and again in 1810, is on the 
Brenta, some sk or seven miles inland from 
the Lagoon.] 



256 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



They keep his dust in Arqua, where he 

died — 
The mountain-village where his latter 

days 
Went down the vale of years; and 'tis 

their pride — 
An honest pride — and let it be their 

praise, 
To offer to the passing stranger's gaze 
His mansion and his sepulchre — both 

plain 
And venerably simple — such as raise 
A feeling more accordant with his 

strain 
Than if a Pyramid formed his monu- 
mental fane. 

XXXII. 

And the soft quiet hamlet where he 

dwelt 
Is one of that complexion which seems 

made 
For those who their mortality have 

felt, 
And sought a refuge from their hopes 

decayed 
In the deep umbrage of a green hill's 

shade. 
Which shows a distant prospect far 

away 
Of busy cities, now in vain displayed. 
For they can lure no further; and the 

ray 
Of a bright Sun can make sufficient 

holiday. 



Developing the mountams, leaves, and 

flowers. 
And shining in the brawling brook, 

where-by. 
Clear as its current, glide the sauntering 

hours 
With a calm languor, which, though to 

the eye 
Idlesse it seem, hath its morality. 
If from society we learn to live, 
'Tis Solitude should teach us how to 

die; 
It hath no flatterers — Vanity can give 
No hollow aid; alone — man with his 

God must strive: 



XXXIV. 

Or, it may be, with Demons,^ who im- 
pair 
The strength of better thoughts, and 

seek their prey 
In melancholy bosoms — such as were 
Of moody texture from their earliest 

day. 
And loved to dwell in darkness and dis- 

niay. 
Deeming themselves predestined to a 

doom 
Which is not of the pangs that pass 

away; 
Making the Sun like blood, the Earth a 

tomb. 
The tomb a hell — and Hell itself a 

murkier gloom. 

XXXV. 

Ferrara ! in thy wide and grass-grown 

streets, 
Whose symmetry was not for soli- 
tude. 
There seems as 'twere a curse upon the 

Seats 
Of former Sovereigns, and the antique 

brood 
Of Este,2 which for many an age made 

good 
Its strength within thy walls, and was 

of yore 
Patron or Tyrant, as the changing 

mood 



' The struggle is to the full as likely to be with 
demons as with our better thoughts. Satan 
chose the wilderness for the temptation of our 
Saviour. And our unsullied John Locke pre- 
ferred the presence of a child to complete 
solitude. 

["He always chose to have company with 
him, if it were only a child; for he loved children, 
and took pleasvire in talking with those that had 
been well trained" {Lije of John Locke, by H. 
R. Fox-Bourne, ii. 537). Lady Masham's 
daughter Esther, and "his wife" Betty Clarke, 
aged eleven years, were among his child-friends.] 

^ [Of the ancient family of Este, Marquesses 
of Tuscany, Azzo V. wa§ the first who obtained 
power in Ferrara in the twelfth century. A 
remote descendant, Alfonso I. (1486-1534), 
who married Lucrezia Borgia, 1502, honoured 
himself by attaching Ariosto to his court, and 
it was his grandson, Alfonso II. (d. 1597), who 
first befriended and afterwards, on the score of 
lunacy, imprisoned Tasso in the Hospital of 
Sant' Anna (1579-86).] 



Canto iv. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



257 



Of petty power impelled, of those who 

wore 
The wreath which Dante's brow alone 

had worn before. 

XXXVI. 

And Tasso is their glory and their 

shame — 
Hark to his strain ! and then survey his 

cell ! ' 
And see how dearly earned Torquato's 

fame, 
And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell: 

' [It is a fact that Tasso was an involuntary 
inmate of the Hospital of Sant' Anna at Ferrara 
for seven years and four months — from March, 
1579, to July, 1586 — but the causes, the char- 
acter, and the place of his imprisonment have 
been subjects of legend and misrepresentation. 
It has long been known and acknowledged that 
a real or feigned passion for Duke Alfonso's 
sister, Leonora d'Este, was not the cause or 
occasion of his detention, and that the famous 
cell or dungeon ("nine paces by sLx, and about 
seven high") was not "the original place of the 
poet's confinement," but the original charge of 
injustice and tyranny remained unrefuted if 
not unquestioned. The publication of Tasso's 
letters by Guasti, in 1853, and, more recently, 
Signor Angelo Solerti's monumental work. Vita 
di Torquato Tasso (1893), which draws largely 
upon the letters of contemporaries and the 
accounts of the ducal court, have in a great 
measure exonerated the duke at the expense of 
the unhappy poet himself. Briefly, Tasso's 
intrigues with rival powers — the Medici at 
Florence, the papal court, and the Koly Office at 
Bologna — aroused the alarm and suspicion 
of the duke, whilst his general demeanour and 
his outbiu-sts of violence and temper compelled, 
rather than afiforded, a pretext for his confine- 
ment; and, to quote his own words, "in a fit of 
madness" he broke out into execrations of the 
ducal court and family, and of the people of 
Ferrara. For this offence he was shut up in 
the Hospital of Sant' Anna, and for many 
months treated as an ordinary lunatic. Of the 
particulars of his treatment during these first 
eight months of his confinement, apart from 
Tasso's own letters, there is no evidence. The 
accounts of the hospital are lost, and the Libri 
di spesa do not commence till November 20, 
1579. Two years later, the Libri di spenderia, 
from January, 1582, onward, show that he was 
put on a more generous diet; and it is known 
that a certain measure of liberty and other 
indulgences were gradually accorded. There 
can, however, be little doubt that for many 
months his food was neglected and medical 
attendance withheld. His statement, that he 
was denied the rites of the Church, cannot be 
gainsaid. He was regarded as a lunatic, and, 
as such, he would not be permitted either to 
make his confession or to communicate. Worse 
than all, there was the terrible solitude, " his 

S 



The miserable Despot could not quell 

The insulted mind he sought to quench, 
and blend 

With the surrounding maniacs, in the 
hell 

Where he had plunged it. Glory with- 
out end 

Scattered the clouds away — and on 
that name attend 



The tears and praises of all time, while 

thine 
Would rot in its oblivion — in the 

sink 
Of worthless dust, which from thy 

boasted hne 
Is shaken into nothing — but the link 
Thou formest in his fortunes bids us 

think 
Of thy poor malice, naming thee with 

scorn : 
Alfonso ! how thy ducal pageants shrink 
From thee ! if in another station born. 
Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou 

mad'st to mourn: 

XXXVIII. 

Thou! formed to eat, and be despised, 

and die. 
Even as the beasts that perish — save 

that thou 
Hadst a more splendid trough and wider 

sty: 
He! with a glory round his furrowed 

brow. 
Which emanated then, and dazzles now. 
In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire. 
And Boileau, whose rash envy could 

allow 
No strain which shamed his country's 

creaking lyre. 
That whetstone of the teeth — Monot- 
ony in wire ! ^ 

cruel, his natural enemy." No wonder the 
attacks of delirium, the "unwonted lights," 
the conference with a familiar spirit, followed 
in due course. Byron was ignorant of the facts; 
and we know that his scorn and indignation was 
exaggerated and misplaced. But the "pity of 
it" remains, that the grace and glory of his age 
was sacrificed to ignorance and fear, if not to 
animosity and revenge.] 

» [Boiieau contrasts "le clinquant du Tasse," 
the tinsel of Tasso, with the pure gold of Virgil.] 



258 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



Peace to Torquato's injured shade ! 

'twas his 
In life and death to be the mark where 

Wrong 
Aimed with her poisoned arrows, — but 

to miss. 
Oh, Victor unsurpassed in modern song ! 
Each year brings forth its millions — 

but how long 
The tide of Generations shall roll on, 
And not the whole combined and count- 
less throng 
Compose a mind like thine ? though all 

in one 
Condensed their scattered rays — they 

would not form a Sun. 



Great as thou art, yet paralleled by 

those, 
Thy countrymen, before thee born to 

shine. 
The Bards of Hell and Chivalry: first 

rose 
The Tuscan Father's Comedy Divine; 
Then, not unequal to the Florentine, 
The southern Scott, the minstrel who 

called forth 
A new creation with his magic line. 
And, like the Ariosto of the North,^ 
Sang Ladye-love and War, Romance 

and Knightly Worth. 



The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust 
The iron crown of laurel's mimicked 

leaves; 
Nor was the ominous element unjust. 
For the true laurel-wreath which Glory 

weaves 
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves. 
And the false semblance but disgraced 

his brow; 
Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves, 

'[Sir Walter Scott. The key-note of "the 
harpings of the north," the chivalrous strain of 
"shield, lance, and brand, and plume and scarf," 
of "gentle courtesy," of "valour, lion-mettled 
lord," which the "Introduction to Marmion" 
preludes, had been already struck in the opening 
lines of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso — 

"Le Donne, i Cavalier', I'arme, gli amori, 
Le cortesie, I'audaci imprese io canto."] 



Know, that the lightning sanctifies 

below 
Whate'er it strikes; — yon head is 

doubly sacred now. 



Italia ! oh, Italia ! thou who hast ^ 
The fatal gift of Beauty, which became 
A funeral dower of present woes and 

past — 
On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed 

by shame. 
And annals graved in characters of 

flame. 
Oh, God ! that thou wert in thy naked- 
ness 
Less lovely or more powerful, and 

couldst claim 
Thy right, and awe the robbers back, 

who press 
To shed thy blood, and drink the tears 

of thy distress; 



Then might'st thou more appal — or, 

less desired. 
Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored 
For thy destructive charms; then, still 

untired. 
Would not be seen the armed torrents 

poured 
Down the deep Alps; nor would the 

hostile horde 
Of many-nationed spoilers from the Po 
Quaff blood and water; nor the 

stranger's sword 
Be thy sad weapon of defence — and so, 
Victor or vanquished, thou the slave of 

friend or foe. 

XLIV. 

Wandering in youth, I traced the path 
of him. 

The Roman friend of Rome's least- 
mortal mind,^ 

' The two stanzas xlii. and xliii. are, with the 
exception of a line or two, a translation of the 
famous sonnet of Filicaja: — "Italia, Italia, 
O tu, cui feo la sorte !" — Poesie Toscane, 1823, 
p. 140. 

' The celebrated letter of Servius Sulpicius to 
Cicero, on the death of his daughter, describes as 
it then was, and now is, a path which I often 
traced in Greece, both by sea and land, in dif- 



Canto iv.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



'59 



The friend of TuUy: as my bark did 

skim 
The bright blue waters with a fanning 

wind, 
Came Megara before me, and behind 
^gina lay — Piraeus on the right, 
And Corinth on the left; I lay reclined 
Along the prow, and saw all these unite 
In ruin — even as he had seen the 

desolate sight; 



For Time hath not rebuilt them, but 

upreared 
Barbaric dwellings on their shattered 

site, 
Which only make more mourned and 

more endeared 
The few last ravs of their far-scattered 

light, 
And the crushed relics of their vanished 

might. 
The Roman saw these tombs in his own 

age. 
These sepulchres of cities, which excite 
Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page 
The moral lesson bears, drawn from 

such pilgrimage. 

XLVI. 

That page is now before me, and on 

mine 
His Country's ruin added to the mass 
Of perished states he mourned in their 

decline. 
And I in desolation: all that was 

ferent journeys and voyages. "On my return 
from Asia, as I was sailing from /Egina towards 
Megara, I began to contemplate the prospect 
of the countries around me: ^gina was behind, 
Megara before me; Piraeus on the right, Corinth 
on the left: all which towns, once famous and 
flourishing, now lie overturned and buried in 
their ruins. Upon this sight, I could not but 
think presently within myself, Alas ! how do 
we poor mortals fret and vex ourselves if any 
of our friends happen to die or be killed, whose 
life is yet so short, when the carcasses of so many 
noble cities lie here exposed before me in one 
view." — See Middleton's Cicero, 1823, ii. 144. 
[The letter is to be found in Cicero's Epist. ad 
Familiar es, v. 5. B>Ton on his return from 
Constantinople on July 14, 1810, left Hobhouse 
at the Island of Zea, and made his own way to 
Athens. As the vessel sailed up the Saronic 
Gulf, he would observe the "pwospect" which 
Sulpicius describes.] 



Of then destruction is; and now, alas! 
Rome — Rome imperial, bows her to 

the storm. 
In the same dust and blackness, and we 

pass 
The skeleton of her Titanic form,^ 
Wrecks of another world, whose ashes 

still are warm. 

XLVII. 

Yet, Italy ! through every other land 
Thy wrongs should ring — and shall — 

from side to side; 
Mother of Arts ! as once of Arms ! thy 

hand 
Was then our Guardian, and is still our 

Guide; 
Parent of our Religion ! whom the wide 
Nations have knelt to for the keys of 

Heaven ! 
Europe, repentant of her parricide. 
Shall yet redeem thee, and, all back- 
ward driven, 
Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be 
forgiven. 



But Arno wins us to the fair white walls. 
Where the Etrurian Athens claims and 

keeps 
A softer feeling for her fairy halls: 
Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps 
Her corn, and wine, and oil — and 

Plenty leaps 
To laughing life, with her redundant 

Horn. 
Along the banks where smiling Arno 

sweeps 
Was modern Luxury of Commerce 

born,^ 
And buried Learning rose, redeemed to 

a new Morn. 

' It is Poggio, who, looking from the Capi- 
toline hill upon ruined Rome, breaks forth into 
the exclamation, "Ut nunc omni decore nudata, 
prostrata jaceat, instar Gigantei cadaveris 
corrupt! atque undique exesi." "AH her beauty 
is taken- from her, she is even with the ground, 
like some Giant's corse, which is polluted and 
devoured on every side." 

[See his tract De For lima Varielaie.] 
^ The wealth which permitted the Florentine 
nobility to ndulge their taste for modern, that is, 
refined luxury was derived from success in trade. 
For example, Giovanni de' Medici (1360-1428), 
the father of Cosmo and the great-grandfather 



26o 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, 

and fills 1 
The air around with Beauty — we in- 
hale 
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, 

instils 
Part of its immortality — the veil 
Of heaven is half undrawn — within 

the pale 
We stand, and in that form and face 

behold 
What Mind can make, when Nature's 

self would fail; 
And to the fond Idolaters of old 
Envy the innate flash which such a Soul 

could mould: 



We gaze and turn away, and know not 

where, 
Dazzled and drunk with Beauty, till the 

heart 
Reels with its fulness; there — for 

ever there — 
Chained to the chariot of triumphal Art, 
We stand as captives, and would not 

depart. 
Away ! — there need no words, nor 

terms precise. 
The paltry jargon of the marble mart, 
Where Pedantry gulls Folly — we have 

eyes: 
Blood — pulse — and breast confirm 

the Dardan Shepherd's prize. 



Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this 

guise ? 
Or to more deeply blest Anchises? or, 

of Lorenzo de' Medici, was a banker and 
Levantine merchant. As for the Renaissance, 
to say nothing of Petrarch of Florentine parent- 
age, two of the greatest Italian scholars and 
humanists — Ficino, born a.d. 1430, and Po- 
liziano, bom 1454 — were Florentines; and 
Poggio was born a.d. 1380, at Terra Nuova on 
Florentine soil.] 

• [The statue of Venus de' Medici, which 
stands in the Tribune of the Uffizzi Gallery at 
Florence. She had been deported to Paris by 
Napoleon, but when Lord Byron spent a day 
in Florence in April, 1817. and returned 
"drunk with Beauty" from the two galleries, 
the lovely lady, thanks to the much-abused 
"Powers," was once more in her proper shrinej 



In all thy perfect Goddess-ship, when 

Hes 
Before thee thy own vanquished Lord 

of War? 
And gazing in thy face as toward a 

star. 
Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee 

upturn, 
Feeding on thy sweet cheek ! ^ while thy 

lips are 
With lava kisses melting while they 

burn. 
Showered on his eyelids, brow, and 

mouth, as from an urn ! 

LII. 

Glowing, and circumfused in speechless 

love — 
Their full divinity inadequate 
That feeling to express, or to improve — 
The Gods become as mortals — and 

man's fate 
Has moments hke their brightest; but 

the weight 
Of earth recoils upon us; — let it go ! 
We can recall such visions, and create. 
From what has been, or might be, things 

which grow 
Into thy statue's form, and look like 

gods below. 



I leave to learned fingers, and wise 

hands. 
The Artist and his Ape, to teach and 

tell 
How well his Connoisseurship under-- 

stands 
The graceful bend, and the voluptuous 

swell : 
Let these describe the undescribable: 
I would not their vile breath should 

crisp the stream 
Wherein that Image shall for ever 

dwell — 
The unruffled mirror of the loveliest 

dream 
That ever left the sky on the deep soul 

to beam. 

' 'O<})0a\ixov^ etTTLav. 

"Atque oculos pascat uterque suos." 
— Ovid, Amor., lib. iii. [Eleg. 2, line 6], 



Canto iv. 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



261 



In Santa Croce's ^ holy precincts He 
Ashes which make it holier, dust which 

is 
Even in itself an immortality, 
Though there were nothing save the 

past, and this. 
The particle of those sublimities 
Which have relapsed to chaos : — here 

repose 
Angelo's — Alfieri's bones — and his, 
The starry Galileo, with his woes; 
Here Machiavelli's earth returned to 

whence it rose. 



LV, 

These are four minds, which, like the 

elements. 
Might furnish forth creation: — Italy ! 
Time, which hath wronged thee with ten 

thousand rents 
Of thine imperial garment, shall deny 
And hath denied, to every other sky. 
Spirits which soar from ruin : — thy 

Decay 
Is still impregnate v/ith divinity. 
Which gilds it with revivifying ray; 
Such as the great of yore, Canova is 

to-day. 

LVI. 

But where repose the all Etruscan 

three — 
Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less 

than they. 
The Bard of Prose, creative Spirit ! 

he 
Of the Hundred Tales of Love — 

where did they lay 
Their bones, distinguished from our 

common clay 
In death as life? Are they resolved to 

dust. 
And have their Country's Marbles 

nought to say? 

' [Michael Angelo, Alfieri, and Macchiavelli 
are buried in the south aisle of the church of 
Santa Croce; Galileo, who was first buried 
within the convent, now rests with his favourite 
pupil, Vincenzo Viviani, in a vault in the south 
aisle. Canova's monument to Alfieri was 
erected at the expense of his so-called widow, 
Louise, born von Stolberg, and (1772-1778) 
consort of Prince Charles Edward.] 



Could not her quarries furnish forth 

one bust? 
Did they not to her breast their filial 

earth entrust? 

LVII. 

Ungrateful Florence ! Dante sleeps afar,^ 
Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding 

shore: ^ 
Thy factions, in their worse than civil 

war. 
Proscribed the Bard whose name for 

evermore 
Their children's children would in vain 

adore 
With the remorse of ages; and the crown ^ 
Which Petrarch's laureate brow su- 
premely wore, 
Upon a far and foreign soil had grown — 
His life, his Fame — his Grave, though 
rifled — not thine own.* 

' [Dante died at Ravenna, September 14, 
1 32 1, and was buried in the Church of S. Fran- 
cesco. His remains were afterwards trans- 
ferred to a mausoleum in the friars' cemetery, 
on the north side of the church, which was 
raised to his memory by his friend and patron, 
Guido da Polenta. The mausoleum was re- 
stored more than once, and rebuilt in its pres- 
ent form in 1780, at the cost of Cardinal Luigi 
Valenti Gonzaga. On the occasion of Dante's 
sexcentenary, in 1865, it was discovered that 
at some unknown period the skeleton, with the 
exception of a few small bones which remained 
in an urn which formed part of Gonzaga's 
structure, had been placed for safety in a wooden 
box, and enclosed in a wall of the old Bracoio- 
forte Chapel, vvhich lies outside the church 
towards the Piazza.] 

» [The story is told in Livy, lib. xxxviii. cap. 
S3. "Thenceforth no more was heard of 
Africanus. He passed his days at Litemum 
[on the shore of Campania], without thought 
or regret of Rome. Folk say that when he 
came to die he gave orders that he should be 
buried on the spot, and that there, and not at 
Rome, a monument should be raised over his 
sepulchre. His country had been ungrateful 
— no Roman funeral for him." According to 
another tradition, he was buried with his family 
at the Porta Capena, by the Caiian Hill.] 

3 [Petrarch's Africa brought him on the same 
day (August 23, 1340) offers of the laurel wreath 
of poetry from the University of Paris and from 
the Senate of Rome. He chose in favour of 
Rome, and was crowned on the Capitol, Easter 
Day, April 8, 1341. "The poet appeared in 
a royal mantle . . . preceded by twelve noble 
Roman youths clad in scarlet, and the heralds 
and trumpeters of the Roman Senate." — 
Petrarch, by Henry Reeve, 1878, p. 92.] 

4 [Tomasini, in the Petrarca Redhnvus (ed. 
1650), assigns the outrage to a party of Venetians 



262 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



Boccaccio ^ to his parent earth be- 
queathed 
His dust, — and lies it not her Great 

among, 
With many a sweet and solemn requiem 

breathed 
O'er him who formed the Tuscan's siren 

tongue ? 
That music in itself, whose sounds are 

song. 
The poetry of speech ? No; — even his 

tomb 
Uptorn, mast bear the hyaena bigots' 

wrong. 
No more amidst the meaner dead find 

room. 
Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told 

for whom! 



LIX. 

And Santa Croce wants their mighty 

dust; 
Yet for this want more noted, as of yore 
The Caesar's pageant,^ shorn of Brutus' 

bust. 
Did but of Rome's best Son remind her 

more: 

who "broke open Petrarch's tomb, in 1630, and 
took away some of his bones, probably with the 
object of selling them."] 

• [Giovanni Boccaccio was born at Paris (or 
Certaldo) in 1313, passed the greater part of his 
life at Florence, died and was buried at Certaldo, 
whence his family are said to have sprung, in 
1375. His sepulchre, which stood in the centre 
of the Church of St Michael and St James, 
known as the Canonica, was removed in 1783, 
on the plea that a recent edict forbidding burial 
in churches applied to ancient interments. 
"Ignorance," pleads Hobhouse, "may share the 
sin with bigotry." But it is improbable that 
the "hy.-ena bigots." that is, the ecclesiastical 
authorities, were ignorant that Boccaccio was 
a bitter satirist of Churchmen, or that "he 
transferred the functions and histories of Hebrew 
prophets and prophetesses, and of Christian 
saints and apostles, nay, the hi<j;hest mvsteries 
and most awful objects of Christian ' Faith, 
to the names and draperv of Greek and Roman 
mythology." — (Unpublished MS. note of S. T. 
Coleridge.) They had their revenge on Boccac- 
cio, and Byron has had his revenge on them.] 

=■ [By "Cesar's pageant" Bvron means the 
pageant decreed by Tiberius Caesar. At the 
public funeral of Junia, wife of Cassius and 
sister of Brutus, a.d. 22, the busts of her hu.s- 
band and brother were not allowed to be carried 
in the procession, because thev had taken part 
in the assassination of Julius Ca;sar. But 



Happier Ravenna ! on thy hoary shore. 
Fortress of falling Empire ! honoured 

sleeps 
The immortal Exile; — Arqua, too, her 

store 
Of tuneful reUcs proudly claims and 

keeps, 
While Florence vainly begs her banished 

dead and weeps.^ 



What is her Pyramid of precious stones ? 
Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues 
Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones 
Of merchant-dukes? the momentary 

dews 
Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, 

infuse 
Freshness in the green turf that wraps 

the dead, 
Whose names are Mausoleums of the 

Muse, 
Are gently prest with far more reverent 

tread 
Than ever paced the slab which paves 

the princely head. 



There be more things to greet the heart 

and eyes 
In Arno's dome of Art's most princely 

shrine. 
Where Sculpture with her rainbow 

Sister vies; ^ 
There be more marvels yet — but not 

for mine; 
For I have been accustomed to entwine 
My thoughts with Nature, rather, in the 

fields. 
Than Art in galleries: though a work 

divine 



none the less, " Prsefulgebant Cassius atnue 
Brutus eo ipso, quod efiigies eorum non viseban- 
tur" (Tacitus, Ann., iii. 76). Their glory was 
conspicuous in men's minds, because their 
images were withheld from men's eyes.] 

' [The inscription on Ricci's monument to 
Dante, in the Church nf Santa Croce — "A 
majoribus ter frustra decretum" — refers to 
the vain attempts which Florence had made to 
recover the remains of her exiled and once- 
neglected TXJCt.] 

^ [The Duomo, crowned with Brune"eschi's 
cupola, and rich in scu'nture and stained f^lass, 
is, as it were, a symbol of Florence, the shrine of 
art.] 



Canto iv.] 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



263 



Calls for my Spirit's homage, yet it 

yields 
Less than it feels, because the weapon 

which it wields 

LXII. 

Is of another temper, and I roam 
By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles 
Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home ; 
For there the Carthaginian's warlike 

wiles 
Come back before me, as his skill 

beguiles 
The host between the mountains and 

the shore. 
Where Courage falls in her despairing 

files. 
And torrents, swoll'n to rivers with their 

gore, 
Reek through the sultry plain, with 

legions scattered o'er, 

LXIII. 

Like to a forest felled by mountain 

winds : 
And such the storm of battle on this day, 
And such the frenzy, whose convulsion 

blinds 
To all save Carnage, that, beneath the 

fray, 
An Earthquake ^ reeled unheededly 

away ! 
None felt stern Nature rocking at his 

feet. 
And yawning forth a grave for those who 

lay 
Upon their bucklers for a winding 

sheet — 
Such is the absorbing hate when warring 

nations meet I 

LXIV. 

The Earth to them was as a rolling bark 
Which bore them to Eternity — they saw 
The Ocean round, but had no time to 

mark 
The motions of their vessel; Nature's 

law, 

' [The story is in Livy (xxii. 5). Polybius 
says nothing about an earthquake; but Pliny 
and Coelius Antipater who wrote his Annales 
about a century after the battle of Lake Thrasy- 
menus (b.c. 217), synchronise the earthquake 
and the battle.] 



In them suspended, recked not of the 

awe 
Which reigns when mountains tremble, 

and the birds 
Plunge in the clouds for refuge, and 

withdraw 
From their down-toppling nests; and 

bellowing herds 
Stumble o'er heaving plains — and 

Man's dread hath no words. 



Far other scene is Thrasimene now; 
Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain 
Rent by no ravage save the gentle 

plough; 
Her aged trees rise thick as once the 

slain 
Lay where their roots are; but a brook 

hath ta'en — 
A little rill of scanty stream and bed — 
A name of blood from that day's 

sanguine rain; 
And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead 
Made the earth wet, and turned the un- 
willing waters red. 

LXVI. 

mit thou, Clitumnus ! ^ in thy sweetest 

wave 
Of the most living crystal that was e'er 
The haunt of river-Nymph, to gaze and 

lave 
Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou 

dost rear 
Thy grassy banks whereon the milk- 
white steer ^ 
Grazes — the purest God of gentle 

waters ! 
And most serene of aspect, and most 

clear; 
Surely that stream was unprofaned by 

slaughters — 
A mirror and a bath for Beauty's 

youngest daughters! 

• No book of travels has omitted to expatiate 
on the temple of the Clitumnus, between Foiigno 
and Spoleto; and no site, or scenery, even in 
Italy, is more worthy a description. For an 
account of the dilapidation of this temple, the 
reader is referred to Historical Illtistralions of 
the Fourth Canto oj Childc Harold, p. 3,^. 

' The waters of the Clitumnus and other 
rivers were supposed to possess the quality of 
making the cattle which drank from them white. 



264 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



LXVII. 

And on thy happy shore a Temple 

still, 
Of small and delicate proportion, 

keeps 
Upon a mild declivity of hill, 
Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps 
Thy current's calmness; oft from out it 

leaps 
The finny darter with the glittering 

scales, 
Who dwells and revels in thy glassy 

deeps; 
While, chance, some scattered water- 
lily sails 
Down where the shallower wave still 

tells its bubbling tales. 

LXVIII. 

Pass not unblest the Genius of the 

place ! 
If through the air a Zephyr more 

serene 
Win to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye 

trace 
Along his margin a more eloquent green, 
If on the heart the freshness of the 

scene 
Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry 

dust 
Of weary life a moment lave it clean 
With Nature's baptism, — 'tis to him 

ye must 
Pay orisons for this suspension of dis- 
gust. 

LXIX. 

The roar of waters ! — from the head- 
long height 
Velino cleaves the wave- worn precipice; 
The fall of waters ! rapid as the light 
The flashing mass foams shaking the 

abyss ; 
The Hell of Waters! where they howl 

and hiss, 
And boil in endless torture; while the 

sweat 
Of their great agony, wrung out from 

this 
Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks 

of jet 
That gird the gulf around, in pitiless 

horror set. 



And mounts in spray the skies, and 

thence again 
Returns in an unceasing shower, which 

round. 
With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain, 
Is an eternal April to the ground. 
Making it all one emerald: — how 

profound 
The gulf ! and how the Giant Element 
From rock to rock leaps with delirious 

bound, 
Crushing the cliffs, which, downward 

worn and rent 
With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms 

a fearful vent 

LXXI. 

To the broad column which rolls on, 

and shows 
More like the fountain of an infant 

sea 
Torn from the womb of mountains by 

the throes 
Of a new world, than only thus to be 
Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly. 
With many windings, through the vale: 

— Look back ! 
Lo ! where it comes like an Eternity, 
As if to sweep down all things in its 

track. 
Charming the eye with dread, — a 

matchless cataract,^ 

LXXII. 

Horribly beautiful ! but on the verge, 
From side to side, beneath the glittering 
morn, 

' I saw the Cascata del Marmore of Terni 
twice, at different periods — once from the 
summit of the precipice, and again from the 
valley below. The lower view is far to be pre- 
ferred, if the traveller has time for one only; 
but in any point of view, either from above or 
below, it is worth all the cascades and torrents 
of Switzerland put together: the Staubach, 
Reichenbach, Pisse Vache, fall of Arpenaz, 
etc., are rills in comparative appearance. Of 
the fall of Schaffhausen I cannot speak, not yet 
having seen it. 

[The Falls of Reichenbach are at Rosenlaui, 
between Grindelwald and Meiringen; the 
Salanfe or Pisse- Vache descends into the valley 
of the Rhone near Martigny; the Nant d'Ar- 
penaz falls into the Arve near Magland, on the 
road between Cluses and Sallanches.] 



Canto iv.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



265 



An Iris ^ sits, amidst the infernal surge, 
Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, un- 
worn 
Its steady dyes, while all around is torn 
By the distracted waters, bears serene 
Its brilliant hues with all their beams 

unshorn: 
Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene. 
Love watching Madness with unalter- 
able mien. 

• Of the time, place, and qualities of this kind 
of iris, the reader will see a short account, in 
a note to Manfred* The fall looks so much 
like "the Hell of waters," that Addison thought 
the descent alluded to by the gulf in which 
Alecto t plunged into the infernal regions. It 
is singular enough, that two of the finest cascades 
in Europe should be artificial — this of the 
Velino, and the one at Tivoli. The traveller 
is strongly recommended to trace the Velino, 
at least as high as the little lake called Pie' di 
Ltip. The Reatine territory was the Italian 
Tempe (Cicer., Epist. ad Attic., lib. iv. 15), and 
the ancient naturalists, amongst other beautiful 
varieties, remarked the daily rainbows of the 
lake Velinus. A scholar of great name has 
devoted a treatise to this district alone. See 
Aid. Manut., De Reatina Urbe Agroqtie, ap. 
Sallengre, Nov. Thes. Ant. Rom., 1735, torn. i. 
P- 773, sq. 

[The "Falls of the Anio," which passed over 
a wall built by Sixtus V., and plunged into the 
Grotto of Neptune, were greatly diminished in 
volume after an inundation which took place in 
1826. The New Falls were formed in 1834.] 



* Manfred, act ii. sc. i, note. This Iris is 
formed by the rays of the sun on the lower part 
of the Alpine torrents; it is exactly like a rain- 
bow come down to pay a visit, and so close that 
you may walk into it: this effect lasts till noon. 

t This is the gulf through which Virgil's 
Alecto shoots herself into hell; for the very 
place, the great reputation of it, the fall of 
waters, the woods that encompass it, with the 
smoke and noise that arise from it, are all 
pointed at in the description . . . 
'Est locus Italiae . . . 
. . . densis hunc frondibus atrum 
Urguet utrimque latus nemoris, medioque 

fragosus 
Dat sonitum saxis et torto vertice torrens. 
Hie specus horrendum et saevi spiracula Ditis 
Monstrantur, ruptoque ingens Acheronte vorago 
Pestiferas aperit fauces.' 

— ^neid, vii. 563-570. 
It was indeed the most proper place in the 
world for a Fury to make her exit . . . and I 
believe every reader's imagination is pleased 
when he sees the angry Goddess thus sinking, 
at it were, in a tempest, and plunging herself 
into Hell, amidst such a scene of horror and 
confusion." — Remarks on sei'eral Parts of 
Italy, by Joseph Addison, Esq., 1761, pp. 100, 



LXXIII. 

Once more upon the woody Apennine — 
The infant Alps, which — had I not 

before 
Gazed on their mightier Parents, where 

the pine 
Sits on more shaggy summits, and 

where roar 
The thundering Lauwine ^ — might be 

worshipped more: 
But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau 

rear 
Her never-trodden snow, and seen the 

hoar 
Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc both far 

and near — 
And in Chimari heard the Thunder- 
Hills of fear, 

LXXIV. 

Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old 
name; 

And on Parnassus seen the Eagles fly 

Like Spirits of the spot, as 'twere for 
fame, 

For still they soared unutterably high: 

I've looked on Ida with a Trojan's eye; 

Athos — Olympus — ^Etna — Atlas — 
made 

These hills seem things of lesser 
dignity; 

All, save the lone Soracte's height, dis- 
played 

Not now in snow, which asks the lyric 
Roman's aid 



For our remembrance, and from out the 
plain 

Heaves like a long-swept wave about to 
break, 

And on the curl hangs pausing: not in 
vain 

May he, who will, his recollections rake, 

And quote in classic raptures, and awake 

The hills with Latin echoes — I ab- 
horred 

Too much, to conquer for the Poet's 
sake,^ 

■ In the greater part of Switzerland, the 
avalanches are known by the name of lauwine. 

^ These stanzas may probably remind the 
reader of Ensign Northerton's remarks, "D- — n 



s66 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



The drilled dull lesson, forced down 

word by word 
In my repugnant youth, with pleasure 

to record 

LXXVI. 

Aught that recalls the daily drug which 

turned 
My sickening memory; and, though 

Time hath taught 
My mind to meditate what then it 

learned. 
Yet such the fixed inveteracy wrought 

Homo," etc.; * but the reasons for our dislike 
are not exactly the same. I wish to express, 
that we become tired of the task before we can 
comprehend the beauty, that we learn by rote 
before we can get by heart; that the freshness 
is worn away, and the future pleasure and 
advantage deadened and destroyed, by the 
didactic anticipation, at an age when we can 
neither feel nor understand the power of com- 
positions which it requires an acquaintance 
with life, as well as Latin and Greek, to relish, 
or to reason upon. For the same reason, we 
never can be aware of the fulness of some of the 
finest passages of Shakespeare ("To be or not 
to be," for instance), from the habit of having 
them hammered into us at eight years old, as 
an exercise, not of mind, but of memory: so 
that when we are old enough to enjoy them 
the taste is gone, and the appetite palled. In 
some parts of the continent, young persons are 
taught from more common authors, and do not 
read the best classics till their maturity. I 
certainly do not speak on this point from any 
pique or aversion towards the place of my edu- 
cation. I was not a slow, though an idle boy; 
and I believe no one could, or can be, more 
attached to Harrow than I have always been, 
and with reason; — a part of the time passed 
there was the happiest of my life; and my pre- 
ceptor, the Rev. Dr Joseph Drury, was the 
best and worthiest friend I ever possessed, whose 
warnings I have remembered but too well, 
though too late when I have erred, — and whose 
counsels I have but followed when I have done 
well or wisely. If ever this imperfect record 
of my feelings towards him should reach his 
eyes, let it remind him of one who never thinks 
of him but with gratitude and veneration — 
of one who would more gladly boast of having 
been his pupil, if, by more closely following his 
injunctions, he could reflect any honour upon 
his instructor. 

[*"' Don't pretend to more ignorance than 
you have, Mr Northerton; I suppose you have 
• heard of the Greeks and Trojans, though, per- 
haps, you have never read Pope's Homer.' — 
'D — n Homo with all my heart-,' says Norther- 
ton: 'I have the marks of him . . . yet. 
There's Thomas of our regiment always carries 
a Homo in his pocket.'" — The History of 
Tom Jones, by H. Fielding, vii. 12.] 



By the impatience of my early thought, 
That, with the freshness wearing out 

before 
My mind could relish what it might 

have sought. 
If free to choose, I cannot now restore 
Its health — but what it then detested, 

still abhor. 



LXXVII. 

Then farewell, Horace — whom I hated 

so. 
Not for thy faults,^ but, mine: it is a 

/curse ', \ , ..'■V V'^ 

o understknd, not feel thy lyric flow, 
po comprehend, but never love thy 
/ verse ; 

Although no deeper Moralist rei.earse 
Our little life, nor Bard prescribe his 

art. 
Nor livelier Satirist the conscience 

pierce, 
Awakening without wounding the 

touched heart, 
Yet fare thee well — upon Soracte's 
ridge we part. . r ■ 

t LXXVIII. ^h^ t^b' 

Oh, Rome ! my Countrv ! City of the 

Soul ! 
The orphans of the heart must turn to 

thee. 
Lone Mother of dead Empires! and 

control 
In their shut breasts their petty misery. 
What are our woes and sufferance? 

Come and see 
The cypress — hear the owl — and 

plod your way 
O'er steps of broken thrones and tem- 
ples — Ye ! 
Whose agonies are evils of a day — 
A world is at our feet as fragile as our 

clay. 

LXXIX. 

The Niobe of nations ! there she stands. 

Childless and crownless, in her voice- 
less woe; 

An empty urn within her withered 
hands, 

Whose holy dust was scattered long 
ago; 



Canto iv.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



267 



The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes 
now ; ^ 

The very sepulchres lie tenantless 

Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou 
flow, 

Old Tiber ! through a marble wilder- 
ness ? 

Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle 
her distress.^ 



The Goth, the Christian — Time — 

War — Flood, and Fire, 
Have dealt upon the seven-hilled City's 

pride; 
She saw her glories star by star expire. 
And up the steep barbarian Monarchs 

ride. 
Where the car climbed the Capitol; far 

and wdde 
Temple and tower went down, nor left a 

site: — 
Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the 

void, 
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar 

Hght, 
And say, "here was, or is," where all is 

doubly night? 

LXXXI. 

The double night of ages, and of her, 
Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath 

wrapt and wrap 
All round us; we but feel our way to err: 
The Ocean hath his chart, the Stars 

their map. 
And Knowledge spreads them on her 

ample lap; 
But Rome is as the desert — where we 

steer 

' [The tomb of the Scipios, by the Porta 
Latina, was discovered by the brothers Sassi, 
in May, 1780. It consists of "several chambers 
excavated in the tufa." One of the larger 
chambers contained the famous sarcophagus 
of L. Scipio Barbatus, and when opened, the 
skeleton was found to be entire. The bones 
were collected and removed by Angelo Quirini 
.0 his villa at Padua.] 

' [The reference is to the historical inunda- 
tinns of the Tiber, of which a hundred and 
thirty-two have been recorded, from the founda- 
tion of the chy down to December, 1870, when 
the river rose to fifty-six feet — thirty feet above 
its normal level.] 



Stumbling o'er recollections; now we 

clap 
Our hands, and cry "Eureka!" "it is 

clear" ■ — 
When but some false Mirage of ruin 

rises near. 



Alas ! the lofty city ! and, alas. 

The trebly hundred triumphs ! ^ and 

the day 
When Brutus made the dagger's edge 

surpass 
The Conqueror's sword in bearing 

fame away ! 
Alas, for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay. 
And Livy's pictured page ! — but these 

shall be 
Her resurrection; all beside — decay. 
Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see 
That brightness in her eye she bore 

when Rome was free ! 



Oh, thou, whose chariot rolled on 

Fortune's wheel. 
Triumphant Sylla ! ^ Thou, who didst 

subdue 

' Orosius gives 320 for the number of triumphs 
[i.e. from Romulus to the double triumph of 
Vespasian and Titus {Hist., vii. 9)]. He is 
followed by Panvinius; and Panvinius by Mr 
Gibbon and the modern writers. 

2 Certainly, were it not for these two traits in 
the life of Sylla, alluded to in this stanza, we 
should regard him as a monster unredeemed by 
any admirable quality. The atonement of his 
voluntary resignation of empire may perhaps be 
accepted by us, as it seems to have satisfied the 
Romans, who if they had not respected must 
have destroyed him. There could be no mean, 
no division of opinion; they must have all 
thought, like Eucrates, that what had appeared 
ambition was a love of glory, and that what had 
been mistaken for pride was a real grandeur of 
soul. — (" Seigneur, vous changez toutes mes 
idees, de la faijon dont je vous vols agir. Je 
croyois que vous aviez de 1 'ambition, mais 
aucun amour pour la gloire; je voyois bien que 
votre ame etoit haute; mais je ne soup^onnis pas 
qu'elle fut grande." -;- Dialogue de Sylla et 
d'Eucrate.) Considerations . . . de la Grandeur 
des Romains, etc., Paris, 1795, ii- 219. By 
Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu. 

[Stanza Ixx.xiii. indicates the following events 
in the life of Sulla. In B.C. 81 he assumed the 
name of Felix (or, according to Plutarch, 
Epaphroditus, Piut., Vitce, 1812, iv. 287), 
(line i). Five years before this, b.c. 86, during 
I the consulship of Marius and Cinna, his party 



268 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



Thy country's foes ere thou wouldst 

pause to feel 
The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap 

the due 
Of hoarded vengeance till thine Eagles 

flew 
O'er prostrate Asia; — thou, who with 

thy frown 
Annihilated senates; — Roman, too, 
With all thy vices — for thou didst lay 

down 
With an atoning smile a more than 

earthly crown, 

LXXXIV, 

Thy dictatorial wreath — couldst thou 

divine 
To what would one day dwindle that 

which made 
Thee more than mortal? and that so 

supine. 
By aught than Romans, Rome should 

thus be laid ? — 
She who was named Eternal, and 

arrayed 
Her warriors but to conquer — she who 

veiled 
Earth with her haughty shadow, and 

displayed. 
Until the o'er-canopied horizon failed. 
Her rushing wings — Oh ! she who was 

Almighty hailed ! 



Sylla was first of victors; but our own. 
The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell ! — 

he 
Too swept oflf senates while he hewed 

the throne 
Down to a block — immortal rebel ! 

See 
What crimes it costs to be a moment 

free, 
And famous through all ages! but 

beneath 
His fate the moral lurks of destiny; 

had been overthrown, and his regulations an- 
nulled; but he declined to return to Italy until 
he had brought the war against Mithridates to 
a successful conclusion, B.C. 83 {lines 3-6). 
In B.C. 81 he was appointed dictator {line 7), 
and B.C. 70 he resigned his dictatorship and 
retired into private life {line 9).] 



His day of double victory and 

death 
Beheld him win two realms, and happier 

yield his breath.^ 

LXXXVI. 

The third of the same Moon whose 
former course 

Had all but crowned him, on the self- 
same day 

Deposed him gently from his throne of 
force, 

And laid him with the Earth's preced- 
ing clay. 

And showed not Fortune thus how 
fame and sway. 

And all we deem delightful, and con- 
sume 

Our souls to compass through each 
arduous way. 

Are in her eyes less happy than the 
tomb? 

Were they but so in Man's, how dif- 
ferent were his doom ! 

LXXXVII. 

And thou, dread Statue ! ^ yet existent 

in 
The austerest form of naked majesty — 
Thou who beheldest, 'mid the assas- 
sins' din. 
At thy bathed base the bloody Caesar 

lie. 
Folding his robe in dying dignity — 
An offering to thine altar from the 

Queen 
Of gods and men, great Nemesis ! did 

he die. 
And thou, too, perish, Pompey? have 

ye been 
Victors of countless kings, or puppets of 

a scene? 



' On the 3rd of September Cromwell gained 
the victory of Dunbar [1650]; a year afterwards 
he obtained "his crowning mercy" of Worcester 
[1651]; and a few years after [1658], on the same 
day, which he had ever esteemed the most fortu- 
nate for him, died. 

^ [The statue of Pompey in the Sala dell' 
Udinanza of the Palazzo Spada is no doubt a 
portrait, and belongs to the close of the Re- 
publican period. It cannot, however, with any 
certainty be identified with the statue in the 
Curia, at whose base "great Csesar fell."] 



Canto iv.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



269 



LXXXVIII. 

And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of 

Rome ! 
She-wolf! whose brazen-imaged dugs 

impart 
The milk of conquest yet within the 

dome 
Where, as a monument of antique art, 
Thou standest : — Mother of the mighty 

heart, 
Which the great Founder sucked from 

thy wild teat, 
Scorched by the Roman Jove's ethereal 

dart, 
And thy limbs black with lightning — 

dost thou yet 
Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy 

fond charge forget? 

LXXXIX. 

Thou dost; — but all thy foster-babes 

are dead — 
The men of iron — and the World 

hath reared 
Cities from out their sepulchres: men 

bled 
In imitation of the things they feared. 
And fought and conquered, and the 

same course steered, 
At apish distance; but as yet none have, 
Nor could, the same supremacy have 

neared. 
Save one vain Man, who is not in the 

grave — 
But, vanquished by himself, to his own 

slaves a slave — 

xc. 

The fool of false dominion — and a 

kind 
Of bastard Caesar, following him of old 
With steps unequal; for the Roman's 

mind 
Was modelled in a less terrestrial mould, 
With passions fiercer, yet a judgment 

cold. 
And an immortal instinct which re- 
deemed 
The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold — 
Alcides with the distaff now he seemed 
At Cleopatra's feet, — and now him- 
self he beamed, 



xci. 

And came — and saw — and con- 
quered ! But the man 
Who would have tamed his Eagles 

down to flee. 
Like a trained falcon, in the Gallic van. 
Which he, in sooth, long led to Victory, 
With a deaf heart which never seemed 

to be 
A listener to itself, was strangely 

framed ; 
With but one weakest weakness — 

Vanity — 
Coquettish in ambition — still he 

aimed — 
At what? can he avouch, or answer 

what he claimed? 



And would be all or nothing — nor 

could wait 
For the sure grave to level him; few 

years 
Had fixed him with the Caesars in his 

fate. 
On whom we tread: For this the con- 
queror rears 
The Arch of Triumph ! and for this 

the tears 
And blood of earth flow on as they 

have flowed. 
An universal Deluge, which appears 
Without an Ark for wretched Man's 

abode, 
And ebbs but to reflow ! — Renew thy 

rainbow, God ! 



W^hat from this barren being do we 

reap ? ^ 
Our senses narrow, and our reason frail, 

' " Omnes pcene veteres; qui nihil cog- 

nosci, nihil percipi, nihil sciri posse dixerunt; 
angustos sensus, imbecillos animos, brevia 
curricula vitae, et (ut Democritus) in pro^"undo 
veritatem esse demersam; opinionibus et in- 
stitutis omnia teneri; nihil veritati relinqui: 
deinceps omnia tenebris circumfusa esse dix- 
erunt." — Academ., lib. 1. cap. 12. The 
eighteen hundred years which have elapsed 
since Cicero wrote this, have not removed any 
of the imperfections of humanity: and the 
complaints of the ancient philosophers may, 
without injustice or affectation, be transcribed 
in a poem written yesterday. 



270 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



Life short, and truth a gem which loves 
the deep, 

And all things weighed in Custom's 
falsest scale; 

Opinion an Omnipotence, — whose veil 

Mantles the earth with darkness, until 
right 

And wrong are accidents, and Men 
grow pale 

Lest their own judgments should be- 
come too bright, 

And their free thoughts be crimes, and 
Earth have too much light. 



And thus they plod in sluggish misery, 
Rotting from sire to son, and age to age. 
Proud of their trampled nature and so 

die. 
Bequeathing their hereditary rage 
To the new race of inborn slaves, who 

wage 
War for their chains, and rather than be 

free. 
Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage 
Within the same Arena where they see 
Their fellows fall before, like leaves of 

the same tree. 



^^>^C 



xcv. 



^-' 



^I speak not of nitn''s creeds — they rest 

between 
Man and his maker — but of things al- 
lowed, 
'Averred, and known, and daily, 

hourly seen — 
The yoke that is upon us doubly bowed. 
And the intent of Tyranny avowed. 
The edict of Earth's rulers, who are 

grown 
The apes of him who humbled once the 

proud. 
And shook them from their slumbers on 

the throne; 
Too glorious, were this all his mighty 

arm had done. 



\ Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered 
\ be, 

\ And Freedom find no Champion and 
I no Child, 



Such as Columbia saw arise when she 
Sprung forth a Pallas, armed and un- 

defiled ? 
Or must such minds be nourished in the 

wild, 
Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the 

roar 
Of cataracts,\ where nursing Nature 

smiled 
On infant Washington ? Has Earth no 

more 
Such seeds within her breast, or Europe 

nosuchshoreP {^^J^^^ 

. xcvii. ^LM2^ 

'But France got drunk with blood to 

vomit crime; 
And fatal have her Saturnalia been 
To Freedom's cause, in every age and 

clime; 
Because the deadly days which we have 

seen. 
And vile Ambition, that built up be- 
tween 
Man and his hopes an adamantine 

wall. 
And the base pageant ^ last upon the 

scene. 
Are grown the pretext for the eternal 

thrall 
Which nips Life's tree, and dooms man's 

worst — his second fall. 

XCVIII. 

Yet, P'reedom ! yet thy banner, torn but 

flying, 
Streams like the thunder-storm against 

the wind ! 
Thy trumpet voice, though broken now 

and dying. 
The loudest still the Tempest leaves 

behind; 
Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and 

the rind. 
Chopped by the axe, looks rough and 

little worth. 
But the sap lasts, — and still the seed 

we find 

' [By the "base pageant" Byron refers to the 
Congress of Vienna (September, 181 5); the 
"Holy Alliance" (September 26), into which 
the Duke of Wellington would not enter; and 
the Second Treaty of Paris, November 20, 1815.] 



Canto iv.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



271 



Sown deep, even in the bosom of the 

North; 
So shall a better spring less bitter fruit 

bring forth. 

xcix. 

There is a stern round tower of other 

days/ 
Firm as a fortress, with its fence of 

stone. 
Such as an army's baffled strength 

delays. 
Standing with half its battlements 

alone. 
And with two thousand years of ivy 

grown, 
The garland of Eternity, where wave 
The green leaves over all thy Time 

o'erthrown; — 
What was this tower of strength? 

within its cave 
What treasure lay so locked, so hid? — 

A woman's grave. 



But who was she, the Lady of the dead, 
Tombed in a palace? Was she chaste 

and fair? 
Worthy a king's — or more — a Ro- 
man's bed? 
What race of Chiefs and Heroes did she 

bear? 
What daughter of her beauties was the 

heir? 
How lived — how loved — how died 

she? Was she not 
So honoured — and conspicuously there. 
Where meaner relics must not dare to 

rot, 
Placed to commemorate a more than 

mortal lot? 

' Alluding to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, 
called Capo di Bove. [Four words, and two 
initials, compose the whole of the transcription 
which, whatever was its ancient position, is 
now placed in front of this towering sepulchre: 
"CvEciLi^. O. Crettci. F. Metella. Crassi." 

"The Savelli family were in possession of the 
fortress in 13 12, and the German army of Henry 
VII. marched from Rome, attacked, took, and 
burnt it, but were unable to make themselves, 
by force, masters of the citadel — that is, of the 
tomb." The "fence of stone" refers to the 
quadrangular basement of concrete, on which 
the circular tower rests. (See Hobhouse's 
Hist. Illust., pp. 200, 202.)] 



CI. 

Was she as those who love their lords, 

or they 
Who love the lords of others? such 

have been 
Even in the olden time, Rome's annals 

say. 
Was she a matron of Cornelia's 

mien. 
Or the light air of Egypt's graceful 

Queen, 
Profuse of joy — or 'gainst it did she 

war. 
Inveterate in virtue? Did she lean 
To the soft side of the heart, or wisely 

bar 
Love from amongst her griefs ? — for 

such the affections are. 

CII. 

Perchance she died in youth — it may 

be, bowed 
With woes far heavier than the ponder- 
ous tomb 
That weighed upon her gentle dust: a 

cloud 
Might gather o'er her beauty, and a 

gloom 
In her dark eye, prophetic of the 

doom 
Heaven gives its favourites ^ — early 

death — yet shed 
A sunset charm around her, and 

illume 
With hectic light, the Hesperus of the 

dead. 
Of her consuming cheek the autumnal 

leafiike red. 



Perchance she died in age — surviving 

all, 
Charms — kindred — children — 

with the silver grey 
On her long tresses, which might yet 

recall. 
It may be, still a something of the 

day 

' 'Ov oi 9eol ({)i\ovcnv, a.no9vri<TKei veo? • 
To yap 0avelv ovk alaxpov, a\K' a'i.(TXP'>)'i 
daveiv. 

Gnomici Poetce Graci, R. F. P. Brunck, 1784, 
p. 231. 



272 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



When they were braided, and her proud 
array 

And lovely form were envied, praised, 
and eyed 

By Rome — But whither would Con- 
jecture stray ? ^ 

Thus much alone we know — Metella 
died, 

The wealthiest Roman's wife: Behold 
his love or pride! 



I know not why — but standing thus 

by thee 
It seems as if I had thine inmate 

known. 
Thou Tomb ! and other days come 

back on me 
With recollected music, though the 

tone 
Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy 

groan 
Of dying thunder on the distant 

wind; 
Yet, could I seat me by this ivied 

stone 
Till I had bodied, forth the heated 

mind. 
Forms from the floating wreck which 

Ruin leaves behind; 



cv. 

And from the planks, far shattered o'er 

the rocks, 
Built me a little bark of hope, once 

more 
To battle with the Ocean and the 

shocks 
Of the loud breakers, and the ceaseless 

roar 
Which rushes on the solitary shore 
Where all lies foundered that was ever 

dear: 
But could I gather from the wave-worn 

store 
Enough for my rude boat, — where 

should I steer? 
There woos no home, nor hope, nor 

life, save what is here. 

» [The wealth of Crassus was proverbial, as 
his agnomen, Dives, testifies.] 



Then let the Winds howl on! their 

harmony 
Shall henceforth be my music, and the 

Night 
The sound shall temper with the owlets' 

cry. 
As I now hear them, in the fading light 
Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native 

site, 
Answering each other on the Pala- 
tine, 
With their large eyes, all glistening grey 

and bright, 
And sailing pinions. — Upon such a 

shrine 
What are our petty griefs ? — let me 

not number mine. 

CVII. 

Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower 

grown 
Matted and massed together — hillocks 

heaped 
On what were chambers — arch 

crushed, column strown 
In fragments — choked up vaults, and 

frescos steeped 
In subterranean damps, where the owl 

peeped. 
Deeming it midnight: — Temples — 

Baths — or Halls? 
Pronounce who can: for all that Learn- 
ing reaped 
From her research hath been, that 

these are walls — 
Behold the Imperial Mount ! 'tis thus 

the Mighty falls.^ 



' The Palatine is one mass of ruins, partic- 
ularly on the side towards the Circus Maximus. 
The very soil is formed of crumbled brickwork. 
Nothing has been told — nothing can be told — • 
to satisfy the belief of any but the Roman anti- 
quary. [The Palatine was the site of the suc- 
cessive "Domus'\of Augustus, Tiberius, and 
Caligula, and of the Domus Transitoria of Nero, 
which perished when Rome was burnt. Later 
emperors — Vespasian, Domitian, Septimius 
Severus — added to the splendour of the name- 
giving Palatine. Systematic excavations during 
the last sixty years have laid bare much that was 
hidden, and learning and research have in parts 
revealed the "obliterated plan"; but, in 1817, 
the "mass of ruins" defied the guesses of anti- 
quarians.] 



Canto iv.] 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



'■73 



There is the moral of all human tales; ^ 
'Tis but the same rehearsal of the 

past, 
First Freedom, and then Glory — 

when that fails, 
Wealth — Vice — Corruption, — Bar- 
barism at last: — 
And History, with all her volumes 

vast. 
Hath but one page, — 'tis better written 

here. 
Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus 

amassed 
All treasures, all delights, that Eye or 

Ear, 
Heart, Soul could seek — Tongue ask 

— Away with words ! draw near, 



Admire — exult — despise — laugh — 

weep, — for here 
There is such matter for all feeling: — 

Man! 
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and 

tear. 
Ages and Realms are crowded in this 

span. 
This mountain, w^hose obliterated plan 
The pyramid of Empires pinnacled. 
Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van 

^ The author of the Lije oj Cicero, speaking of 
the opinion entertained of Britain by that orator 
and his contemporary Romans, has the follow- 
ing eloquent passage: — "From their railleries 
of this kind, on the barbarity and misery of our 
island, one cannot help reflecting on the sur- 
prising fate and revolutions of kingdoms; how 
Rome, once the mistress of the world, the seat of 
arts, empire, and glory, now lies sunk in sloth, 
ignorance, and poverty; enslaved to the most 
cruel as well as to the most contemptible of 
tyrants, superstition and religious imposture; 
while this remote country, anciently the jest 
and contempt of the polite Romans, is become 
the happy seat of liberty, plenty, and letters; 
flpurishing in all the arts and refinements of 
civil life; yet running, perhaps, the same course 
which Rome itself had run before it, from 
virtuous industry to wealth; from wealth to 
luxury; from luxury to an impatience of dis- 
cipline and corruption of morals: till, by a 
total degeneracy and loss of virtue, being grown 
ripe for destruction, it fall a prey at last to some 
hardy oppressor, and, with the loss of liberty, 
losing everything that is valuable, sinks gradually 
again into its original barbarism." (See Lije 
of M. TtUlius Cicero, by Conyers Middleton, 
D.D., 1823, sect. vi. vol. i. pp; 399, 400.) 



Till the Sun's rays with added flame 

were filled ! 
Where are its golden roofs ? ^ where 

those who dared to build? 

ex. 

Tully was not so eloquent as thou, 

Thou nameless column ^ with the 
buried base ! 

What are the laurels of the Caesar's 
brow? 

Crown me with ivy from his dwelling- 
place. 

Whose arch or pillar meets me in the 
face, 

Titus or Trajan's? No — 'tis that of 
Time: 

Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth dis- 
place 

Scoffing; and apostolic statues ^ climb 

To crush the Imperial urn, whose ashes 
slept sublime, 



Buried in air, the deep blue sky of 

Rome, 
And looking to the stars: they had 

contained 
A Spirit which with these would find a 

home. 
The last of those who o'er the whole 

earth reigned, 

' [The "golden roofs" were those of Neroe's 
Do)77us Aurea.] 

' [By the "nameless" column Byron means 
the column of Phocas, in the Forum. But, as 
he may have known, it had ceased to be name- 
less when he visited Rome in 1817. Hobhouse 
{Hist. Illust., pp. 240-242) records the dis- 
covery of an inscription, on the base which 
attributes the erection of the column to the 
Exarch Smaragdus, in honour of the Emperor 
Phocas (a.d. 608).] 

3 The column of Trajan is surmounted by 
St Peter; that of Aurelius by St Paul. 

[The column was excavated by Paul III. in 
the sixteenth century. In 1588 Sixtus V. re- 
placed the bronze statue of Trajan holding a 
gilded globe, which had originally surmounted 
the column, bv a statue of St Peter, in gilt 
bronze. The legend was that Trajan's ashes 
were contained in the globe. They are said 
to have been deposited by Hadrian ma golden 
urn in a vault under the column. It is certain 
that when Sixtus V. opened the chamber he 
found it emptv. A medal was cast in honour 
of the erection of the new statue, inscribed with 
the words of the Magnificat, '' Exaltaint 
humiles."] 



2 74 



CHI IDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



The Roman Globe — for, after, none 
sustained, 

But yielded back his conquests: — he 
was more 

Than a mere Alexander, and, un- 
stained 

With household blood and wine, 
serenely wore 

His sovereign virtues — still we Tra- 
jan's ^ name adore. 

CXII. 

Where is the rock of Triumph,^ the 
high place 

Where Rome embraced her heroes? 
where the steep 

Tarpeian ? — fittest goal of Treason's 
race, 

The Promontory whence the Traitor's 
Leap 

Cured all ambition? Did the con- 
querors heap 

» Trajan was proverbially the best of the 
Roman princes; and it would be easier to find 
a sovereign uniting exactly the opposite char- 
acteristics, than one possessed of all the happy 
qualities ascribed to this emperor. "When 
he mounted the throne," says the historian 
Dion, "he was strong in body, he was vigorous 
in mind; age had impaired none of his faculties; 
he was altogether free from envy and from 
detraction; he honoured all the good, and he 
advanced them: and on this account they 
could not be the objects of his fear, or of his hate ; 
he never listened to informers; he gave not way 
to his anger; he abstained equally from unfair 
exactions and unjust punishments; he had 
rather be loved as a man than honoured as a 
sovereign ; he was affable with his people, 
respectful to the senate, and universally beloved 
by both; he inspired none with dread but the 
enemies of his country." (See Eutrop., Hist. 
Rom. Brev., lib. viii. cap. v.; Dion, Hist. 
Rom., lib. Ixiii. caps, vi., vii.) 

= [The archaeologists of Byron's day were 
unable to fix the exact site of the temple of 
Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline. 
Modern research identifies the site of the central 
temple and its adjacent wings, with the site of 
the Palazzo Caffarelli and its dependencies 
which occupy the south-east section of the Mons 
Capitolinus. There are still, however, rival 
Tarpeian Rocks — one on the western edge 
of the hill facing the Tiber, and the other on 
the south-east towards the Palatine. But if 
Dionysius, who describes the "Traitor's Leap" 
as being in sight of the Forum, is to be credited 
the "actual precipice" from which traitors 
(and other criminals, e.g. "bearers of false 
witness") were thrown must have been some- 
where on the southern and now less precipitous 
escarpment of the mount.] 



Their spoils here? Yes; and in yon 

field below, ri 

A thousand years of silenced factions ^ 

sleep — 
The Forum, where the immortal accents 

glow, 
And still the eloquent air breathes — 

burns with Cicero ! 



The field of Freedom — Faction — 

Fame — and Blood: 
Here a proud people's passions were 

exhaled. 
From the first hour of Empire in the 

bud 
To that when further worlds to conquer 

failed; 
But long before had Freedom's face j 

been veiled, f; 

And Anarchy assumed her attributes; ' 
Till every lawless soldier, who assailed, 
Trod on the trembling Senate's slavish 

mutes, 
Or raised the venal voice of baser pros- 
titutes. 

cxiv. 

Then turn we to her latest Tribune's 

name, 
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to 

thee, 
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame — 
The friend of Petrarch — hope of 

Italy — 
Rienzi ! last of Romans ! While the 

tree 
Of Freedom's withered trunk puts 

forth a leaf, 
Even for thy tomb a garland let it be — 
The Forum's champion, and the peo- 
ple's chief — 
Her . new-born Numa thou — with 

reign, alas ! too brief. 

cxv. 

Egeria ! sweet creation of some heart 
Which found no mortal resting-place so 

fair 
As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou 

art 
Or wert, — a young Aurora of the air, 



Canto iv.] 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



275 



The nympholepsy ^ of some fond 

despair — - 
Or — it might be — a Beauty of the 

earth, 
Who found a more than common 

Votary there 
Too much adoring — whatsoe'er thy 

birth, 
Thou wert a beautiful Thought, and 

softly bodied forth. 

cxvi. 

The mosses of thy Fountain still are 

sprinkled 
With thine Elysian water-drops; the face 
Of thy cave-guarded Spring, with years 

unwrinkled. 
Reflects the meek-eyed Genius of the 

place, 
Whose green, wild margin now no more 

erase 
Art's works; nor must the delicate 

waters sleep 
Prisoned in marble — bubbling from 

the base 
Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap 
The rill runs o'er — and, round — 

fern, flowers, and ivy, creep 

cxvii. '^ I*' -* 

Fantastically tangled: the" gree n hills 
Are clothed with early blossoms — 

through the grass 
The quick-eyed Uzard rustles — and 

the bills 
Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye 

pass; 
Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their 

class, 
Implore the pausing step, and with their 

dyes 
Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass; 
The sweetness of the Violet's deep blue 

eyes, — 

Kissed by the breath of heaven, seems 

coloured by its skies. 

' [The word "nympholepsy" may be para- 
phrased as "ecstatic vision." The Greeks 
feigned that one who had seen a nymph was 
henceforth possessed by her image, and beside 
himself with longing for an impossible ideal. 
Compare stanza cxxii. Hne 7 — 

"The unreached Paradise of our despair."] 



CXVIII. 

Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted 

cover, 
Egeria ! thy all heavenly bosom beating 
For the far footsteps of thy mortal 

lover; 
The p urple Midnigh t veiled that mystic 

meeting 
With her most starry canopy — and 

seating 
Thyself by thine adorer, what befel? 
This cave was surely shaped out for the 

greeting 
Of an enamoured Goddess, and the 

cell 
Haunted by holy Love — the earliest 

Oracle ! 

cxix. 

And didst thou not, thy breast to his 

replying. 
Blend a celestial with a human heart; 
And Love, which dies as it was born, in 

sighing, 
Share with immortal transports? could 

thine art 
Make them indeed immortal, and 

impart 
The purity of Heaven to earthly joys. 
Expel the venom and not blunt the 

dart — 
The dull satiety which all destroys — 
And root from out the soul the deadly 

weed which clovs? 



Alas ! our young affections run to 

waste. 
Or water but the desert ! whence arise 
But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of 

haste. 
Rank at the core, though tempting to 

the eyes. 
Flowers whose wild odours breathe but 

agonies. 
And trees whose gums are poison; 

such the plants 
Which spring beneath her steps as 

Passion flies 
O'er the World's wilderness, and vainly 

pants 
For some celestial fruit forbidden to our 

wants. 



276 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



cxxi. 
Oh, Love! no habitant of earth thou 

art — 
An unseen Seraph, we believe in thee, — 
A faith whose martyrs are the broken 

heart, — 
But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall 

see 
The naked eye, thy form, as it should 

be; 
The mind hath made thee, as it peopled 

Heaven, 
Even vv^ith its own desiring phantasy. 
And to a thought such shape and image 

given. 
As haunts the unquenched soul — 

parched — wearied — wrung — 

and riven. 

CXXII. 

Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, 
And fevers into false creation : — where, 
Where are the forms the sculptor's soul 

hath seized? 
In him alone. Can Nature show so 

fair? 
Where are the charms and virtues which 

we dare 
Conceive in boyhood and pursue as 

men. 
The unreached Paradise of our despair. 
Which o'er-informs the pencil and the 

pen. 
And ovei^-^w^r:: th" page where it would 

bloom again? 

CXXIII. 

Who loves, raves — 'tis youth's frenzy 

— but the cure 
Is bitterer -still, as charm by charm un- 
winds 
Which robed our idols, and we see too 

sure 
Nor Worth nor Beauty dwells from out 

the mind's 
Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds — 
The fatal spell, and still it draws us on. 
Reaping the whirlwind from the oft- 
sown winds; 
The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun. 
Seems ever near the prize — wealthiest 
when most undone. 



CXXIV. 

We wither from our youth, we gasp 

away — 
Sick — sick; unfound the boon — 

unslaked the thirst, 
Though to the last, in verge of our 

decay. 
Some phantom lures, such as we sought 

at first — 
But all too late, — so are we doubly 

curst. 
Love, Fame, Ambition, Avarice — 'tis 

the same. 
Each idle — and all ill — and none the 

worst — 
For all are meteors with a different 

name. 
And Death the sable smoke where 

vanishes the flame. 



Few — none — find what they love or 

could have loved. 
Though accident, bUnd contact, and 

the strong 
Necessity of loving, have removed 
Antipathies — • but to recur, ere long. 
Envenomed with irrevocable wrong; 
And Circumstance, that unspiritual God 
And Miscreator, makes and helps along 
Our coming evils with a crutch-like 

rod, 
Whose touch turns Hope to dust, — 

the dust we all have trod. 



Our life is a false nature — 'tis not in 
The harmony of things, — this hard 

decree. 
This uneradicable taint of Sin, 
This boundless Upas, this all-blasting 

tree. 
Whose root is Earth — whose leaves and 

branches be 
The skies which rain their plagues on 

men like dew — 
Disease, death, bondage — all the woes 

we see, 
And worse, the woes we see not — 

which throb through 
The immedicable soul, with heart-aches 

ever new. 



Canto iv. 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



m 



CXXVII. 

Yet let us ponder boldly — 'tis a base 
Abandonment of reason ^ to resign 
Our right of thought — our last and 

only place 
Of refuge; this, at least, shall still be 

mine: 
Though from our birth the faculty 

divine 
Is chained and tortured — cabined, 

cribbed, confined, 
And bred in darkness, lest the Truth 

should shine 
Too brightly on the unprepared mind, 
The beam pours in — for Time and 

Skill will couch the bUnd. 

CXXVIII. 

Arches on arches! as it were that 

Rome, 
Collecting the chief trophies of her 

line, 
Would build up all her triumphs in one 

dome. 
Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams 

shine 
As 'twere its natural torches — for 

divine 
Should be the light which streams here, 

— to illume 

' "At all events," says the author of the 
Academical Questions [Sir William Drummond], 
"I trust, whatever may be the fate of my own 
speculations, that philosophy will regain that 
estimation which it ought to possess. The free 
and philosophic spirit of our nation has been the 
theme of admiration to the world. This was the 
proud distinction of Englishmen, and the lu- 
minous source of all their glory. Shall we then 
forget the manly and dignified sentiments of our 
ancestors, to prate in the language of the mother 
or the nurse about our good old prejudices? 
This is not the wav to defend the cause of truth. 
It was not thus that our fathers maintained it 
in the brilliant periods of our history. Prej- 
udice may be trusted to guard the outworks 
for a short space of time, while reason slumbers 
in the citadel; but if the latter sink into a 
lethargy, the former will quicklv erect a standard 
for herself. Philosophy, wisdom, and liberty 
support each other: he, who will not reason, 
is a bigot; he, who cannot, is a fool; and he, 
who dares not, is a slave." — Vol. i. pp. xiv., xv. 

[For Sir William Drummond (1770-1828), 
see Letters, i8g8, ii. 79, note 3. Byron advised 
Lady Blessington to read Academical Questions 
(1805), and instanced the last sentence of this 
passage "as one of the best in our language" 
{Conversations, etc., 1834, pp. 238, 239).] 



This long-explored but still exhaustless 

mine 
Of Contemplation; and the azure 

gloom 
Of an Italian night, where the deep 

skies assume 

cxxix. 

Hues which have words and speak to ye 

of Heaven, 
Floats o'er this vast and wondrous 

monument. 
And shadows forth its glory. There is 

given 
Unto the things of earth, which Time 

hath bent, 
A Spirit's feeling, and where he hath 

leant 
His hand, but broke his scythe, there is 

a power 
And magic in the ruined battlement, 
For which the Palace of the present 

hour 
Must yield its pomp, and wait till Ages 

are its dower. 

cxxx. 

Oh, Time! the Beautifier of the 
dead, 

Adorner of the ruin ^ — Comforter 

And only Healer when the heart hath 
bled; — 

Time ! the Corrector where our judg- 
ments err. 

The test of Truth, Love — sole phi- 
losopher. 

For all beside are sophists — from thv 
thrift. 

Which never loses though it doth 
defer — 

Time, the Avenger! unto thee I lift 

My hands, and eyes, and heart, and 
crave of thee a gift: 

' [When Byron visited Rome, and for long 
afterwards, the ruins of the Colosseum were clad 
with a multitude of shrubs and wild flowers. 
Books were written on the "Flora of the Coli- 
seum," which were said to number 420 species. 
But, says Professor Lanciani, "These materials 
for a hortus siccus, so dear to the visitors of cur 
ruins, were destroyed by Rosa in 1871, and the 
ruins scraped and shaven clean, it being feared 
by him that the action of roots would accelerate 
the disintegration of the great structure."] 



278 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



Amidst this wreck, where thou hast 

made a shrine 
And temple more divinely desolate — 
Among thy mightier offerings here are 

mine, 
Ruins of years — though few, yet full of 

fate : — 
If thou hast ever seen me too elate, 
Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne 
Good, and reserved my pride against the 

hate 
Which shall not whelm me, let me not 

have worn 
This iron in my soul in vain — shall 

they not mourn? 

CXXXII. 

And Thou, who never yet of human 

wrong 
Left the unbalanced scale, great Neme- 
sis! 
Here, where the ancient paid thee 

homage long — 
Thou, who didst call the Furies from 

the abyss. 
And round Orestes bade them howl and 

hiss 
For that unnatural retribution — just, 
Had it but been from hands less near — 

in this 
Thy former realm, I call thee from the 

dust! 
Dost thou not hear my heart ? — 

Awake! thou shalt, and must. 



It is not that I may not have incurred, 
For my ancestral faults or mine, the 

wound 
I bleed withal; and, had it been con- 
ferred 
With a just weapon, it had flowed un- 
bound ; 
But now my blood shall not sink in the 

ground — 
To thee I do devote it — Thou shalt take 
The vengeance, which shall yet be 

sought and found — 
Which if I have not taken for the sake — 
But let that pass — I sleep — but Thou 
shalt yet awake. 



cxxxiv. 

And if my voice break forth, 'tis not 

that now 
I shrink from what is suffered: let him 

speak 
Who hath beheld decline, upon my 

brow. 
Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it 

weak ; 
But in this page a record will I seek. 
Not in the air shall these my words dis- 
perse. 
Though I be ashes; a far hour shall 

wreak 
The deep prophetic fulness of this 

verse. 
And pile on human heads the mountain 

of my curse ! 



cxxxv. 



(Vfr^A^\ 



/That curse shall be Forgiveness. — 
Have I not — 

Hear me, my mother Earth ! behold it, 
Heaven ! — 

Have I not had to wrestle with my lot? 

Have I not suffered things to be for- 
given ? 

Have I not had my brain seared, my 
heart riven, 

Hopes sapped, name blighted, Life's 
life lied away? 

And only not to desperation driven, 

Because not altogether of such clay 

As rots into the souls of those whom I 
survey. 



From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy 
Have I not seen what human things 

could do? 
From the loud roar of foaming calumny 
To the small whisper of the as paltry 

few — 
And subtler venom of the reptile crew. 
The Janus glance of whose significant 

eye, 
Learning to lie with silence, would seem 

true — 
And without utterance, save the shrug 

or sigh, 
Deal round to happy fools its speechless 

obloquy. 



Canto iv.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



279 



But I have lived, and have not lived in 

vain: 
My mind may lose its force, my blood 

its fire, 
And my frame perish even in conquer- 
ing pain; 
But there is that within me which shall 

tire 
Torture and Time, and breathe when 

I expire; 
Something unearthly, which they deem 

not of, 
Like the remembered tone of a mute 

lyre, 
Shall on their softened spirits sink, and 

move 
In hearts all rocky now the late remorse 

of Love. 



The seal is set. — Now welcome, thou 

dread Power 
Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which 

here 
Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight 

hour 
With a deep awe, yet all distinct from 

fear; 
Thy haunts are ever where the dead 

walls rear 
Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene 
Derives from thee a sense so deep and 

clear 
That we become a part of what has been, 
And grow upon the spot — all-seeing 

but unseen. 

cxxxix. 

And here the buzz of eager nations ran 

In murmured pity, or loud-roared 
applause, 

As man was slaughtered by his fellow- 
man. 

And wherefore slaughtered? where- 
fore, but because 

Such were the bloody Circus' genial 
laws. 

And the imperial pleasure. — Where- 
fore not? 

What matters where we fall to fill the 
maws 



Of worms — on battle-plains or listed 

spot? 
Both are but theatres — where the chief 

actors rot. 



I see before me the Gladiator ^ lie: 
He leans upon his hand — his manly 

brow 
Consents to death, but conquers 

agony, 
And his drooped head sinks gradually 

low — 
And through his side the last drops, ebb- 
ing slow 
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by 

one, 
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and 

now 
The arena swims around him — he is 

gone, 
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which 

hailed the wretch who won. 

' Whether the wonderful statue which sug- 
gested this image be a laquearian gladiator, 
which, in spite of Winckelmann's criticism, has 
been stoutly maintained; or whether it be a 
Greek herald, as that great antiquary positively 
asserted; * or whether it is to be thought a 
Spartan or barbarian shield-bearer, according 
to the opinion of his Italian editor; it must 
assuredly seem a copy of that masterpiece of 
Ctesiiaus which represented "a wounded man 
dying, who perfectly expressed what there 
remained of life in him." Montfaucon and 
Maffei thought it the identical statue; but that 
statue was of bronze. The Gladiator was once 
in the Villa Ludovisi, and was bought by 
Clement XII. The right arm is an entire 
restoration of Michael Angelo. 

[There is no doubt that the statue of the 
"Dying Gladiator" represents a dying Gaul. 
It is to be compared with the once-named " Arria 
and Pa?tus" of the Villa Ludovisi, and with 
other sculptures in the museums of Venice, 
Naples, and Rome, representing "Gauls and 
Amazons lying fatally wounded, or still in the 
attitude of defending life to the last," which 
belong to the Pergamene school of the second 
century B.C.] 

* Either Polyphontes, herald of Lai'us, killed 
by Qidipus; or Kopreas, herald of Eurystheus, 
killed by the Athenians when he endeavoured 
to drag the Heraclidae from the altar of mercy, 
and in whose honour they instituted _ annual 
games, continued to the time of Hadrian; or 
Anthemocritus, the Athenian herald, killed by 
the Megarenses, who never recovered the 
impiety. [See Hist, of Ancient Art, translated 
by G. H, Lodge, 1881, ii. 207.] 



j8o 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



CXLI. 

He heard it, but he heeded not — his 

eyes 
Were with his heart — and that was far 

away ; 
He recked not of the hfe he lost nor 

prize, 
But where his rude hut by the Danube 

lay — 
There were his young barbarians all at 

play, 
There was their Dacian mother — he, 

their sire, 
Butchered to make a Roman holiday — 
All this rushed with his blood — Shall 

he expire 
And unavenged ? — Arise ! ye Goths, 

and glut your ire ! 

CXLII. 

But here, where Murder breathed her 

bloody steam; — 
And here, where buzzing nations choked 

the ways, 
And roared or murmured like a moun- 
tain stream 
Dashing or winding as its torrent strays; 
Here, where the Roman million's blame 

or praise 
Was Death or Life — the playthings of 

a crowd — 
My voice sounds much — and fall the 

stars' faint rays 
On the arena void — seats crushed — 

walls bowed — 
And galleries, where my steps seem 

echoes strangely loud. 

CXLIII. 

A Ruin — yet what Ruin ! from its 

mass 
Walls — palaces — half-cities, have been 

reared ; 
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye 

pass, 
And marvel where the spoil could have 

appeared. 
Hath it indeed been plundered, or but 

cleared ? 
Alas! developed, opens the decay, 
When the colossal fabric's form is 

neared; 



It will not bear the brightness of the day, 
Which streams too much on all — years 
— man — have reft away. 

>^^' ■ CXLiV. ^ -^ 

But when the rising moon begins to 

cHmb 
Its topmost arch, and gently pauses 

there — 
When the stars twinkle through the 

loops of Time, 
And the low night-breeze waves along 

the air 
The garland-forest, which the grey walls 

wear. 
Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's 

head — ^ 
When the light shines serene but doth 

not glare — 
Then in this magic circle raise the 

dead ; — 
Heroes have trod this spot — 'tis on 

their dust ye tread. 

CXLV. 

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome 

shall stand : ^ 
"When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall 

fall; 
"And when Rome falls — the World." 

From our own land 
Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this 

mighty wall 
In Saxon times, which we are wont to 

call 
Ancient; and these three mortal things 

are still 
On their foundations, and unaltered 

all — 



' Suetonius [Lib. i. cap. xlv.] informs us that 
Julius Caesar was particularly gratified by that 
decree of the senate which enabled him to wear 
a wreath of laurel on all occasions. He was 
anxious not to show that he was the con- 
queror of the world, but to hide that he was bald. 
A stranger at Rome would hardly have guessed 
at the motive, nor should we without the help of 
the historian. 

= This is quoted in the Decline and Fall of the 
Roman Empire, as a proof that the Coliseum 
was entire, when seen by the Anglo-Saxon 
pilgrims at the end of the seventh, or the begin- 
ning of the eighth, century. A notice on the 
Coliseum may be seen in the Historical Illus- 
trations, p. 263. 



Canto iv.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



281 



Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's 

skill — 
The World — the same wide den — of 

thieves, or what ye will. 



Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime — ^ 
Shrine of all saints and temple of all 

Gods, 
From Jove to Jesus — spared and blest 

by Time — 
Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods 
Arch — empire — each thing round thee 

— and Man plods 
His way through thorns to ashes — 

glorious Dome ! 
Shalt thou not last ? Time's scythe and 

Tyrants' rods 
Shiver upon thee — sanctuary and 

home 
Of Art and Piety — Pantheon ! — pride 

of Rome ! 

CXLVII. 

Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts ! 

Despoiled yet perfect ! with thy circle 
spreads 

A holiness appealing to all hearts; 

To Art a model — and to him who 
treads 

Rome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds 

Her light through thy sole aperture; to 
those 

Who worship, here are altars for their 
beads — 

And they who feel for Genius may re- 
pose 

Their eyes on honoured forms, whose 
busts around them close. ^ 



' "Though plundered of all its brass, except 
the ring which was necessary to preserve the 
aperture above; though exposed to repeated 
fires; though sometimes flooded by the river, 
and always open to the rain, no monument of 
equal antiquity is so well preserved as this 
rotundo. It passed with little alteration from 
the Pagan into the present worship; and so 
convenient were its niches for the Christian 
altar, that Michael Angelo, ever studious of 
ancient beauty, introduced their design as a 
model in the Catholic church." — Forsyth's 
Italy, 1816, p. 137. 

" The Pantheon has been made a receptacle 
for the busts of modern great, or, at least, dis- 
tinguished men. The flood of light which 



CXLVIII. 

There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear 

hght ' 
What do I gaze on ? Nothing — Look 

again ! 
Two forms are slowly shadowed on my 

sight — 
Two insulated phantoms of the brain: 
It is not so — I see them full and plain — 
An old man, and a female young and fair, 
Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein 
The blood is nectar: — but what doth 

she there, 
With her unmantled neck, and bosom 

white and bare? 

CXLIX. 

Full swells the deep pure fountain of 

young life. 
Where on the heart and /row the heart 

we took 
Our first and sweetest nurture — when 

the wife, 
Blest into mother, in the innocent look, 
Or even the piping cry of lips that brook 
No pain and small suspense, a joy per- 
ceives 
Man knows not — when from out its 

cradled nook 
She sees her Httle bud put forth its 

leaves — 
What may the fruit be yet ? — I know 

not — Cain was Eve's. 



once fell through the large orb above on the 
whole circle of divinities, now shines on a 
numerous assemblage of mortals, some one or 
two of whom have been almost deified by the 
veneration of their countrymen. 

' This and the three next stanzas allude to 
the story of the Roman daughter, which is re- 
called to the traveller by the site, or pretended 
site, of that adventure, now shown at the 
Church of St Nicholas in Carcere. The 
difficulties attending the full belief of the tale 
are stated in Historical lllustralions, p. 295. 

[The traditional scene of the "Caritas 
Romana" is a cell forming part of the sub- 
structions of the Church of S. Niccol5 in Carcere, 
near the Piazza Montanara. Festus, De Verb. 
Signif., lib. xiv., by way of illustrating Pietas, 
tells the story in a few words: "It is said that 
^lius dedicated a temple to Pietas on the very 
spot where a woman dwelt of yore. Her father 
was shut up in prison, and she kept him alive 
by giving him the breast by stealth, and, as a 
reward for her deed, obtained his forgiveness 
and freedom."] 



282 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



But here Youth offers to Old Age the 

food, 
The milk of his own gift: it is her 

Sire 
To whom she renders back the debt of 

blood 
Born with her birth: — No — he shall 

not expire 
While in those warm and lovely veins 

the fire 
Of health and holy feeling can provide 
Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream 

rises higher 
Than Egypt's river: — from that gentle 

side 
Drink — drink, and live — Old Man ! 

Heaven's realm holds no such tide. 



The starry fable of the Milky Way ^ 
Has not thy story's purity; it is 
A constellation of a sweeter ray. 
And sacred Nature triumphs more in 

this 
Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss 
Where sparkle distant worlds: — Oh, 

holiest Nurse I 
No drop of that clear stream its way 

shall miss 
To thy Sire's heart, replenishing its 

source 
With life, as our freed souls rejoin the 

Universe. 



Turn to the Mole ^ which Hadrian 

reared on high. 
Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles. 
Colossal copyist of deformity — 
Whose travelled phantasy from the far 

Nile's 
Enormous model, doomed the artist's 

toils 



' [It was fabled of the Milky Way that when 
Mercury held up the infant Hercules to Juno's 
breast, that he might drink in divinity, the 
goddess pushed him away, and that drops of 
milk fell into the void, and became a multitude 
of tiny stars. So says Eratosthenes of Cyrene 
in his Catasterismi, a Treatise on Star Legends, 
No. 44-1 

' The castle of St Angelo. 



To build for Giants, and for his vain 

earth. 
His shrunken ashes, raise this Dome: 

How smiles 
The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth, 
To view the huge design which sprung 

from such a birth! ^ 



But lo ! the Dome — the vast and 

wondrous Dome,^ 
To which Diana's marvel was a cell — 
Christ's mighty shrine above His 

martyr's tomb ! 
I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle — ^ 
Its columns strew the wilderness, and 

dwell 
The hyasna and the jackal in their 

shade ; 
I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs 

swell 
There glittering mass i' the Sun, and 

have surveyed 
Its sanctuary the while the usurping 

Moslem prayed; 

CLIV. 

But thou, of temples old, or altars 

new, 
Standest alone — with nothing like to 

thee — 
Worthiest of God, the Holy and the 

True! 
Since Zion's desolation, when that He 
Forsook his former city, what could be, 

' This and the next six stanzas have a refer- 
ence to the Church of St Peter's. (For a 
measurement of the comparative length of this 
basilica and the other great churches of Europe, 
see the pavement of St Peter's, and the Classical 
Tour through Italy, ii. 125, et seq., chap, iv.) 

" [The ruins which Byron and Hobhouse 
explored, March 25, 1810, were not the ruins of 
the second Temple of Artemis, the sixth wonder 
of the world, but, probably, those of "the great 
gymnasium near the port of the city." In 1810, 
and for long afterwards, the remains of the 
temple were buried under twenty feet of earth, 
and it was not till 1870 that the late Mr J. T. 
Wood, the agent of the Trustees of the British 
Museum, had so far completed his excavations 
as to discover the foundations of the building 
on the exact spot which had been pointed out 
by Guhl in 1843. Fragments of the famous 
sculptured columns (thirty-six in number, says 
Pliny) were also brought to light, and are now 
in the British Museum.] 



Canto iv. 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



283 



Of earthly structures, in His honour 

piled, 
I Of a sublimer aspect ? Majesty — 
Power — Glory — Strength — and 

Beauty all are aisled 
In this eternal Ark of worship undefiled. 

CLV. 

Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee 

not; 
And why ? it is not lessened — but thy 

mind, 
Expanded by the Genius of the spot. 
Has grown colossal, and can only find 
A fit abode wherein appear enshrined 
Thy hopes of Immortality — and thou 
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so de- 
fined 
See thy God face to face, as thou dost 



now 
His Holy of Holies 
his brow. 



nor be blasted by 



Thou movest — but increasing with the 

advance, 
Like climbing some great Alp, which still 

doth rise. 
Deceived by its gigantic elegance — 
Vastness which grows but grows to har- 
monise — 
All musical in its immensities; 
Rich marbles, richer painting — shrines 

where flame 
The lamps of gold — and haughty 

dome which vies 
In air with Earth's chief structures, 

though their frame 
Sits on the firm-set ground — and this 

the clouds must claim. 

CLVII. 

Thou seest not all — but piecemeal thou 

must break, 
To separate contemplation, the great 

whole; 
And as the Ocean many bays will make 
That ask the eye — so here condense 

thy soul 
To more immediate objects, and control 
Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got 

by heart 



Its eloquent proportions, and unroll 
In mighty graduations, part by part. 
The Glory which at once upon thee did 
not dart, 

CLVIII. 

Not by its fault — but thine: Our out- 
ward sense 
Is but of gradual grasp — and as it is 
That what we have of feeling most in- 
tense 
Outstrips our faint expression ; even so 

this 
Outshining and o'erwhelming edifice 
Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the 

great 
Defies at first our Nature's littleness. 
Till, growing with its growth, we thus 

dilate 
Our Spirits to the size of that they con- 
template. 

CLIX. 

Then pause and be enlightened; there 

is more 
In such a survey than the sating gaze 
Of wonder pleased, or awe which would 

adore 
The worship of the place, or the mere 

praise 
Of Art and its great Masters, who 

could raise 
What former time, nor skill, nor thought 

could plan: 
The fountain of Sublimity displays 
Its depth, and thence may draw the 

mind of Man 
Its golden sands, and learn what great 

Conceptions can. 

CLX. 

Or, turning to the Vatican, go see 
Laocoon's torture dignifying pain — 
A Father's love and Mortal's agony 
With an Immortal's patience blending: 

— Vain 
The struggle — vain, against the coiling 

strain 
And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's 

grasp. 
The Old Man's clench; the long en- 
venomed chain 



2^4 



CHILD E HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



Rivets the living links, — the enormous 


And Time himself hath hallowed it, nor 


Asp 


laid 


Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp 


One ringlet in the dust — nor hath it 


on gasp. 


caught 




A tinge of years, but breathes the flame 


CLXI. 


with which 'twas wrought. 


Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, 




The God of Life, and Poesy, and 


CLXIV. 


Light — 


But where is he, the Pilgrim of my Song, 


The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and 


The Being who upheld it through the 


brow 


past? 


All radiant from his triumph in the 


Methinks he cometh late and tarries 


fight; 


long. 


The shaft hath just been shot — the 


He is no more — these breathings are 


arrow bright 


his last — 


With an Immortal's vengeance — in his 


His wanderings done — his visions ebb- 


eye 


ing fast, 


And nostril beautiful Disdain, and 


And he himself as nothing: — if he was 


Might 


Aught but a phantasy, and could be 


And Majesty, flash their full lightnings 


classed 


by, 


With forms which live and suffer — let 


Developing in that one glance the Deity. 


that pass — 




His shadow fades away into Destruc- 


CLXII. 


tion's mass, 


But in his delicate form — a dream of 




Love, 


CLXV. 


Shaped by some soUtary Nymph, whose 


Which gathers shadow — substance — 


breast 


life, and all 


Longed for a deathless lover from 


That we inherit in its mortal shroud — 


above, 


And spreads the dim and universal pall 


And maddened in that vision — are 


Through which all things grow phan- 


exprest 


toms; and the cloud 


All that ideal Beauty ever blessed 


Between us sinks and all which ever 


The mind with in its most unearthly 


glowed. 


mood. 


Till Glory's self is twilight, and dis- 


When each conception was a heavenly 


plays 


Guest — 


A melancholy halo scarce allowed 


A ray of Immortality — and stood. 


To hover on the verge of darkness — 


Starlike, around, until they gathered to 


rays 


a God! 


Sadder than saddest night, for they dis- 




tract the gaze, 


CLXIII. 




And if it be Prometheus stole from 


CLXVI. 


Heaven 


And send us prying into the abyss, 


The fire which we endure — it was re- 


To gather what we shall be when the 


paid 


frame 


By him to whom the energy was given 


Shall be resolved to something less than 


Which this poetic marble hath ar- 


this — 


rayed 


Its wretched essence; and to dream of 


With an eternal Glory — which, if made 


fame. 


By human hands, is not of human 


And wipe the dust from off the idle 


thought — 


name 



Canto iv.] 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



285 



We never more shall hear, — but never 

more, 
Oh, happier thought! can we be made 

the same: — 
It is enough in sooth that once we bore 
These fardels of the heart — the heart 

whose sweat was gore. 

CLXVir. 

arlc! forth from the aby£s a voice 

proceeds,^ 
A long low distant murmur of dread 

sound. 
Such as arises when a nation bleeds 
With some deep and immedicable 

wound; — 
Through storm and darkness yawns the 

rending ground — 
The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the 

Chief 
Seems royal still, though with her head 

discrowned. 
And pale, but lovely, with maternal 

grief 
She clasps a babe, to whom her breast 

yields no relief. 



Scion of Chiefs and Monarchs, where 

art thou ? 
Fond Hope of many nations, art thou 

dead? 
Could not the Grave forget thee, and 

lay low 
Some less majestic, less beloved head ? 
In the sad midnight, while thy heart still 

bled, 
The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy. 
Death hushed that pang for ever: with 

thee fled 
The present happiness and promised joy 
Which filled the Imperial Isles so full it 

seemed to cloy. 

CLXIX. 

Peasants bring forth in safety. — Can it 

be, 
Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored ! 

' [Charlotte Augusta (b. January 7, 1796), 
only daughter of the Prince Regent, was married 
to Leopold of Saxe-Cobufg, May 2, 1816, and 
died in childbirth, November 6, 18 17.] 



Those who weep not for Kings shall 

weep for thee, 
And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, 

cease to hoard 
Her many griefs, for one ? — for she 

had poured 
Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head 
Beheld her Iris. — Thou, too, lonely 

Lord, 
And desolate Consort — vainly wert 

thou wed ! 
The husband of a year! the father of 

the dead ! 

CLXX. 

Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment 

made; 
Thy bridal's fruit is ashes: in the dust 
The fair-haired Daughter of the Isles is 

laid. 
The love of millions ! How we did en- 
trust 
Futurity to her! and, though it must 
Darken above our bones, yet fondly 

deemed 
Our children should obey her child, and 

blessed 
Her and her hoped-for seed, whose 

promise seemed 
Like stars to shepherds' eyes: — 'twas 

but a meteor beamed. 

CLXXI. 

Woe unto us — not her — for she sleeps 

well: 
The fickle reek of popular breath, the 

tongue 
Of hollow counsel, the false oracle, 
Which from the birth of Monarchy hath 

rung 
Its knell in princely ears, till the o'er- 

stung 
Nations have armed in madness — the 

strange fate 
Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns,^ 

and hath flung 

I Mary died on the scaffold ; Elizabeth of 
a broken heart; Charles V., a hermit; Louis 
XIV., a bankrupt in means and glory; Crom- 
well, of anxiety; and, "the greatest is behind," 
Napoleon lives a prisoner. To these sovereigns 
a long but superfluous list might be added of 
names equally illustrious and unhappy. 



286 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv. 



Against their blind omnipotence a 

weight 
Within the opposing scale, which 

crushes soon or late, — 



These might have been her destiny — 

but no — 
Our hearts deny it: and so young, so 

fair, 
Good without effort, great without a 

foe; 
But now a Bride and Mother — and 

now there I 
How many ties did that stern moment 

tear! 
From thy Sire's to his humblest sub- 
ject's breast 
Is linked the electric chain of that 

despair, 
Whose shock was as an Earthquake's, 

and opprest 
The land which loved thee so that none 

could love thee best. 



Lo, Nemi ! ' navelled in the woody 

hills 
So far, that the uprooting Wind which 

tears 
The oak from his foundation, and which 

spills 
The Ocean o'er its boundary, and bears 
Its foam against the skies, reluctant 

spares 
The oval mirror of thy glassy lake; 
And calm as cherished hate, its surface 

wears 
A deep cold settled aspect nought can 

shake. 
All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps 

the snake. 

» The village of Nemi was near the Arician 
retreat of Egeria, and, from the shades which 
embosomed the temple of Diana, has preserved 
to this day its distinctive appellation of The 
Grove. Nemi is but an evening's ride from the 
comfortable inn of Albano. 

[The basin of the Lago di Nemi is the crater 
of an extinct volcano. Hence the comparison 
to a coiled snake. Its steel-blue waters are 
unruffled by the wind which lashes the neigh- 
bouring ocean into fury. Hence its likeness to 
"cherished hate," as contrasted with "generous 
and active wrath."] 



And near, Albano's scarce divided waves 
Shine from a sister valley; — and afar 
The Tiber winds, and the broad Ocean 

laves 
The Latian coast where sprung the Epic 

war, 
"Arms and the Man," whose re-ascend- 
ing star 
Rose o'er afi empire: — but beneath thy 

right 
TuUy reposed from Rome: — and 

where yon bar 
Of girdling mountains intercepts the 

sight 
The Sabine farm was tilled, the weary 

Bard's delight. 



But I forget. — My Pilgrim's shrine is 

won. 
And he and I must part, — so let it be, — 
His task and mine alike are nearly done; 
Yet once more let us look upon the Sea; 
The Midland Ocean breaks on him and 

me. 
And from the Alban Mount we now 

behold 
Our friend of youth, that Ocean, which 

when we 
Beheld it last by Calpe's rock ^ unfold 
Those waves, we followed on till the 

dark Euxine rolled 



Upon the blue Symplegades: long 

years — 
Long, though not very many — since 

have done 
Their work on both ; some suffering and 

some tears 
Have left us nearly where we had 

begun : 
Yet not in vain our mortal race hath 

run — 
We have had our reward — and it is 

here. 
That we can yet feel gladdened by the 

Sun, 

I Gibraltar. 



Canto iv, 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



287 



And reap from Earth — Sea — joy 

almost as dear 
As if there were no Man to trouble what 

is clear. 

^ \jJk5A^ ' CLXXVII. 

On! that the Desert were my dwelling- 
place, 
With one fair Spirit for my minister, 
That I might all forget the human race. 
And, hating no one, love but only her ! 
Ye elements ! — in whose ennobling stir 
I feel myself exalted — Can ye not 
Accord me such a Being? Do I err 
In deeming such inhabit many a spot ? 
Though with them to converse can 
rarely be our lot. 



CLXXVIII. 

There is a pleasure in the pathless 

woods. 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society, where none intrudes, 
By the deep Sea, and Music in its 

roar: 
I love not Man the less, but Nature 

more, 
From these our interviews, in which I 

steal 
From all I may be, or have been before. 
To mingle with the Universe, and feel 
What I can ne'er express — yet can not 

all conceal. 

CLXXIX. 

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean 

— roll ! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in 

vain; 
Man m^arks the earth with ruin — his 

control 
Stops with the shore ; — upon the 

watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth 

remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own. 
When, for a m.oment, like a drop of 

rain. 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling 

groan — 
Without a grave — unknelled, uncof- 

fined, and unknown. 



His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy 

fields 
Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost 

arise 
And shake him from thee; the vile 

strength he wields 
For Earth's destruction thou dost all 

despise. 
Spurning him from thy bosom to the 

skies — 
And send'st him, shivering in thy play- 
ful spray 
And howling, to his Gods, where haply 

lies 
His petty hope in some near port or bay. 
And dashest him again to Earth: — 

there let him lay.^ 

CLXXXI. 

The armaments which thunderstrike 

the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations 

quake. 
And Monarchs tremble in their Capitals, 
The oak Leviathans, whose huge ribs 

make 
Their clay creator the vain title take 
Of Lord of thee, and Arbiter of War — 
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy 

fiake, 
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which 

mar 
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of 

Trafalgar.^ 

'["Lay" is followed by a plainly marked 
period in both the MSS. of the Fourth Canto of 
Childe Harold. For instances of the same error, 
compare "The Adieu," stanza 10, line 4, and 
["Pignus Amoris"], stanza 3, line 3. It is to 
be remarked that Hobhouse, who pencilled a 
few corrections on the margin of his own MS. 
copy, makes no comment on this famous sole- 
cism. The fact is that B>Ton wrote as he 
spoke, with the " careless and negligent ease of 
a man of quality" (Sir W. Scott in the Quarterly 
Review, 1816), and, either, did not know that 
"lay" was not an intransitive verb, or regarded 
himself as "supra grammaticam."] 

" The gale of wind which succeeded the 
battle of Trafalgar destroyed the greater part 
(if not all) of the prizes — nineteen sail of the 
line — taken on that memorable day. I should 
be ashamed to specify particulars which should 
be known to all — did we not know that in 
France the people were kept in ignorance of 
the event of this most glorious victory in modern 



288 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 



[Canto iv 



CLXXXII. 

Thy shores are empires, changed in all 

save thee — 
Assyria — Greece — Rome — Carthage 

— what are they ? ^ 
Thy waters washed ^ them power while 

they were free, 
And many a tyrant since; their shores 

obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage; their 

decay 
Has dried up realms to deserts: — not 

so thou. 
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' 

play; 
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure 

brow — 
Such as Creation's dawn beheld, thou 

rollest now. 



Thou glorious mirror, where the 
Almighty's form 

times, and that in England it is the present 
fashion to talk of Waterloo as though it were 
entirely an English triumph — and a thing to 
be named with Blenheim and Agincourt — 
Trafalgar and Aboukir. Posterity will decide; 
but if it be remembered as a skilful or as a 
wonderful action, it will be like the battle of 
Zama, where we think of Hannibal more than 
of Scipio. For assuredly we dwell on this action, 
not because it was gained by Blucher or Welling- 
ton, but because it was lost by Buonaparte — 
a man who, with all his vices and his faults, 
never yet found an adversary with a tithe of 
his talents (as far as the expression can apply 
to a conqueror) or his good intentions, his 
clemency or his fortitude. 

Look at his successors throughout Europe, 
whose imitation of the worst parts of his policy 
is only limited by their comparative impotence, 
and their positive imbecility. — [A/^.] 

' ["When Lord Byron wrote this stanza he 
had, no doubt, the following passage in Boswell's 
Johnson floating in his mind. . . . 'The 
grand object of all travelling is to see the shores 
of the Mediterranean. On those shores were 
the four great empires of the world — the 
Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the 
Roman' {Life of Johnson, 1876, p. 505)." — 
Note to Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza clxxxii. 
ed. 1891.] 

' [See letter to Murray, September 24, 1818: 
"What does 'thy waters wasted them' mean (in 
the Canto)? That is not me. Consult the MS. 
always.'^ Nevertheless, the misreading ap- 
peared in several editions. (For a correspond- 
ence on the subject, see Notes and Queries, 
first series, vol. i. pp. 182, 278, 324, 508; vol. ix. 
p. 481; vol. X. pp. 314, 434.)] 



Glasses itself in tempests; in all 

time, 
Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, 

or storm — 
Icing the Pole, or in the torrid clime 
Dark-heaving — boundless, endless, and 

sublime — 
The image of Eternity — the throne 
Of the Invisible; even from out thy 

slime 
The monsters of the deep are made — 

each Zone 
Obeys thee — thou goest forth, dread, 

fathomless, alone. 

CLXXXIV. 

And I have loved thee. Ocean ! and my 

joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast 

to be 
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from 

a boy 
I wantoned with thy breakers — they to 

me 
Were a delight; and if the freshening 

sea 
Made them a terror — 'twas a pleasing 

fear. 
For I was as it were a Child of thee, 
And trusted to thy billows far and 

near. 
And laid my hand upon thy mane — as 

I do here. 

CLXXXV. 

My task is done — my song hath ceased 

— my theme 
Has died into an echo; it is fit 
The spell should break of this protracted 

dream. 
The torch shall be extinguished which 

hath lit 
My midnight lamp — and what is writ, 

is writ, — 
Would it were worthier! but I am not 

novvf 
That which I have been — and my 

visions flit 
Less palpably before me — and the 

glow 
Which in my Spirit dwelt is fluttering, 

faint, and low. 



THE GIRL OF CADIZ 



289 



CLXXXVI. 

Farewell ! a word that must be, and 

hath been — 
A sound which makes us linger; — yet 

— farewell ! 
Ye ! who have traced the Pilgrim to the 

scene 
vVhich is his last — if in your memories 

dwell 
A thought which once was his — if on 

ye swell 
A single recollection — not in vain 
He wore his sandal-shoon, and scallop- 
shell; 
Farewell ! with him alone may rest the 

pain, 
If such there were — with you, the 

Moral of his Strain. 



POEMS 1809-1813. 



THE GIRL OF CADIZ.i 



Oh never talk again to me 

Of northern climes and British ladies; 
It has not been your lot to see, 

Like me, the lovely Girl of Cadiz. 
Although her eye be not of blue, 

Nor fair her locks, like English lasses. 
How far its own expressive hue 

The languid azure eye surpasses! 



Prometheus-like from heaven she stole 
The fire that through those silken 
lashes 
In darkest glances seems to roll, 

From eyes that cannot hide their 
flashes: 
And as along her bosom steal 

In lengthened flow her raven tresses, 
You'd swear each clustering lock could 
feel. 
And curled to give her neck caresses. 

• [These stanzas were inserted in the first 
draft of the First Canto of Childe Harold, after 
J:he eighty-sixth stanza.] 
U 



3- 
Our English maids are long to woo. 

And frigid even in possession; 
And if their charms be fair to view. 

Their lips are slow at Love's confes- 
sion; 
But, born beneath a brighter sun. 

For love ordained the Spanish maid is. 
And who, — when fondly, fairly won, — 

Enchants you like the Girl of Cadiz ? 



The Spanish maid is no coquette, 

Nor joys to see a lover tremble. 
And if she love, or if she hate. 

Alike she knows not to dissemble. 
Her heart can ne'er be bought or sold — 

Howe'er it beats, it beats sincerely; 
And, though it will not bend to gold, 

'Twill love you long and love you 
dearly. 

5- 
The Spanish girl that meets your love 

Ne'er taunts you with a mock denial. 
For every thought is bent to prove 
Her passion in the hour of trial. 
When thronging foemen menace Spain, 
She dares the deed and shares the 
danger; 
And should her lover press the plain. 
She hurls the spear, her love's 
avenger. 

6. 

And when, beneath the evening star, 

She mingles in the gay Bolero, 
Or sings to her attuned guitar 

Of Christian knight or Moorish hero. 
Or counts her beads with fairy hand 

Beneath the twinkling rays of Hesper, 
Or joins Devotion's choral band, 

To chaunt the sweet and hallowed 
vesper ; — 



In each, her charms the heart must 
move 

Of all who venture to behold her; 
Then let not maids less fair reprove 

Because her bosom is not colder: 



290 



POEMS 1809-1813 



Through many a clime 'tis mine to 
roam 
Where many a soft and melting 
maid is, 
But none abroad, and few at home, 
May match the dark-eyed Girl of 
Cadiz. 

1809. 
[First published, 1832.] 



LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM, 
AT MALTA.1 



As o'er the cold sepulchral stone 
Some name arrests the passer-by; 

Thus, when thou view'st this page alone. 
May mine attract thy pensive eye ! 



And when by thee that name is read. 
Perchance in some succeeding year. 

Reflect on me as on the dead, 

And think my Heart is buried here. 
Malta, September 14, 1809. 

[First published, Childe Harold, 181 2 
(4to).] 

TO FLORENCE. 



Oh Lady ! when I left the shore. 
The distant shore which gave me 
birth, 

I hardly thought to grieve once more, 
To quit another spot on earth: 



Yet here, amidst this barren isle. 
Where panting Nature droops the 
head, 

" [The possessor of the album was, doubtless, 
Mrs Spencer Smith (b. circ. 1785), daughter of 
Baron Herbert, Austrian Ambassador at Con- 
stantinople, and wife of John Spencer Smith, 
the brother of Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, the 
hero of the siege of Acre. She is the "Lady" 
of the lines To Florence, "the sweet Florence" 
of the Stanzas composed during a Thunder- 
storm, and of the Stanzas written in passing 
through the Ambracian Gulf, and, finally, the 
"fair Florence" of stanzas xxxii., xxxiii. of the 
Second Canto of Childe Harold.] 



Where only thou art seen to smile, 
I view my parting hour with dread. 



Though far from Albin's craggy shore, 
Divided by the dark-blue main; 

A few, brief, rolling seasons o'er. 
Perchance I view her cliffs again: 

4. 
But wheresoe'er I now may roam. 
Through scorching clime, and varied 
sea. 
Though Time restore me to my 
home, 
I ne'er shall bend mine eyes on thee: 



On thee, in whom at once conspire 
All charms which heedless hearts can 
move, 

Whom but to see is to admire. 

And, oh ! forgive the word — to love. 



Forgive the word, in one who ne'er 
With such a word can more offend; 

And since thy heart I cannot share, 
Believe me, what I am, thy friend. 

7. 
And who so cold as look on thee. 

Thou lovely wand'rer, and be less? 
Nor be, what man should ever be. 

The friend of Beauty in distress ? 



Ah ! who would think that form had 
past 
Through Danger's most destructive 
path, 
Had braved the death-winged tempest's 
blast, 
And 'scaped a Tyrant's fiercer wrath ? 



Lady ! when I shall view the walls 
Where free Byzantium once arose, 

And Stamboul's Oriental halls . 
The Turkish tyrants now enclose; 



STANZAS COMPOSED DURING A THUNDERSTORM 



291 



Though mightiest in the lists of fame, 
That glorious city still shall be; 

On me 'twill hold a dearer claim, 
As spot of thy nativity: 

II. 

And though I bid thee now farewell, 
When I behold that wondrous 
scene — 
Since where thou art I may not 
dwell — 
'Twill soothe to be where thou hast 
been. September, 1809. 

[First pubUshed, Childe Harold, 181 2 
(4to).] 



STANZAS COMPOSED DURING 
A THUNDERSTORM.i 



Chill and mirk is the nightly blast. 
Where Pindus' mountains rise, 

And angry clouds are pouring fast 
The vengeance of the skies. 



Our guides are gone, our hope is lost, 
And lightnings, as they play, 

But show where rocks our path have 
crost. 
Or gild the torrent's spray. 



Is yon a cot I saw, though low? 

When lightning broke the gloom — 
How welcome were its shade ! — ah, 
no ! 

'Tis but a Turkish tomb. 



Through sounds of foaming waterfalls, 

I hear a voice exclaim — 
My way-worn countryman, who calls 

On distant England's name. 

' Composed Oct. 11, 1809, during the night 
in a thunderstorm, when the guides had lost 
the road to Zitza, near the range of mountains 
formerly called Pindus, in Albania. 



A shot is fired — by foe or friend ? 

Another — 'tis to tell 
The mountain-peasants to descend. 

And lead us where they dwell. 



Oh ! who in such a night will dare 

To tempt the wilderness? 
And who 'mid thunder-peals can hear 

Our signal of distress? 



And who that heard our shouts would 
rise 

To try the dubious road ? 
Nor rather deem from nightly cries 

That outlaws were abroad. 



Clouds burst, skies flash, oh, dreadful 
hour! 

More fiercely pours the storm ! 
Yet here one thought has still the power 

To keep my bosom warm. 



While wandering through each broken 
path 

O'er brake and craggy brow; 
While elements exhaust their wrath, 

Sweet Florence, where art thou? 



Not on the sea, not on the sea — 
Thy bark hath long been gone: 

Oh, may the storm that pours on me, 
Bow down my head alone ! 



Full swiftly blew the swift Siroc, 
When last I pressed thy lip; 

And long ere now, with foaming shock, 
Impelled thy gallant ship. 



Now thou art safe ; nay, long ere now 
Hast trod the shore of Spain; 

'Twere hard if aught so fair as thou 
Should linger on the main. 



29: 



POEMS 180Q-1813 



And since I now remember thee 
In darkness and in dread, 

As in those hours of revelry 
Which Mirth and Music sped; 

14. 

Do thou, amid the fair white walls, 

If Cadiz yet be free. 
At times from out her latticed halls 

Look o'er the dark blue sea; 



Then think upon Calypso's isles. 
Endeared by days gone by; 

To others give a thousand smiles, 
To me a single sigh. 

16. 

And when the admiring circle mark 

The paleness of thy face, 
A half-formed tear, a transient spark 

Of melancholy grace, 

17- 
Again thou'lt smile, and blushing shun 

Some coxcomb's raillery; 
Nor own for once thou thought's! on one, 

Who ever thinks on thee. 

18. 

Though smile and sigh alike are vain. 
When severed hearts repine, 

My spirit flies o'er Mount and Main, 
And mourns in search of thine. 

October 11, 1809. 

[First published, Childe Harold, 181 2 
(4to).] 



STANZAS WRITTEN IN PASSING 
THE AMBRACIAN GULF. 



Through cloudless skies, in silvery 

sheen. 

Full beams the moon on Actium's 

coast : 

And on these waves, for Egypt's queen, 

The ancient world was won and lost. 



And now upon the scene I look. 

The azure grave of many a Roman; 

Where stern Ambition once forsook 
His wavering crown to follow 
Woman. 



Florence ! whom I will love as well 
(As ever yet was said or sung, 

Since Orpheus sang his spouse from 
Hell, 
Whilst thou dirt fair and I am young; 



Sweet Florence ! those were pleasant 

times. 
When worlds were staked for Ladies' 

eyes: 
Had bards as many realms as rhymes, 
Thy charms might raise new Antonies. 



Though Fate forbids such things to 
be. 
Yet, by thine eyes and ringlets curled ! 
I cannot lose a world for thee, 

But would not lose thee for a World. 
November 14, 1809. 
[First published, Childe Harold, 181 2 
(4to).] 



THE SPELL IS BROKE, 
CHARM IS FLOWN! 



THE 



WRITTEN AT ATHENS, JANUARY l6, 1810. 

The spell is broke, the charm is 
flown ! 
Thus is it with Life's fitful fever: 
We madly smile when we should 
groan ; 
Delirium is our best deceiver. 
Each lucid interval of thought 

Recalls the woes of Nature's char- 
ter; 
And He that acts as wise men ought. 
But lives — as saints have died — a 
martyr. 
[First published, Childe Harold, 181 2 
(4to).] 



WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING — MAID OF ATHENS 



293 



WRITTEN APTER SWIMMING 
FROM SESTOS TO ABYDOS.i 



If, in the month of dark December, 
Leander, who was nightly wont 

(What maid will not the tale remember ?) 
To cross thy stream, broad Helles- 
pont ! 



If, when the wintry tempest roared. 
He sped to Hero, nothing loth, 

And thus of old thy current poured. 
Fair Venus ! how I pity both ! 



For me, degenerate modern wretch, 
Though in the genial month of May, 

My dripping limbs I faintly stretch, 
And think I've done a feat to-day. 

» On the 3rd of May, 1810, while the Salselle 
(Captain Bathurst) was lying in the Dardanelles, 
Lieutenant Ekenhead, of that frigate, and the 
writer of these rhymes swam from the Eiu-opean 
shore to the Asiatic — by the by, from Abydos 
to Sestos would have been more correct. The 
whole distance, from the place whence we 
started to our landing on the other side, includ- 
ing the length we were carried by the current, 
was computed by those on board the frigate 
at upwards of four English miles, though the 
actual breadth is barely one. The rapidity 
of the current is such that no boat can row 
directly across, and it may, in some measure, 
be estimated from the circumstance of the 
whole distance being accomplished by one of 
the parties in an hour and five, and by the other 
in an hour and ten minutes. The water was 
extremely cold, from the melting of the mountain 
snows. About three weeks before, in April, 
we had made an attempt; but having ridden 
all the way from the Troad the same morning, 
and the water being of an icy chillness, we 
found it necessary to postjxjne the completion 
till the frigate anchored below the castles, when 
we swam the straits as just stated, entering a 
considerable way above the European, and 
landing below the Asiatic, fort. [Le] Chevalier 
says that a young Jew swam the same distance 
for his mistress; and Olivier mentions its 
having been done by a Neapolitan; but our 
consul, Tarragona, remembered neither of 
these circumstances, and tried to dissuade us 
from the attempt. A number of the Salsetle's 
crew were known to have accomplished a 
greater distance; and the only thing that sur- 
prised me was that, as doubts had been enter- 
tained of the truth of Leander's story, no travel- 
ler had ever endeavoured to ascertain its 
practicability. 



But since he crossed the rapid tide. 
According to the doubtful story. 

To woo, — and — Lord knows what 
beside, 
And swam for Love, as I for Glory; 



'Twere hard to say who fared the best: 
Sad mortals ! thus the Gods still 
plague you ! 
He lost his labour, I my jest: 

For he was drowned, and I've the 
ague. May 9, 1810. 

[First published, Childe Harold, 181 2 
(4to).] 

LINES IN THE TRAVELLERS' 
BOOK AT ORCHOMENUS. 

IN THIS BOOK A TRAVELLER HAD 

written: 

"F.^iR Albion, smiling, sees her son 

depart 
To trace the birth and nursery of art: 
Noble his object, glorious is his aim; 
He comes to Athens, and he — writes 

his name." 

beneath which lord BYRON INSERTED 
THE FOLLOWING: — 

The modest bard, like many a bard 

unknown. 
Rhymes on our names, but wisely hides 

his own; 
But yet, whoe'er he be, to say no worse, 
His name would bring more credit than 

his verse. igio, 

[First published. Letters and Journals, 

1830, 1. 216.] 

MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE 
PART. 



Zw^ ^jjov, oas 7a7ru). 



Maid of Athens,* ere we part. 
Give, oh give me back my heart! 

' [The Maid of Athens was, it is supposed, 
the eldest of three sisters, daughters of Theo- 
dora Macri, the widow of a former English 



294 



POEMS, 1809-1813 



Or, since that has left my breast, 
Keep it now, and take the rest ! 
Hear my vow before I go, 

Zaj77 /xou, eras ayairC}.^ 



By those tresses unconfined, 
Wooed by each ^Egean wind; 
By those lids whose jetty fringe 
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge: 
By those wild eyes like the roe, 
Za>?7 fxov^ a-ds dyairQ. 



By that lip I long to taste; 
By that zone-encircled waist; 
By all the token-flowers ^ that tell 
What words can never speak so wel 
By Love's alternate joy and woe, 
ZooT) /iou, ads dyairu). 



Maid of Athens! I am gone: 
Think of me, sweet ! when alone. 

vice-consul. Byron and Hobhouse lodged at 
her house. The sisters were sought out and 
described by the artist, Hugh W. Williams, 
who visited Athens in May, 181 7: "Theresa, 
the Maid of Athens, Catinco, and Mariana, 
are of middle stature. . . . The two eldest 
have black, or dark hair and eyes; their visage 
oval, and complexion somewhat pale, with 
teeth of pearly whiteness. Their cheeks are 
rounded, their noses straight, rather inclined to 
aquiline." — Travels in Italy, Greece, etc., 
ii. 291. 

[Her story ends sadly. She married an 
Englishman named Black, employed in H.M. 
Consular Service at Mesolonghi. She survived 
her husband, fell into great poverty, . . . and 
died October 15, 1875, aged 80 years.] 

' Romaic expression of tenderness. If I 
translate it, I shall affront the gentlemen, as it 
may seem that I supposed they could not; and, 
if I do not, I may affront the ladies. For fear 
of any misconstruction on the part of the latter, 
I shall do so, begging pardon of the learned. 
It means "My life, I love you!" which sounds 
very prettily in all languages, and is as much 
in fashion in Greece at this day as, Juvenal tells 
us, the two first words were amongst the Roman 
ladies, whose erotic expressions were all 
Hellenised. 

^ In the East (where ladies are not taught to 
write, lest they should scribble assignations), 
flowers, cinders, pebbles, etc., convey the senti- 
ments of the parties, by that universal deputy of 
Mercury — an old woman. A cinder says, 
"I burn for thee;" a bunch of tiowers tied with 
hair, "Take me and fly;" but a pebble declares 
— what nothing else can. 



Though I fly to Istambol,i 
Athens holds my heart and soul: 
Can I cease to love thee ? No ! 
Zw77 /xou, eras dyairC). 

Athens, 1810. 
[First published, Childe Harold, 181 2 
(4to).] 

FRAGMENT FROM THE " MONK 
OF ATHOS." 



Beside the confines of the ^gean main. 
Where northward Macedonia bounds 
the flood, 
And views opposed the Asiatic plain, 
Where once the pride of lofty Ilion 
stood. 
Like the great Father of the giant brood, 
With lowering port majestic Athos 
stands. 
Crowned with the verdure of eternal 
wood. 
As yet unspoiled by sacrilegious hands. 
And throws his mighty shade o'er seas 
and distant lands. 



And deep embosomed in his shady 
groves 
Full many a convent rears its glitter- 
ing spire, 
'Mid scenes where Heavenly Contempla- 
tion loves 
To kindle in her soul her hallowed 
fire, 
Where air and sea with rocks and woods 
conspire 
To breathe a sweet religious calm 
around. 
Weaning the thoughts from every low 
desire. 
And the wild waves that break with 
murmuring sound 
Along the rocky shore proclaim it holy 
ground. 



Sequestered shades where Piety has 
given 

' Constantinople, 



LINES WRITTEN- BENEATH A PICTURE — ROMAIC SONG 295 



A quiet refuge from each earthly care, 
Whence the rapt spirit may ascend to 
heaven ! 

Oh, ye condemned the ills of life to bear ! 
As with advancing age your woes 

increase, 
What bliss amidst these solitudes to 

share 
The happy foretaste of eternal Peace ! 
Till Heaven in mercy bids your pain 

and sorrows "cease. 
[First published in the Life of Lord 

Byron, by the Hon. Roden Noel, 

London, 1890, pp. 206, 207.] 



LINES WRITTEN BENEATH A 
PICTURE.i 



Dear object of defeated care ! 

Though now of Love and thee bereft. 
To reconcile me with despair 

Thine image and my tears are left. 



'Tis said with Sorrow Time can cope; 

But this I feel can ne'er be true: 
For by the death-blow of my Hope 
My Memory immortal grew. 

Athens, January, 181 1. 
TFirst published, Childe Harold, 18 12 
(4to).] 



TRANSLATION OF THE FAMOUS 
GREEK WAR SONG. 

" AeOre iraibes tQv 'EXXtjvo);/. " ^ 

Sons of the Greeks, arise ! 

The glorious hour's gone forth, 
And, worthy of such ties. 

Display who gave us birth. 

' [These lines are copied from a leaf of the 
original MS. of the Second Canto of Childe 
Harold. They are headed, "Lines written 
beneath the Picture of J. U. D."] 

* The song AeCre TraiSe?, etc., was written by 
Riga, who perished in the attempt to revolu- 
tionise Greece. This translation is as literal 
as the author could make it in verse. It is of 
the same measure as that of the original. 



Sons of Greeks ! let us go 
In arms against the foe. 
Till their hated blood shall flow 
In a river past our feet. 

Then manfully despising 

The Turkish tyrant's yoke. 
Let your country see you rising. 

And all her chains are broke. 
Brave shades of chiefs and sages, 

Behold the coming strife ! 
Hellenes of past ages. 

Oh, start again to Hfe ! 
At the sound of my trumpet breaking 

Your sleep, oh, join with me ! 
And the seven-hilled city ^ seeking. 

Fight, conquer, till we're free. 

•Sons of Greeks, etc. 

Sparta, Sparta, why in slumbers 

Lethargic dost thou lie ? 
Awake, and join thy numbers 

With Athens, old ally ! 
Leonidas recalling, 

That chief of ancient song. 
Who saved ye once from falling, 

The terrible ! the strong ! 
Who made that bold diversion 

In old Thermopylae, 
And warring with the Persian 

To keep his country free; 
With his three hundred waging 

The battle, long he stood, 
.\nd like a lion raging, 

Expired in seas of blood. 

Sons of Greeks, etc. 

[First published, Childe Harold, 181 2 
(4to).] 

TRANSLATION OF THE ROMAIC 
SONG, 

" 'M.irevw /zecr' to -rrepi^SXi, 
'UpaiOTdrri Xarjdri," k.t.X.^ 

I ENTER thy garden of roses. 

Beloved and fair Haidee, 
Each morning where Flora reposes, 

'Constantinople. "'E7tt(xA.o(J1)09." 
^ The song from which this is taken is a great 
favourite with the young girls of Athens of all 



296 



POEMS 180Q-1813 



For surely I see her in thee. 
Oh, Lovely ! thus low I implore thee, 

Receive this fond truth from my 
tongue. 
Which utters its song to adore thee, 

Yet trembles for what it has sung; 
As the branch, at the bidding of Nature, 

Adds fragrance and fruit to the tree. 
Through her eyes, through her every 
feature. 

Shines the soul of the young Haidee. 

But the loveliest garden grows hateful 
When Love has abandoned the bow- 
ers; 
Bring me hemlock — since mine is un- 
grateful. 
That herb is more fragrant than 
flowers. 
The p>oison, when poured from the 
chalice. 
Will deeply embitter the bowl; 
But when drunk to escape from thy 
malice. 
The draught shall be sweet to my soul. 
Too cruel ! in vain I implore thee 

My heart from these horrors to save ! 
Will nought to my bosom restore thee? 
Then open the gates of the grave. 

As the chief who to combat advances 

Secure of his conquest before, 
Thus thou, with those eyes for thy 
lances. 

Hast pierced through my heart to its 
core. 
Ah, tell me, my soul ! must I perish 

By pangs which a smile would dispel ? 
Would the hope, which thou once bad'st 
me cherish, 

For torture repay me too well ? 
Now sad is the garden of rose.s, 

Beloved but false Haidee ! 
There Flora all withered reposes. 

And mourns o'er thine absence with 

[First published, Childe Harold, 181 2 
(4to).] 

classes. Their manner of singing it is by verses 
in rotation, the whole number present joining in 
the chorus. I have heard it frequently at our 
"x^?'>'-" in the winter of 1810-11. The air is 
plaintive and pretty. 



ON PARTLXG. 



The kiss, dear maid ! thy lip has left 
Shall never part from mine. 

Till happier hours restore the gift 
Untainted back to thine. 



Thy parting glance, which fondly 
beams. 

An equal love may see: 
The tear that from thine eyelid streams 

Can weep no change in me. 



I ask no pledge to make me blest 

In gazing when alone; 
Nor one memorial for a breast. 

Whose thoughts are all thine own. 



Nor need I write — to tell the tale 
My pen were doubly weak: 

Oh ! what can idle words avail. 
Unless the heart could speak? 



By day or night, in weal or woe, 

That heart, no longer free. 
Must bear the love it cannot show, 
And silent ache for thee. 

March, 181 1. 
[First published, Childe Harold, 181 2 
(4to).] 

FAREWELL TO MALTA. 

Adieu, ye joys of La Valette ! 

Adieu, Sirocco, sun, and sweat ! 

Adieu, thou palace rarely entered ! 

Adieu, ye mansions where — I've ven- 
tured ! 

Adieu, ye cursed streets of stairs ! * 

(How surely he who mounts them 
swears !) 

Adieu, ye merchants often failing ! 

Adieu, thou mob for ever railing! 

' f " The principal streets of the city of Valetta 
are nights of stairs." — Gazetteer oj the World.] 



XEWSTEAD ABBEY 



297 



Adieu, ye packets — without letters ! 
Adieu, ye fools — who ape your betters I 
Adieu, thou damned'st quarantine. 
That gave me fever, and the spleen! 
Adieu that stage which makes us vawn. 

Sirs, 
Adieu his Excellency's dancers! 

Adieu to Peter — whom no fault's in. 
But could not teach a colonel waltzing; 
Adieu, ye females fraught with graces ! 
Adieu red coats, and redder faces! 
Adieu the supercilious air 
Of all that strut ctt mUUaire! 
I go — but God knows when, or why. 
To smoky towns and cloudy sky. 
To things (the honest truth to say) 
As bad — but in a different way. 

Farewell to these, but not adieu 
Triumphant sons of truest blue ! 
While either Adriatic shore,' 
And fallen chiefs, and fleets no more. 
And nightly smiles, and daily dinners,' 
Proclaim you war and women's winners. 
Pardon my Muse, who apt to prate is. 
And take my rhyme — because 'tis 
"gratis." 

And now I've got to ^Irs Fraser,' 
Perhaps you think I mean to praise 

her — 
And were I vain enough to thirtk 
My praise was worth this drop of ink. 
A line — or two — were no hard matter, 
As here, indeed, I need not flatter: 
But she must be content to shine 
In better praises than in mine, 
With lively air, and open heart. 
And fashion's ease, without its art; 
Her hours can gaily glide along, 
Nor ask the aid of idle sonti. 



■ [On March i.;, iSii. Captain (Sir William^ 
Hoste (17S0-1S2S) defeated a conihined French 
and Italian squadron off the island of Lissa. on 
the Dalmatian coast. Captain Hoste had 
taken a prize off Fiumc in the preceding year.] 

' ["We have had halls and jelcs given us by 
all classes here, and it is impossible to convey 
to you tlie sensation our success has given rise 
to." — Memoirs and Letters of Sir W. Hoste, 
u. 82.1 

•' [Mrs (Susan") Fraser published, in iSoo. 
"Camilla de Florian (the scene is laid in Valetta) 
and Other Poems. Bv an Officer's Wife."] 



And now, O Malta ! since thou'st got us, 

Thou Httle military hot-house ! 
I'll not offend with words unciWl, 
And wish thee rudely at the De\-il, 
But only stare from out my CDsement, 
And ask, "for what is such a place 

meant?" 
Then, in my solitary ncx>k. 
Return to scribbling, or a book. 
Or take my physic while I'm able 
(Two spoonfuls hourly, by this label), 
Prefer my nightcap to my beaver. 
And bless my stars I've got a fever. 

May 26, iSii. 
[First pubHshed, iSit).] 



NEWSTEAD ABBEY 



Ix the dome of my Sires as the clear 

moonbeam falls 
Through Silence and Shade o'er its 

desolate walls. 
It shines from afar like the glories of old; 
It gilds, but it warms not — 'tis daz- 

zlini;, but cold. 



Let the Sunbeam be bright for the 

younger of days: 
'Tis the light that should shine on a race 

that decays. 
When the Stars are on high and the 

dews on the ground, 
.\nd the long shadow lingers the ruin 

around. 

3- 
And the step that o'erechoes the grey 

floor of stone 
Falls sullenly now, for 'tis only my own ; 
And sunk are the voices that sounded in 

mirth. 
And empty the goblet, and dreary the 

hearth. 



And vain was each elTort to raise and 

recall 
The brightness of old to illumine our 

Hall; 



2q8 



POEMS 1809-1813 



And vain was the hope to avert our 

decHne, 
And the fate of my fathers had faded to 

mine. 



And theirs was the wealth and the ful- 
ness of Fame, 

And mine to inherit too haughty a 
name; 

And theirs were the times and the 
triumphs of yore, 

And mine to regret, but renew them no 
more. 



And Ruin is fixed on my tower and my 

wall, 
Too hoary to fade, and too massy to fall ; 
It tells not of Time's or the tempest's 

decay. 
But the wreck of the line that have held 

it in sway. 

August 26, 181 1. 
[First published in Memoir of Rev. F. 

Hodgson, 1878, i. 187.] 



EPISTLE TO A FRIEND.i 

IN ANSWER TO SOME LINES EXHORTING 
THE AUTHOR TO BE CHEERFUL, AND 
TO "BANISH CARE." 

"Oh! banish care" — such ever be 
The motto of thy revelry ! 
Perchance of mine, when wassail nights 
Renew those riotous delights. 
Wherewith the children of Despair 
Lull the lone heart, and "banish care." 
But not in Morn's reflecting hour. 
When present, past, and future lower, 
When all I loved is changed or gone, 
Mock with such taunts the woes of one, 
Whose every thought — but let them 

pass — 
Thou know'st I am not what I was. 
But, above all, if thou wouldst hold 
Place in a heart that ne'er was cold, 
By all the powers that men revere, 
By all unto thy bosom dear, 

' [Francis Hodgson.] 



Thy joys below, thy hopes above, 
Speak — speak of anything but 
Love. 

'Twere long to tell, and vain to hear, 
The tale of one who scorns a tear; 
And there is little in that tale 
Which better bosoms would bewail. 
But mine has suffered more than well 
'Twould suit philosophy to tell. 
I've seen my bride another's bride, — 
Have seen her seated by his side, — 
Have seen the infant, which she bore. 
Wear the sweet smile the mother wore, 
When she and I in youth have smiled. 
As fond and faultless as her child; — 
Have seen her eyes, in cold disdain, 
Ask if I felt no secret pain; 
And I have acted well my part. 
And made my cheek belie my heart, 
Returned the freezing glance she gave, 
Yet felt the while that woman's slave; — 
Have kissed, as if without design. 
The babe which ought to have been 

mine, 
And showed, alas ! in each caress 
Time had not made me love the less. 

But let this pass — I'll whine no 

more. 
Nor seek again an eastern shore; 
The world befits a busy brain, — 
I'll hie me to its haunts again. 
But if, in some succeeding year,^ 
When Britain's "May is in the sere," 
Thou hear'st of one, whose deepening 

crimes 
Suit with the sablest of the times. 
Of one, whom love nor pity sways. 
Nor hope of fame, nor good men's praise ; 
One, who in stern Ambition's pride. 
Perchance not blood shall turn aside; 
One ranked in some recording page 
With the worst anarchs of the age. 
Him wilt thou know — and knowing 

pause. 
Nor with the effect forget the cause. 

Newstead Abbey, Oct. 11, 181 1. 
[First published. Letters and Journals, 

1830, i. 301, 302.] 

' [Hodgson stipulated that the last twelve 
lines should be omitted, but Moore disregarded 
his wishes, and included the poem as it stands in 



TO THYRZA —AWAY, AWAY, YE NOTES OF WOE 



299 



TO THYRZA.i 

Without a stone to mark the spot, 

And say, what Truth might well -have 
said. 
By all, save one, perchance forgot, 

Ah ! wherefore art thou lowly laid ? 
By many a shore and many a sea 

Divided, yet beloved in vain; 
The Past, the Future fled to thee. 

To bid us meet — no — ne'er again ! 
Could this have been — a word, a look, 

That softly said, "We part in peace," 
Had taught my bosom how to brook. 

With fainter sighs, thy soul's release. 
And didst thou not — since Death for 
thee 

Prepared a light and pangless dart — 
Once long for him thou ne'er shalt see. 

Who held, and holds thee in his heart ? 
Oh ! who like him had watched thee 
here? 

Or sadly marked thy glazing eye. 
In that dread hour ere Death appear. 

When silent Sorrow fears to sigh. 
Till all was past? But when no more 

'Twas thine to reck of human woe. 
Affection's heart-drops, gushing o'er, 

Had flowed as fast — as now thev 
flow. 

his Life. A marginal note ran thus: "N.B. 
The poor dear soui meant nothing of this. 
F.H." — Memoir 0} Rev. Francis Hodgson, 
1878, i. 212.] 

' [The identity of Thyrza has never been 
satisfactorily determined. Moore {Life, p. 140) 
thought that Byron idealised his grief for 
friends and lovers, dead before their time, for 
"his adopted brother," Ediestone, the hero of 
the Cornelian, for C. S. Matthews, for Wing- 
field and Edward Noel Long — that Th\Tza 
is, as it were, the spirit or angel of Desolation. 
There are, no doubt, in the Thyrza poems, 
phrases and expressions which seem to point 
to Ediestone, but, on the other hand, it must be 
borne in mind that the poems belong to the 
autumn of 181 1, and the spring of 181 2, and that 
Ediestone died in May, 181 1, before Byron 
landed in England on his return voyage from 
the East. There is, moreover, good reason to 
believe that Lady B\Ton was convinced that 
Th\Tza was a real person, a young girl who died 
in the summer of 181 1, and that Byron himself, 
on more than one occasion, admitted the ex- 
istence, while he concealed the name of his 
"buried love." If there was a secret to keep, 
he kept the secret in his lifetime, and took good 
care that a secret it should remain, despite the 
curiosity or research of posterity.] 



Shall they not flow, when, many a day, 

In these, to me, deserted towers — 
Ere called but for a time away — 

Affection's mingling tears were ours? 
Ours too the glance none saw beside; 

The smile none else might under- 
stand; 
The whispered thought of hearts allied, 

The pressure of the thrilling hand; 
The kiss, so guiltless and refined. 

That Love each warmer wish fore- 
bore; 
Those eyes proclaimed so pure a mind, 

Ev'n Passion blushed to plead for 
m.ore — 
The tone, that taught me to rejoice, 

When prone, unlike thee, to repine; 
The song, celestial from thy voice. 

But sweet to me from none but thine; 
The pledge we wore — / wear it still. 

But where is thine ? — Ah ! where art 
thou? 
Oft have I borne the weight of ill, 

But never bent beneath till now! 
Well hast thou left in Life's best bloom 

The cup of Woe for me to drain; 
If rest alone be in the tomb, 

I would not wish thee here again: 
But if in worlds more blest than this 

Thy virtues seek a fitter sphere. 
Impart some portion of thy bliss. 

To wean me from mine anguish here. 
Teach me — too early taught by thee ! 

To bear, forgiving and forgiven: 
On earth thy love was such to me; 

It fain would form my hope in Heaven. 
October 11, 181 1. 
[First published, Childe Harold, 181 2 
(4to).] 



AWAY, AWAY YE NOTES OF 
WOE.i 



Away, away, ye notes of Woe ! 

Be silent, thou once soothing Strain, 
Or I must flee from hence — for, oh ! 

I dare not trust those sounds again. 
To me they speak of brighter days — 

' ["I wrote it a day or two ago, on hearing a 
song of former davs." — Letter to Hodgson, 
December 8, 1811, Letters, 1898, ii. 82.] 



300 



POEMS, 180Q-1813 



But lull the chords, for now, alas ! 
I must not think, I may not gaze, 
On what I am — on what I was. 



The voice that made those sounds more 
sweet 
Is hushed, and all their charms are 
fled; 
And now their softest notes repeat 

A dirge, an anthem o'er the dead ! 

Yes, Thyrza ! yes, they breathe of 

thee. 

Beloved dust! since dust thou art; 

And all that once was Harmony 

Is worse than discord to my heart ! 



'Tis silent all ! — but on my ear 

The well remembered Echoes thrill; 
I hear a voice I would not hear, 

A voice that now might well be 
still: 
Yet oft my doubting Soul 'twill shake; 

Ev'n Slumber owns its gentle tone. 
Till Consciousness will vainly wake 

To listen, though the dream be flown. 

4. 
Sweet Thyrza ! waking as in sleep, 

Thou art but now a lovely dream; 
A Star that trembled o'er the deep, 
Then turned from earth its tender 
beam. 
But he who through Life's dreary way 
Must pass, when Heaven is veiled in 
wrath. 
Will long lament the vanished ray 
That scattered gladness o'er his path. 
December 8, 181 1. 
[First published, Childe ITarold, 181 2 
(4to).] 

ONE STRUGGLE MORE, AND I 
AM FREE. 



One struggle more, and I am free 
From pangs that rend my heart in 
twain ; 
One last long sigh to Love and thee, 



Then back to busy life again. 
It suits me well to mingle now 

With things that never pleased before: 
Though every joy is fled below, 

What future grief can touch me more ? 



Then bring me wine, the banquet bring; 

Man was not formed to live alone: 
I'll be that light unmeaning thing 

That smiles with all, and weeps with 
none. 
It was not thus in days more dear. 

It never would have been, but thou 
Hast fled, and left me lonely here; 

Thou'rt nothing, — all are nothing 
now. 

3- 
In vain my lyre would lightly breathe ! 
The smile that Sorrow fain would 
wear 
But mocks the woe that lurks beneath, 

Like roses o'er a sepulchre. 
Though gay companions o'er the bowl 

Dispel awhile the sense of ill; 
Though Pleasure fires the maddening 
soul, 
The Heart, — the Heart is lonely 
still ! 



On many a lone and lovely night 

It soothed to gaze upon the sky; 
For then I deemed the heavenly light 

Shone sweetly on thy pensive eye: 
And oft I thought at Cynthia's noon. 

When sailing o'er the ^gean wave, 
"Now Thyrza gazes on that moon" — 

Alas, it gleamed upon her grave ! 



When stretched on Fever's sleepless 
bed, 
And sickness shrunk my throbbing 
veins, 
"'Tis comfort still," I faintly said, 
"That Thyrza cannot know my 
pains:" 
Like freedom to the time-worn slave — 

A boon 'tis idle then to give. — 
Relenting Nature vainly gave 

My life, when Thyrza ceased to live ! 



EUTHANASIA —AND THOU ART DEAD 



301 



6. 

My Thyrza's pledge in better days, 

When Love and Life alike were new ! 
How different now thou meet'st my gaze ! 

How tinged by time with Sorrow's 
hue ! 
The heart that gave itself with thee 

Is silent — ah, were mine as still ! 
Though cold as e'en the dead can be, 

It feels, it sickens with the chill. 



Thou bitter pledge ! thou mournful 
token ! 
Though painful, welcome to my 
breast ! 
Still, still, preserve that love unbroken, 
Or break the heart to which thou'rt 
pressed. 
Time tempers Love, but not removes, 

More hallowed when its Hope is fled: 
Oh ! what are thousand living loves 
To that which cannot quit the 
dead? 
[First published, Childe Harold, 181 2 
(4to).] 

EUTHANASIA. 



When Time, or soon or late, shall bring 
The dreamless sleep that lulls the 
dead, 

Oblivion ! may thy languid wing 
Wave gently o'er my dying bed ! 



No band of friends or heirs be there. 
To weep, or wish, the coming blow: 

No maiden, with dishevelled hair. 
To feel, or feign, decorous woe. 



But silent let me sink to Earth, 
With no officious mourners near: 

I would not mar one hour of mirth. 
Nor startle Friendship with a fear. 



Yet Love, if Love in such an hour 
Could nobly check its useless sighs, 



Might then exert its latest power 
In her who lives, and him who dies. 



'Twere sweet, my Psyche ! to the last 
Thy features still serene to see: 

Forgetful of its struggles past, 

E'en Pain itself should smile on thee. 



But vain the wish — for Beauty still 
Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing 
breath; 

And Woman's tears, produced at will. 
Deceive in Hfe, unman in death. 



Then lonely be my latest hour. 
Without regret, without a groan; 

For thousands Death hath ceased to 
lower, 
And pain been transient or unknown. 



"Aye, but to die, and go," alas! 

Where all have gone, and all must go ! 
To be the nothing that I was 

Ere born to life and living woe ! 



Count o'er the joys thine hours have 
seen. 
Count o'er thy days from anguish 
free. 
And know, whatever thou hast been, 

'Tis something better not to be. 
[First published, Childe Harold, 18 12 
(Second Edition).] 

AND THOU ART DEAD, AS 
YOUNG AND FAIR. 

"Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari 
quam tui meminisse ! " ' 

I. 
And thou art dead, as young and fair 
As aught of mortal birth; 

' [" Ah me ! the society of living friend is 
nothing to the memory of thee ! " From an 
inscription by William Shenstone, author of 
The Schoolmistress.] 



302 



POEMS, 180Q-1813 



And form so soft, and charms so rare, 

Too soon returned to Earth ! 
Though Earth received them in her bed, 
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread 

In carelessness or mirth, 
There is an eye which could not brook 
A moment on that grave to look. 



I will not ask where thou liest low. 

Nor gaze upon the spot; 
There flowers or weeds at will may 
grow, 

So I behold them not: 
It is enough for me to prove 
That what I loved, and long must love. 

Like common earth can rot; 
To me there needs no stone to tell, 
'Tis Nothing that I loved so well. 



Yet did I love thee to the last 

As fervently as thou, 
Who didst not change through all the 
past. 

And canst not alter now. 
The love where Death has set his seal. 
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal. 

Nor falsehood disavow: 
And, what were worse, thou canst not 

see 
Or wrong, or change, or fault- in me. 



The better days of life were ours; 

The worst can be but mine: 
The sun that cheers, the storm that 
lowers. 

Shall never more be thine. 
The silence of that dreamless sleep 
I envy now too much to weep; 

Nor need I to repine, 
That all those charms have passed away 
I might have watched through long 
decay. 

5- 
The flower in ripened bloom unmatched 

Must fall the earliest prey; 
Though by no hand untimely snatched. 

The leaves must drop away: 
And yet it were a greater grief 
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf, 



Than see it plucked to-day; 
Since earthly eye but ill can bear 
To trace the change to foul from fair. 



I know not if I could have borne 

To see thy beauties fade; 
The night that followed such a morn 

Had worn a deeper shade: 
Thy day without a cloud hath passed, 
And thou wert lovely to the last; 

Extinguished, not decayed; 
As stars that shoot along the sky 
Shine brightest as they fall from high. 

7- 
As once I wept, if I could weep. 

My tears might well be shed. 
To think I was not near to keep 

One vigil o'er thy bed; 
To gaze, how fondly ! on thy face, 
To fold thee in a faint embrace. 

Uphold thy drooping head; 
And show that love, however vain, 
Nor thou nor I can feel again. 

8. 

Yet how much less it were to gain. 
Though thou hast left me free, 

The loveliest things that still remain, 
Than thus remember thee ! 

The all of thine that cannot die 

Through dark and dread Eternity 
Returns again to me. 

And more thy buried love endears 

Than aught, except its living years. . 
February, 181 2. 

[First published, Childe Harold, 181 2 
(Second Edition).] 



LINES TO A LADY WEEPING.^ 

Weep, daughter of a royal line, 
A Sire's disgrace, a realm's decay; 

Ah ! happy if each tear of thine 
Could wash a Father's fault away ! 



' [The scene which begat these memorable 
stanzas was enacted at a banquet at Carlton 
House, February 22, 181 2. 

"The party consisted of the Princess Charlotte, 
the Duchess of York, the Dukes of York and 



IN THE HAUNTS OF MEN — ON A CORNELIAN HEART 



303 



Weep — for thy tears are Virtue's 
tears — 
Auspicious to these suffering Isles; 
And be each drop in future years 
Repaid thee by thy People's smiles ! 
March, 181 2. 
[First published, Morning Chronicle, 
March 7, 181 2. {Corsair, 1814, 
Second Edition).] 



IF SOMETIMES IN THE HAUNTS 

OF MEN. 



If sometimes in the haunts of men 

Thine image from my breast may fade, 
The lonely hour presents again 

The semblance of thy gentle shade: 
And now that sad and silent hour 

Thus much of thee can still restore, 
And Sorrow unobserved may pour 

The plaint she dare not speak before. 



Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile 
I waste one thought I owe to thee, 

And, self-condemned, appear to smile, 
Unfaithful to thy memory: 

Nor deem that memory less dear, 

Cambridge, Lords Moira, Erskine, Lauderdale, 
Messrs Adams and Sheridan. 

"The Prince Regent expressed 'his surprise 
and mortification' at the conduct of Lords Grey 
and Grenville [who had replied unfavourably to 
a letter addressed by the P.R. to the Duke of 
York, suggesting an united administration]. 
Lord Lauderdale thereupon, with a freedom 
unusual in courts, asserted that the reply did 
not express the opinions of Lords Grey and 
Grenville only, but of every political friend of 
that way of thinking, and that he had been 
present at and assisted in the drawing-up, and 
that every sentence had his cordial assent. 
The Prince was suddenly and deeply affected 
by Lord Lauderdale's reply, so much so, that 
the Princess, observing his agitation, dropt 
her head and burst into tears — upon which 
the Prince turned round and begged the female 
part of the company to withdraw" {Courier, 
March 10, 1812). 

The "newspapers were in hysterics and town 
in an uproar on the avowal and republication" 
of the stanzas in the second edition of the 
Corsair (Jan. 1814), and during Byron's ab- 
sence from town " Murray omitted the Tears in 
several of the copies" — that is, in the Third 
Edition — but replaced them in a Fourth 
Edition, which was issued early in February.] 



That then I seem not to repine; 
I would not fools should overhear 
One sigh that should be wholly thine. 



If not the Goblet pass unquaffed, 

It is not drained to banish care; 
The cup must hold a deadlier draught 

That brings a Lethe for despajr. 
And could Oblivion set my soul 

From all her troubled visions free, 
I'd dash to earth the sweetest bowl 

That drowned a single thought of thee. 

4. 
For wert thou vanished from my mind. 

Where could my vacant bosom turn ? 
And who would then remain behind 

To honour thine abandoned Urn ? 
No, no — it is my sorrow's pride 

That last dear duty to fulfil; 
Though all the world forget beside, 

'Tis meet that I remember still. 



For well I know, that such had been 

Thy gentle care for him, who now 
Unmourned shall quit this mortal scene. 

Where none regarded him, but thou: 
And, oh ! I feel in that was given 

A blessing never meant for me; 
Thou wert too like a dream of Heaven, 

For earthly Love to merit thee. 

• March 14, 181 2. 

[First published, Childe Harold, 181 2 
(Second Edition).] 



ON A CORNELIAN HEART 
WHICH WAS BROKEN. 



Ill-fated Heart ! and can it be, 

That thou shouldst thus be rent in 
twain ? . 

Have years of care for thine and thee 
Alike been all employed in vain ? 



Yet precious seems each shattered part, 
And every fragment dearer grown. 



304 



POEMS, 1809-1813 



Since he who wears thee feels thou art 
A fitter emblem of his own. 

March 16, 181 2. 
[First pubhshed, Childe Harold, 181 2 
(Second Edition).] 

THE CHAIN I GAVE. 

* FROM THE TURKISH. 



The chain I gave was fair to view, 
The lute I added sweet in sound; 

The heart that offered both was 
true, 
And ill deserved the fate it found. 



These gifts were charmed by secret 
spell, 

Thy truth in absence to divine; 
And they have done their duty well, — 

Alas ! they could not teach thee thine. 



That chain was firm in every link. 
But not to bear a stranger's touch; 

That lute was sweet — till thou couldst 
think 
In other hands its notes were such. 



Let him who from thy neck un- 
bound 
The chain which shivered in his 
grasp. 
Who saw that lute refuse to sound, 
Restring the chords, renew the clasp. 



When thou wert changed, they altered 

too; 
The chain is broke, the music 

mute, 
'Tis past — to them and thee 

adieu — 
False heart, frail chain, and silent 

lute. 
[First published. Corsair, 1814 (Second 

Edition).] 



LINES WRITTEN ON A BLANK 
LEAF OF THE PLEASURES 
OF MEMORY.^ 



Absent or present, still to thee. 
My friend, what magic spells belong ! 

As all can tell, who share, like me. 
In turn thy converse, and thy song. 



But when the dreaded hour shall come 
By Friendship ever deemed too nigh. 

And "Memory" o'er her Druid's tomb 
Shall weep that aught of thee can die, 



How fondly will she then repay 

Thy homage offered at her shrine. 
And blend, while ages roll away. 
Her name immortally with thine! 

April 19, 181 2. 
[First published. Poems, 1816.] 

ADDRESS, SPOKEN AT THE 
OPENING OF DRURY-LANE 
THEATRE, SATURDAY, OCTO- 
BER 10, 1812. 

In one dread night our city saw, and 

sighed, 
Bowed to the dust, the Drama's tower 

of pride; 
In one short hour beheld the blazing 

fane, 
Apollo sink, and Shakespeare cease to 

reign. 

Ye who beheld, (oh ! sight admired 
and mourned. 

Whose radiance mocked the ruin it 
adorned !) 

Through clouds of fire the massy frag- 
ments riven. 

Like Israel's pillar, chase the night 
from heaven; 

Saw the long column of revolving flames 

Shake its red shadow o'er the startled 
Thames, 10 

'[The original title {Poems, 1816) was "To 
Samuel Rogers, Esq."J 



ADDRESS, SPOKEN AT THE DRURY-LANE THEATRE 305 



While thousands, thronged around the 

burning dome, 
Shrank back appalled, and trembled 

for their home, 
As glared the volumed blaze, and 

ghastly shone 
The skies, with lightnings awful as 

their own. 
Till blackening ashes and the lonely 

wall 
Usurped the Muse's realm, and marked 

her fall; 
Say — shall this new, nor less aspiring 

pile, 
Reared where once rose the mightiest in 

our isle, 
Know the same favour which the former 

knew, 
A shrine for Shakespeare — worthy 

him and you? 20 

Yes — it shall be — the magic of 

that name 
Defies the scythe of Time, the torch of 

flame; 
On the same spot still consecrates the 

scene. 
And bids the Drama he where she hath 

been : 
This fabric's birth attests the potent 

spell — 
Indulge our honest pride, and say, 

How well! 

As soars this fane to emulate the 

last, 
Oh ! might we draw our omens from 

the past, 
Some hour propitious to our prayers 

may boast 
Names such as hallow still the dome we 

lost. 30 

On Drury first your Siddons' thrilUng 

art 
O'erwhelmed the gentlest, stormed the 

sternest heart. 
On Drury, Garrick's latest laurels grew; 
Here your last tears retiring Roscius 

drew. 
Sighed his last thanks, and wept his 

last adieu: 
But still for living wit the wreaths may 

bloom. 



That only waste their odours o'er the 

tomb. 
Such Drury claimed and claims — 

nor you refuse 
One tribute to revive his slumbering 

muse; 
With garlands deck your own Me- 

nander's head, 40 

Nor hoard your honours idly for the 

dead ! 
Dear are the days which made our 

annals bright. 
Ere Garrick fled, or Brinsley ceased to 

write. 
Heirs to their labours, like all high-born 

heirs. 
Vain of our ancestry as they of theirs; 
While thus Remembrance borrows 

Banquo's glass 
To claim the sceptred shadows as they 

pass. 
And we the mirror hold, where imaged 

shine 
Immortal names, emblazoned on our 

line. 
Pause — ere their feebler offspring you 

condemn, 50 

Reflect how hard the task to rival 

them! 

Friends of the stage ! to whom both 

Players and Plays 
Must sue alike for pardon or for 

praise, 
Whose judging voice and eye alone 

direct 
The boundless power to cherish or 

reject ; 
If e'er Frivolity has led to fame. 
And made us blush that you forbore to 

blame — 
If e'er the sinking stage could con- 
descend 
To soothe the sickly taste it dare not 

mend — 
All past reproach may present scenes 

refute, 60 

And Censure, wisely loud, be justly 

mute ! 
Oh ! since your fiat stamps the Drama's 

laws, 
Forbear to mock us with misplaced 

applause ; 



3o6 



POEMS, 180Q-1813 



So Pride shall doubly nerve the actor's 

powers, 
And Reason's voice be echoed back by 

ours! 

This greeting o'er — the ancient rule 

obeyed, 
The Drama's homage by her herald 

paid — 
Receive our welcome too — whose every 

tone 
Springs from our hearts, and fain would 

win your own. 
The curtain rises — may our stage un- 
fold 70 
Scenes not unworthy Drury's days of 

old! 
Britons our judges, Nature for our 

guide, 
Still may we please — long, long may 

you preside. 
[First published, Morning Chronicle, 

Oct. 12, 1812.] 



PARENTHETICAL ADDRESS. 1 

BY DR PLAGIARY. 

Half stolen, with acknowledgments, to be spoken 

in an inarticulate voice by Master at 

the opening of the next new theatre. 
[Stolen parts marked with the inverted 
commas of quotation — thus " ".] 

"When energising objects men pur- 
sue," 

Then Lord knows what is writ by Lord 
knows who. 

A modest Monologue you here survey, 

' [The original of Dr Busby's address, 
entitled "Monologue submitted to the Com- 
mittee of _ Drury Lane Theatre," which was 
published in the Morniftg Chronicle, October 17, 
181 2, "will be found in the Genuine Rejected 
Addresses, as well as parodied in Rejected Ad- 
dresses ('Architectural Atoms'). On October 
14 young Busby forced his way on to the stage 
of Drury Lane, attempted to recite his father's 
address, and was taken into custody. On the 
next night, Dr Busby, speaking from one of 
the boxes, obtained a hearing for his son, who 
could not, however, make his voice heard in 
the theatre. . . . To the failure of the younger 
Busby (himself a competitor and the author of 
an 'Unalogue' . . .) to make himself heard, 
Byron alludes in the stage direction, 'to be 
spoken in an inarticulate voice.'" Lines and 
parts of lines inclosed in quotation marks, 
" ," form part of Busby's "Address."] 



Hissed from the theatre the "other 

day," 
As if Sir Fretful wrote "the slumberous" 

verse. 
And gave his son "the rubbish" to 

rehearse. 
"Yet at the thing you'd never be 

amazed," 
Knew you the rumpus which the 

Author raised; 
"Nor even here your smiles would be 

represt," 
Knew you these lines — the badness of 

the best, 10 

"Flame! fire! and flame!" (words 

borrowed from Lucretius.) 
"Dread metaphors" which open 

wounds like issues ! 
" And sleeping pangs awake — and 

But away" — • 
(Confound me if I know what next to 

say). 
Lo "Hope reviving re-expands her 

wings," 
And Master G — recites what Dr 

Busby sings ! — 
"If mighty things with small we may 

compare," 
(Translated from the Grammar of the 

fair !) 
Dramatic "spirit drives a conquering 

car," 
And burned poor Moscow like a tub of 

"tar." 20 

"This spirit" "WeUington has shown 

in Spain," 
To furnish Melodrames for Drury 

Lane. 
"Another Marlborough points to Blen- 
heim's story," 
And George and I will dramatise it for 

ye. 

"In Arts and Sciences our Isle hath 
shone," 

(This deep discovery is mine 
alone). 

Oh "British poesy, whose powers in- 
spire" 

My verse — or I'm a fool — and 
Fame's a liar, 
lee we 
implore ' 



VERSES FOUND IN A SUMMER-HOUSE — REMEMBER THEE! 



307 



With "smiles," and "lyres," and 
"pencils," and much more. 30 

These, if we win the Graces, too, we 
gain 

Disgraces, too! "inseparable train!" 

"Three who have stolen their witching 
airs from Cupid" 

(You all know what I mean, unless 
you're stupid) : 

"Harmonious throng" that I have kept 
in petto 

Now to produce in a "divine sestetto" I I 

"While Poesy," with these delightful 
doxies, 

"Sustains her part" in all the "upper" 
boxes ! 

"Thus lifted gloriously, you'll sweep 
along," 

Borne in the vast balloon of Busby's 
song ; 40 

"Shine in your farce, masque, scenery, 
and play" 

(For this last line George had a holi- 
day). 

"Old Drury never, never soar'd so 
high," 

So says the Manager, and so say I. 

"But hold," you say, "this self-com- 
placent boast;" 

Is this the Poem . which the pubUc 
lost? 

"True — true — that lowers at once 
our mounting pride;" 

But lo; — the Papers print what you 
deride. 

" 'Tis ours to look on you — yoic hold 
the prize," 

'Tis twenty guineas, as they adver- 
tise ! ■ 50 

"A double blessing your rewards im- 
part" — • 

I wish I had them, then, with all my 
heart. 

"Our twofold feeling owns its twofold 
cause," 

Why son and I both beg for your ap- 
plause, 

" When in your fostering beams you bid 
us Uve," 

My next subscription Hst shall say how 
much you give ! 

[First pubUshed, Morning Chroni- 
cle, October 23, 181 2.] 



VERSES FOUND IN A SUMMER- 
HOUSE AT HALES-OWEN.i 

When Dryden's fool, "unknowing 

what he sought," 
His hours in whistling spent, "for want 

of thought," ^ 
This guiltless oaf his vacancy of sense 
Supplied, and amply too, by innocence: 
Did modern swains, possessed of 

Cymon's powers. 
In Cymon's manner waste their leisure 

hours, 
Th' offended guests would not, with 

blushing, see 
These fair green walks disgraced by 

infamy. 
Severe the fate of modern fools, alas ! 
When vice and folly mark them as they 

pass. 
Like noxious reptiles o'er the whitened 

wall. 
The filth they leave still points out 

where they crawl. 

[First pubUshed 1832, vol. xvii.] 

REMEMBER THEE ! REMEMBER 
THEE ! -^ 



Remember thee ! remember thee ! 

Till Lethe quench Life's burning 
stream 
Remorse and Shame shall cling to thee, 

And haunt thee like a feverish dream ! 



2. 

Remember thee ! Aye, doubt it not. 

Thy husband too shall think of thee: 
By neither shalt thou be forgot, 

Thou false to him, thou fend to me ! 
[First published. Conversations of Lord 
Byron, 1824.] 

' [The Leasowes, the residence of the poet 
Shenstone, is near the village of Halesowen, in 
Shropshire.] 

^ [See Dryden's Cymon and Iphigenia, lines 
84, 8=;.] 

3 [Those stanzas were written on the first 
page of a volume of Beckford's Vathek immedi- 
ately under the words "Remember me," which 
Lady Caroline Lamb had inscribed by way of 
entreaty or of warning.] 



3o8 



POEMS, 1809-1813 



TO TIME. 

Time! on whose arbitrary wing 

The varying hours must flag or 

^y' . • • 

Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring, 

But drag or drive us on to die — 
Hail thou ! who on my birth bestowed 

Those boons to all that know thee 
known ; 
Yet better I sustain thy load, 

For now I bear the weight alone. 
I would not one fond heart should share 

The bitter moments thou hast given; 
And pardon thee — since thou couldst 
spare 

All that I loved, to peace or Heaven. 
To them be joy or rest — on me 

Thy future ills shall press in vain; 
I nothing owe but years to thee, 

A debt already paid in .pain. 
Yet even that pain. was some relief; 

It felt, but still forgot thy power: 
The active agony of grief 

Retards, but never counts the hour. 
In joy I've sighed to think thy flight 

Would soon subside from swift to 
slow; 
Thy cloud could overcast the light. 

But could not add a night to 
Woe; 
For then, however drear and dark, 

My soul was suited to thy sky; 
One star alone shot forth a spark 

To prove thee — not Eternity. 
That beam hath sunk — and now thou 
art 

A blank — a thing to count and curse 
Through each dull tedious trifling 
part, 

Which all regret, yet all rehearse. 
One scene even thou canst not deform — 

The limit of thy sloth or speed 
When future wanderers bear the storm 

Which we shall sleep too sound to 
heed. 
And I can smile to think how weak 

Thine efl'orts shortly shall be shown. 
When all the vengeance thou canst 
wreak 

Must fall upon — a nameless stone. 
[First published, Childe Harold, 1814 
(Seventh Edition).] 



TRANSLATION OF A ROMAIC 
LOVE SONG. 



Ah ! Love was never yet without 
The pang, the agony, the doubt, 
Which rends my heart with ceaseless 

sigh, 
While day and night roll darkHng by. 



Without one friend to hear my woe, 
I faint, I die beneath the blow. 
That Love had arrows, well I knew; 
Alas! I find them poisoned too. 



Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net 
Which Love around your haunts hath 

set; 
Or, circled by his fatal fire. 
Your hearts shall burn, your hopes 

expire. 

4- 
A bird of free and careless wing 
Was I, through many a smiling spring; 
But caught within the subtle snare, 
I burn, and feebly flutter there. 



Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain, 
Can neither feel nor pity pain. 
The cold repulse, the look askance, 
The lightning of Love's angry glance. 

6. 

In flattering dreams I deemed thee 
mine; 

Now hope, and he who hoped, de- 
cline; 

Like melting wax, or withering flower, 

I feel my passion, and thy power. 

7- 
My light of Life ! ah, tell me why 
That pouting lip, and altered eye? 
My bird of Love ! my beauteous 

mate ! 
And art thou changed, and canst thou 

hate? 



THOU ART NOT FALSE — ON A QUOTATION 



300 



Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow: 
What wretch with me would barter woe ? 
My bird! relent: one note could give 
A charm to bid thy lover live. 



My curdling blood, my madd'ning brain, 
In silent anguish I sustain; 
And still thy heart, without partaking 
One pang, exults — while mine is 
breaking. 

10. 

Pour me the poison; fear not thou! 
Thou canst not murder more than now : 
I've lived to curse my natal day, 
And Love, that thus can lingering slay. 



My wounded soul, my bleeding breast. 
Can patience preach thee into rest? 
Alas! too late, I dearly know 
That Joy is harbinger of Woe. 
[First published, Childe Harold, 1814 
(Seventh Edition).] 

THOU ART NOT FALSE, BUT 
THOU ART FICKLE. 



Thou art not false, but thou art fickle. 

To those thyself so fondly sought; 
The tears that thou hast forced to trickle 
Are doubly bitter from that thought: 
'Tis this which breaks the heart thou 

grievest, 
Too well thou lov'st — too soon thou 
leavest. 

2. 

The wholly false the heart despises. 
And spurns deceiver and deceit; 

But she who not a thought disguises, 
Whose love is as sincere as sweet, — 

When she can change who loved so 
truly, 

It feels what mine has felt so newly. 



To dream of joy and wake to sorrow 
Is doomed to all who love or live; 



And if, when conscious on the morrow, 

We scarce our Fancy can forgive, 
That cheated us in slumber only, 
To leave the waking soul more lonely, 



What must they feel whom no false 
vision 
But truest, tenderest Passion warmed ? 
Sincere, but swift in sad transition: 

As if a dream alone had charmed ? 
Ah ! sure such grief is Fancy's scheming, 
And all thy Change can be but dream- 
ing I 
[First published, Childe Harold, 1814 
(Seventh Edition).] 

ON BEING ASKED WHAT WAS 
THE "ORIGIN OF LOVE." 

The "Origin of Love!" — Ah, why 

That cruel question ask of me. 
When thou mayest read in many an eye 

He starts to life on seeing thee? 
And shouldst thou seek his end to know: 

My heart forebodes, my fears foresee, 
He'll linger long in silent woe; 

But Uve until — I cease to be. 
[First published, Childe Harold, 18 14 
(Seventh Edition).] 

ON THE QUOTATION, 

"And my true faith can alter never, 
Though thou art gone perhaps for ever." 



And "thy true faith can alter never?" — 

Indeed it lasted for a — week ! 
I know the length of Love's for ever. 

And just expected such a freak. 
In peace we met, in peace we parted. 

In peace we vowed to meet again. 
And though I find thee fickle-hearted — 

No pang of mine shall make thee vain. 



One gone — 'twas time to seek a 

second; 
In sooth 'twere hard to blame thy 

haste; 
And whatsoe'er thy love be reckoned, 



3IO 



POEMS 180Q-1813 



At least thou hast improved in taste: 
Though one was young, the next was 
younger, 
His love was new, mine too well 
known — 
And what might make the charm still 
stronger, 
The youth was present, I was flown. 



Seven days and nights of single sorrow ! 

Too much for human constancy ! 
A fortnight past, why then to-morrow. 

His turn is come to follow me: 
And if each week you change a lover. 

And so have acted heretofore. 
Before a year or two is over 

We'll form a very pretty corps. 

4. 
Adieu, fair thing ! without upbraiding 

I fain would take a decent leave; 
Thy beauty still survives unfading, 

And undeceived may long deceive. 
With him unto thy bosom dearer 

Enjoy the moments as they flee; 
I only wish his love sincerer 

Than thy young heart has been to me. 
1812. 
[First pubhshed, 1900.] 



REMEMBER HIM, WHOM 
PASSION'S POWER.1 



Remember him, whom Passion's power 

Severely — ■ deeply — vainly proved: 

Remember thou that dangerous hour. 

When neither fell, though both were 

loved. 

2. 

That yielding breast, that melting 
eye, 
Too much invited to be blessed: 
That gentle prayer, that pleading 
sigh. 
The wilder wish reproved, repressed. 

' [It is possible that these lines, as well as the 
Sonnets "To Genevra," were addressed to Lady 
Frances Wedderburn Webster.] 



Oh! let me feel that all I lost 

But saved thee all that Conscience 
fears; 

And blush for every pang it cost 
To spare the vain remorse of years. 



Yet think of this when many a tongue, 
Whose busy accents whisper blame, 

Would do the heart that loved thee 
wrong. 
And brand a nearly blighted name. 



Think that, whate'er to others, thou 
Hast seen each selfish thought sub- 
dued: 

I bless thy purer soul even now, 
Even now, in midnight soHtude. 



Oh, God ! that we had met in time, 
Our hearts as fond, thy hand more 
free; 

When thou hadst loved without a crime, 
And I been less unworthy thee ! 



Far may thy days, as heretofore, 
From this our gaudy world be past ! 

And that too bitter moment o'er, 
Oh ! may such trial be thy last. 



This heart, alas ! perverted long. 

Itself destroyed might there destroy; 
To meet thee in the glittering throng. 

Would wake Presumption's hope of 
joy. 

9- 
Then to the things whose bliss or woe, 

Like mine, is wild and worthless all, 
That world resign — such scenes forego. 

Where those who feel must surely fall. 



Thy youth, thy charms, thy tender- 
ness — 
Thy soul from long seclusion pure; 



IMPROMPTU, IN REPLY TO A FRIEND — SONNETS 311 



From what even here hath passed, may 
guess 
What there thy bosom must endure. 



Oh ! pardon that imploring tear, 
Since not by Virtue shed in vain, 

My frenzy drew from eyes so dear; 
For me they shall not weep again. 



12. 

Though long and mournful must it 
be. 
The thought that we no more may 
meet; 
Yet I deserve the stern decree. 

And almost deem the sentence sweet. 



Still — had I loved thee less — my 
heart 
Had then less sacrificed to thine; 
It felt not half so much to part 
As if its guilt had made thee mine. 
1813. 
[First published, Childe Harold, 1814 
(Seventh Edition).] 



IMPROMPTU, IN REPLY TO A 
FRIEND. 

When, from the heart where Sorrow- 
sits, 
Her dusky shadow mounts too 
high, 
And o'er the changing aspect flits. 
And clouds the brow, or fills the 
eye; 
Heed not that gloom, which soon shall 
sink : 
My thoughts their dungeon know too 
well; 
Back to my breast the Wanderers 
shrink, 
And droop within their silent cell. 
September, 181 3. 
[First published, Childe Harold, 1814 
(Seventh Edition).] 



SONNET. 

TO GENEVRA. 

Thine eyes' blue tenderness, thy long 
fair hair, 
And the wan lustre of thy features — 

caught. 
From contemplation — where serenely 
wrought, 
Seems Sorrow's softness charmed from 

its despair — 
Have thrown such speaking sadness in 
thine air. 
That — but I know thy blessed 

bosom fraught 
With mines of unalloyed and stain- 
less thought — 
I should have deemed thee doomed to 

earthly care. 
With such an aspect, by his colours 
blent. 
When from his beauty-breathing 
pencil born, 
(Except that thou hast nothing to re- 
pent) 
The Magdalen of Guido saw the 
morn — 
Such seem'st thou — but how much 
more excellent ! 
With nought Remorse can claim — 
nor Virtue scorn. 

December 17, 1813. 
[First published. Corsair, 1814 (Second 
Edition).] 



SONNET. 

TO GENEVRA. 

Thy cheek is pale with thought, but not 
from woe. 
And vet so lovely, that if Mirth could 

flush 
Its rose of whiteness with the brightest 
blush. 
My heart would wish away that ruder 

glow : 
And dazzle not thy deep-blue eyes — 
but, oh! 
While gazing on them sterner eyes 
will gush. 



312 



POEMS 180Q-1813 



And into mine my mother's weakness 
rush, 
Soft as the last drops round Heaven's 

airy bow. 
For, through thy long dark lashes low 
depending. 
The soul of melancholy Gentleness 
Gleams like a Seraph from the sky 
descending. 
Above all pain, yet pitying all dis- 
tress; 
At once such majesty with sweetness 
blending, 
I worship more, but cannot love thee 
less. 

December 17, 18 13. 
[First published. Corsair, 1814 (Second 
Edition).] 



FROM THE PORTUGUESE. 

"tu mi chamas." 

I. 

In moments to delight devoted, 

"My Life!" with tenderest tone, you 
cry; 
Dear words ! on which my heart had 
doted, 
If Youth could neither fade nor die. 



To Death even hours Uke these must 
roll, 
Ah! then repeat those accents 
never; 
Or change "my Life!" into "my 
Soul!" 
Which, Uke my Love, exists for 
ever. 

[First published, 1832.] 

ANOTHER VERSION. 

You call me still your Life. — Oh ! 
change the word — 
Life is as transient as the inconstant 
sigh: 
Say rather I'm your Soul; more just 
that name. 
For, like the soul, my Love can never 
die. 

[First published, 1814.] 



THE GIAOUR.i 

A FRAGMENT OF A TURKISH 
TALE. 



" One fatal remembrance — one sorrow that 
throws 
Its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our 

woes — 
To which Life nothing darker nor brighter can 

bring, 
For which joy hath no balm — and affliction 
no sting." Moore. 

[" As a beam o'er the face," etc. — Irish 
Melodies.} 

TO 

SAMUEL ROGERS, Esq. 

AS A SLIGHT BUT MOST SINCERE TOKEN 

OF ADMIRATION OF HIS GENIUS, 

RESPECT FOR HIS CHARACTER, 

AND GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP, 

THIS PRODUCTION IS IN- 
SCRIBED 

BY HIS OBLIGED 
AND AFFECTIONATE SERVANT, 

BYRON. 

London, May, 1813. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The tale which these disjointed frag- 
ments present is founded upon cir- 
cumstances now less common in the 
East than formerly; either because 
the ladies are more circumspect than 
in the "olden time," or because the 
Christians have better fortune, or less 
enterprise. The story, when entire, 
contained the adventures of a female 
slave, who was thrown, in the Mussul- 
man manner, into the sea for infidelity, 
and avenged by a young Venetian, 
her lover, at the time the Seven Islands 
were possessed by the Republic of 

' [The Giaour was begun in May, 1813. The 
first edition (68 ^^ lines) was published, June 5, 
the seventh edition which presented the poem in 
its final shape (1344 lines) was published Decem- 
ber 27, 1813.] 



THE GIAOUR 



313 



Venice, and soon after the Arnauts were 
beaten back from the Morea, which 
they had ravaged for some time sub- 
sequent to the Russian invasion. The 
desertion of the Mainotes, on being 
refused the plunder of Misitra, led to 
the abandonment of that enterprise, 
and to the ' desolation of the Morea, 
during which the cruelty exercised on 
all sides was unparalleled even in the 
annals of the faithful. 



THE GIAOUR. 



No breath of air to break the wave 
That rolls below the Athenian's grave. 
That tomb ^ which, gleaming o'er the 

cliff, 
First greets the homeward-veering skiff 
High o'er the land he saved in vain; 
When shall such Hero live again? 

Fair clime ! where every season 
smiles 
Benignant o'er those blessed isles. 
Which, seen from far Colonna's height. 
Make glad the heart that hails the sight, 
And lend to loneliness delight. 11 

There mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek 
Reflects the tints of many a peak 
Caught by the laughing tides that lave 
These Edens of the Eastern wave: 
And if at times a transient breeze 
Break the blue crystal of the seas, 
Or sweep one blossom from the trees. 
How welcome is each gentle air 
That wakes and wafts the odours 
there ! 20 

For there the Rose, o'er crag or vale. 
Sultana of the Nightingale,^ 

The maid for whom his melody, 
His thousand songs are heard on high, 



I A tomb above the rocks on the promontory, 
by some supposed the sepulchre of Themistocles. 

' The attachment of the nightingale to the 
rose is a well-known Persian fable. If I mis- 
take not, the "Bulbul of a thousand tales" is 
one of his appellations. 

" Come, charming maid ! and hear thy poet sing, 
Thyself the rose and he the bird of spring: 
Love bids him sing, and Love will be obey'd. 
Be gay: too soon the flowers of spring will 
fade." 



Blooms blushing to her lover's tale: 
His queen, the garden queen, his 

Rose, 
Unbent by winds, unchilled by snows, 
Far from the winters of the west. 
By every breeze and season blest. 
Returns the sweets by Nature given 30 
In softest incense back to Heaven; 
And grateful yields that smiling sky 
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh. 
And many a summer flower is there. 
And many a shade that Love might 

share. 
And many a grotto, meant for rest. 
That holds the pirate for a guest; 
Whose bark in sheltering cove below 
Lurks for the passing peaceful prow. 
Till the gay mariner's guitar ^ 40 

Is heard, and seen the Evening Star; 
Then stealing with the muffled oar, 
Far shaded by the rocky shore. 
Rush the night-prowlers on the prey, 
And turn to groans his roundelay. 
Strange — that where Nature loved to 

trace. 
As if for Gods, a dwelling place. 
And every charm and grace hath mixed 
Within the Paradise she fixed. 
There man, enamoured of distress, 50 
Should mar it into wilderness. 
And trample, brute-Uke, o'er each 

flower 
That tasks not one laborious hour; 
Nor claims the culture of his hand 
To bloom along the fairy land. 
But springs as to preclude his care. 
And sweetly woos him — but to spare ! 
Strange — that where all is Peace 

beside. 
There Passion riots in her pride. 
And Lust and Rapine wildly reign 60 
To darken o'er the fair domain. 
It is as though the Fiends prevailed 
Against the Seraphs they assailed, 
And, fixed on heavenly thrones, should 

dwell 
The freed inheritors of Hell; 
So soft the scene, so formed for joy. 
So curst the tyrants that destroy ! 

' The guitar is the constant amusement of the 
Greek sailor by night; with a steady fair wind, 
and during a calm, il is accompanied always by 
the voice, and often by dancing. 



314 



THE GIAOUR 



He who hath bent him o'er the dead 
Ere the first day of Death is fled, 
The first dark day of Nothingness, 70 
The last of Danger and Distress, 
(Before Decay's effacing fingers 
Have swept the lines where Beauty 

lingers,) 
And marked the mild angelic air. 
The rapture of Repose that's there. 
The fixed yet tender traits that streak 
The languor of the placid cheek. 
And — but for that sad shrouded eye, 
That fires not, wins not, weeps not, 

now, 
And but for that chill, changeless 
brow, 80 

Where cold Obstruction's apathy ^ 
Appals the gazing mourner's heart. 
As if to him it could impart 
The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon; 
Yes, but for these and these alone. 
Some moments, aye, one treacherous 

hour, 
He still might doubt the Tyrant's 

power; 
So fair, so calm, so softly sealed, 
The first, last look by Death revealed ! ^ 
Such is the aspect of this shore: 90 

'Tis Greece, but Hving Greece no more ! 
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair. 
We start, for Soul is wanting there. 
Hers is the loveliness in death, 
That parts not quite with parting breath ; 
But beauty with that fearful bloom. 
That hue which haunts it to the tomb. 
Expression's last receding ray, 
A gilded Halo hovering round decay, 
The farewell beam of Feeling past 
away ! 100 

' "Aye, but to die, and go we know not where; 
To lie in cold obstruction?" 

— Measure for Measure, act iii. so. i, lines 
115, 116. 

* I trust that few of my readers have ever had 
an opportunity of witnessing what is here at- 
tempted in description; but those who have will 
probably retain a painful remembrance of that 
singular beauty which pervades, with few ex- 
ceptions, the features of the dead, a few hours, 
and but for a few hours, after "the spirit is not 
there." It is to be remarked in cases of violent 
death by gun-shot wounds, the expression is 
always that of languor, whatever the natural 
energy of the sufferer's character; but in death 
from a stab the countenance preserves its traits 
of feeling or ferocity, and the mind its bias, to 
the last. 



Spark of that flame, perchance of 

heavenly birth. 
Which gleams, but warms no more its 

cherished earth ! 

Clime of the unforgotten brave ! 
Whose land from plain to mountain- 
cave 
Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave ! 
Shrine of the mighty ! can it be. 
That this is all remains of thee? 
Approach, thou craven crouching slave: 

Say, is not this Thermopylae? 
These waters blue that round you 
lave, — no 

Oh servile offspring of the free — 
Pronounce, what sea, what shore is this ? 
The gulf, the rock of Salamis ! 
These scenes, their story not unknown, 
Arise, and make again your own; 
Snatch from the ashes of your Sires 
The embers of their former fires; 
And he who in the strife expires 
Will add to theirs a name of fear 
That Tyranny shall quake to hear, 120 
And leave his sons a hope, a fame. 
They too will rather die than shame: 
For Freedom's battle once begun. 
Bequeathed by bleeding Sire to Son, 
Though baffled oft is ever won. 
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page ! 
Attest it many a deathless age ! 
While kings, in dusty darkness hid. 
Have left a nameless pyramid. 
Thy Heroes, though the general doom 
Hath swept the column from their 
tomb, 131 

A mightier monument command. 
The mountains of their native land ! 
There points thy Muse to stranger's eye 
The graves of those that cannot die ! 
'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace. 
Each step from Splendour to Disgrace; 
Enough — no foreign foe could quell 
Thy soul, till from itself it fell; 
Yet — Self-abasement paved the way 
To villain-bonds and despot sway. 141 

What can he tell who treads thy shore ? 

No legend of thine olden time. 
No theme on which the Muse might soar 
High as thine own in days of yore. 

When man was worthy of thy cHme, 



THE GIAOUR 



315 



The hearts within thy valleys bred, 
The fiery souls that might have led 

Thy sons to deeds sublime, 
Now crawl from cradle to the Grave, 150 
Slaves — nay, the bondsmen of a Slave,^ 

And callous, save to crime; 
Stained with each evil that pollutes 
Mankind, where least above the brutes; 
Without even savage virtue blest. 
Without one free or valiant breast. 
Still to the neighbouring ports they waft 
Proverbial wiles, and ancient craft; 
In this the subtle Greek is found. 
For this, and this alone, renowned, 160 
In vain might Liberty invoke 
The spirit to its bondage broke, 
Or raise the neck that courts the yoke: 
No more her sorrows I bewail. 
Yet this will be a mournful tale. 
Arid they who Usten may beUeve, 
Who heard it first had cause to grieve. 

:(; H: H^ H: H: 

Far, dark, along the blue sea glancing. 
The shadows of the rocks advancing 
Start on the Fisher's eye like boat 170 
Of island-pirate or Mainote; 
And fearful for his light caique, 
He shuns the near but doubtful creek: 
Though worn and weary with his toil, 
And cumbered wdth his scaly spoil. 
Slowly, yet strongly, plies the oar. 
Till Port Leone's safer shore 
Receives him by the lovely light 
That best becomes an Eastern night. 

Who thundering comes on blackest 

steed,^ 180 

With slackened bit and hoof of speed ? 

' Athens is the property of the Kislar Aga 
[kizlar-aghasi] (the slave of the Seraglio and 
guardian of the women), who appoints the 
Waywode. A pander and eunuch — these are 
not polite, yet true appellations — now governs 
the governor of Athens ! 

' [The reciter of the tale is a Turkish fisher- 
man, who has been employed during the day in 
the gulf of .-Egina, and in the evening, appre- 
hensive of the Mainote pirates who infest the 
coast of Attica, lands with his boat on the 
harbour of Port Leone, the ancient Piraeus. 
He becomes the eye-witness of nearly all the 
incidents in the story, and in one of them is 
a principal agent. It is to his feelings, and 
particularly to his religious prejudices, that we 
are indebted for some of the most forcible and 
splendid parts of the poem. — Note by George 
Ellis.] 



/Beneath the clattering iron's sound 
t The caverned Echoes wake around 
1 In lash for lash, and bound for bound; 
t The foam that streaks the courser's side 
Seems gathered from the Ocean-tide: 
Though weary waves are sunk to rest. 
There's none within his rider's breast; 
And though to-morrow's tempest lower, 
'Tis calmei__lhan thy heart, young 
Giaour! ^ igo 

I knov/ thee not, I loathe thy race. 
But in thy lineaments I trace 
What Time shall strengthen, not efface: 
Though y oung and pale , that sallow. 

front ... 
Is scathe(i_by fier):.JPa.ssion's brunt; 
Though bent on earth thine evil eye. 
As meteor-like thou glidest by. 
Right well I view and deem thee one 
Whom Othman's sons should slay or 
shun. 

On — on he hastened, and he drew 
My gaze of wonder as he flew: 201 

Though like a Demon of the night 
He passed, and vanished from my sight, 
His aspect and his air impressed 
A troubled memory on my breast, 
And long upon my startled ear 
Rung his dark courser's hoofs of fear. 
He spurs his steed; he nears the steep. 
That, jutting, shadows o'er the deep; 
He winds around; he hurries by; 210 
The rock relieves him from mine eye; 
For, well I ween, unwelcome he 
Whose glance is fixed on those that flee; 
And not a star but shines too bright 
On him who takes such timeless flight. 
He wound along; but ere he passed 
One glance he snatched, as if his last, 
A moment checked his wheeling steed, 
A moment breathed him from his speed, 

'[The pronunciation of the word "Giaour" 
depends on its origin. If it is associated with 
the Arabic jaivr, a "deviating" or "erring," the 
initial consonant would be soft, but if with 
the Persian gawr, or guebre, "a fire-worshipper," 
the word should be pronounced Gow-er — as 
Gower Street has come to be pronounced. 
It is to be remarked that to the present day the 
Nestorians of Urumiah are contemned as Gy- 
ours (the G hard), by their Mohammedan 
countrymen. — (From information kindlv sup- 
plied by Mr A. G. Ellis, of the Oriental Printed 
Books and MSS. Department, British Museum.)] 



3i6 



THE GIAOUR 



A moment on his stirrup stood — ■ 220 
Why looks he o'er the oUve wood ? 
The Crescent glimmers on the hill, 
The Mosque's high lamps are quivering 

still: 
Though too remote for sound to wake 
In echoes of the far tophaike/ 
The flashes of each joyous peal 
Are se.en to prove the Moslem's zeal. 
To-night, set Rhamazani's sun; 
To-night, the Bairam feast's begun; 
To-night — but who and what art thou 
Of foreign garb and fearful brow? 231 
And what are these to thine or thee. 
That thou shouldst either pause or flee ? 

He stood — some dread was on his 

face, 
Soon Hatred settled in its place: 
It rose not with the reddening flush 
Of transient Anger's hasty blush. 
But pale as marble o'er the tomb. 
Whose ghastly whiteness aids its gloom. 
His brow was bent, his eye was 

glazed; 240 

He raised his arm, and fiercely raised. 
And sternly shook his hand on high, 
As doubting to return or fly; 
Impatient of his flight delayed. 
Here loud his raven charger neighed — 
Down glanced that hand, and grasped 

his blade; 
That sound had burst his waking dream, 
As Slumber starts at owlet's scream. 
The spur hath lanced his courser's sides; 
Away — away — for life he rides: 250 
Swift as the hurled on high jerreed ^ 
Springs to the touch his startled steed; 

' "Tophaike," musket. The Bairam is 
announced by the cannon at sunset: the illu- 
mination of the mosques, and the firing of all 
kinds of small arms, loaded with ball, proclaim 
it during the night. 

[The Bairam, the Moslem Easter, a festival 
of three days, succeeded the Ramazan. 

For the illumination of the mosques during 
the fast of the Ramazan, see Childe Harold, 
Canto II. stanza Iv. line 5.] 

' Jerreed, or Djerrid [Jarid], a blunted 
Turkish javelin, w^hich is darted from horseback 
with great force and precision. It is a favourite 
exercise of the Mussulmans; but I know not 
if it can be called a manly one, since the most 
expert in the art are the Black Eunuchs of 
Constantinople. I think, next to these, a 
Mamlouk at Smyrna was the most skilful that 
Clime within my observation. 



The rock is doubled, and the shore 
Shakes with the clattering tramp no 

more; 
The crag is won, no more is seen 
His Christian crest and haughty mien, 
'Twas but an instant he restrained 
That fiery barb so sternly reined; 
'Twas but a moment that he stood, 
Then sped as if by Death pursued; 260 
But in that instant o'er his soul 
Winters of Memory seemed to roll, 
And gather in that drop of time 
A life of pain, an age of crime. 
O'er him who loves, or hates, or fears. 
Such moment pours the grief of years: 
What felt he then, at once opprest 
By all that most distracts the breast? 
That pause, which pondered o'er his 

fate. 
Oh, who its dreary length shall date ! 270 
Though in Time's record nearly nought, 
It was Eternity to Thought ! 
For infinite as boundless space 
The thought that Conscience must em- 
brace, 
Which in itself can comprehend 
Woe without name, or hope, or end. 

The hour is past, the Giaour is gone; 
And did he fly or fall alone? 
Woe to that hour he came or went ! 
The curse for Hassan's sin was sent 280 
To turn a palace to a tomb; 
He came, he went, like the Simoom,^ 
That harbinger of Fate and gloom. 
Beneath whose widely-wasting breath 
The very cypress droops to death — 
Dark tree, still sad when others' grief is 

fled. 
The only constant mourner o'er the 

dead! 

The steed is vanished from the stall; 
No serf is seen in Hassan's hall; 
The lonely Spider's thin grey pall 290 
Waves slowly widening o'er the wall; 
The Bat builds in his Haram bower. 
And in the fortress of his power 
The owl usurps the beacon-tower; 
The wild-dog howls o'er the fountain's 
brim, 

I The blast of the desert, fatal to everything 
living, and often alluded to in Eastern poetry. 



THE GIAOUR 



317 



With baffled thirst, and famine, grim; 
For the stream had shrunk from its 

marble bed, 
Where the weeds and the desolate dust 

are spread. 
'Twas sweet of yore to see it play 
And chase the sultriness of day, 300 
As springing high the silver dew 
In whirls fantastically flew, 
And flung luxurious coolness round 
The air, and verdure o'er the ground. 
'Twas sweet, when cloudless stars were 

bright, 
To view the wave of watery light, • 
And hear its melody by night. 
And oft had Hassan's Childhood played 
Around the verge of that cascade; 
And oft upon his mother's breast 310 
That sound had harmonised his rest; 
And oft had Hassan's Youth along 
Its bank been soothed by Beauty's song; 
And softer seemed each melting tone 
Of Music mingled with its own. 
But ne'er shall Hassan's Age repose 
Along the brink at Twilight's close: 
The stream that filled that font is fled — 
The blood that warmed his heart is 

shed ! 
And here no more shall human voice 320 
Be heard to rage, regret, rejoice. 
The last sad note that swelled the gale 
Was woman's wildest funeral wail: 
That quenched in silence, all is still. 
But the lattice that flaps when the wind 

is shrill: 
Though raves the gust, and floods the 

rain. 
No hand shall close its clasp again. 
On desert sands 'twere joy to scan 
The rudest steps of fellow man. 
So here the very voice of Grief 330 
Might wake an Echo like relief — 
At least 'twould say, " All are not gone ; 
There Ungers Life, though but in one" — 
For many a gilded chamber's there, 
Which Solitude might well forbear; 
Within that dome as yet Decay 
Hath slowly worked her cankering 

way — 
But gloom is gathered o'er the gate. 
Nor there the Fakir's self will wait; 
Nor there will wandering Dervise 
stay, 340 



For Bounty cheers not his delay; 

Nor there will weary stranger halt 

To bless the sacred "bread and salt." 

Alike must Wealth and Poverty 

Pass heedless and unheeded by, 

For Courtesy and Pity died 

With Hassan on the mountain side. 

His roof, that refuge unto men. 

Is Desolation's hungry den. 

The guest flies the hall, and the vassal 

from labour, 350 

Since his turban was cleft by the infidel's 

sabre ! ^ 

I hear the sound of coming feet. 
But not a voice mine ear to greet; 
More near — each turban I can scan, 
And silver-sheathed ataghan; ^ 
The foremost of the band is seen 
An Emir by his garb of green : ^ 
"Ho! who art thou?" — "This low 

salam ^ 
Replies of Moslem faith I am. 
The burthen ye so gently bear, 360 
Seems one that claims your utmost 

care. 
And, doubtless, holds some precious 

freight — 
My humble bark would gladly wait." 
"Thou speakest sooth: thy skiff 

unmoor, 

' I need hardly observe, that Charity and 
Hospitality are the first duties enjoined by 
Mahomet; and to say truth, very generally 
practised by his disciples. _ The first praise that 
can be bestowed on a chief is a panegvric on 
his bounty; the next, on his valour. ["Serve 
God . . . and show kindness unto parents, and 
relations, and orphans, and the poor, and your 
neighbour who is of kin to you . . . and the 
traveller, and the captives," etc. — Qur'dn, 
cap. iv. [40]. ] 

' The ataghan, a long dagger worn with 
pistols in the belt, in a metal scabbard, generally 
of silver; and, among the wealthier, gilt, or 
of gold. 

3 Green is the privileged colour of the proph- 
et's numerous pretended descendants; with 
them, as here, faith (the family inheritance) is 
supposed to supersede the necessity^ of good 
works: they are the worst of a very indifferent 
brood. 

4 "Salam aleikoum ! aleikoum salam !" peace 
be with you; be with you peace — the saluta- 
tion reserved for the faithful: — to a Christian, 
"Urlarula !" a good journey; or " saban hiresem, 
saban serula," good morn, good even; and 
sometimes, "may your end be happy!" are the 
usual salutes. 



3i8 



THE GIAOUR 



And waft us from the silent shore; 
Nay, leave the sail still furled, and ply 
The nearest oar that's scattered by, 
And midway to those rocks where sleep 
The channelled waters dark and deep. 
Rest from your task — so — bravely 
done, 370 

Our course has been right swiftly run; 
Yet 'tis the longest voyage, I trow. 
That one of — * * * 

* * * * *" 

Sullen it plunged, and slowly sank, 
The calm wave rippled to the bank; 
I watched it as it sank, methought 
Some motion from the current caught 
Bestirred it more, — 'twas but the beam 
That checkered o'er the living stream: 
I gazed, till vanishing from view, 380 
Like lessening pebble it withdrew; 
Still less and less, a speck of white 
That gemmed the tide, then mocked the 

sight ; 
And all its hidden secrets sleep. 
Known but to Genii of the deep. 
Which, trembling in their coral caves. 
They dare not whisper to the waves. 

As rising on its purple wing 
The insect queen ^ of Eastern spring. 
O'er emerald meadows of Kashmeer 390 
Invites the young pursuer near, 
And leads him on from flower to flower 
A weary chase and wasted hour, 
Then leaves him, as it soars on high. 
With panting heart and tearful eye: 
So Beauty lures the full-grown child. 
With hue as bright, and wing as wild: 
A chase of idle hopes and fears. 
Begun in folly, closed in tears. 
If won, to equal ills betrayed, 400 

Woe waits the insect and the maid; 
A life of pain, the loss of peace. 
From infant's play, and man's caprice: 
The lovely toy so fiercely sought 
Hath lost its charm by being caught, 
For every touch that wooed its stay 
Hath brushed its brightest hues away. 
Till charm, and hue, and beauty gone, 
'Tis left to fly or fall alone. 
With wounded wing, or bleeding breast, 

' The blue-winged butterfly of Kashmeer, 
the most rare and beautiful of the species. 



Ah ! where shall either victim rest? 411 

Can this with faded pinion soar 

From rose to tulip as before? 

Or Beauty, blighted in an hour. 

Find joy within her broken bower? 

No: gayer insects fluttering by 

Ne'er droop the wing o'er those that die. 

And lovelier things have mercy shown 

To every failing but their own. 

And every woe a tear can claim 420 

Except an erring Sister's shame. 

The Mind, that broods o'er guilty woes, 

Is like the Scorpion girt by fire; 
In circle narrowing as it glows, 
The flame around their captive close, 
Till inly searched by thousand throes, 

And maddening in her ire, 
One sad and sole relief she knows — 
The sting she nourished for her foes, 
Whose venom never yet was vain, 430 
Gives but one pang, and cures all pain. 
And darts into her desperate brain: 
So do the dark in soul expire. 
Or live like Scorpion girt by fire; * 
So writhes the mind Remorse hath riven, 
Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven, 
Darkness above, despair beneath. 
Around it flame, within it death ! 

Black Hassan from the Haram flies. 
Nor bends on woman's form his eyes; 
The unwonted chase each hour em- 
ploys, 441 
Yet shares he not the hunter's joys. 
Not thus was Hassan wont to fly 
When Leila dwelt in his Serai. 

' Alluding to the dubious suicide of the 
scorpion, so placed for experiment by gentle 
philosophers. Some maintain that the position 
of the sting, when turned towards the head, is 
merely a convulsive movement; but others 
have actually brought in the verdict "Felo de 
se." The scorpions are surely interested in 
a speedy decision of the question; as, if once 
fairlv established as insect Catos, they will 
probably be allowed to live as long as they 
think proper, without being martyred for the 
sake of an hypothesis. 

["Probably in some instances the poor 
scorpion has been burnt to death; and the 
well-known habit of these creatures to raise 
the tail over the back and recurve it so that the 
extremity touches the fore part of the cephalo- 
thorax, has led to the idea that it was stinging 
I itself." — £Mcyc/. Brit., art. " Arachnida."] 



THE GIAOUR 



319 



Doth Leila there no longer dwell? 
That tale can only Hassan tell: 
Strange rumours in our city say 
Upon that eve she fled away 
When Rhamazan's ^ last sun was set 
And flashing from each Minaret 450 
Millions of lamps proclaimed the feast 
Of Bairam through the boundless East. 
'Twas then she went as to the bath, 
Which Hassan vainly searched in wrath; 
For she was flown her master's rage 
In likeness of a Georgian page, 
And far beyond the Moslem's power 
Had wronged him with the faithless 

Giaour. 
Somewhat of this had Hassan deemed; 
But still so fond, so fair she seemed, 460 
Too well he trusted to the slave 
Whose treachery deserved a grave: 
And on that eve had gone to Mosque, 
And thence to feast in his Kiosk. 
Such is the tale his Nubians tell, 
Who did not watch their charge too well ; 
But others say, that on that night. 
By pale Phingari's ^ trembling hght. 
The Giaour upon his jet-black steed 
Was seen, but seen alone to speed 470 
With bloody spur along the shore. 
Nor maid nor page behind him bore. 

Her eye's dark charm 'twere vain to 
tell. 
But gaze on that of the Gazelle, 
It will assist thy fancy well; 
As large, as languishingly dark. 
But Soul beamed forth in every spark 
That darted from beneath the lid. 
Bright as the jewel of Giamschid.^ 

* The cannon at sunset close the Rhamazan. 

' Phingari, the moon. 

■5 The celebrated fabulous ruby of Sultan 
Giamschid, the embellisher of Istakhar; from 
its splendour, named Schebgerag [Schabchi- 
ragh], "the torch of night"; also "the cup of 
the sun," etc. In the First Edition, "Giam- 
schid" was written as a word of three syllables; 
so D'Herbelot has it; but I am told Richard- 
son reduces it to a dissvllable, and writes " Jam- 
shid." I have left in the text the orthography 
>of the one with the pronunciation of the other. 

[According to Sir Richard Burton (Arabian 
Nights, S.N., iii. 440, " Jam-i-jamshid is a well- 
iknown commonplace in Moslem folk-lore; but 
commentators cannot agree whether 'Jam' be a 
mirror or a cup. In the latter sense it would 
.rej)resent the Cyathomantic cup oi the Patriarch 



Yea, Soul, and should our prophet say 
That form was nought but breathing 

clay, 481 

By Alia! I would answer nay; 
Though on Ai-Sirat's ^ arch I stood. 
Which totters o'er the fiery flood. 
With Paradise within my view. 
And all his Houris beckoning through. 
Oh ! who young Leila's glance could 

read 
And keep that portion of his creed 
Which saith that woman is but dust, 
A soulless toy for tyrant's lust ? ^ 490 
On her might Muftis gaze, and own 

Joseph, and the symbolic bowl of Nestor. 
Jamshid may be translated either 'Jam the 
Bright,' or 'the Cup of the Sun'; this ancient 
King is the Solomon of the grand old Guebres." 

Fitzgerald, Stanza v. of the Rubdiydt of 
Omar Khayyam, embodies a late version of 
the myth — 

"Iram is gone and all his Rose, 
And Jamshyd's sev'n-ringed Cup where no 
one knows."] 

' Al-Sirat, the bridge of breadth narrower 
than the thread of a famished spider, and 
sharper than the edge of a sword, over which 
the Mussulmans must skate into Paradise, to 
which it is the only entrance; but this is not 
the worst, the river beneath being hell itself, 
into which, as may be expected, the unskilful 
and tender of foot contrive to tumble with a 
"facilis descensus Averni," not very pleasing 
in prospect to the next passenger. There is 
a shorter cut downwards for the Jews and 
Christians. 

[The legend, or rather allegory, _ to which 
there would seem to be some allusion in the 
words of Scripture, "Strait is the gate," etc., 
is of Zoroastrian origin. Compare the Zend- 
Avesta {Sacred Books oj the East, edited by F. 
Max Miiller, 1887, xxxi. 261), "With even 
threefold (safety and with speed) I will bring 
his soul over the Bridge of A'inva/," etc.] 

^ A vulgar error : the Koran allots at least a 
third of Paradise to well-behaved women; but 
by far the greater number of Mussulmans 
interpret the text their own way, and exclude 
their moieties from heaven. Being enemies to 
Platonics, thev cannot discern "any fitnessot 
things" in the souls of the other sex, conceivmg 
them to be superseded by the Houris. 

[Sale, in his Preliminary Di-^ course, not^es 
"that there are several passages in the Koran 
which affirm that women, in the next lue, will not 
onlv be punished for their evil actions, but will 
also receive the rewards of their good deeds, as 
well as the men. and that in this case God will 
make no distinction of sexes." A single quota 
tion will suffice: "God has promised to be^- 
lievers, men, and women gardens beneath 
which rivers flow, to dwell therein for aye; 
and goodlv places in the garden of Eden. — 
The Qur'dn, translated by E. H. Palmer, 1880, 
vi. 183.] 



320 



THE GIAOUR 



That through her eye the Immortal 

shone ; 
On her fair cheek's unfading hue 
The young pomegranate's ^ blossom 

strew 
Their bloom in blushes ever new; 
Her hair in hyacinthine flow,^ 
When left to roll its folds below, 
As midst her handmaids in the hall 
She stood superior to them all, 
Hath swept the marble where her feet 
Gleamed whiter than the mountain 

sleet 501 

Ere from the cloud that gave it birth 
It fell, and caught one stain of earth. 
The cygnet nobly walks the water; 
So moved on earth Circassia's daughter. 
The loveliest bird of Franguestan ! ^ 
As rears her crest the rufiEied Swan, 
And spurns the wave with wings of 

pride. 
When pass the steps of stranger man 

Along the banks that bound her tide; 
Thus rose fair Leila's whiter neck: — 
Thus armed with beauty would she 

check 512 

Intrusion's glance, till Folly's gaze 
Shrunk from the charms it meant to 

praise. 
Thus high and graceful was her gait; 
Her heart as tender to her mate; 
Her mate — stern Hassan, who was he ? 
Alas ! that name was not for thee ! 



Stern Hassan hath a journey ta'en 
With twenty vassals in his train, 520 
Each armed, as best becomes a man. 
With arquebuss and ataghan; 
The chief before, as decked for war, 
Bears in his belt the scimitar 
Stained with the best of Arnaut blood, 
When in the pass the rebels stood, 
And few returned to tell the tale 
Of what befell in Fame's vale. 



' An Oriental simile, which may, perhaps, 
though fairly stolen be deemed "plus Arabe 
qu'en Arahie." 

[Gulnar (the heroine of the Corsair, is named 
Guinare) is Persian for a pomegranate flower.] 

= Hyacinthine, in Arabic "Sunbul"; as com- 
mon a thought in the Eastern poets as it was 
among the Greeks. 

3 " Franguestan," Circassia. [Or Europe 
generally — the land of the Frank.] 



The pistols which his girdle bore 
Were those that once a Pasha wore, 530 
Which still, though gemmed and bossed 

with gold. 
Even robbers tremble to behold. 
'Tis said he goes to woo a bride 
More true than her who left his side; 
The faithless slave that broke her bower. 
And — worse than faithless — for a 

Giaour ! 



The Sun's last rays are on the hill, 
And sparkle in the fountain rill, 
Whose welcome waters, cool and clear, 
Draw blessings from the mountaineer: 
Here may the loitering merchant 
Greek 541 

Find that repose 'twere vain to seek 
In cities lodged too near his lord. 
And trembling for his secret hoard — 
Here may he rest where none can see, 
In crowds a slave, in deserts free; 
And with forbidden wine may stain 
The bowl a Moslem must not drain. 



The foremost Tartar's in the gap. 
Conspicuous by his yellow cap; 550 
The rest in lengthening line the while 
Wind slowly through the long defile: 
Above, the mountain rears a peak, 
Where vultures whet the thirsty beak, 
And theirs may be a feast to-night, 
Shall tempt them down ere morrow's 

light; 
Beneath, a river's wintry stream 
Has shrunk before the summer beam, 
And left a channel bleak and bare, 
Save shrubs that spring to perish there: 
Each side the midway path there lay 561 
Small broken crags of granite grey. 
By time, or mountain lightning, riven 
From summits clad in mists of heaven; 
For where is he that hath beheld 
The peak of Liakura ^ unveiled? 



They reach the grove of pine at last; 
"Bismillah!^ now the peril's past; 

' [Parnassus.] 

^"In the name of God;" the commence- 
ment of all the chapters of the Koran but one 
[the ninth], and of prayer and thanksgiving. 



THE GIAOUR 



321 



For yonder view the opening plain, 
And there we'll prick our steeds amain : " 
The Chiaus ^ spake, and as he said, 571 
A bullet whistled o'er his head; 
The foremost Tartar bites the ground ! 

Scarce had they time to check the 
rein, 
Swift from their steeds the riders bound; 

But three shall never mount again : 
Unseen the foes that gave the wound. 

The dying ask revenge in vain. 
With steel unsheathed, and carbine bent. 
Some o'er their courser's harness leant. 

Half sheltered by the steed; 581 

Some fly beneath the nearest rock. 
And there await the coming shock, 

Nor tamely stand to bleed 
Beneath the shaft of foes unseen. 
Who dare not quit their craggy screen. 
Stern Hassan only from his horse 
Disdains to light, and keeps his course, 
Till fiery flashes in the van 
Proclaim too sure the robber-clan 590 
Have well secured the only way 
Could now avail the promised prey; 
Then curled his very beard ^ with ire, 
And glared his eye with fiercer fire; 
"Though far and near the bullets hiss, 
I've scaped a bloodier hour than this." 
And now the foe their covert quit. 
And call his vassals to submit; 
But Hassan's frown and furious word 
Are dreaded more than hostile sword, 
Nor of his little band a man 601 

Resigned carbine or ataghan. 
Nor raised the craven cry, Amaun ! ^ 
In fuller sight, more near and near, 
The lately ambushed foes appear, 
And, issuing from the grove, advance 
Some who on battle-charger prance. 
Who leads them on with foreign brand 
Far flashing in his red right hand ? 
"'Tishe! 'tis he! I know him now: 610 



' [A Turkish messenger, sergeant or lictor.] 
' A phenomenon not uncommon with an 
angry Mussulman. In 1800 the Capitan 
Pacha's whiskers at a diplomatic audience were 
no less lively with indignation than a tiger cat's, 
to the horror of all the dragomans; the por- 
tentous mustachios twisted, they stood erect 
of their own accord, and were expected every 
moment to change their colour, but at last 
condescended to subside, which, probably, 
saved more heads than they contained hairs. 
3 "Amaun," quarter, pardon. 



I know him by his pallid brow; 

I know him by the evil eye ^ 

That aids his envious treachery; 

I know him by his jet-black barb; 

Though now arrayed in Arnaut garb. 

Apostate from his own vile faith, 

It shall not save him from the death: 

'Tis he ! well met in any hour, 

Lost Leila's love — accursed Giaour ! " 

As rolls the river into Ocean, 620 
In sable torrent wildly streaming; 

As the sea-tide's opposing motion, 
In azure column proudly gleaming, 
Beats back the current many a rood. 
In curling foam and mingling flood, 
While eddying whirl, and breaking 

wave. 
Roused by the blast of winter, rave; 
Through sparkling spray, in thundering 

clash. 
The lightnings of the waters flash 
In awful whiteness o'er the shore, 630 
That shines and shakes beneath the 

roar; 
Thus — as the stream and Ocean greet, 
With waves that madden as they meet — 
Thus join the bands, whom mutual 

wrong. 
And fate, and fury, drive along. 
The bickering sabres' shivering jar; 
And pealing wide or ringing near 
Its echoes on the throbbing ear, 
The deathshot hissing from afar; 
The shock, the shout, the groan of war, 
Reverberate along that vale, 641 

More suited to the shepherd's tale: 
Though few the numbers — theirs the 

strife, 
That neither spares nor speaks for life ! 
Ah ! fondly youthful hearts can press, 
To seize and share the dear caress; 
But Love itself could never pant 
For all that Beauty sighs to grant 
With half the fervour Hate bestows 
Upon the last embrace of foes, 650 

When grappling in the fight they fold 
Those arms that ne'er shall lose their 
hold: 



' The "evil eye," a common superstition in 
the Levant, and of which the imaginary effects 
are yet very singular on those who conceive 
themselves affected. 



322 



THE GIAOUR 



Friends meet to part; Love laughs at 

faith; 
True foes, once met, are joined till 

death ! 



With sabre shivered to the hilt, 
Yet dripping with the blood he spilt; 
Yet strained within the severed hand 
Which quivers round that faithless 

brand; 
His turban far behind him rolled. 
And cleft in twain its firmest fold: 660 
His flowing robe by falchion torn. 
And crimson as those clouds of morn 
That, streaked with dusky red, portend 
The day shall have a stormy end; 
A stain on every bush that bore 
A fragment of his palampore; ^ 
His breast with wounds unnumbered 

riven. 
His back to earth, his face to Heaven, 
Fall'n Hassan lies — his unclosed eye 
Yet lowering on his enemy, 670 

As if the hour that sealed his fate 
Surviving left his quenchless hate; 
And o'er him bends that foe with brow 
As dark as his that bled below. 



"Yes, Leila sleeps beneath the wave, 
But his shall be a redder grave; 
Her spirit pointed well the steel 
Which taught that felon heart to feel. 
He called the Prophet, but his power 
Was vain against the vengeful Giaour: 
He called on Alia — but the word 681 
Arose unheeded or unheard. 
Thou Paynim fool ! could Leila's 

prayer 
Be passed, and thine accorded there? 
I watched my time, I leagued with 

these. 
The traitor in his turn to seize; 
My wrath is wreaked, the deed is done, 
And now I go, — but go alone." 



The browsing camels' bells are 
tinkling: 



' The flowered shawls generally worn by 
persons of rank. 



His mother looked from her lattice 
high — 690 

She saw the dews of eve besprinkling 
The pasture green beneath her eye. 

She saw the planets faintly twinkling: 
'"Tis twilight — sure his train is nigh." 
She could not rest in the garden-bower, 
But gazed through the grate of his steep- 
est tower. 
" Why comes he not ? his steeds are fleet. 
Nor shrink they from the summer heat; 
Why sends not the Bridegroom his 

promised gift? 
Is his heart more cold, or his barb less 
swift ? 700 

Oh, false reproach ! yon Tartar now 
Has gained our nearest mountain's 

brow. 
And warily the steep descends. 
And now within the valley bends; 
And he bears the gift at his saddle bow — 
How could I deem his courser slow? 
Right well my largess shall repay 
His welcome speed, and weary way." 

The Tartar lighted at the gate. 
But scarce upheld his fainting weight ! 
His swarthy visage spake distress, 711 
But this might be from weariness; 
His garb with sanguine spots was dyed. 
But these might be from his courser's 

side; 
He drew the token from his vest — 
Angel of Death i 'Tis Hassan's cloven 

crest ! 
His calpac ^ rent — his caftan red — 
" Lady, a fearful bride thy Son hath wed : 
Me, not from mercy, did they spare. 
But this empurpled pledge to bear. 720 
Peace to the brave ! whose blood is 

spilt: 
Woe to the Giaour! for his the guilt." 

A Turban ^ carved in coarsest stone, 
A Pillar with rank weeds o'ergrown, 
Whereon can now be scarcely read 

' The calpac is the solid cap or centre part of 
the head-dress; the shawl is wound round it, 
and forms the turban. 

" The turban, pillar, and inscriptive verse, 
decorate the tombs of the Osmanlies, whether 
in the cemetery or the wilderness. In the 
mountains you frequently pass similar mementos; 
and on enquiry you are informed that they 



THE GIAOUR 



Z^Z 



The Koran verse that mourns the dead, 

Point out the spot where Hassan fell 

A victim in that lonely del). 

There sleeps as true an Osmanlie 

As e'er at Mecca bent the knee; 730 

As ever scorned forbidden wine, 

Or prayed with face towards the shrine. 

In orisons resumed anew 

At solemn sound of "Alia Hu!" ^ 

Yet died he by a stranger's hand. 

And stranger in his native land; 

Yet died he as in arms he stood. 

And unavenged, at least in blood. 

But him the maids of Paradise 

Impatient to their halls invite, 740 
And the dark heaven of Houris' eyes 

On him shall glance for ever bright; 
They come — their kerchiefs green they 

wave,^ 
And welcome with a kiss the brave ! 
Who falls in battle 'gainst a Giaour 
Is worthiest an immortal bower. 



But thou, false Infidel ! shall writhe 
Beneath avenging Monkir's^ scythe; 

record some victim of rebellion, plunder or 
revenge. 

[The following is a "Koran verse" (1. 726). 
"Every one that is upon it (the earth) perisheth; 
but the person of thy Lord abideth, the possessor 
of glory and honour" (Sur. Iv. 26, 27).] 

'"Alia Hu!" the concluding words of the 
Muezzin's call to prayer from the highest gallery 
on the exterior of the Minaret. On a still 
evening, when the Muezzin has a fme voice, 
which is frequently the case, the effect is solemn 
and beautiful beyond all the bells in Christen- 
dom. [Valid, the son of Abdalmalek, was the 
first who erected a minaret or turret; and this 
he placed on the grand mosque at Damascus, 
for the muezzin or crier to announce from it 
the hour of prayer.] 

* The following is part of a battle-song of the 
Turks: — "I see — I see a dark-eyed girl of 
Paradise, and she waves a handkerchief, a 
kerchief of green; and cries aloud, 'Come, 
kiss me, for I love thee,'" etc. 

3 Monkir and Nekir are the inquisitors of the 
dead,_ before whom the corpse undergoes a slight 
rioviciate and preparatory training for damna- 
tion. If the answers are none of the clearest, 
he is hauled up with a scythe and thumped 
down with a red-hot mace till properly seasoned, 
with a variety of subsidiary probations. The 
office of these angels is no sinecure; there are 
but two, and the number of orthodox deceased 
being in a small proportion to the remainder, 
their hands are always full. — See Relig. Ccre- 
mon., V. 2go; vii. 59, 68, 118, and Sale's Pre- 
liminary Discourse to the Koran, p. loi. 



And from its torments 'scape alone 
To wander round lost Eblis' ^ throne; 
And fire unquenched, unquenchable. 
Around, within, thy heart shall dwell; 
Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell 
The tortures of that inward hell ! 
But first, on earth as Vampire ^ sent, 
Thy corse shall from its tomb be 

rent: 
Then ghastly haunt thy native place. 
And suck the blood of all thy race; 
There from thy daughter, sister, wife. 
At midnight drain the stream of life; 760 
Yet loathe the banquet which perforce 
Must feed thy livid living corse: 
Thy victims ere they yet expire 
Shall know the demon for their sire. 
As cursing thee, thou cursing them. 
Thy flowers are withered on the stem. 
But one that for thy crime must fall, 
The youngest, most beloved of all. 
Shall bless thee with a. father's name — 
That word shall wrap thy heart in 

flame! 770 

Yet must thou end thy task, and mark 

I Eblis, the Oriental Prince of Darkness. 

^ The Vampire superstition is still general in 
the Levant. Honest Tournefort tells a long 
story, which Mr Southey, in the notes on 
Thalaba quotes about these " Vroucolochas" 
as he calls them. The Romaic term is "Var- 
doulacha." I recollect a whole family being 
terrified by the scream of a child, which they 
imagined must proceed from such a visitation. 
The Greeks never mention the word without 
horror. I find that "Broucolokas" is an old 
legitimate Hellenic appellation — at least is so 
applied to Arsenius, who, according to the Greeks, 
was after his death animated by the Devil. 
The moderns, however, use the word I mention. 

[BowpKoAa/cas is modern Greek for a ghost or 
vampire. 

Arsenius, Archbishop of Monembasia (circ. 
1530), was famous for his scholarship. "He 
submitted to the Church of Rome, which made 
him so odious to the Greek schismatics that the 
Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated 
him; and the Greeks reported that Arsenius, 
after his death, was Broukolakas, that is, that 
the Devil hovered about his corpse and re- 
animated him" (Bayle, Dictionary, 1724, art. 
"Arsenius"). Martinus Crusius, in his Turco- 
GrcEcia, lib. ii. records the death of Arsenius 
while under sentence of excommunication, and 
adds that "his miserable corpse turned black, 
and swelled to the size of a drum, so that all 
who beheld it were horror-stricken, and trembled 
exceedingly." Byron, no doubt, got his in- 
formation from Bayle. By "old legitimate 
Hellenic" he must mean literary as opposed to 
klephtic Greek.] 



324 



THE GIAOUR 



Her cheek's last tinge, her eye's last 

spark, 
And the last glassy glance must view 
Which freezes o'er its lifeless blue; 
Then with unhallowed hand shalt tear 
The tresses of her yellow hair, 
Of which in life a lock when shorn 
Affection's fondest pledge was worn. 
But now is borne away by thee, 
Memorial of thine agony ! 780 

Wet with thine own best blood shall drip 
Thy gnashing tooth and haggard Up; ^ 
Then stalking to thy sullen grave. 
Go — and with Gouls and Afrits rave; 
Till these in horror shrink away 
From Sceptre more accursed than they ! 

" How name ye yon lone Caloyer ? ^ 
His features I have scanned before 
In mine own land: 'tis many a year, 

Since, dashing by the lonely shore, 790 
I saw him urge as fleet a steed 
As ever served a horseman's need. 
But once I saw that face, yet then 
It was so marked with inward pain, 
I could not pass it by again ; 
It breathes the same dark spirit now, 



' The freshness of the face and the wetness of 
the lip with blood, are the never-failing signs of a 
Vampire. The stories told in Hungary and 
Greece of these foul feeders are singular, and 
some of them most incredibly attested. 

[Vampires were the re-animated corpses of 
persons newly buried, which were supposed to 
suck the blood and suck out the life of their 
selected victims. The marks by which a vam- 
pire corpse was recognised were the apparent 
non-putrefaction of the body and effusion of 
blood from the lips. A suspected vampire 
was exhumed, and if the marks were perceived 
or imagined to be present, a stake was driven 
through the heart, and the body was burned. 
These precautions "laid" the vampire, and the 
community might sleep in peace.] 

" [It is a hard matter to piece together the 
"fragments" which make up the rest of the poem. 
Apparently the question, "How name ye?" is 
put by the fisherman, the narrator of the first 
part of the Fragment, and answered by a monk 
of the fraternity, with whom the Giaour has been 
pleased to "abide" during the past six years, 
■under conditions and after a fashion of which 
the monk disapproves. Hereupon the fisher- 
man disappears, and a kind of dialogue between 
the author and the protesting monk ensues. 
The poem concludes with the Giaour's con- 
fession, which is addressed to the monk, or 
perhaps to the interested and more tolerant 
Prior of the community.] 



As death were stamped upon his brow. 

'"Tis twice three years at summer tide 
Since first among our freres he came; 
And here it soothes him to abide 800 
For .some dark deed he will not name. 
But never at our Vesper prayer, 
Nor e'er before Confession chair 
Kneels he, nor recks he when arise 
Incense or anthem to the skies. 
But broods within his cell alone. 
His faith and race aUke unknown. 
The sea from Paynim land he crost, 
And here ascended from the coast; 
Yet seems he not of Othman race, 810 
But only Christian in his face: 
I'd judge him some stray renegade, 
Repentant of the change he made, 
Save that he shuns our holy shrine, 
Nor tastes the sacred bread and wine. 
Great largess to these walls he brought, 
And thus our Abbot's favour bought; 
But were I Prior, not a day 
Should brook such stranger's further 

stay, 
Or pent within our penance cell 820 
Should doom him there for aye to dwell. 
Much in his visions mutters he 
Of maiden whelmed beneath the sea; 
Of sabres clashing, foemen flying. 
Wrongs avenged, and Moslem dying. 
On cUff he hath been known to stand 
And rave as to some bloody hand 
Fresh severed from its parent limb. 
Invisible to all but him. 
Which beckons onward to his grave, 830 
And lures to leap into the wave." 



Dark and unearthly is the scowl 
That glares beneath his dusky cowl: 
The flash of that dilating eye 
Reveals too much of times gone by; 
Though varying, indistinct its hue. 
Oft will his glance the gazer rue, 
For in it lurks that nameless spell. 
Which speaks, itself unspeakable, 
A spirit yet unquelled and high, 840 
That claims and keeps ascendancy; 
And like the bird whose pinionsquake, 
But cannot fly the gazing snake, 
Will others quail beneath his look, 



THE GIAOUR 



325 



Nor 'scape the glance they scarce 'can 

brook: 
From him the half-affrighted Friar 
When met alone would fain retire, 
As if that eye and bitter smile 
Transferred to others fear and guile: 
Not oft to smile descendeth he, 850 
And when he doth 'tis sad to see 
That he but mocks at Misery. 
How that pale lip will curl and quiver ! 
Then fix once more as if for ever; 
As if his sorrow or disdain 
Forbade him e'er to smile again. 
Well were it so — such ghastly mirth 
From joyaunce ne'er derived its birth. 
But sadder still it were to trace 
What once were feelings in that face : 860 
Time hath not yet the features fixed, 
But brighter traits with evil mixed; 
And there are hues not always faded, 
Which speak a mind not all degraded 
Even by the crimes through which it 

waded: 
The common crowd but see the gloom 
Of wayward deeds, and fitting doom; 
The close observer can espy 
A noble soul, and lineage high: 
Alas ! though both bestowed in vain, 870 
Which Grief could change, and Guilt 

could stain. 
It was no vulgar tenement 
To which such lofty gifts were lent, 
And still with little less than dread 
On such the sight is riveted. 
The roofless cot, decayed and rent. 

Will scarce delay the passer-by; 
The tower by war or tempest bent. 
While yet may frown one battlement, 
Demands and daunts the stranger's 

eye ; 880 

Each ivied arch, and pillar lone. 
Pleads haughtily for glories gone ! 

"His floating robe around him folding, 
Slow sweeps he through the columned 
aisle; 
With dread beheld, with gloom behold- 
ing _ 
The rites that sanctify the pile. 
But when the anthem shakes the choir, 
And kneel the monks, his steps retire; 
By yonder lone and wavering torch 
His aspect glares within the porch; 890 



There will he pause till all is done — 
And hear the prayer, but utter none. 
See — by the half-illumined wall 
His hood fly back, his dark hair fall. 
That pale brow wildly wreathing round. 
As if the Gorgon there had bound 
The sablest of the serpent-braid 
That o'er her fearful forehead strayed: 
For he declines the convent oath. 
And leaves those locks unhallowed 
growth, 900 

But wears our garb in all beside; 
And, not from piety but pride, 
Gives wealth to walls that never heard 
Of his one holy vow nor word. 
Lo ! — mark ye, as the harmony 
Peals louder praises to the sky, 
That livid cheek, that stony air 
Of mixed defiance and despair ! 
Saint Francis, keep him from the shrine ! 
Else may we dread the wrath divine 910 
Made manifest by awful sign. 
If ever evil angel bore 
The form of mortal, such he wore: 
By all my hope of sins forgiven. 
Such looks are not of earth nor heaven ! " 

To Love the softest hearts are prone, 
But such can ne'er be all his own; 
Too timid in his woes to share. 
Too meek to meet, or brave despair; 
And sterner hearts alone may feel 920 
The wound that Time can never heal. 
The rugged metal of the mine 
Must burn before its surface shine, 
But plunged within the furnace-flame, 
It bends and melts — though still the 

same ; 
Then tempered to thy want, or will, 
'Twill serve thee to defend or kill — 
A breast-plate for thine hour of need. 
Or blade to bid thy foeman bleed; 
But if a dagger's form it bear, 930 

Let those who shape its edge, beware ! 
Thus Passion's fire, and Woman's art. 
Can turn and tame the sterner heart; 
From these its form and tone are ta'en, 
And what they make it, must remain. 
But break — before it bend again. 

***** 
***** 

If solitude succeed to grief, 



326 



THE GIAOUR 



Release from pain is slight relief; 
The vacant bosom's wilderness 
Might thank the pang that made it 
less. 940 

We loathe what none are left to share: 
Even bliss — 'twere woe alone to bear; 
The heart once left thus desolate 
Must fly at last for ease — to hate. 
It is as if the dead could feel 
The icy worm around them steal, 
And shudder, as the reptiles creep 
To revel o'er their rotting sleep. 
Without the power to scare away 
The cold consumers of their clay ! 950 
It is as if the desert bird,^ 

Whose beak unlocks her bosom's 
stream 

To still her famished nestUngs' 
scream. 
Nor mourns a life to them transferred, 
Should rend her rash devoted breast. 
And find them flown her empty nest. 
The keenest pangs the wretched find 

Are rapture to the dreary void — 
The leafless desert of the mind, 

The waste of feelings unemployed. 
Who would be doomed to gaze upon 961 
A sky without a cloud or sun? 
Less hideous far the tempest's roar, 
Than ne'er to brave the billows more — 
Thrown, when the war of winds is o'er, 
A lonely wreck on Fortune's shore, 
'Mid sullen calm, and silent bay. 
Unseen to drop by dull decay; — 
Better to sink beneath the shock 
Than moulder piecemeal on the rock ! 



" Father ! thy days have passed in peace, 

'Mid counted beads, and countless 

prayer; 972 

To bid the sins of others cease. 
Thyself without a crime or care. 

Save transient iUs that all must bear. 

Has been thy lot from youth to age; 

• The pelican is, I believe, the bird so libelled, 
by the imputation of feeding her chickens with 
her_ blood. [It has been suggested that the 
curious bloody secretion ejected from the mouth 
of the flamingo may have given rise to the belief, 
through that bird having been mistaken for the 
"pelican of the wilderness." — Encycl. Brit., 
art. "Pelican" (by Professor A. Newton), 
xviii. 474.] 



And thou wilt bless thee from the rage 
Of passions fierce and uncontrolled. 
Such as thy penitents unfold, 
Whose secret sins and sorrows rest 980 
Within thy pure and pitying breast. 
My days, though few, have passed 

below 
In much of Joy, but more of Woe; 
Yet still in hours of love or strife, 
I've 'scaped the weariness of Life: 
Now leagued with friends, now girt by 

foes, 
I loathed the languor of repose. 
Now, nothing left to love or hate, 
No more with hope or pride elate, 
I'd rather be the thing that crawls 990 
Most noxious o'er a dungeon's walls, 
Than pass my dull, unvarying days. 
Condemned to meditate and gaze. 
Yet, lurks a wish within my breast 
For rest — but not to feel 'tis rest. 
Soon shall my Fate that wish fulfil; 

And I shall sleep without the dream 
Of what I was, and would be still, 

Dark as to thee my deeds may seem : 
My memory now is but the tomb 1000 
Of joys long dead; my hope, their 

doom: 
Though better to have died with those 
Than bear a life of lingering woes. 
My spirit shrunk not to sustain 
The searching throes of ceaseless pain; 
Nor sought' the self-accorded grave 
Of ancient fool and modern knave: 
Yet death I have not feared to meet; 
And in the field it had been sweet, 
Had Danger wooed me on to move loio 
The slave of Glory, not of Love. 
I've braved it — not for Honour's boast; 
I smile at laurels won or lost; 
To such let others carve their way, 
For high renown, or hireling pay: 
But place again before my eyes 
Aught that I deem a worthy prize — 
The maid I love, the man I hate — 
And I will hunt the steps of fate, 
To save or slay, as these require, 1020 
Through rending steel, and rolling fire: 
Nor needst thou doubt this speech from 

one 
Who would but do — what he hath 

done. 
Death is but what the haughty brave, 



THE GIAOUR 



327 



The weak must bear, the wretch must 

crave; 
Then let Hfe go to Him who gave: 
I have not quailed to Danger's brow 
When high and happy — need I now ? 



"I loved her, Friar! nay, adored — 

But these are words that all can 
use — 1030 

I proved it more in deed than word; 
There's blood upon that dinted sword, 

A stain its steel can never lose: 
'Twas shed for her, who died for me, 

It warmed the heart of one abhorred : 
Nay, start not — no — nor bend thy 
knee, 

Nor midst my sin such act record; 
Thou wilt absolve me from the deed. 
For he was hostile to thy creed ! 
The very name of Nazarene 1040 

Was wormwood to his Paynim spleen. 
Ungrateful fool ! since but for brands 
Well wielded in some hardy hands. 
And wounds by Galileans given — 
The surest pass to Turkish heaven — 
For him his Houris still might wait 
Impatient at the Prophet's gate. 
I loved her — Love will find its way 
Through paths where wolves would fear 
to prey; 1049 

And if it dares enough, 'twere hard 
If Passion met not some reward — 
No matter how, or where or why, 
I did not vainly seek, nor sigh: 
Yet sometimes, with remorse, in vain 
I wish she had not loved again. 
She died — I dare not tell thee how; 
But look — 'tis written on my brow ! 
There read of Cain the curse and crime. 
In characters unworn by Time : 
Still, ere thou dost condemn me, 
pause; 1060 

Not mine the act, though I the cause. 
Yet did he but what I had done 
Had she been false to more than one. 
Faithless to him — he gave the blow; 
But true to me — I laid him low: 
Howe'er deserved her doom might be 
Her treachery was truth to me; 
To me she gave her heart, that all 
Which Tyranny can ne'er enthrall; 
And I, alas! too late to save! 1070 



Yet all I then could give, I gave — 
'Twas some relief — our foe a grave. 
His death sits lightly; but her fate 
Has made me — what thou well mayst 

hate. 
His doom was sealed — he knew it 

well, 
Warned by the voice of stern Taheer, 
Deep in whose darkly boding ear ^ 
The deathshot pealed of murder near, 

' This superstition of a second-hearing (for I 
never met with downright second-sight in the 
East) fell once under my own observation. On 
my third journey to Cape Colonna, early in 181 1, 
as we passed through the defile that leads from 
the hamlet between Keratia and Colonna, I 
observed Dervish Tahiri riding rather out of 
the path and leaning his head upon his hand, 
as if in pain. I rode up and inquired. "We 
are in peril," he answered. "What peril? 
We are not now in Albania, nor in the passes 
to Ephesus, Messalunghi, or Lepanto; there 
are plenty of us, well armed, and the Choriates 
have not courage to be thieves." — "True, 
Affendi, but nevertheless the shot is ringing in 
my ears." — "The shot? Not a tophaike has 
been fired this morning." — "I hear it notwith- 
standing — Bom — Bom — as plainly as I 
hear your voice." — " Psha !" — "As you please, 
Affendi; if it is written, so will it be." — I left 
this quick-eared predestinarian, and rode up to 
Basili, his Christian compatriot, whose ears, 
though not at all prophetic, by no means rel- 
ished the intelligence. We all arrived at 
Colonna, remained some hours, and returned 
leisurely, saying a variety of brilliant things, 
in more languages than spoiled the building of 
Babel, upon the mistaken seer. Romaic, 
Arnaout, Turkish, Italian, and English were 
all exercised, in various conceits, upon the un- 
fortunate Mussulman. While we were con- 
templating the beautiful prospect, Dervish was 
occupied about the columns. I thought he was 
deranged into an antiquarian, and asked him 
if he had become a " Palaocastro" man? " No," 
said he; "but these pillars will be useful in 
making a stand;" and added other remarks, 
which at least evinced his own belief in his 
troublesome faculty of jorehearing. On our 
return to Athens we heard from Leone (a pris- 
oner set ashore some days after) of the intended 
attack of the Mainotes, mentioned, with the 
cause of its not taking place, in the notes to 
Childe Harold, Canto 2nd. I was at some 
pains to question the man, and he described the 
dresses, arms, and marks of the horses of our 
party so accurately, that, whh other circum- 
stances, we could not doubt of his having been 
in "villanous company" and ourselves in a bad 
neighbourhood. Dervish became a soothsayer 
for life, and I dare say is now hearing more 
musketry than ever will be fired, to the great 
refreshrrient of the Arnaouts of Berat, and his 
native mountains. — I shall mention one trait 
more of this singular race. In March, 181 1, 
a remarkably stout and active Arnaout came 



32i 



THE GIAOUR 



As filed the troop to where they fell ! 
He died too in the battle broil, 1080 
A time that heeds nor pain nor toil; 
One cry to Mahomet for aid, 
One prayer to Alia all he made: 
He knew and crossed me in the fray — 
I gazed upon him where he lay, 
And watched his spirit ebb away: 
Though pierced like pard by hunter's 

steel, 
He felt not half that now I feel. 
I searched, but vainly searched, to find 
The workings of a wounded mind; 1090 
Each feature of that sullen corse 
Betrayed his rage, but no remorse. 
Oh, what had Vengeance given to trace 
Despair upon his dying face ! — 
The late repentance of that hour 
When Penitence hath lost her power 
To tear one terror from the grave, 
And will not soothe, and cannot save. 

***** 

"The cold in clime are cold in blood, 
Their love can scarce deserve the name; 
But mine was like the lava flood iioi 
That boils in Etna's breast of flame. 
I cannot prate in puling strain 
Of Ladye-love, and Beauty's chain: 
If changing cheek, and scorching vein, 
Lips taught to writhe, but not complain, 
If bursting heart, and maddening brain, 
And daring deed, and vengeful steel, 
And all that I have felt and feel, 
Betoken love — that love was mine. 
And shown by many a bitter sign, mi 
'Tis true, I could not whine nor sigh, 
I knew but to obtain or die. 
I die — but first I have possessed. 
And come what may, I have been 

blessed. 
Shall I the doom I sought upbraid? 

(I believe the fiftieth on the same errand) to 
offer himself as an attendant, which was de- 
clined. "Well, Affendi," quoth he, "may you 
live 1 — you would have found me useful. 
I shall leave the town for the hills to-morrow; 
in the winter I return, perhaps you will then 
receive me." — Dervish, who was present, 
remarked as a thing of course, and of no con- 
sequence, "In the meantime he will join the 
Klephtes" (robbers), which was true to the 
letter. If not cut off, they come down in the 
winter, and pass it unmolested in some town, 
where they are often as well known as their 
exploits. 



No — reft of all, yet undismayed 
But for the thought of Leila slain, 
Give me the pleasure with the pain. 
So would I live and love again. 11 20 
I grieve, but not, my holy Guide ! 
For him who dies, but her who died: 
She sleeps beneath the wandering 

wave — 
Ah ! had she but an earthly grave. 
This breaking heart and throbbing head 
Should seek and share her narrow bed. 
She was a form of Life and Light, 
That, seen, became a part of sight; 
And rose, where'er I turned mine eye, 
The Morning-star of Memory! 1130 

"Yes, Love indeed is light from Heaven; 

A spark of that immortal fire 
With angels shared, by Alia given, 

To lift from earth our low desire. 
Devotion wafts the mind above, 
But Heaven itself descends in Love — 
A feeling from the Godhead caught. 
To wean from self each sordid thought; 
A ray of Him who formed the whole — 
A Glory circling round the soul! 1140 
I grant my love imperfect, all 
That mortals by the name miscall: 
Then deem it evil, what thou wilt — 
But say, oh say, hers was not Guilt ! 
She was my Life's unerring Light: 
That quenched — what beam shall 

break my night? 
Oh ! would it shone to lead me still, 
Although to death or deadliest ill ! 
Why marvel ye, if they who lose 

This present joy, this future 
hope, 1 1 50 

No more with Sorrow meekly cope; 
In phrensy then their fate accuse; 
In madness do those fearful deeds 

That seem to add but Guilt to Woe ? 
Alas ! the breast that inly bleeds 

Hath nought to dread from outward 
blow: 
Who falls from all he knows of bliss. 
Cares little into what abyss. 
Fierce as the gloomy vulture's now 

To thee, old man, my deeds appear: 
I read abhorrence on thy brow, 1161 

And this too was I born to bear ! 
'Tis true, that, like that bird of prey. 
With havock have I marked my way; 



THE GIAOUR 



3^9 



But this was taught me by the dove, 
To die — and know no second love. 
This lesson yet hath man to learn, 
Taught by the thing he dares to spurn : 
The bird that sings within the brake, 
The swan that swims upon the 

lake, 1 1 70 

One mate, and one alone, will take. 
And let the fool still prone to range, 
And sneer on all who cannot change. 
Partake his jest with boasting boys; 
I envy not his varied joys. 
But deem such feeble, heartless man. 
Less than yon solitary swan, — 
Far, far beneath the shallow maid 
He left believing and betrayed. 1179 
Such shame at least was never mine — 
Leila ! each thought was only thine ! 
My good, my guilt, my weal, my woe. 
My hope on high — my all below. 
Earth holds no other like to thee. 
Or, if it doth, in vain for me: 
For worlds I dare not view the dame 
Resembling thee, yet not the same. 
The very crimes that mar my youth, 
This bed of death ■ — attest my truth ! 
'Tis all too late — thou wert, thou 

art 1 190 

The cherished madness of my heart ! 

"And she was lost — and yet I breathed, 

But not the breath of human life: 
A serpent round my heart was wreathed, 
And stung my every thought to strife. 
Alike all time — abhorred all place — 
Shuddering I shrank from Nature's face. 
Where every hue that charmed before 
The blackness of my bosom wore. 
The rest thou dost already know, T200 
And all my sins, and half my woe. 
But talk no more of penitence; 
Thou seest I soon shall part from hence 
And if thy holy tale were true, 
The deed that's done canst thou undo? 
Think me not thankless — but this grief 
Looks not to priesthood for relief.^ 

' The monk's sermon is omitted. It seems to 
have had so little effect upon the patient, that 
it could have no hopes from the reader. It 
may be sufficient to say that it was of a custom- 
ary length (as may be perceived from the in- 
terruptions and uneasiness of the patient), and 
was delivered in the usual tone of all orthodox 
preachers. 



My soul's estate in secret guess: 
But wouldst thou pity more, say less. 
When thou canst bid my Leila live, 1210 
Then will I sue thee to forgive; 
Then plead my cause in that high place 
Where purchased masses proffer grace. 
Go, when the hunter's hand hath wrung 
From forest-cave her shrieking young. 
And calm the lonely lioness: 
But soothe not — mock not viy distress ! 

"In earlier days, and calmer hours. 

When heart with heart delights to 

blend, 12 19 

Where bloom my native valley's bowers, 

I had — Ah ! have I now — a friend ! 
To him this pledge I charge thee send, 

Memorial of a youthful vow; 
I would remind him of my end: 

Though souls absorbed like mine 
allow 
Brief thought to distant Friendship's 

claim, 
Yet dear to him my blighted name. 
'Tis strange — he prophesied my doom, 

And I have smiled — I then could 
smile — 
When Prudence would his voice assume, 

And warn — I recked not what — 

the while: 1231 

But now Remembrance whispers o'er 

Those accents scarcely marked before. 

Say — that his bodings came to pass. 

And he will start to hear their truth, 

And wish his words had not been 
sooth : 
Tell him — unheeding as I was, 

Through many a busy bitter scene 

Of all our golden youth had been. 
In pain, my faltering tongue had tried 
To bless his memory — ere I died; 1241 
But Heaven in wrath would turn away. 
If Guilt should for the guiltless pray. 
I do not ask him not to blame. 
Too gentle he to wound my name; 
And what have I to do with Fame? 
I do not ask him not to mourn, 
Such cold request might sound like 

scorn ; 
And what than Friendship's manly tear 
May better grace a brother's bier? 1250 
But bear this ring, his own of old, 
And tell him — what thou dost behold ! 



330 



THE GIAOUR 



The withered frame, the ruined mind, 
The wrack by passion left behind, 
A shrivelled scroll, a scattered leaf, 
Seared by the autumn blast of Grief ! 



"Tell me no more of Fancy's gleam, 
No, Father, no, 'twas not a dream; 
Alas ! the dreamer first must sleep, — 
I only watched, and wished to weep; 
But could not, for my burning brow 1261 
Throbbed to the very brain as now: 
I wished but for a single tear, 
As something welcome, new, and dear: 
I wished it then, I wish it still; 
Despair is stronger than my will. 
Waste not thine orison — despair 
Is mightier than thy pious prayer: 
I would not, if I might, be blest; 
I want no Paradise, but rest. 1270 

'Twas then — I tell thee — Father ! 

then 
I saw her; yes, she lived again. 
And shining in her white symar,^ 
As through yon pale grey cloud the star 
Which now I gaze on, as on her. 
Who looked and looks far lovelier; 
Dimly I view its trembling spark; 
To-morrow's night shall be more dark; 
And I, before its rays appear. 
That lifeless thing the living fear. 1280 
I wander — Father ! for my soul 
Is fleeting towards the final goal. 
I saw her — Friar ! and I rose 
Forgetful of our former woes; 
And rushing from my couch, I dart, 
And clasp her to my desperate heart; 
I clasp — • what is it that I clasp ? 
No breathing form within my grasp, 
No heart that beats reply to mine — 
Yet, Leila ! yet the form is thine ! 1290 
And art thou, dearest, changed so much 
As meet my eye, yet mock my touch? 
Ah ! were thy beauties e'er so cold, 
I care not — so my arms enfold 
The all they ever wished to hold. 
Alas ! around a shadow prest 
They shrink upon my lonely breast; 



'"Symar," a shroud. [Cymar, or simar, is 
a long loose robe worn by women. It is, per- 
haps, the same word as the Spanish zamarra, 
a sheepskin cloak. It is equivalent to "shroud" 
only in the primary sense of a "covering."] 



Yet still 'tis there ! In silence stands. 
And beckons with beseeching hands ! 
With braided hair, and bright-black 

eye — 1300 

I knew 'twas false — she could not die ! 
But he is dead ! within the dell 
I saw him buried where he fell; 
He comes not — for he cannot break 
From earth; — why then art thou 

awake ? 
They told me wild waves rolled above 
The face I view — the form I love ; 
They told me — 'twas a hideous tale ! — ■ 
I'd tell it, but my tongue would fail 
If true, and from thine ocean-cave 13 10 
Thou com'st to claim a calmer grave, 
Oh ! pass thy dewy fingers o'er 
This brow that then will burn no more; 
Or place them on my hopeless heart: 
But, Shape or Shade ! whate'er thou art, 
In mercy ne'er again depart \ 
Or farther with thee bear my soul 
Than winds can waft or waters roll ! 



"Such is my name, and such my tale. 

Confessor! to thy secret ear 1320 
I breathe the sorrows I bewail. 

And thank thee for the generous tear 
This glazing eye could never shed. 
Then lay me with the humblest dead, 
And, save the cross above my head. 
Be neither name nor emblem spread. 
By prying stranger to be read. 
Or stay the passing pilgrim's tread." ^ 

' The circumstance to which the above story 
relates was not very uncommon in Turkey. 
A few years ago the wife of Muchtar Pacha 
complained to his father of his son's supposed 
infidelity; he asked with whom, and she had 
the barbarity to give in a list of the twelve 
handsomest women in Yanina. They were 
seized, fastened up in sacks, and drowned in 
the lake the same night ! One of the guards 
who was present informed me that not one of 
the victims uttered a cry, or showed a symptom 
of terror at so sudden a "wrench from all we 
know, from all we love." The fate of Phrosine, 
the fairest of this sacrifice, is the subject of 
many a Romaic and Arnaout ditty. The story 
in the text is one told of a young Venetian many 
years ago, and now nearly forgotten. I heard it 
by accident recited by one of the coffee-house 
story-tellers who abound in the Levant, and 
sing or recite their narratives. The additions 
and interpolations by the translator will be 
easily distinguished from the rest, by the want of 
Eastern imagery; and I regret that my memory 



Canto 



THE BRIDE OF A BY DOS 



331 



He passed — nor of his name and race 
He left a token or a trace, 1330 

Save what the Father must not say 
Who shrived him on his dying day: 
This broken tale was all we knew 
Of her he loved, or him he slew. 



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS.i 

A TURKISH TALE. 



'Had we never loved sae kindly, 
Had we never loved sae blindly, 
Never met — or never parted, 
We had ne'er been broken-hearted." — • 
— Burns [Farewell to Nancy]. 



TO 

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 

LORD HOLLAND, 

THIS TALE 

IS INSCRIBED, WITH 

EVERY SENTIMENT OF REGARD 

AND RESPECT, 

BY HIS GRATEFULLY OBLIGED 

AND SINCERE FRIEND, 

BYRON. 



has retained so few fragments of the original. 
For the contents of some of the notes I am in- 
debted partly to D'Herbelot, and partly to that 
most Eastern, and, as Mr Weber justly entitles 
it, "sublime tale," the "Caliph Vathek." I do 
not know from what source the author of that 
singular volume may have drawn his materials; 
some of his incidents are to be found in the 
Bibliotheque Orientale; but for correctness 
of costume, beauty of description, and power 
of imagination, it far surpasses all European 
imitations, and bears such marks of originality 
that those who have visited the East will find 
some difficulty in believing it to be more than 
a translation. As an Eastern tale, even Ras- 
selas must bow before it; his "Happy Valley" 
will not bear a comparison with the "Hall of 
Eblis." [The notes to Vathek to which Byron 
was indebted were not written by Beckford, 
but by his editor and anhotator, Samuel Henley.] 
' [The Bride 0} Abydos was begun and 
finished early in November, 1813, and was 
published November 29, 1813.] 



CANTO THE FIRST. 



Know ye the land where the cypress 

and myrtle ^ 
Are emblems of deeds that are done 

in their clime? - -- 
Where the rage of the vulture, the love 

of the turtle. 
Now melt into sorrow, now madden 

to crime? 
Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, 
Where the flowers ever blossom, the 

beams ever shine; 
Where the light wings of Zephyr, op- 
pressed with perfume. 
Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul ^ in ^ 

her bloom; i 

Where the citron and olive are fairest of ' 

fruit, 
And the voice of the nightingale never 

is mute; 10 

Where the tints of the earth, and the 

hues of the sky, 
In colour though varied, in beauty may 

vie. 
And the purple of Ocean is deepest in 

dye ; 
Where the virgins are soft as the roses 

they twine. 
And all, save the spirit of man, is 

divine — 
'Tis the clime of the East — 'tis the 

land of the Sun — 
Can he smile on such deeds as his 

children have done ? ^ 
Oh ! wild as the accents of lovers' 

farewell 
Are the hearts which they bear, and the 

tales which they tell. 



Begirt with many a gallant slave, 20 
Apparelled as becomes the brave, 
x\waiting each his Lord's behest 
To guide his steps, or guard his rest, 

' [The opening lines were probably sug- 
gested by Goethe's — 

"Kennst du das Land wo die citronen bluhn? 
' "Gul," the rose. 

3 "Souls made of fire, and children of the Sun, 
With whom revenge is virtue." 

— Young's Revenge, act v. sc. 2. 



33^ 



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS 



[Canto i. 



Old Giaffir sate in his Divan: 

Deep thought was in his aged eye; 
And though the face of Mussulman 

Not oft betrays to standers by 
The mind within, well skilled to hide 
All but unconquerable pride, 
His pensive cheek and pondering brow 
Did more than he was wont avow. 31 



III. 



The 



"Let the chamber be cleared, 
train disappeared — 
"Now call me the chief of the Haram 
guard" — 
With Giaffir is none but his only son, 
And the Nubian awaiting the sire's 

award, 
"Haroun — when all the crowd that 
wait 
Are passed beyond the outer gate, 
(Woe to the head whose eye beheld 
My child Zuleika's face unveiled !) 
Hence, lead my daughter from her 
tower — 40 

Her fate is fixed this very hour; 
Yet not to her repeat my thought — 
By me alone be duty taught!" 

"Pacha! to hear is to obey." — 
No more must slave to despot say — 
Then to the tower had ta'en his way: 
But here young Selim silence brake, 

First lowly rendering reverence meet; 
And downcast looked, and gently spake. 

Still standing at the Pacha's feet: 50 
For son of Moslem must expire. 
Ere dare to sit before his sire ! 
"Father! for fear that thou shouldst 

chide 
My sister, or her sable guide — 
Know — for the fault, if fault there be. 
Was mine — then fall thy frowns on me ! 
So lovelily the morning shone. 

That — let the old and weary sleep — 
I could not; and to view alone 

The fairest scenes of land and deep. 
With none to listen and reply 61 

To thoughts with which my heart beat 

high 
Were irksome — for whate'er my mood. 
In sooth I love not solitude; 
I on Zuleika's slumber broke, 

And, as thou knowest that for me 



Soon turns the Haram's grating key, 
Before the guardian slaves awoke 
We to the cypress groves had flown. 
And made earth, main, and heaven our 

own ! 70 

There lingered we, beguiled too long 
With Mejnoun's tale, or Sadi's song; ^ 
Till I, who heard the deep tambour ^ 
Beat thy Divan's approaching hour. 
To thee, and to my duty true. 
Warned by the sound, to greet thee 

f]ew: 
But there Zuleika wanders yet — 
Nay, Father, rage not — nor forget 
That none can pierce that secret 

bower 
But those who watch the women's 

tower." 80 

IV. 

"Son of a slave" — the Pacha said — 
"From unbelieving mother bred. 
Vain were a father's hope to see 
Aught that beseems a man in thee. 
Thou, when thine arm should bend the 
bow, 
And hurl the dart, and curb the steed. 
Thou, Greek in soul if not in creed, 
Must pore where babbling waters flow, 
And watch unfolding roses blow. 
Would that yon Orb, whose matin glow 
Thy listless eyes so much admire, 91 
Would lend thee something of his fire ! 
Thou, who would'st see this battle- 
ment 
By Christian cannon piecemeal rent; 
Nay, tamely view old Stambol's wall 
Before the dogs of Moscow fall, 
Nor strike one stroke for life and death 
Against the curs of Nazareth ! 
Go — let thy less than woman's hand 
Assume the distaff — not the brand. 100 
But, Haroun ! — to my daughter 

speed : 
And hark — of thine own head take 

heed — 
If thus Zuleika oft takes wing — 
Thou see'st yon bow — it hath a string ! " 

' Mejnoun and Leila, the Romeo and Juliet 
of the East. Sadi, the moral poet of Persia. 

= Tambour. Turkish drum, which sounds 
at sunrise, noon, and twilight. [The "tambour" 
is a kind of mandoline. It is the large kettle- 
drum {nagare) which sounds the hours.] 



Canto i.] 



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS 



m 



No sound from Selim's lip was heard, 

At least that met old Giaffir's ear, 
But every frown and every word 
Pierced keener than a Christian's 
sword. 

"Son of a slave! — reproached with 
fear! 

Those gibes had cost another dear, no 
Son of a slave! — and ivho my Sire?" 

Thus held his thoughts their dark 
career; 
And glances ev'n of more than ire 

Flash forth, then faintly disappear. 
Old Giaffir gazed upon his son 

And started; for within his eye 
He read how much his wrath had done; 
He saw rebellion there begun: 

"Come hither, boy — what, no reply ? 
I mark thee — and I know thee too ; 1 20 
But there be deeds thou dar'st not do: 
But if thy beard had manlier length, 
And if thy hand had skill and strength, 
I'd joy to see thee break a lance, 
Albeit against my own perchance." 
As sneeringly these accents fell. 
On Selim's eye he fiercely gazed: 

That eye returned him glance for 
glance. 
And proudly to his Sire's was raised. 

Till Giaffir's quailed and shrunk 
askance — 130 

And why — he felt, but durst not tell. 
"Much I misdoubt this wayward boy 
Will one day work me more annoy: 
T never loved him from his birth, 
And — but his arm is Uttle worth. 
And scarcely in the chase could cope 
With timid fawn or antelope. 
Far less would venture into strife 
Where man contends for fame and 
life— 139 

I would not trust that look or tone: 
No — nor the blood so near my own. 
That blood — he hath not heard — no 

more — 
I'll watch him closer than before. 
He is an Arab ^ to my sight. 
Or Christian crouching in the fight — 



' The Turks abhor the Arabs (who return 
the compliment a hundredfold) even more than 
they hate the Christians. 



But hark! — I hear Zuleika's voice; 

Like Houris' hymn it meets mine ear: 
She is the offspring of my choice; 

Oh ! more than ev'n her mother dear, 
With all to hope, and nought to fear — 
My Peri! ever welcome here! 151 

Sweet as the desert fountain's wave 
To lips just cooled in time to save — 

Such to my longing sight art thou; 
Nor can they waft to Mecca's shrine 
More thanks for life, than I for thine. 

Who blest thy birth and bless thee 
now." 



Fair, as the first that fell of womankind, 
When on that dread yet lovely serpent 

smiling. 
Whose Image then was stamped upon 

her mind ^— 160 

But once beguiled — and ever more 

beguiling; 
Dazzling, as that, oh ! too transcendent 

vision 
To Sorrow's phantom-peopled slum- 
ber given. 
When heart meets heart again in dreams 

Elysian, 
And paints the lost on Earth revived 

in Heaven; 
S'oft, as the memory of buried love — 
Pure, as the prayer which Childhood 

wafts above. 
Was she — the daughter of that rude 

old Chief, 
Who met the maid with tears — but not 

of grief. 

Who hath not proved how feebly words 
essay 170 

To fix one spark of Beauty's heavenly 
ray? 

Who doth not feel, until his failing sight 

Faints into dimness with its own de- 
light, _ 

His changing cheek, his sinking heart 
confess 

The might — the majesty of Loveliness ? 

Such was Zuleika — such around her 
shone 

The nameless charms unmarked by her 
alone — 

The light of Love, the purity of Grace, 



334 



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS 



[Canto i. 



The mind, the Music ^ breathing from 

her face, 
The heart whose softness harmonised 

the whole, i8o 

And oh ! that eye was in itself a Soul ! 

Her graceful arms in meekness bending 
Across her gently-budding breast; 

At one kind word those arms extend- 
ing 
To clasp the neck of him who blest 
His child caressing and carest, 
Zuleika came — and Giaffir felt 
His purpose half within him melt: 
Not that against her fancied weal 
His heart though stern could ever 
feel; 19° 

Affection chained her to that heart; 
Ambition tore the links apart. 



"Zuleika! child of Gentleness! 

How dear this very day must tell, 
When I forget my own distress. 

In losing what I love so well, 
To bid thee with another dwell: 
Another! and a braver man 
Was never seen in battle's van. 
We Moslem reck not much of blood: 

' This expression has met with objections. 
I will not refer to "Him who hath not Music in 
his soul," but merely request the reader to rec- 
ollect, for ten seconds, the features of the 
woman whom he believes to be the most beauti- 
ful; and, if he then does not comprehend fully 
what is feebly expressed in the above line, I 
shall be sorry for us both. For an eloquent 
passage in the latest work of the first female 
vn-iter of this, perhaps of any, age, on the anal- 
ogy (and the immediate comparison excited^ by 
that analogy) between "painting and music," 
see vol. iii. cap. lo, De l'Allemagne. And 
is not this connection still stronger with the 
original than the copy? with the colouring of 
Nature than of Art? After all, this is rather to 
be felt than described; still I think there are 
some who will understand it, at least they would 
have done had they beheld the countenance 
whose speaking harmony suggested the idea; 
for this passage is not drawn from imagination 
but memory, that mirror which Affliction dashes 
to the earth, and looking down upon the frag- 
ments, only beholds the reflection multiplied ! 

[The effect of the appeal to Madame de Stael 
is thus recorded in Byron's Journal of Decem- 
ber 7, 1813 {Letters, i8q8, ii. 369): "This morn- 
ing, a very pretty billet from the Stael," . . . 
"She has been pleased to be pleased with my 
slight eulogy in the note annexed to The Bride."] 



But yet the line of Carasman ^ 201 
Unchanged, unchangeable hath stood 

First of the bold Timariot bands 
That won and well can keep their lands. 
Enough that he who comes to woo 
Is kinsman of the Bey Oglou: ^ 
His years need scarce a thought employ ; 
I would not have thee wed a boy. 
And thou shalt have a noble dower; 
And his and my united power 210 
Will laugh to scorn the death-firman. 
Which others tremble but to scan. 
And teach the messenger^ what fate 
The bearer of such boon. may wait. 
And now thou know'st thy father's 
will — 

All that thy sex hath need to know: 
'Twas mine to teach obedience still — 

The way to love, thy Lord may show." 



In silence bowed the virgin's head; 

And if her eye was filled with 
tears 220 

That stifled feeUng dare not shed. 
And changed her cheek from pale to 
red. 

And red to pale, as through her ears 
Those winged words like arrows sped. 

What could such be but maiden fears ? 
So bright the tear in Beauty's eye. 
Love half regrets to kiss it dry; 
So sweet the blush of Bashfulness, 
Even Pity scarce can wish it less! 

I Carasman Oglou, or Kara Osman Oglou, 
is the principal landholder in Turkey; he 
governs Magnesia: those who, by a kind of 
feudal tenure, possess land on condition of 
service, are called Timariots: they serve as 
Spahis, according to the extent of territory, 
and bring a certain number into the field, 
generally cavalrv. 

^ [The Bey ' Oglou (= Begzade) is " the 
nobleman," "the high-born chief."] 

3 When a Pacha is sufficiently strong to resist, 
the single messenger, who is always the first 
bearer of the order for his death, is strangled 
instead, and sometimes five or six, one after the 
other, on the same errand, by command of the 
refractory patient; if, on the contrary, he is 
weak or loyal, he bows, kisses the Sultan's 
respectable signature, and is bowstrung with 
great complacency. In 1810, several of these 
presents were exhibited in the niche of the 
Seragilo gate; among others, the head of the 
Pacha of Bagdat, a brave young man, cut off 
by treachery, after a desperate resistance. 



Canto i.] 



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS 



335 



Whate'er it was the sire forgot; 230 
Or if remembered, marked it not; 
Thrice clapped his hands, and called his 
steed, ^ 
Resigned his gem-adorned chi- 
bouque,^ 
And mounting featly for the mead. 
With Maugrabee ^ and Mama- 

luke, 
His way amid his Delis took,* 
To witness many an active deed 
With sabre keen, or blunt jerreed. 

The Kislar only and his Moors ^ 
Watch well the Haram's massy doors. 240 



His head was leant upon his hand. 
His eye looked o'er the dark blue 
water 
That swiftly glides and gently swells 
Between the winding Dardanelles; 
But yet he saw nor sea nor strand, 
Nor even his Pacha's turbaned band 

Mix in the game of mimic slaughter. 
Careering cleave the folded felt ^ 
With sabre stroke right sharply dealt; 
Nor marked the javelin-darting crowd, 
Nor heard their OUahs ^ wild and loud — 
He thought but of old Giafiir's 
daughter! 252 

* Clapping of the hands calls the servants. 
The Turks hate a superfluous expenditure of 
voice, and they have no bells. 

* "Chibouque," the Turkish pipe, of which 
the amber mouth-piece, and sometimes the ball 
which contains the leaf, is adorned with precious 
stones, if in possession of the wealthier orders. 

3 "Maugrabee" [Maghrabi, Moors], Moorish 
mercenaries. 

* "Delis," bravos who form the forlorn hope 
of the cavalry, and always begin the action. 

5 [The Kizlar aghasi was the head of the 
black eunuchs; kislar, by itself, is Turkish for 
"girls," "virgins."] 

6 A twisted fold of felt is used for scimitar 
practice by the Turks, and few but Mussulman 
arms can cut through it at a single stroke: 
sometimes a tough turban is used for the same 
purpose. The jerreed [jarld] is a game of blunt 
javelins, animated and graceful. 

7"011ahs," Alia il Allah [La Tlah ilia 'llah], 
the "Leilies," as the Spanish poets call them, 
the sound is Ollah; a cry of which the Turks, 
for a silent people, are somewhat profuse, par- 
ticularly during the jerreed [jarid], or in the 
chase, but mostly in battle. Their animation 
in the field, and gravity in the chamber, with 
their pipes and comboloios [rosaries], form an 
amusing contrast. 



X. 

No word from Selim's bosom broke; 
One sigh Zuleika's thought bespoke: 
Still gazed he through the lattice grate, 
Pale, mute, and mournfully sedate. 
To him Zuleika's eye was -turned, 
But httle from his aspect learned: 
Equal her grief, yet not the same; 
Her heart confessed a gentler flame: 260 
But yet that heart, alarmed or weak. 
She knew not why, forbade to speak. 
Yet speak she must — but when essay ? 
"How strange he thus should turn 

away ! 
Not thus we e'er before have met; 
Not thus shall be our parting yet." 
Thrice paced she slowly through the 

room. 
And watched his eye — it still was 

fixed: 
She snatched the urn wherein was 

mixed 
The Persian Atar-gul's perfume,^ 270 
And sprinkled all its odours o'er 
The pictured roof ^ and marble floor: 
The drops, that through his glittering 

vest 
The playful girl's appeal addressed. 
Unheeded o'er his bosom flew, 
As if that breast were marble too. 
"What, sullen yet? it must not be — 
Oh! gentle Selim, this from thee!" 
She saw in curious order set 

The fairest flowers of Eastern land — 
"He loved them once; may touch them 

yet, 281 

If offered by Zuleika's hand." 
The childish thought was hardly 

breathed 
Before the rose was plucked and 

wreathed ; 
The next fond moment saw her seat 
Her fairy form at Selim's feet: 
"This rose to calm my brother's cares 



' " Atar-gul," ottar of roses. The Persian is 
the finest. 

^ The ceiling and wainscots, or rather walls, 
of the Mussulman apartments are generally 
painted, in great houses, with one eternal and 
highly-coloured view of Constantinople, wherein 
the principal feature is a noble contempt of 
perspective; below, arms, scimitars, etc., are, 
in general, fancifully and not inelegantly dis- 
posed. 



33(> 



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS 



[Canto i. 



A message from the Bulbul ^ bears; 
It says to-night he \s-ill prolong 
For Selim's ear his sweetest song; 290 
And though his note is somewhat sad, 
He'll try for once a strain more glad, 
With some faint hope his altered lay 
May sing these gloomy thoughts away. 

XI. 

"What! not receive my foolish flower? 

Nay then I am indeed unblest: 
On me can thus thy forehead lower? 
And know' St thou not who loves thee 

best? 
Oh, Selim dear ! oh, more than dearest ! 
Say, is it me thou hat'st or fearest? 
Come, lay thy head upon my breast, 301 
And I will kiss thee into rest, 
Since words of mine, and songs must fail, 
Ev'n from my fabled nightingale. 
I knew our sire at times was stern. 
But this from thee had yet to learn: 
Too well I know he loves thee not; 
But is Zuleika's love forgot ? 
Ah ! deem I right ? the Pacha's plan — 
This kinsman Bey of Carasman 310 
Perhaps may prove some foe of thine. 
If so, I swear by Mecca's shrine, — 
If shrines that ne'er approach allow 
To woman's step admit her vow, — 
Without thy free consent — command — 
The Sultan should not have my hand ! 
Think'st thou that I could bear to part 
With thee, and learn to halve my heart ? 
Ah ! were I severed from thy side. 
Where were thy friend — and who my 

guide? 320 

' It has been much doubted whether the notes 
of this "Lover of the rose" are sad or merry; 
and Mr Fox's remarks on the subject have 
provoked some learned controversy as to the 
opinions of the ancients on the subject. I dare 
not venture a conjecture on the point, though 
a Httle inclined to the "errare mallem," etc., 
if Mr Fox ivas mistaken. 

[Fox, writing to Grey (see Lord Holland's 
Preface (p. xii) to the History ... 0/ James 
the Second, by ... C. J. Fox, London. 1808). 
remarks, "In defence of my opinion about the 
nightingale, I hnd Chaucer, who of all poets 
seems to have been the fondest of the singing of 
birds, calls it a 'merry note,'" etc. Fox's 
contention was attacked and disproved by 
Martin Davy (1763-1839, physician and Master 
of Caius College, Cambridge), in an interesting 
and scholarly pamphlet entitled. Observations 
upon Mr Fox's Letter to Mr Grey, 1809.] 



Years have not seen. Time shall not see. 
The hour that tears my soul from thee: 
Even Azrael,^ from his deadly quiver 

When flies that shaft, and fly it must, 
That parts all else, shall doom for ever 

Our hearts to undivided dust!" 



He lived — he breathed — he moved — 

he felt; 
He raised the maid from where she 

knelt; 

His trance was gone, his keen eye shone 

With thoughts that long in darkness 

dwelt; 330 

W^ith thoughts that burn — in rays that 

melt. 
As the stream late concealed 

By the fringe of its willows, 
When it rushes revealed 

In the light of its billows; 
As the bolt bursts on high 

From the black cloud that bound it, 
Flashed the soul of that eye 

Through the long lashes round it. 
A war-horse at the trumpet's sound, 340 
A lion roused by heedless hound, 
A tyrant waked to sudden strife 
By graze of ill-directed knife. 
Starts not to more convulsive life 
Than he, who heard that vow, dis- 
played. 
And all, before repressed, betrayed: 
"Now thou art mine, for ever mine. 
With life to keep, and scarce with life 

resign ; 
Now thou art mine, that sacred oath. 
Though sworn by one, hath bound us 
both. _ 350 

Yes, fondly, wisely hast thou done; 
That vow hath saved more heads than 

one: 
But blench not thou — thy simplest tress 
Claims more from me than tenderness; 
I would not wrong the slenderest hair 
That clusters round thy forehead fair, 
For all the treasures buried far 
Within the caves of Istakar.^ 
This morning clouds upon me lowered, 

' "Azrael," the angel of death. 

= The treasures of the Pre-.Adamite Sultans. 
See D'Herbelot [1781, ii. 405], article Istakar 
[Estekhar ou Istekhar]. 



Canto i.] 



THE BRIDE OF A BY DOS 



337 



Reproaches on my head were showered, 
And Giafl&r almost called me coward ! 
Now I have motive to be brave; 362 
The son of his neglected slave, 
Xay, start not, 'twas the term he 

gave, 
May show, though little apt to vaunt, 
A heart his words not deeds can daunt. 
His son, indeed I — yet, thanks to thee. 
Perchance I am, at least shall be; 
But let our plighted secret vow 
Be only known to us as now. 370 

I know the wretch who dares demand 
From GiaflSr thy reluctant hand; 
More ill-got wealth, a meaner soul 
Holds not a Musselim's ^ control; 
Was he not bred in Egripo ? ^ 
A viler race let Israel show ! 
But let that pass — to none be told 
Our oath; the rest shall time unfold. 
To me and mine leave Osman Bey ! 
I've partisans for Peril's day: 380 

Tliink not I am what I appear; 
I've arms — and friends — and ven- 



geance near. 



xm. 



"Think not thou art what thou appear- 
est! 
My Selim, thou art sadly changed : 
This morn I saw thee gentle — dear- 
est — 
But now thou'rt from thyself es- 
tranged. 
My love thou surely knew'st before, 
It ne'er was less — nor can be more. 
To see thee — hear thee — near thee 
stay — 
And hate the night — I know not 
why, 390 

Save that we meet not but by day; 
With thee to live, -with thee to die, 
I dare not to my hope deny: 

'"Musselim," a governor, the next in rank 
after a Pacha; a Waywode is the third; and 
then come the .^gas. 

[The Musselim [Mutaselline] is the governor 
or commander of a city; Aghas. i.e. heads of 
departments in the army or civil service, or the 
Sultan's household, here denote mayors of small 
towns, or local magnates.] 

' "Egripo,"' the Xegropont. According to 
the proverb, the Turks of Egripo, the Jews of 
Salonica, and the Greeks of Athens, are the 
worst of their respective races. 



Thy cheek — thine eyes — thy lips to 

kiss — 
Like this — and this — no more than 

this; 
For, Allah ! sure thy Ups are flame : 

What fever in thy veins is flushing? 
My own have nearly caught the same, 

At least I feel my cheek, too, blushing. 
To soothe thy sickness, watch thy health. 
Partake, but never waste thy wealth. 401 
Or stand ^ith smiles unmurmuring bv. 
And Hghten half thy poverty; 
Do all but close thy dying eye, 
For that I could not live to try; 
To these alone my thoughts aspire: 
More can I do? or thou require? 
But, Selim, thou must answer why 
We need so much of mystery? 
The cause I cannot dream nor tell, 410 
But be it, since thou say'st 'tis well; 
Yet what thou mean'st by 'arms' and 

'friends,' 
Beyond my weaker sense extends. 
I meant that Giaffir should have heard 

The very vow I plighted thee; 
His wrath would not revoke my word: 

But surely he would leave me free. 

Can this fond wish seem strange in me, 
To be what I have ever been? 
What other hath Zuleika seen 420 

From simple childhood's earliest hour? 

What other can she seek to see 
Than thee, companion of her bower, 

The partner of her infancy? 
These cherished thoughts with life 
begun. 

Say, why must I no more avow? 
What change is wrought to make me 

shun 
The truth — my pride, and thine till 

now? 
To meet the gaze of stranger's eyes 
Our law — our creed — our God de- 
nies ; 430 
Nor shall one wandering thought of 

mine 
At such, our Prophet's \\'ill, repine: 
No ! happier made by that decree, 
He left me all in leaving thee. 
Deep were my anguish, thus compelled 
To wed -o-ith one I ne'er beheld : 
This wherefore should I not reveal? 
Why wilt thou urge me to conceal? 



338 



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS 



[Canto ii. 



I know the Pacha's haughty mood 
To thee hath never boded good; 440 
And he so often storms at nought, 
Allah ! forbid that e'er he ought ! 
And why I know not, but within 
My heart concealment weighs like sin. 
If then such secrecy be crime, 

And such it feels while lurking here; 
Oh, Selim ! tell me yet in time, 

Nor leave me thus to thoughts of fear. 
Ah ! yonder see the Tchocadar,^ 
My father leaves the mimic war; 450 
I tremble now to meet his eye — 
Say, Selim, canst thou tell me why?" 

XIV. 

"Zuleika — to thy tower's retreat 
Betake thee — Giafhr I can greet : 
And now with him I fain must prate 
Of firmans, imposts, levies, state. 
There's fearful news from Danube's 

banks, 
Our Vizier nobly thins his ranks. 
For which the Giaour may give him 

thanks ! 
Our Sultan hath a shorter way 460 

Such costly triumph to repay. 
But, mark me, when the twilight drum 
Hath warned the troops to food and 

sleep. 
Unto thy cell will Selim come; 

Then softly from the Haram creep 
Where we may wander by the deep : 
Our garden battlements are steep ; 
Nor these will rash intruder chmb 
To list our words, or stint our time; 
And if he doth, I want not steel 470 
Which some have felt, and more may 

feel. 
Then shalt thou learn of Selim more 
Than thou hast heard or thought 

before : 
Trust me, Zuleika — fear not me! 
Thou know'st I hold a Haram key." 

" Fear thee, my Selim ! ne'er till now 
Did words like this — " 

"Delay not thou; 



I "Tchocadar" — one of the attendants who 
precedes a man of authority. 

[The Turks seem to have used the Persian 
word chawki-ddr, an officer of the guard-house, 



I keep the key — and Haroun's guard 
Have some, and hope of more reward. 
To-night, Zuleika, thou shalt hear 480 
My tale, my purpose, and my fear: 
I am not, love ! what I appear." 



CANTO THE SECOND. 



The winds are high on Helle's wave, 

As on that night of stormy water 
When Love, who sent, forgot to save 
The young — ■ the beautiful — the 

brave — 
The lonely hope of Sestos' daughter. 
Oh ! when alone along the sky 
Her turret-torch was blazing high. 
Though rising gale, and breaking foam, 
And shrieking sea-birds warned him 

home; 491 

And clouds aloft and tides below. 
With signs and sounds, forbade to go, 
He could not see, he would not hear, 
Or sound or sign foreboding fear; 
His eye but saw that light of Love, 
The only star it hailed above; 
His ear but rang with Hero's song, 
"Ye waves, divide not lovers long!" — 
That tale is old, but Love anew 500 
May nerve young hearts to prove as 

true. 

II. 

The winds are high and Helle's tide 
Rolls darkly heaving to the main; 

And Night's descending shadows hide 
That field with blood bedewed in vain. 

The desert of old Priam's pride; 
The tombs, sole relics of his reign. 

All — save immortal dreams that could 
beguile 

The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle 1 

III. 

Oh ! yet — for there my steps have 
been; 510 

These feet have pressed the sacred 
shore, 



a policeman (whence our slang word "chokey"), 
for a "valet de pied," or, in. the case of the 

Sultan, for an apparitor.] 



Canto ii.] 



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS 



339 



These limbs that buoyant wave hath 

borne — 
Minstrel ! with thee to muse, to mourn, 

To trace again those fields of yore. 
Believing every hillock green 

Contains no fabled hero's ashes, 
And that around the undoubted scene 

Thine own "broad Hellespont" ^ still 
dashes, 
Be long my lot ! and cold were he 
Who there could gaze denying thee ! 520 



The night hath closed on Helle's stream, 

Nor yet hath risen on Ida's hill 
That Moon, which shone on his high 

theme : 
No warrior chides her peaceful beam, 

But conscious shepherds bless it still. 
Their flocks are grazing on the Mound 

Of him who felt the Dardan's arrow: 

That mighty heap of gathered ground 

Which Ammon's son ran proudly round, ^ 

By nations raised, by monarchs 

crowned, 530 

Is now a lone and nameless barrow ! 
Within — thy dwelling-place how nar- 
row ! 
Without — can only strangers breathe 
The name of him that was beneath : 

' The wrangling about this epithet, "the 
broad Hellespont" or the "boundless Helles- 
pont," whether it means one or the other, or 
what it means at all, has been beyond all pos- 
sibility of detail. I have even heard it disputed 
on the spot; and not foreseeing a speedy con- 
clusion to the controversy, amused myself with 
swimming across it in the meantime; and 
probably may again, before the point is settled. 
Indeed, the question as to the truth of "the 
tale of Troy divine" still continues, much of 
it resting upon the talismanic word "aTreipo?": 
probably Homer had the same notion of distance 
that a coquette has of time; and when he talks 
of boundless, means half a mile; as the latter, 
by a light figure, when she says eternal attach- 
ment, simply specifies three weeks. 

^ Before his Persian invasion, and crowned 
the altar with laurel, etc. He was afterwards 
imitated by Caracalla in his race. It is believed 
that the last also poisoned a friend, named 
Festus, for the sake of new Patroclan games. 
I have seen the sheep feeding on the tombs of 
/Esyetes and Antilochus: the first is in the 
centre of the plain. 

[Alexander placed a garland on the tomb of 
Achilles, and "went through the ceremony of 
anointing himself with oil, and running naked 
up to it." — See Plutarch's Lives.] 



Dust long outlasts the storied stone; 
But Thou — thy very dust is gone ! 



Late, late to-night will Diaij cheer 
The swain, and chase the boatman's 

fear; 
Till then — no beacon on the cliff 
May shape the course of struggling 
skiff; 540 

The scattered lights that skirt the bay, 
All, one by one, have died away; 
The only lamp of this lone hour 
. Is glimmering in Zuleika's tower. 
Yes ! there is light in that lone chamber, 

And o'er her silken ottoman 
Are thrown the fragrant beads of amber, 

O'er which her fairy fingers ran; ^ 
Near these, with emerald rays beset,^ 
(How could she thus that gem forget?) 
Her mother's sainted amulet,^ 551 
Whereon engraved the Koorsee text, 
Could smooth this life, and win the next; 
And by her Comboloio * lies 

' When rubbed, the amber is susceptible of a 
perfume, which is slight, but not disagreeable. 

^ [The emerald preserved the chastity of the 
wearer. Moore in Lalla Rockh speaks of "The 
emerald's virgin blaze."] 

i The belief in amulets engraved on gems, or 
enclosed in gold boxes, containing scraps from 
the Koran, worn round the neck, wrist, or arm, 
is still universal in the East. The Koorsee 
(throne) verse in the second cap. of the Koran 
describes the attributes of the Alost High, and 
is engraved in this manner, and worn by the 
pious, as the most esteemed and sublime of all 
sentences. 

[The verse of the throne runs thus: "God, 
there is no God but He, the living, the self- 
subsistent. Slumber takes Him not, nor sleep. 
His is what is in the heavens and what is in the 
earth. Who is it that intercedes with Him, 
save by His permission? He knows what is 
before them, and what behind them, and they 
comprehend not aught of His knowledge but 
of what He pleases. His throne extends over 
the heavens and the earth, and it tires Him not 
to guard them both, for He is high and grand." 
— The Qur'dn, translated by E. H. Palmer, 
1880, Part I., Sacred Books of the East, vi. 40.] 

""Comboloio" — ^a Turkish rosary. The 
MSS., particularly those of the Persians, are 
richly adorned and illuminated. The Greek 
females are kept in utter ignorance; but many 
of the Turkish girls are highly accomplished, 
though not actually qualified for a Christian 
coterie. Perhaps some of our own ''blues" 
might not be the worse for bleaching. 

[The comboloio consists of ninety-nine beads. 
Lord Byron's Comboloio is the title of a metrical 



340 



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS 



[Canto ii. 



A Koran of illumined dyes; 
And many a bright emblazoned rhyme 
By Persian scribes redeemed from Time; 
And o'er those scrolls, not oft so mute, 
Reclines her now neglected lute; 
And round her lamp of fretted gold 560 
Bloom flowers in urns of China's mould; 
The richest work of Iran's loom. 
And Sheeraz' ^ tribute of perfume ; 
All that can eye or sense delight 

Are gathered in that gorgeous room: 
But yet it hath an air of gloom. 
She, of this Peri cell the sprite. 
What doth she hence, and on so rude a 
night ? 

VI. 

Wrapt in the darkest sable vest. 

Which none save noblest Moslem 
wear, 570 

To guard from winds of Heaven the 
breast 

As Heaven itself to Selim dear, 
With cautious steps the thicket thread- 
ing, 

And starting oft, as through the glade 

The gust its hollow meanings made. 
Till on the smoother pathway treading. 
More free her timid bosom beat. 

The maid pursued her silent guide; 
And though her terror urged retreat. 

How could she quit her Selim's side? 

How teach her tender lips to chide ?58i 

VII. 

They reached at length a grotto, hewn 

By nature, but enlarged by art. 
Where oft her lute she wont to tune, 
And oft her Koran conned apart; 
And oft in youthful reverie 
She dreamed what Paradise might be: 
Where Woman's parted soul shall go 
Her Prophet had disdained to show; 
But Selim's mansion was secure, 590 
Nor deemed she, could he long endure 
His bower in other worlds of bliss 
Without her, most beloved in this ! 

jeu d'esprit, a rhymed catalogue of the Poetical 
Works, beginning with Hours of Idleness, and 
ending with Cain, a Mystery. — Blackwood's 
Magazine, 1822, xi. 162-165.] 

' [Shiraz, capital of the Persian province of 
Fars, is celebrated for the attar-giil, or attar of 
roses.] 



Oh ! who so dear with him could dwell ? 
What Houri soothe him half so well ? 

VIII. 

Since last she visited the spot 

Some change seemed wrought within 

the grot: 
It might be only that the night 
Disguised things seen by better light : 
That brazen lamp but dimly threw 600 
A ray of no celestial hue; 
But in a nook within the cell 
Her eye on stranger objects fell. 
There arms were piled, not such as wield 
The turbaned Delis in the field; 
But brands of foreign blade and hilt. 
And one was red — perchance with guilt ! 
Ah ! how without can blood be spilt ? 
A cup too on the board was set 
That did not seem to hold sherbet. 610 
What may this mean ? she turned to see 
Her Selim — " Oh ! can this be he ? " 



His robe of pride was thrown aside, 
His brow no high-crowned turban 

bore. 
But in its stead a shawl of red. 

Wreathed lightly round, his temples 

wore : 
That dagger, on whose hilt the gem 
Were worthy of a diadem. 
No longer glittered at his waist, 
Where pistols unadorned were braced; 
And from his belt a sabre swung, 621 
And from his shoulder loosely hung 
The cloak of white, the thin capote 
That decks the wandering Candiote; 
Beneath — his golden plated vest 
Clung like a cuirass to his breast; 
The greaves below his knee that wound 
With silvery scales were sheathed and 

bound. 
But were it not that high command 
Spake in his eye, and tone, and hand. 
All that a careless eye could see 631 
In him was some young Galiongee.^ 

'"Galiongee" — or Galiongi [i.e. a Galle- 
on-er], a sailor, that is, a Turkish sailor; the 
Greeks navigate, the Turks work the guns. 
Their dress is picturesque; and I have seen 
the Capitan Pacha, more than once, wearing 
it as a kind of incog. Their legs, however, are 



Canto ii.] 



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS 



341 



"I said I was not what I seemed; 
And now thou see'st my words were 

true: 
I have a tale thou hast not dreamed, 
If sooth — its truth must others 

rue. 
My story now 'twere vain to hide, 
I must not see thee Osman!s bride: 
But had not thine own lips declared 
How much of that young heart I 

shared, 640 

I could not, must not, yet have shown 
The darker secret of my own. 
In this I speak not now of love; 
That — let Time — Truth — and Peril 

prove: 
But first — Oh! never wed another — 
Zuleika! I am not thy brother!" 



" Oh ! not my brother ! — yet unsay — 

God ! am I left alone on earth 
To mourn — I dare not curse — the day 

That saw my solitary birth? 650 
Oh ! thou wilt love me now no more ! 

My sinking heart foreboded ill; 
But know me all I was before. 

Thy sister — friend — Zuleika still. 
Thou ied'st me here perchance to kill; 

If thou hast cause for vengeance, 
see ! 
My breast is offered — take thy fill ! 

Far better with the dead to be 

Than live thus* nothing now to thee: 
Perhaps far worse, for now I know 660 
Why Giaffir always seemed thy foe; 
And I, alas I am Giaflfiir's child, 
For whom thou wert contemned, re- 
viled. 
If not thy sister — would'st thou save 
My life — Oh ! bid me be thy slave ! " 



generally naked. The buskins described in 
the text as sheathed behind with silver are 
those of an Arnaut robber, who was my host 
(he had quitted the profession) at his Pyrgo, 
near Gastouni in the Morea; they were plated 
in scales one over the other, like the back of 
an armadillo. 

[Gastuni lies some eight miles S.W. of 
Palaeopoiis, the site of the ancient Elis. The 
"Pyrgo" must be the Castle of Chlemutzi 
(Castel Tornese), built by Geoffrey II. of Ville- 
houardin, circ. a.d. 12 18.] 



XII. 

"My slave, Zuleika! — nay, I'm thine: 

But, gentle love, this transport calm. 
Thy lot shall yet be linked with mine; 
I swear it by our Prophet's shrine, 

And be that thought thy sorrow's 
balm. 670 

So may the Koran ^ verse displayed 
Upon its steel direct my blade. 
In danger's hour to guard us both, 
As I preserve that awful oath ! 
The name in which thy heart hath 
prided 

Must change; but, my Zuleika, know, 
That tie is widened, not divided, 

Although thy Sire's my deadliest foe. 
My father was to Giaffir all 

That Selim late was deemed to thee; 
That brother wrought a brother's fall. 

But spared, at least, my infancy ! 682 
And lulled me with a vain deceit 
That yet a like return may meet. 
He reared me, not with tender help, 

But like the nephew of a Cain; ^ 
He watched me like a lion's whelp, 

That gnaws and yet may break his 
chain. 

My father's blood in every vein 



' The characters on all Turkish scimitars 
contain sometimes the name of the place of 
their manufacture, but more generally a text 
from the Koran, in letters of gold. Amongst 
those in my possession is one with a blade of 
singular construction: it is very broad, and 
the edge notched into serpentine curves like 
the ripple of water, or the wavering of flame. 
I asked the .\rmenian who sold it, what possible 
use such a figure could add: he said, in Italian, 
that he did not know; but the Mussulmans 
had an idea that those of this form gave a severer 
wound; and liked it because it was "piu feroce." 
I did not much admire the reason, but bought 
it for its peculiarity. 

» It is to be observed, that every allusion to 
any thing or personage in the Old Testarnent, 
such as the Ark, or Cain, is equally the privilege 
of Mussulman and Jew: indeed, the former 
profess to be much better acquainted with the 
lives, true and fabulous, of the patriarchs, 
than is warranted by our own sacred writ; 
and not content with Adam, they have a biog- 
raphy of Pre-Adamites. Solomon is the 
monarch of all necromancy, and Moses a 
prophet inferior only to Christ and Mahomet. 
Zuleika is the Persian name of Potiphar's wife; 
and her amour with Joseph constitutes one of 
the finest poems in their language. It is, there- 
fore, no violation of costume to put the names 
of Cain, or Noah, into the mouth of a Moslem. 



34: 



THE BRIDE OF A BY DOS 



[Canto ii. 



Is boiling ! but for thy dear sake 690 
No present vengeance will I take; 

Though here I must no more remain. 
But first, beloved Zuleika ! hear 
How Giaffir wrought this deed of fear. 



"How first their strife to rancour grew, 

If Love or Envy made them foes, 
It matters little if I knew; 
In fiery spirits, slights, though few 

And thoughtless, will disturb repose. 
In war Abdallah's arm was strong, 700 
Remembered yet in Bosniac song, 
And Paswan's ^ rebel hordes attest 
How little love they bore such guest: 
His death is all I need relate. 
The stern effect of Giaffir's hate; 
And how my birth disclosed to me, 
Whate'er beside it makes, hath made me 
free. 

XIV. 

"When Paswan, after years of strife, 
At last for power, but first for life. 
In Widdin's walls too proudly sate, 710 
Our Pachas rallied round the state; 
Not last nor least in high command. 
Each brother led a separate band; 
They gave their Horse-tails ^ to the 
wind, 

And mustering in Sophia's plain 
Their tents were pitched, their post 
assigned; 

To one, alas! assigned in vain! 
What need of words? the deadly bowl. 

By Giaffir's order drugged and given. 
With venom subtle as his soul, 7 20 

Dismissed Abdallah's hence to 
Heaven. 
Reclined and feverish in the bath. 
He, when the hunter's sport was up. 
But little deemed a brother's wrath 

To quench his thirst had such a cup: 
The bowl a bribed attendant bore; 

' Paswan Oglou, the rebel of Widdin; who, 
for the last years of his life, set the whole power 
of the Porte at defiance. 

[Passwan Oglou (1758-1807), (Passewend's, 
or the Watchman's son) was born and died at 
Widdin. He set the Porte at defiance, and, 
finally, obtained the coveted "three horse- 
tails," i.e. was made commander-in-chief of 
the Janissaries at Widdin.] 

'"Horse-tail," — the standard of a Pacha. 



He drank one draught,^ nor needed 

more ! 
If thou my tale, Zuleika, doubt, 
Call Haroun — he can tell it out. 



"The deed once done, and Paswan's 
feud 730 

In part suppressed, though ne'er sub- 
dued, 
Abdallah's Pachalick was gained: — 
Thou know'st not what in our Divan 
Can wealth procure for worse than 
man — 
Abdallah's honours were obtained 
By him a brother's murder stained; 
'Tis true, the purchase nearly drained 
His ill-got treasure, soon replaced. 
Would'st question whence ? Survey the 

waste. 
And ask the squalid peasant how 740 
His gains repay his broiling brow ! — 
Why me the stern Usurper spared. 
Why thus with me his palace shared, 
I know not. Shame — regret — re- 
morse — 
And little fear from infant's force; 
Besides, adoption as a son 
By him whom Heaven accorded none. 
Or some unknown cabal, caprice. 
Preserved me thus; — but not in peace; 
He cannot curb his haughty mood, 750 
Nor I forgive a father's blood. 

XVI. 

"Within thy father's house are foes; . 

Not all who break his bread are true: 
To these should I my birth disclose, 

His days — his very hours were few: 
They only want a heart to lead, 
A hand to point them to the deed. 
But Haroun only knows, or knew 
This tale, whose close is almost nigh: 
He in Abdallah's palace grew, 760 

And held that post in his Serai 

' Giaffir, Pacha of Argyro Castro, or Scutari, 
I am not sure which, was actually taken off by 
the Albanian Ali, in the manner described in 
the text. Ali Pacha, while I was in the country, 
married the daughter of his victim, some years 
after the event had taken place at a bath in 
Sophia or Adrianople. The poison was mixed 
in the cup of coffee, which is presented before 
the sherbet by the bath keeper, after dressing. 



Canto ii.] 



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS 



343 



Which holds he here — he saw him 
die; 
But what could single slavery do? 
Avenge his lord? alas! too late; 
Or save his son from such a fate? 
He chose the last, and when elate 

With foes subdued, or friends be- 
trayed, 
Proud Giaffir in high triumph sate. 
He leci me helpless to his gate. 

And not in vain, it seems, essayed 770 

To save the life for which he 
prayed. 
The knowledge of my birth secured 

From all and each, but most from 
me — 
Thus Giafhr's safety was ensured. 

Removed he too from Roumelie 
To this our Asiatic side, 
Far from our seats by Danube's tide. 

With none but Haroun, who retains 
Such knowledge — and that Nubian 
feels 

A Tyrant's secrets are but chains, 780 
From which the captive gladly steals. 
And this and more to me reveals: 
Such still to guilt just Allah sends — 
Slaves, tools, accomplices — no friends ! 



"All this, Zuleika, harshly sounds; 

But harsher still my tale must be: 
Howe'er my tongue thy softness wounds. 
Yet I must prove all truth to thee. 
I saw thee start this garb to see. 
Yet is it one I oft have worn, 790 

And long must wear: this Galiongee, 
To whom thy plighted vow is sworn. 
Is leader of those pirate hordes. 
Whose laws and lives are on their 
swords ; 
To hear whose desolating tale 
Would make thy waning cheek more 

pale: 
Those arms thou see'st my band have 

brought. 
The hands that wield are not remote; 
This cup too for the rugged knaves 
Is filled — once quaffed, they ne'er 
repine : 800 

Our Prophet might forgive the 
slaves; 
They're only infidels in wine. 



XVIII. 

"What could I be? Proscribed at 

home. 
And taunted to a wish to roam; 
And listless left — for Giaffir's fear 
Denied the courser and the spear — 
Though oft — Oh, Mahomet ! how 

oft ! — 
In full Divan the despot scoffed, 
As if my weak unwilling hand 
Refused the bridle or the brand: 810 
He ever went to war alone, 
And pent me here untried — unknown; 
To Haroun's care with women left, 
By hope unblest, of fame bereft. 
While thou — whose softness long en- 
deared. 
Though it unmanned me, still had 

cheered — 
To Brusa's walls for safety sent, 
Awaited'st there the field's event. 
Haroun, who saw my spirit pining 

Beneath inaction's sluggish yoke, 820 
His captive, though with dread resigning, 

My thraldom for a season broke, 
On promise to return before 
The day when Giaffir's charge was o'er. 
'Tis vain — my tongue cannot impart 
My almost drunkenness of heart,^ 
When first this liberated eye 
Surveved Earth — Ocean — Sun — and 

Sky — 
As if my Spirit pierced them through, 
And all their inmost wonders knew ! 830 
One word alone can paint to thee 
That more than feeling — I was Free ! 
E'en for thy presence ceased to pine; 
The World — nay, Heaven itself was 
mine! 

XIX. 

"The shallop of a trusty Moor 
Conveyed me from this idle shore; 
I longed to see the isles that gem 
Old Ocean's purple diadem: 
I sought by turns, and saw them all ; ^ 

I I must here shelter myself with the Psalmist 
— is it not David that makes the "Earth reel 
to and fro like a Drunkard"? If the Globe 
can be thus lively on seeing its Creator, a lib- 
erated captive can hardly feel less on a first 
view of his work. 

^ The Turkish notions of almost all islands 
are confined to the Archipelago, the sea alluded 
to. 



344 



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS 



[Canto ii. 



But when and where I joined the 

crew, 840 

With whom I'm pledged to rise or fall, 

When all that we design to do 
Is done, 'twill then be time more meet 
To tell thee, when the tal.e'.s complete. 



'"Tis true, they are a lawless brood, 
But rough in form, nor mild in mood; 
And every creed, and every race. 
With them hath found — may find a 

place: 
But open speech, and ready hand. 
Obedience to their Chief's command; 
A soul for every enterprise, 851 

That never sees with Terror's eyes; 
Friendship for each, and faith to all, 
And vengeance vowed for those who fall. 
Have made them fitting instruments 
For more than e'en my own intents. 
And some — and I have studied all 

Distinguished from the vulgar rank — 
But chiefly to my council call 

The wisdom of the cautious Frank: — 
And some to higher thoughts aspire; 861 

The last of Lambro's ^ patriots there 

Anticipated freedom share; 
And oft around the cavern fire 
On visionary schemes debate. 
To snatch the Rayahs ^ from their fate. 
So let them ease their hearts with prate 
Of equal rights, which man ne'er knew; 
I have a love for freedom too. 
Aye ! let me hke the ocean-Patriarch ^ 
roam, 870 

Or only know on land the Tartar's 

home ! * 
My tent on shore, my galley on the sea, 

' Lambro Canzani, a Greek, famous for his 
efforts, in 1785-00, fr>r the independence of his 
country. Abandoned by the Russians, he be- 
came a pirate, and the Archioelago was the scene 
of his enterprises. He is said to be still alive at 
Petersburgh. He and Riga are the two most 
celebrated of the Greek revolutionists. 

2 "Rayahs," — all who pay the capitation 
tax, called the "Haratch." 

3 This first of voyages is one of the few 
with which the Mussulmans profess much 
acqu liatance. 

•* The wandering life of the Arabs, Tartars, 
and Turkomans, will be found well detailed in 
any book of Eastern travels. That it possesses 
a charm peculiar to itself, cannot be denied. 
A young French renegado confessed to Chateau- 



Are more than cities and Serais to me : ' 
Borne by my steed, or wafted by my sail, 
Across the desert, or before the gale, 
Bound where thou wilt, my barb ! or 

glide, my prow ! 
But be the Star that guides the wanderer. 

Thou! 
Thou, my Zuleika, share and bless my 

bark; 
The Dove of peace and promise t& mine 

ark! 
Or, since that hope denied in worlds of 

strife, 880 

Be thou the rainbow to the storms of 

life! 
The evening beam that smiles the 

clouds away. 
And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray I 
Blest — as the Muezzin's strain from 

Mecca's wall 
To pilgrims pure and prostrate at his 

call; 
Soft — as the melody of youthful days, 
That steals the trembling tear of speech- 
less praise; 
Dear — as his native song to Exile's ears, 
Shall sound each tone thy long-loved 

voice endears. 
For thee in those bright isles is built a 

bower 890 

Blooming as Aden ^ in its earliest hour. 
A thousand swords, with Selim's heart 

and hand. 
Wait — wave — defend — destroy — at 

thy command ! 
Girt by my band, Zuleika at my side, 
The spoil of nations shall bedeck my 

bride. 
The Haram's languid years of listless 

ease 
Are well resigned for cares ■ — for joys 

like these: 
Not blind to Fate, I see, where'er I rove. 
Unnumbered perils, — but one only 

love ! 
Yet well my toils shall that fond breast 

repay, 900 

briand, that he never found himself alone, 
galloping in the desert, without a sensation 
approaching to rapture which was indescribable. 

' [Inns, caravanserais. From sardy, a palace 
or inn.] 

' " Jannat-al-Aden," the perpetual abode, the 
Mussulman paradise. 



Canto ii.] 



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS 



345 



Though Fortune frown, or falser friends 
betray. 

How dear the dream in darkest hours of 
ill, 

Should all be changed, to find thee faith- 
ful still ! 

Be but thy soul, like Selim's, firmly 
shown ; 

To thee be Selim's tender as thine own; 

To soothe each sorrow, share in each 
deHght, 

Blend every thought, do all — but dis- 
unite ! 

Once free, 'tis mine our horde again to 
guide; 

Friends to each other, foes to aught 
beside: 

Yet there we follow but the bent as- 
signed 910 

By fatal Nature to man's warring kind : 

Mark ! where his carnage and his con- 
quests cease ! 

He makes a solitude, and calls it — 
peace ! 

I, like the rest, must use my skill or 
strength, 

But ask no land beyond my sabre's 
length : 

Power sways but by division — her 
resource 

The blest alternative of fraud or force ! 

Ours be the last; in time Deceit may 
come 

When cities cage us in a social home: 

There ev'n thy soul might err — how oft 
the heart 920 

Corruption shakes which Peril could not 
part ! 

And Woman, more than Man, when 
Death or Woe, 

Or even Disgrace, would lay her lover 
low. 

Sunk in the lap of Luxury will shame — 

Away suspicion ! — not Zuleika's name ! 

But life is hazard at the best; and here 

No more remains to win, and much to 
fear: 

Yes, fear ! — the doubt, the dread of 
losing thee, 

By Osman's power, and Giaffir's stern 
decree. 

That dread shall vanish with the favour- 
ing gale, 930 



Which Love to-night hath promised to 

my sail: 
No danger daunts the pair his smile 

hath blest — 
Their steps still roving, but their hearts 

at rest. 
With thee all toils are sweet, each clime 

hath charms; 
Earth — sea alike — our world within 

our arms ! 
Aye — let the loud winds whistle o'er 

the deck, 
So that those arms cling closer round my 

neck : 
The deepest murmur of this lip shall be, 
No sigh for safety, but a prayer for 

thee! 
The war of elements no fears impart 940 
To Love, whose deadliest bane is human 

Art: 
There lie the only rocks our course can 

check; 
Here moments menace — there are 

years of wreck ! 
But hence ye thoughts that rise in 

Horror's shape ! 
This hour bestows, or ever bars escape. 
Few words remain of mine my tale to 

close; 
Of thine but one to waft us from our 

foes; 
Yea — foes — to me will Giafiir's hate 

decline? 
And is not Osman, who would part us, 

thine ? 



"His head and faith from doubt and 
death 950 

Returned in time my guard to save; 
Few heard, none told, that o'er the 
wave 
From isle to isle I roved the while: 
And since, though parted from my band 
Too seldom now I leave the land, 
No deed they've done, nor deed shall do, 
Ere I' have heard and doomed it too: 
I form the plan — decree the spoil — 
'Tis fit I oftener share the toil. 
But now too long Fve held thine ear; 960 
Time presses — floats my bark — and 

here 
We leave behind but hate and fear. 



346 



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS 



[Canto ii. 



To-morrow Osman with his train 
Arrives — to-night must break thy 

chain: 
And would'st thou save that haughtv 

Bey, — 
Perchance his life who gave thee 

thine, — 
With me this hour away — away ! 
But yet, though thou art plighted 

mine, 
Would'st thou recall thy willing vow, 
Appalled by truths imparted now, 970 
Here rest I — not to see thee wed : 
But be that peril on my head!" 

XXII. 

Zuleika, mute and motionless, 
Stood like that Statue of Distress, 
When, her last hope for ever gone, 
The Mother hardened into stone; 
All in the maid that eye could see 
Was but a younger Niobe. 
But ere her lip, or even her eye, 
Essayed to speak, or look reply, 980 
Beneath the garden's wicket porch 
Far flashed on high a blazing torch ! 
Another — and another — and an- 
other — 
" Oh ! fly — no more — yet now my 

more than brother ! " 
Far, wide, through every thicket spread, 
The fearful lights are gleaming red; 
Nor these alone — for each right hand 
Is ready with a sheathless brand. 
They part — pursue — return, and 

wheel 
With searching flambeau, shining steel; 
And last of all, his sabre waving, 991 
Stern Giaffir in his fury raving: 
And now almost they touch the cave — 
Oh ! must that grot be Selim's grave ? 

XXIII. 

Dauntless he stood — " 'Tis come — 

soon past — 
One kiss, Zuleika — 'tis my last: 

But yet my band not far from shore 

May hear this signal, see the flash; 

Yet now too few — the attempt were 

rash: 

No matter — yet one effort more." 

Forth to the cavern mouth he stept; looi 



His pistol's echo rang on high, 
Zuleika started not, nor wept, 

Despair benumbed her breast and 
eye ! — 
"They hear me not, or if they ply 
Their oars, 'tis but to see me die; 
That sound hath drawn my foes more 

nigh. 
Then forth my father's scimitar. 
Thou ne'er hast seen less equal war! 
Farewell, Zuleika ! — Sweet ! retire : loio 

Yet stay within — here linger safe, 

At thee his rage will only chafe. 
Stir not — lest even to thee perchance 
Some erring blade or ball should glance. 
Fear'st thou for him ? — may I expire 
If in this strife I seek thy sire ! 
No — though by him that poison 

poured ; 
No — though again he call me coward ! 
But tamely shall I meet their steel? 
No — as each crest save his may 
feel!" 1020 



^■^S 



XXIV. 



One bouiid he made, and gained the 
sand : . 
Already at his feet had sunk 
The foremost of the prying band, 

A gasping head, a quivering trunk: 
Another falls — but round him close 
A swarming circle of his foes; 
From right to left his path he cleft, 

And almost met the meeting wave: 
His boat appears — not five oars' 

length — 

His comrades strain with desperate 

strength — 1030 

Oh ! are they yet in time to save ? 

His feet the foremost breakers lave; 

His band are plunging in the bay, 

Their sabres glitter through the spray; 

Wet — wild — unwearied to the strand 

They struggle — now they touch the 

land! 
They come — 'tis but to add to slaugh- 
ter — 
His heart's best blood is on the water. 

XXV. 

Escaped from shot, unharmed by steel, 
Or scarcely grazed its force to feel, 1040 
Had Selim won, betraved, beset. 



Canto ii.] 



THE BRIDE OF A BY DOS 



347 



To where the strand and billows met; 
There as his last step left the land, 
And the last death-blow dealt his 

hand — 
Ah ! wherefore did he turn to look 

For her his eye but sought in vain? 
That pause, that fatal gaze he took, 
Hath doomed his death, or fixed his 
chain. 
Sad proof, in peril and in pain, 
How late will Lover's hope remain ! 
His back was to the dashing spray; 105 1 
Behind, but close, his comrades lay, 
When, at the instant, hissed the ball — 
"So may the foes of Giaffir fall!" 
Whose voice is heard? whose carbine 

rang? 
Whose bullet through the night-air 

sang. 
Too nearly, deadly aimed to err? 
'Tis thine — Abdallah's Murderer ! 
The father slowly rued thy hate. 
The son hath found a quicker fate: 1060 
Fast from his breast the blood is bub- 
bling. 
The whiteness of the sea-foam troub- 
ling— 
If aught his lips essayed to groan. 
The rushing billows choked the tone ! 



Morn slowly rolls the clouds away; 

Few trophies of the fight are there: 
The shouts that shook the midnight-bay 
Are silent; but some signs of fray 

That strand of strife may bear. 

And fragments of each shivered brand; 

Steps stamped; and dashed into the 

sand 107 I 

The print of many a struggling hand 

May there be marked; nor far re- 
mote 

A broken torch, an oarless boat; 
And tangled on the weeds that heap 
The beach where shelving to the deep 

There lies a white capote ! 
'Tis rent in twain — one dark-red stain 
The wave yet ripples o'er in vain : 

But where is he who wore? 1080 
Ye ! who would o'er his relics weep. 
Go, seek them where the surges sweep 
Their burthen round Sigeeum's steep 

And cast on Lemnos' shore: 



The sea-birds shriek above the prey. 
O'er which their hungry beaks delay, 
As shaken on his restless pillow. 
His head heaves with the heaving billow; 
That hand, whose motion is not life, 
Yet feebly seems to menace strife, 1090 
Flung by the tossing tide on high, 

Then levelled with the wave — ^ 
What recks it, though that corse shall lie 

Within a living grave? 
The bird that tears that prostrate form 
Hath only robbed the. meaner worm; 
The only heart, the only eye 
Had bled or wept to see him die. 
Had seen those scattered limbs com- 
posed. 

And mourned above his turban- 
stone,^ 1 100 
That heart hath burst — that eye was 
closed — 

Yea — closed before his own ! 

XXVII. 

By Helle's stream there is a voice of 

wail ! 
And Woman's eye is wet — Man's 

cheek is pale: 
Zuleika ! last of Giaffir's race. 

Thy destined lord is come too late: 
He sees not — ne'er shall see thy face ! 

Can he not hear 

The loud Wul-wuUeh ^ warn his distant 

ear? 

Thy handmaids weeping at the gate, 

The Koran-chanters of the Hymn of 

Fate.'* 1 1 II 

' ["While the SalseUe lay off the Dardanelles, 
Lord Byron saw the body of a man who had 
been executed by being cast into the sea, floating 
on the stream, moving to and fro with the 
tumbling of the water, which gave to his arms 
the effect of scaring away several sea-fowl that 
were hovering to devour. This incident he has 
strikingly depicted in the Bride of Abydos." — 
Life oj Lord Byron, by John Gait, 1830, p. 144.] 

^ A turban is carved in stone above the graves 
of men only. 

3 The death-song of the Turkish women. 
The "silent slaves" are the men, whose notions 
of decorum forbid complaint in public. 

* [At a Turkish funeral, after the interment 
has taken place, the Imam offers the prayer 
Telkin, and at the conclusion of the prayer 
recites the Falhah, or "opening chapter" of 
the KorSn. ("In the name of the merciful 
and compassionate God. Praise belongs to 
God, the Lord of the worlds, the Merciful, 



.48 



THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS 



[Canto ii. 



The silent slaves with folded arms 
that wait, 
Sighs in the hall, and shrieks upon the 
gale, 
Tell him thy tale! 
Thou didst not view thy Selim fall ! 
That fearful moment when he left the 

cave 
Thy heart grew chill: 
He was thy hope — thy joy — thy love 

— thine all, 

And that last thought on him thou 
could'st not save 
Sufficed to kill; 1120 

Burst forth in one wild cry — and all 
was still. 
Peace to thy broken heart — and 
virgin grave ! 
Ah ! happy ! but of life to lose the worst ! 
That grief — though deep ^ though 

fatal — was thy first ! 
Thrice happy ! ne'er to feel nor fear the 

force 
Of absence — shame — pride — hate 

— revenge — remorse ! 

And, oh! that pang where more than 

Madness lies. 
The Worm that will not sleep — and 

never dies ! 
Thought of the gloomy day and ghastly 

night, 
That dreads the darkness, and yet 

loathes the light, 1130 

That winds around, and tears the 

quivering heart! 
Ah ! wherefore not consume it — and 

depart ! 
Woe to thee, rash and unrelenting 

Chief ! 
Vainly thou heap'st the dust upon thy 

head. 
Vainly the sackcloth o'er thy limbs 

dost spread: 
By that same hand Abdallah — 

Selim bled. 

the Compassionate, the Ruler of the day of 
judgment. Thee we serve, and Thee we ask 
for aid. Guide us in the right path, the path 
of those Thou art gracious to; not of those 
Thou are wroth with; nor of those who err." — 
The Qur'dn, p. i, translated by E. H. Palmer, 
Oxford, 1880.) Writing to Murray, Novem- 
ber 14, 1813, B\Ton instances the funeral (in 
the Bride of Abydos) as proof of his correctness 
with regard to local colouring.] 



Now let it tear thy beard in idle grief: 
Thy pride of heart, thy bride for Os- 

man's bed. 
She, whom thy Sultan had but seen to 
wed. 
Thy Daughter's dead! 1140 
Hope of thine age, thy twilight's 

lonely beam, 
The Star hath set that shone on Helle's 
stream. 
What quenched its ray ? — the blood 

that thou hast shed ! 
Hark! to the hurried question of De- 
spair : 
"Where is my child?" — an Echo an- 
swers — 
"Where?" 1 



Within the place of thousand tombs 
That shine beneath, while dark 
above 
The sad but living cypress glooms 
And withers not, though branch 
and leaf 
Are stamped with an eternal grief, 
Like early unrequited Love, 1151 
One spot exists, which ever blooms, 

Ev'n in that deadly grove — 
A single rose is shedding there 
Its lonely lustre, meek and pale: 
It looks as planted by Despair — 
So white — so faint — the slightest 
gale 
Might whirl the leaves on high; 

And yet, though storms and blight 
assail. 
And hands more rude than wintry sky 
May wring it from the stem — in 
vain — 1 161 

To-morrow sees it bloom again ! 
The stalk some Spirit gently rears, 
And waters with celestial tears; 

' "I came to the place of my birth, and cried, 
'The friends of my Youth, where are they?' 
and an Echo answered, 'Where are they?' 
From an Arabic MS." The above quotation 
(from which the idea in the te.\t is taken) must 
be already familiar to every reader: it is given 
in the second annotation, page 67, of The 
Pleasures of Memory [note to Part I. I'ne 103]; 
a poem so well known as to render a reference 
almost superfluous: but to whose pages all 
will be delighted to recur [Poems, by Samuel 
Rogers, 1852, i. 48]. 



THE CORSAIR 



349 



For well may maids of Helle deem 
That this can be no earthly flower, 
Which mocks the tempest's withering 

hour, 
And buds unsheltered by a bower; 
Nor droops, though Spring refuse her 
shower, 

Nor woos the Summer beam: 1170 
To it the livelong night there sings 

A Bird unseen — but not remote : 
Invisible his airy wings, 
But soft as harp that Houri strings 

His long entrancing note ! 
It were the Bulbul; but his throat. 

Though mournful, pours not such a 
strain : 
For they who listen cannot leave 
The spot, but linger there and grieve, 

As if they loved in vain! 1180 

And yet so sweet the tears they shed, 
'Tis sorrow so unmixed with dread. 
They scarce can bear the morn to break 

That melancholy spell, 
And longer yet would weep and wake, 

He sings so wild and well ! 
But when the day-blush bursts from 
high 

Expires that magic melody. 
And some have been who could believe, 
(So fondly youthful dreams deceive, 1 190 

Yet harsh be they that blame,) 
That note so piercing and profound 
Will shape and syllable ^ its sound 

Into Zuleika's name. 
'Tis from her cypress summit heard. 
That melts in air the liquid word: 
'Tis from her lowly virgin earth 
That white rose takes its tender birth. 
There late was laid a marble stone; 



I "And airy tongues that syllable men's names." 
— Milton, Comus, line 208. 

For a belief that the souls of the dead inhabit 
the form of birds, we need not travel to the East. 
Lord Lyttleton's ghost story, the belief of the 
Duchess of Kendal, that George I. flew into her 
window in the shape of a raven, and many other 
instances, bring this suoerstition nearer home. 
The most singular was the whim of a Worcester 
lady, who, believing her daughter to exist in the 
shape of a singing bird, literally furnished her 
pew in the cathedral with cages full of the kind; 
and as she was rich, and a benefactress in 
beautifying the church, no objection was made 
to her harmless folly. For this anecdote, see 
Orjord's Letters. 



Eve saw it placed — the Morrow 
gone! 1200 

It was no mortal arm that bore 

That deep fixed pillar to the shore; 

For there, as Helle's legends tell, 

Next morn 'twas found where Selim 
fell ; 

Lashed by the tumbling tide, whose 
wave 

Denied his bones a holier grave: 

And there by night, reclined, 'tis 
said. 

Is seen a ghastly turbaned head : ^ 
And hence extended by the billow, 
'Tis named the "Pirate-phantom's 
pillow!" 1 2 10 

Where first it lay that mourning 

flower 
Hath flourished; flourisheth this 
hour, 

Alone and dewy — coldly pure and 
pale; 

As weeping Beauty's cheek at Sor- 
row's tale ! 



THE CORSAIR.2 

A TALE. 



'I suoi pensieri in lui dormir non ponno." 
— Tasso, GernsaUnime Liberata, Canto X. 
[stanza Ixxviii. line" 8.] 



TO THOMAS MOORE, ESQ. 

My dear Moore, 

I DEDICATE to you the last 
production with which I shall trespass 
on public patience, and your indul- 
gence, for some years; and I own that I 
feel anxious to avail myself of this 
latest and only opportunity of adorn- 
ing my pages with a name, consecrated 
by unshaken public principle, and the 

'[.According to J. B. Le Chevalier (Voyage 
de La Propontide, etc., 1800, p. 17), the Turkish 
name for a small bay which formed the ancient 
port of Sestos, is Ak-Bachi-Liman (Port de la 
Tete blanche).] 

^ [The Corsair was begun, December 18, 1813, 
and published, February i, 1814.] 



350 



THE CORSAIR 



most undoubted and various talents. 
While Ireland ranks you among the 
firmest of her patriots; while you stand 
alone the first of her bards in her esti- 
mation, and Britain repeats and ratifies 
the decree, permit one, whose only re- 
gret, since our first acquaintance, has 
been the years he had lost before it 
commenced, to add the humble but 
sincere suffrage of friendship, to the 
voice of more than one nation. It 
will at least prove to you, that I have 
neither forgotten the gratification de- 
rived from your society, nor abandoned 
the prospect of its renewal, whenever 
your leisure or inclination allows you 
to atone to your friends for too long an 
absence. It is said among those 
friends, I trust truly, that you are 
engaged in the composition of a poem 
whose scene will be laid in the East; 
none can do those scenes so much 
justice. The wrongs of your own coun- 
try, the magnificent and fiery spirit of 
her sons, the beauty and feeling of her 
daughters, may there be found; and 
Collins, when he denominated his 
Oriental his Irish Eclogues, was not 
aware how true, at least, was a part 
of his parallel. Your imagination 
will create a warmer sun, and less 
clouded sky; but waldness, tenderness, 
and originality, are part of your na- 
tional claim of oriental descent, to 
which you have already thus far proved 
your title more clearly than the most 
zealous of your country's antiquarians. 
May I add a few words on a subject 
on which all men are supposed to be 
fluent, and none agreeable ? — Self. 
I have written much, and published 
more than enough to demand a longer 
silence than I now meditate: but, for 
some years to come, it is my intention 
to tempt no further the award of " Gods, 
men, nor columns." In the present 
composition I have attempted not the 
most difficult, but, perhaps, the best 
adapted measure to our language, the 
good old and now neglected heroic 
couplet. The stanza of Spenser is 
perhaps too slow and dignified for nar- 
rative; though^ I confess, it is the 



measure most after my own heart; 
Scott alone, of the present generation, 
has hitherto completely triumphed over 
the fatal facility of the octosyllabic 
verse; and this is not the least victory 
of his fertile and mighty genius: in 
blank verse, Milfon, Thomson, and our 
dramatists, are the beacons that shine 
along the deep, but warn us from the 
rough and barren rock on which they 
are kindled. The heroic couplet is not 
the most popular measure certainly; 
but as I did not deviate into the other 
from a wish to flatter what is called 
public opinion, I shall quit it without 
further apology, and take my chance 
once more with that versification, in 
which I have hitherto published nothing 
but compositions whose former circu- 
lation is part of my present, and will be 
of my future regret. 

With regard to my story, and stories 
in general, I should have been glad to 
have rendered my personages more 
perfect and amiable, if possible, inas- 
much as I have been sometimes criti- 
cised, and considered no less responsible 
for their deeds and qualities than if all 
had been personal. Be it so — if I 
have deviated into the gloomy vanity 
of "drawing from self," the pictures 
are probably like, since they are un- 
favourable: and if not, those who 
know me are undeceived, and those 
who do not, I have little interest in un- 
deceiving. I have no particular desire 
that any but my acquaintance should 
think the author better than the beings 
of his imagining; but I cannot help a 
little surprise, and perhaps amusement, 
at some odd critical exceptions in the 
present instance, when I see several 
bards (far more deserving, I allow) in 
very reputable pHght, and quite ex- 
empted from all participation in the 
faults of those heroes, who, nevertheless, 
might be found with little more morality 
than The Giaour^ and perhaps — but 
no — I must admit Childe Harold to be 
a very repulsive personage; and as to 
his identity, those who like it must 
give him whatever "alias" they please. 

If, however, it were worth while to 



Canto i.] 



THE CORSAIR 



351 



remove the impression, it might be of 
some service to me, that the man who 
is aHke the dehght of his readers and 
his friends, the poet of all circles, and 
the idol of his own, permits me here 
and elsewhere to subscribe myself, 
Most truly, 

And affectionately. 
His obedient servant, 

BYRON. 
January 2, 18 14. 



CANTO THE FIRST.^ 

nessun maggior dolore, 



**v,^vj»^»i xiiL^^^tvyk vjwiwrv^ 

Che ricordarsi del tempo felice 

Nella miseria, " 

— Dante, Inlerno, v. 121. 

I. 

"O'er the glad waters of the dark blue 

sea. 
Our thoughts as boundless, and our 

souls as free. 
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows 

foam. 
Survey our empire, and behold our 

home ! 
These are our realms, no limits to their 

sway — 
Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey. 
Ours the wild life in tumult still to range 
From toil to rest, and joy in every 

change. 
Oh, who can tell? not thou, luxurious 

slave ! 
Whose soul would sicken o'er the heav- 
ing wave; to 
Not thou, vain lord of Wantonness and 

Ease! 
Whom Slumber soothes not — Pleasure 

cannot please — 
Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart 

hath tried. 
And danced in triumph o'er the waters 

wide, 

* The time in this poem may seem too short 
for the occurrences, but the whole of the ^gean 
isles are within a few hours' sail of the continent, 
and the reader must be kind enough to take the 
wind as I have often found it. 



The exulting sense — the pulse's mad- 
dening play. 

That thrills the wanderer of that track- 
less way ? 

That for itself can woo the approaching 
fight, 

And turn what some deem danger to 
delight; 

That seeks what cravens shun with 
more than zeal. 

And where the feebler faint can only 
feel — 20 

Feel — to the rising bosom's inmost core, 

Its hope awaken and its spirit soar? 

No dread of Death — if with us die our 
foes — 

Save that it seems even duller than 
repose ; 

Come when it will — we snatch the life 
of Life — 

When lost — what recks it — by dis- 
ease or strife? 

Let him who crawls, enamoured of 
decay. 

Cling to his couch, and sicken years 
away; 

Heave his thick breath, and shake his 
palsied head; 

Ours the fresh turf, and not the feverish 
bed, — 30 

While gasp by gasp he falters forth his 
soul, 

Ours with one pang — one bound — 
escapes control. 

His corse may boast its urn and nar- 
row cave, 

And they who loathed his life may gild 
his grave: 

Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely 
shed, 

When Ocean shrouds and sepulchres 
our dead. 

For us, even banquets fond regret supply 

In the red cup that crowns our mem- 
ory; 

And the brief epitaph in Danger's 
day. 

When those who win at length divide 
the prey, 40 

And cry. Remembrance saddening o'er 
each brow. 

How had the brave who fell exulted 
now r^ 



352 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto i. 



Such were the notes that from the 

Pirate's isle 
Around the kindUng watch-fire rang 

the while: 
Such were the sounds that thrilled the 

rocks along, 
And unto ears as rugged seemed a song ! 
In scattered groups upon the golden 

sand, 
They game — carouse — converse or 

whet the brand; 
Select the arms — to each his blade 

assign, 
And, careless, eye the blood that dims 

its shine; 50 

Repair the boat, replace the helm or 

oar, 
While others straggling muse along the 

shore ; 
For the wild bird the busy pringes 

set, 
Or spread beneath the sun the dripping 

net: 
Gaze where some distant sail a speck 

supplies, 
With all the thirsting eye of Enterprise; 
Tell o'er the tales of many a night of 

toil. 
And marvel where they next shall seize 

a spoil: 
No matter where — their Chief's allot- 
ment this; 
Theirs to believe no prey nor plan 

amiss. 60 

But who that Chief? his name on 

every shore 
Is famed and feared — they ask and 

know no more. 
With these he mingles not but to com- 
mand; 
Few are his words, but keen his eye and 

hand. 
Ne'er seasons he with mirth their jovial 

mess. 
But they forgive his silence for success. 
Ne'er for his lip the purpling cup they 

fill, 
That goblet passes him untasted still — 
And for his fare — the rudest of his 

crew 
Would that, in turn, have passed un- 
tasted too; 70 



Earth's coarsest bread, the garden's 

homeliest roots, 
And scarce the summer luxury of fruits, 
His short repast in humbleness supply 
With all a hermit's board would scarce 

deny. 
But while he shuns the grosser joys of 

sense. 
His mind seems nourished by that 

abstinence. 
"Steer to that shore !" they sail. "Do 

this ! " — 'tis done: — 
"Now form and follow me!" — the 

spoil is won. 
Thus prompt his accents and his actions 

still, 
And all obey and few inquire his will ; 80 
To such, brief answer and contemptuous 

eye 
Convey reproof, nor further deign reply. 



" A sail ! — a sail ! " — a promised prize 

to Hope ! 
Her nation — flag — how speaks the 

telescope ? 
No prize, alas I but yet a welcome sail : 
The blood-red signal glitters in the gale. 
Yes — she is ours — a home-returning 

bark — 
Blow fair, thou breeze ! — she anchors 

ere the dark. 
Already doubled is the cape — our bay 
Receives that prow which proudly 

spurns the spray. 90 

How gloriously her gallant course she 

goes! 
Her white wings flying — never from 

her foes — 
She walks the waters like a thing of 

Life, 
And seems to dare the elements to 

strife. 
Who would not brave the battle-fire, 

the wreck. 
To move the monarch of her peopled 

deck! 



Hoarse o'er her side the rustling cable 

rings: 
The sails are furled, and anchoring 

round she swings; 



Canto i.] 



THE CORSAIR 



3S3 



And gathering loiterers on the land 

discern 
Her boat descending from the latticed 

stern. loo 

'Tis manned — the oars keep concert 

to the strand, 
Till grates her keel upon the shallow 

sand. 
Hail to the welcome shout ! — the 

friendly speech ! 
When hand grasps hand uniting on the 

beach ; 
The smile, the question, and the quick 

reply, 
And the Heart's promise of festivity ! 



The tidings spread, and gathering grows 

the crowd: 
The hum of voices, and the laughter 

loud. 
And Woman's gentler, anxious tone is 

heard — 
Friends' — husbands' — lovers* names 

in each dear word: no 

" Oh ! are they safe ? we ask not of 

success — 
But shall we see them? will their 

accents bless? 
From where the battle roars, the billows 

chafe. 
They doubtless boldly did — but who 

are safe? 
Here let them haste to gladden and 

surprise, 
And kiss the doubt from these delighted 

eyes!" 



"Where is our Chief? for him we bear 

report — 
And doubt that joy — which hails our 

coming — short ; 
Yet thus sincere — 'tis cheering, though 

so brief; 
But, Juan ! instant guide us to our 

Chief: 120 

Our greeting paid, we'll feast on our 

return, 
And all shall hear what each may wish 

to learn." 
Ascending slowly by the rock-hewn way, 
2A 



To where his watch-tower beetles o'er 

the bay. 
By bushy brake, the wild flowers blos- 
soming. 
And freshness breathing from each 

silver spring. 
Whose scattered streams from granite 

basins burst. 
Leap into life, and sparkling woo your 

thirst; 
From crag to cliff they mount — Near 

yonder cave. 
What lonely straggler looks along the 

wave ? 130 

In pensive posture leaning on the brand, 
Not oft a resting-staff to that red hand ? 
" 'Tis he — 'tis Conrad — here — as 

wont — alone; 
On — Juan ! — on — and make our 

purpose known. 
The bark he views — and tell him we 

would greet 
His ear with tidings he must quickly 

meet: 
We dare not yet approach — thou 

know'st his mood. 
When strange or uninvited steps in- 
trude." 

VII. 

Him Juan sought, and told of their 

intent; — 
He spake not, but a sign expressed 

assent: 140 

These Juan calls — they come — to 

their salute 
He bends him slightly, but his lips are 

mute. 
"These letters, Chief, are from the 

Greek — the spy, 
Who still proclaims our spoil or peril 

nigh: 
Whate'er his tidings, we can well report, 
Much that" — "Peace, peace!" — he 

cuts their prating short. 
Wondering they turn abashed, while, 

each to each. 
Conjecture whispers in his muttering 

speech: 
They watch his glance with many a 

stealing look. 
To gather how that eye the tidings 

took; 150 



354 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto 



But, this as if he guessed, with head 
aside, 

Perchance from some emotion, doubt, 
or pride, 

He read the scroll — "My tablets, Juan, 
hark — 

Where is Gonsalvo?" 

"In the anchored bark." 

"There let him stay — to him his order 
bear — 

Back to your duty — for my course 
prepare : 

Myself this enterprise to-night will 
share." 

"To-night, Lord Conrad?" 

"Aye ! at set of sun: 

The breeze will freshen when the day 
is done. 

My corslet — cloak — one hour and we 
are gone. i6o 

Sling on thy bugle — see that free from 
rust 

My carbine-lock springs worthy of my 
trust ; 

Be the edge sharpened of my boarding- 
brand. 

And give its guard more room to fit my 
hand. 

This let the Armourer with speed dis- 
pose; 

Last time, it more fatigued my arm 
than foes; 

Mark that the signal-gun be duly 
fired. 

To tell us when the hour of stay's ex- 
pired." 

VIII. 

They make obeisance, and retire in 

haste. 
Too soon to seek again the watery 

waste: 170 

Yet they repine not — so that Conrad 

guides; 
And who dare question aught that he 

decides ? 
That man of loneliness and mystery, 
Scarce seen to smile, and seldom heard 

to sigh; 
Whose name appals the fiercest of his 

crew. 
And tints each swarthy cheek with 

sallower hue: 



Still sways their souls with that com- 
manding art 
That dazzles, leads, yet chills the vulgar 

heart. 
What is that spell, that thus his lawless 

train 
Confess and envy — yet oppose in 

vain ! 180 

What should it be, that thus their faith 

can bind? 
The power of Thought — the magic of 

the Mind ! 
Linked with success, assumed and kept 

with skill. 
That moulds another's weakness to its 

will; 
Wields with their hands, but, still to 

these unknown, 
Makes even their mightiest deeds appear 

his own. 
Such hath it been — shall be — beneath 

the Sun 
The many still must labour for the one ! 
'Tis Nature's doom — but let the wretch 

who toils, 
Accuse not — hate not — him who 

wears the spoils. 190 

Oh ! if he knew the weight of splendid 

chains, 
How light the balance of his humbler 

Unlike the heroes of each ancient race, 
Demons in act, but Gods at least in face, 
In Conrad's form seems little to admire, 
Though his dark eyebrow shades a 

glance of fire: 
Robust but not Herculean — to the 

sight 
No giant frame sets forth his common 

height ; 
Yet, in the whole, who paused to look 

again. 
Saw more than marks the crowd of 

vulgar men; 200 

They gaze and marvel how — and still 

confess 
That thus it is, but why they cannot 

guess. 
Sun-burnt his cheek, his forehead high 

and pale 
The sable curls in wild profusign yejl; 



Canto i.] 



THE CORSAIR 



355 



And oft, perforce, his rising lip reveals 

The haughtier thought it curbs, but 
scarce conceals. 

Though smooth his voice, and calm his 
general mien, 

Still seems there something he would not 
have seen: 

His features' deepening lines and vary- 
ing hue 

At times attracted, yet perplexed the 
view, 2IO 

As if within that murkiness of mind 

Worked feelings fearful, and yet unde- 
fined; 

Such might it be — that none could 
truly tell — 

Too close inquiry his stern glance would 
quell. 

There breathe but few whose aspect 
might defy 

The full encounter of his searching eye ; 

He had the skill, when Cunning's gaze 
would seek 

To probe his heart and watch his chang- 
ing cheek. 

At once the observer's purpose to espy. 

And on himself roll back his scru- 
tiny, 220 

Lest he to Conrad rather should betray 

Some secret thought, than drag that 
Chief's to-day. 

There was a laughing Devil in his sneer, 

That raised emotions both of rage and 
fear; 

And where his frown of hatred darklv 
fell, 

Hope withering fled — and Mercy 
sighed farewell ! * 

' That Conrad is a character not altogether 
out of nature, I shall attempt to prove by some 
historical coincidences which I have met with 
since -.vriting The Corsair. 

"Eccelin, prisonnier," dit Rolandini, "s'enfer- 
moit dans un silence mena^ant; il fixoit sur la 
terre son visage feroce, et ne donnoit point 
d'essor a sa profonde indignation. De toutes 
partes cependant les soldats et les peuples ac- 
couroient; ils vouloient voir cet homme, jadis 
si puissant . . . et la joie universelle eclatoit 
de toutes partes. . . . Eccelino etoit d'une 
petite taille; mais tout I'aspect de sa personne, 
tous ses mouvemens, indiquoient un soldat. 
Son langage etoit amer, sondeportement superbe, 
et par son seul regard, il faisoit trembler les 
plus hardis." — Simonde de Sismondi, Histoire 
des Republiques Italiennes du Moyen Age, 1809, 
iii, 219, 



Slight are the outward signs of evil 

thought. 
Within — within — 'twas there the 

spirit wrought 1 
Love shows all changes — Hate, Ambi- 
tion, Guile, 
Betray no further than the bitter smile ; 
The lip's least curl, the lightest paleness 

thrown 231 

Along the governed aspect, speak alone 
Of deeper passions; and to judge their 

mien. 
He, who would see, must be himself 

unseen. 
Then — with the hurried tread, the 

upward eye. 
The clenched hand, the pause of agony. 
That hstens, starting, lest the step too 

near 
Approach intrusive on that mood of 

fear: 
Then — with each feature working from 

the heart, 
With feelings, loosed to strengthen — 

not depart : 240 

That rise — convulse — contend — 

that freeze or glow. 
Flush in the cheek, or damp upon the 

brow ; 
Then — Stranger ! if thou canst, and 

tremblest not. 
Behold his soul — the rest that soothes 

his lot! 
Mark how that lone and blighted bosom 

sears 
The scathing thought of execrated 

years 1 
Behold — but who hath seen, or e'er 

shall see, 
Man as himself — the secret spirit free ? 

XI. 

Yet was not Conrad thus by Nature sent 

To lead the guilty — Guilt's worst 

instrument — 250 

Again "Cizericus [Genseric, king of the 
Vandals, the conqueror of both Carthage and 
Romel . . . statura mediocris, et equi casu 
claudicans, animo profundus, sermone ratus, 
luxurias contemptor, ira turbidus, habendi cupi- 
dus, ad soUicitandas gentes providentissimus," 
etc., etc. — Jornandes, De Getarum Origine 
("De Rebus Geticis"), cap. 33, ed. 1597. P-.?2. 

I beg leave to quote those gloomy realities 
to keep in countenance my Giaour and Corsair. 



356 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto i. 



His soul was changed, before his deeds 

had driven 
Him forth to war with Man and forfeit 

Heaven. 
Warped by the world in Disappoint- 
ment's school, 
In words too wise — in conduct there 

a fool; 
Too firm to yield, and far too proud to 

stoop, 
Doomed tsy his very virtues for a dupe, 
He cursed those virtues as the cause of 

ill. 
And not the traitors who betrayed him 

still; 
Nor deemed that gifts bestowed on 

better men 
Had left him joy, and means to give 

again. 260 

Feared — shunned — belied — ere 

Youth had lost her force, 
He hated Man too much to feel remorse. 
And thought the voice of Wrath a 

sacred call, 
To pay the injuries of some on all. 
He knew himself a villain - — but he 

deemed 
The rest no better than the thing he 

seemed ; 
And scorned the best as hypocrites who 

hid 
Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly 

did. 
He knew himself detested, but he knew 
The hearts that loathed him, crouched 

and dreaded too. 270 

Lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike 

exempt 
From all affection and from all contempt : 
His name could sadden, and his acts 

surprise ; 
But they that feared him dared not to 

despise : 
Man spurns the worm, but pauses ere 

he wake 
The slumbering venom of the folded 

snake : 
The first may turn, but not avenge the 

blow; 
The last expires, but leaves no living 

foe; 
Fast to the doomed offender's form it 

clings, 



And he may crush — not conquer — 
still it stings! 280 

XII. 

None are all evil — quickening round 

his heart. 
One softer feeling would not yet depart; 
Oft could he sneer at others as beguiled 
By passions worthy of a fool or child; 
Yet 'gainst that passion vainly still he 

strove. 
And even in him it asks the name of 

Love ! 
Yes, it was love — unchangeable — 

unchanged. 
Felt but for one from whom he never 

ranged ; 
Though fairest captives daily met his 

eye, 
He shunned, nor sought, but coldly 

passed them by; 290 

Though many a beauty drooped in 

prisoned bower, 
None ever soothed his most unguarded 

hour. 
Yes — it was Love — if thoughts of 

tenderness. 
Tried in temptation, strengthened by 

distress, 
Unmoved by absence, firm in every 

clime. 
And yet — Oh more than all ! — un- 

tired by Time; 
Which nor defeated hope, nor baflfled 

wile. 
Could render sullen were She near to 

smile. 
Nor rage could fire, nor sickness fret to 

vent 
On her one murmur of his discon- 
tent; 300 
Which still would meet with joy, with 

calmness part. 
Less that his look of grief should reach 

her heart; 
Which nought removed, nor menaced 

to remove ^ 
If there be Love in mortals — this was 

Love ! 
He was a villain — aye, reproaches 

shower 
On him — but not the Passion, nor its 

power, 



Canto i.] 



THE CORSAIR 



357 



Which only proved — all other virtues 

gone — 
Not Guilt itself could quench this 

loveliest one ! 



He paused a moment — till his hasten- 
ing men 
Passed the first winding downward to 

the glen. 310 

" Strange tidings ! — many a peril have 

I passed, 
Nor know I why this next appears the 

last! 
Yet so my heart forebodes, but must not 

fear, 
Nor shall my followers find me falter 

here. 
'Tis rash to meet — but surer death to 

wait, 
Till, here, they hunt us to undoubted 

fate; 
And, if my plan but hold, and Fortune 

smile. 
We'll furnish mourners for our funeral 

pile. 
Aye, let them slumber — peaceful be 

their dreams! 
Morn ne'er awoke them with such 

brilliant beams 320 

As kindle high to-night (but blow, thou 

breeze !) 
To warm these slow avengers of the seas. 
Now to Medora — Oh ! my sinking 

heart, 
Long may her own be lighter than thou 

art! 
Yet was I brave — mean boast where 

all are brave ! 
Ev'n insects sting for aught they seek to 

save — 
This common courage which with 

brutes we share. 
That owes its deadliest efforts to 

Despair, 
Small merit claims — but 'twas my 

nobler hope 
To teach my few with numbers still to 

cope; 330 

Long have I led them — not to vainly 

bleed : 
No medium now — we perish or succeed ! 
So let it be — it irks not me to die; 



But thus to urge them whence they can- 
not fly. 
My lot hath long had little of my 

care, 
But chafes my pride thus baffled in the 

snare : 
Is this my skill? my craft? to set at 

last 
Hope, Power, and Life upon a single 

cast? 
Oh, Fate ! — accuse thy folly — not 

thy fate; 
She may redeem thee still — nor yet too 

late." 340 

XIV. 

Thus with himself communion held he, 
till 

He reached the summit of his tower- 
crowned hill: 

There at the portal paused — for wild 
and soft 

He heard those accents never heard too 
oft! 

Through the high lattice far yet sweet 
they rung, 

And these the notes his Bird of Beauty 
sung: 



"Deep in my soul that tender secret 

dwells. 

Lonely and lost to light for evermore, 

Save when to thine my heart responsive 

swells, 349 

Then trembles into silence as before. 



"There, in its centre, a sepulchral lamp 
Burns the slow flame, eternal — but 
unseen; 
Which not the darkness of Despair can 
damp. 
Though vain its ray as it had never 
been. 

3- 
" Remember me — Oh ! pass not thou 
my grave 
Without one thought whose relics 
there recline: 
The only pang my bosom dare not brave 
Must be to find forgetfulness in 
thine. 



358 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto l I 



" My fondest — faintest — latest accents 
hear — 
Grief for the dead not Virtue can re- 
prove; 360 
Then give me all I ever asked — a 
tear, 
The first — last — sole reward of so 
much love!" 

He passed the portal, crossed the 

corridor, 
And reached the chamber as the strain 

gave o'er: 
"My own Medora! sure thy song is 

sad—" 

"In Conrad's absence would'st thou 

have it glad 
Without thine ear to listen to my lay. 
Still must my song my thoughts, my 

soul betray: 
Still must each accent to my bosom 

suit, 
My heart unhushed — although my 

lips were mute! 370 

Oh! many a night on this lone couch 

reclined, 
My dreaming fear with storms hath 

winged the wind, 
And deemed the breath that faintly 

fanned thy sail 
The murmuring prelude of the ruder 

gale; 
Though soft — it seemed the low pro- 
phetic dirge. 
That mourned thee floating on the 

savage surge: 
Still would I rise to rouse the beacon fire, 
Lest spies less true should let the blaze 

expire; 
And many a restless hour outwatched 

each star, 
And morning came — and still thou 

wert afar. 380 

Oh ! how the chill blast on my bosom 

blew, 
And day broke dreary on my troubled 

view. 
And still I gazed and gazed — and not 

a prow 
Was granted to my tears — my truth — 

my vow I 



At length — 'twas noon — I hailed and 

blest the mast 
That met my sight — it neared — 

Alas ! it passed ! 
Another came — Oh God ! 'twas thine 

at last! 
Would that those days were over; wilt 

thou ne'er. 
My Conrad ! learn the joys of peace to 

share ? 
Sure thou hast more than wealth, and 

many a home 390 

As bright as this invites us not to 

roam: 
Thou know'st it is not peril that I fear, 
I only tremble when thou art not 

here; 
Then not for mine, but that far dearer 

life. 
Which flies from love and languishes for 

strife — 
How strange that heart, to me so tender 

still. 
Should war with Nature and its better 

will!" 

" Yea, strange indeed — that heart hath 

long been changed; 
Worm-like 'twas trampled — adder- 
like avenged — 
Without one hope on earth beyond thy 

love, 400 

And scarce a glimpse of mercy from 

above. 
Yet the same feeling which thou dost 

condemn, 
My very love to thee is hate to them, 
So closely mingling here, that disen- 

twined, 
I cease to love thee when I love Mankind : 
Yet dread not this — the proof of all 

the past 
Assures the future that my love will 

last; 
But — Oh, Medora ! nerve thy gentler 

heart; 
This hour again — but not for long — 

we part." 

"This hour we part! — my heart fore- 
boded this: 410 

Thus ever f^de my fairy dreams of 
bliss. 



Canto i.] 



THE CORSAIR 



359 



This hour — it cannot be — this hour 

away ! 
Yon bark hath hardly anchored in the 

bay: 
Her consort still is absent, and her 

crew 
Have need of rest before they toil anew; 
My love! thou mock'st my weakness; 

and wouldst steel 
My breast before the time when it must 

feel; 
But trifle now no more with my distress, 
Such mirth hath less of play than 

bitterness. 
Be silent, Conrad ! — dearest ! come 

and share 420 

The feast these hands delighted to 

prepare; 
Light toil ! to cull and dress thy frugal 

fare ! 
See, I have plucked the fruit that 

promised best, 
And where not sure, perplexed, but 

pleased, I guessed 
At such as seemed the fairest; thrice 

the hill 
Mv steps have wound to try the coolest 

rill; 
Yes! thy Sherbet to-night will sweetly 

flow. 
See how it sparkles in its vase of snow ! 
The grape's gay juice thy bosom never 

cheers; 
Thou more than Moslem when the cup 

appears: 430 

Think not I mean to chide — for I 

rejoice 
What others deem a penance is thy 

choice. 
But come, the board is spread; our 

silver lamp 
Is trimmed, and heeds not the Sirocco's 

damp: 
Then shall my handmaids while the 

time along. 
And join with me the dance, or wake the 

song ; 
Or my guitar, which still thou lov'st to 

hear. 
Shall soothe or lull — or, should it vex 

thine ear. 
We'll turn the tale, by Ariosto told. 
Of fair Olympia loved and left of old. 



Why, thou wert worse than he who 

broke his vow 441 

To that lost damsel, should thou leave 

me now — 
Or even that traitor chief — I've seen 

thee smile. 
When the clear sky showed Ariadne's 

Isle, 
Which I have pointed from these cliffs 

the while: 
And thus half sportive — half in fear — 

I said. 
Lest Time should raise that doubt to 

more than dread. 
Thus Conrad, too, will quit me for the 

main: 
And he deceived me — for — he came 

again!" 

"Again, again — and oft again — my 

Love ! 450 

If there be life below, and hope above. 
He will return — but, now, the mo- 
ments bring 
The time of parting with redoubled 

wing: 
The why, the where — what boots it 

now to tell ? 
Since all must end in that wild word — 

Farewell ! 
Yet would I fain — did time allow — 

disclose — 
Fear not — these are no formidable 

foes! 
And here shall watch a more than 

wonted guard. 
For sudden siege and long defence 

prepared: 
Nor be thou lonely, though thy Lord's 

away, 460 

Our matrons and thy handmaids with 

thee stay; 
And this thy comfort — that, when next 

we meet, 
Security shall make repose more sweet. 
List ! — 'tis the bugle ! " — Juan shrilly 

blew — 
" One kiss — one more — another — 

Oh! Adieu!" 
She rose — she sprung — she clung to 

his embrace, 
Till his heart heaved beneath her hidden 

face: 



360 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto i. 



He dared not raise to his that deep-blue 

eye, 
Which downcast drooped in tearless 

agony. 
Her long fair hair lay floating o'er his 

arms, 470 

In all the wildness of dishevelled charms; 
Scarce beat that bosom where his image 

dwelt 
So full — that feeling seemed almost 

unfelt ! 
Hark — peals the thunder of the signal- 
gun ! 
It told 'twas sunset, and he cursed that 

sun. 
Again — again — that form he madly 

pressed, 
Which mutely clasped, imploringly 

caressed ! 
And tottering to the couch his bride he 

bore, 
One moment gazed — as if to gaze no 

more; 
Felt that for him Earth held but her 

alone, 480 

Kissed her cold forehead — turned — 

is Conrad gone? 

XV. 

"And is he gone?" — on sudden 

soUtude 
How oft that fearful question will in- 
trude ! 
'"Twas but an instant past, and here 

he stood ! 
And now" — without the portal's porch 

she rushed. 
And then at length her tears in freedom 

gushed; 
Big, bright, and fast, unknown to her 

they fell; 
But still her lips refused to send — 

"Farewell !" 
For in that word — that fatal word — 

howe'er 
We promise — hope — believe — there 

breathes Despair. 490 

O'er every feature of that still, pale face, 
Had Sorrow fixed what Time can ne'er 

erase : 
The tender blue of that large loving 

eye 
Grew frozen with its gaze on vacancv, 



Till — Oh, how far ! — it caught a 
glimpse of him, 

And then it flowed, and phrensied 
seemed to swim 

Through those long, dark, and glisten- 
ing lashes dewed 

With drops of sadness oft to be re- 
newed. 

"He's gone!" — against her heart that 
hand is driven. 

Convulsed and quick — then gently 
raised to Heaven: 500 

She looked and saw the heaving of the 
main; 

The white sail set — she dared not look 
again; 

But turned with sickening soul within 
the gate — 

" It is no dream — and I am desolate I " 

XVI. 

From crag to crag descending, swiftly 

sped 
Stern Conrad down, nor once he turned 

his head; 
But shrunk whene'er the windings of 

his way 
Forced on his eye what he would not 

survey, 
His lone, but lovely dwelling on the 

steep. 
That hailed him first when homeward 

from the deep: 510 

And she — the dim and melancholy 

Star, 
Whose ray of Beauty reached him from 

afar. 
On her he must not gaze, he must not 

think — 
There he might rest — but on Destruc- 
tion's brink: 
Yet once almost he stopped and nearly 

gave 
His fate to chance, his projects to the 

wave : 
But no — it must not be — a worthy 

chief 
May melt, but not betray to Woman's 

grief. 
He sees his bark, he notes how fair the 

wind. 
And sternly gathers all his might of 

mind: 520 



Canto i.] 



THE CORSAIR 



361 



Again he hurries on — and as he hears 
The clang of tumult vibrate on his 

ears, 
The busy solinds, the bustle of the shore, 
The shout, the signal, and the dashing 

oar; 
As marks his eye the seaboy on the mast. 
The anchors rise, the sails unfurling 

fast. 
The waving kerchiefs of the crowd that 

urge 
That mute Adieu to those who stem the 

surge; 
And more than all, his blood-red flag 

aloft. 
He marvelled how his heart could seem 

so soft. 530 

Fire in his glance, and wildness in his 

breast. 
He feels of all his former self possest; 
He bounds — he flies — until his foot- 
steps reach 
The verge where ends the cliff, begins 

the beach, 
There checks his speed; but pauses less 

to breathe 
The breezy freshness of the deep be- 
neath, 
Than there his wonted statelier step 

renew; 
Nor rush, disturbed by haste, to vulgar 

view : 
For well had Conrad learned to curb 

the crowd. 
By arts that veil, and oft preserve the 

proud; 540 

His was the lofty port, the distant mien. 
That seems to shun the sight — and 

awes if seen: 
The solemn aspect, and the high-born 

eye. 
That checks low mirth, but lacks not 

courtesy; 
All these he wielded to command assent: 
But where he wished to win, so well 

unbent. 
That Kindness cancelled fear in those 

who heard. 
And others' gifts showed mean beside 

his word. 
When echoed to the heart as from his 

own 
His deep yet tender melody of tone: 550 



But such was foreign to his wonted 

mood. 
He cared not what he softened, but 

subdued; 
The evil passions of his youth had 

made 
Him value less who loved — than what 

obeyed. 

XVII. 

Around him mustering ranged his 

ready guard: 
Before him Juan stands — "Are all 

prepared?" 
" They are — nay more — embarked : 

the latest boat 

Waits but my Chief " 

"My sword, and my capote ! " 
Soon firmly girded on, and lightly 

slung. 
His belt and cloak were o'er his shoul- 
ders flung: 560 
"Call Pedro here!" He comes — 

and Conrad bends, 
With all the courtesy he deigned his 

friends; 
"Receive these tablets, and peruse with 

care, 
Words of high trust and truth are graven 

there; 
Double the guard, and when Anselmo's 

bark 
Arrives, let him alike these orders 

mark: 
In three days (serve the breeze) the sun 

shall shine 
On our return — till then all peace be 

thine!" 
This said, his brother Pirate's hand he 

wrung. 
Then to his boat with haughty gesture 

sprung. 570 

Flashed the dipt oars, and sparkling 

with the stroke. 
Around the waves' phosphoric ^ bright- 
ness broke; 
They gain the vessel — on the deck he 

stands, — 
Shrieks the shrill w^histle, ply the busy 

hands — 

' By night, particularly in a warm latitude, 
every stroke of the oar, every motion of the boat 
or ship, is followed by a slight flash like sheet 
lightning from the water. 



362 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto ii. 



He marks how well the ship her helm 

obeys, 
How gallant all her crew, and deigns to 

praise. 
His eyes of pride to young Gonsalvo 

turn — 
Why doth he start, and inly seem to 

mourn ? 
Alas! those eyes beheld his rocky 

tower, 
And live a moment o'er the parting 

hour; — 580 

She — his Medora — did she mark the 

prow? 
Ah ! never loved he half so much as 

now! 
But much must yet be done ere dawn 

of day — 
Again he mans himself and turns 

"away ; 
Down to the cabin with Gonsalvo 

bends, 
And there unfolds his plan — his means, 

and ends; 
Before them burns the lamp, and 

spreads the chart. 
And all that speaks and aids the naval 

art; 
They to the midnight watch protract 

debate; 
To anxious eyes what hour is ever 

late? 590 

Meantime, the steady breeze serenely 

blew; 
And fast and falcon-like the vessel 

flew; 
Passed the high headlands of each 

clustering isle, 
To gain their port — long — long ere 

morning smile: 
And soon the night-glass through the 

narrow bay 
Discovers where the Pacha's galleys lay. 
Count they each sail, and mark how 

there supine 
The lights in vain o'er heedless Moslem 

shine. 
Secure, unnoted, Conrad's prow passed 

by, 

And anchored where his ambush meant 
to lie; 600 

Screened from espial by the jutting 
cape, 



That rears on high its rude fantastic 

shape. ^ 
Then rose his band to duty — not from 

sleep — 
Equipped for deeds alike on land or 

deep; 
While leaned their Leader o'er the 

fretting flood, 
And calmly talked — and yet he talked 

of blood! 



CANTO THE SECOND. 

"Conosceste i dubbiosi desiri?" 

— Dante, Injerno, v. 120. 



In Coron's bay floats many a galley 

light. 
Through Coron's lattices the lamps are 

bright,^ 
For Seyd, the Pacha, makes a feast to- 
night: 
A feast for promised triumph yet to 

come, 610 

When he shall drag the fettered Rovers 

home; 
This hath he sworn by Allah and his 

sword. 
And faithful to his firman and his 

word. 
His summoned prows collect along the 

coast. 
And great the gathering crews, and 

loud the boast; 
Already shared the captives and the 

prize. 
Though far the distant foe they thus 

despise ; 
'Tis but to sail — no doubt to-morrow's 

Sun 
Will see the Pirates bound — their 

haven won ! 



' [Cape Gallo is at least eight miles to the 
south of Corone; but Point Lividia, the prom- 
ontory on which part of the town is built, can 
hardly be described as a "jutting cape," or as 
(see line 1623) a "giant shape."] 

2 [Coron, or Corone, the ancient Colonides, 
is situated a little to the north of a promontory, 
Point Lividia, on the western shore of the Gulf 
of Kalamata. or Coron, or Messenia.] 



Canto ii.] 



THE CORSAIR 



363 



Meantime the watch may slumber, if 

they will, 620 

Nor only wake to war, but dreaming 

kill. 
Though all, who can, disperse on shore 

and seek 
To flesh their glowing valour on the 

Greek; 
How well such deed becomes the tur- 

baned brave — 
To bare the sabre's edge before a slave ! 
Infest his dwelling — but forbear to 

slay, 
Their arms are strong, yet merciful 

to-day. 
And do not deign to smite because they 

may ! 
Unless some gay caprice suggests the 

blow, 
To keep in practice for the coming foe. 
Revel and rout the evening hours 

beguile, 631 

And they who wish to wear a head must 

smile; 
For Moslem mouths produce their 

choicest cheer. 
And hoard their curses, till the coast is 

clear. 



High in his hall reclines the turbaned 

Seyd; 
Around — the bearded chiefs he came 

to lead. 
Removed the banquet, and the last 

pilaff — 
Forbidden draughts, 'tis said, he dared 

to quaff. 
Though to the rest the sober berry's 

juice ^ 
The slaves bear round for rigid Mos- 
lems' use; 640 
The long chibouque's ^ dissolving cloud 

supply. 
While dance the Almas ^ to wild 

minstrelsy. 
The rising morn will view the chiefs 

embark; 
But waves are somewhat treacherous 

in the dark: 

' Coffee. 

'"Chibouque" [chibuk], pipe. 

3 Dancing girls. 



And revellers may more securely sleep 
On silken couch than o'er the rugged 

deep: 
Feast there who can — nor combat till 

they must. 
And less to conquest than to Korans 

trust; 
And yet the numbers crowded in his host 
Might warrant more than even the 

Pacha's boast. 650 

III. 

With cautious reverence from the outer 

gate 
Slow stalks the slave, whose office 

there to wait. 
Bows his bent head — his hand salutes 

the floor. 
Ere yet his tongue the trusted tidings 

bore: 
"A captive Dervise, from the Pirate's 

nest 
Escaped, is here — himself would tell 

the rest." ^ 
He took the sign from Seyd's assenting 

eye, 
And led the holy man in silence nigh. 
His arms were folded on his dark-green 

vest. 
His step was feeble, and his look deprest; 
Yet worn he seemed of hardship more 

than years, 661 

And pale his cheek with penance, not 

from fears. 
Vowed to his God — his sable locks he 

wore. 
And these his lofty cap rose proudly 

o'er: 
Around his form his loose long robe was 

thrown. 
And wrapt a breast bestowed on heaven 

alone ; 

' It has been observed, that Conrad's enter- 
ing disguised as a spy is out of nature. Perhaps 
so. I find something not unlike it in history. — 
"Anxious to explore with his own eyes the state 
of the Vandals, Majorian ventured, after dis- 
guising the colour of his hair, to visit Carthage 
in the character of his own ambassador; and 
Genseric was afterwards mortified, by the_ dis- 
covery, that he had entertained and dismissed 
the Emperor of the Romans. Such an anecdote 
may be rejected as an improbable fiction; but 
it is a fiction which would not have been im- 
agined unless in the life of a hero." — See 
Gibbon's Decline and Fall [1854, iv. 272]. 



3^4 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto ii. 



Submissive, yet with self-possession 

manned, 
He calmly met the curious eyes that 

scanned, 
And question of his coming fain would 

seek, 
Before the Pacha's will allowed to 

speak. 670 

IV. 

"Whence com'st thou, Dervise?" 

"From the Outlaw's den 
A fugitive — " 

"Thy capture where and when?" 
" From Scalanova's port ^ to Scio's isle, 
The Saick ^ was bound ; but Allah did 

not smile 
Upon our course — the Moslem mer- 
chant's gains 
The Rovers won; our limbs have worn 

their, chains. 
I had no death to fear, nor wealth to 

boast. 
Beyond the wandering freedom which 

I lost; 
At length a fisher's humble boat by 

night 
Afforded hope, and offered chance of 

flight; 680 

I seized the hour, and find my safety 

here — 
With thee — most mighty Pacha ! who 

can fear?" 

"How speed the outlaws? stand they 

well prepared, 
Their plundered wealth, and robber's 

rock, to guard? 
Dream they of this our preparation, 

doomed 
To view with fire their scorpion nest 

consumed?" 
"Pacha! the fettered captive's mourn- 
ing eye. 
That weeps for flight, but ill can play 

the spy; 
I only heard the reckless waters roar. 
Those waves that would not bear me 

from the shore; 690 

• [On the coast of Asia Minor, twenty-one 
miles south of Smyrna.] 

= [A Levantine bark — "a kind of ketch 
without top-gallant sail, or mizzen-top sail."] 



I only marked the glorious Sun and sky, 
Too bright — too blue — for my cap- 
tivity ; 
And felt that all which Freedom's bosom 

cheers 
Must break my chain before it dried my 

tears. 
This mayst thou judge, at least, from 

my escape, 
They little deem of aught in Peril's 

shape; 
Else vainly had I prayed or sought the 

chance 
That leads me here — if eyed with 

vigilance : 
The careless guard that did not see me 

fly, 

May watch as idly when thy power is 

nigh. 700 

Pacha ! my limbs are faint — and 

nature craves 
Food for my hunger, rest from tossing 

waves : 
Permit my absence — peace be with 

thee ! Peace 
With all around ! — now grant repose — 

release." 

"Stay, Dervise! I have more to ques- 
tion — stay, 

I do command thee — sit — dost hear ? 
— obey ! 

More I must ask, and food the slaves 
shall bring; 

Thou shalt not pine where all are ban- 
queting : 

The supper done — prepare thee to 
reply. 

Clearly and full — I love not mystery." 

'Twere vain to guess what shook the 
pious man, 711 

Who looked not lovingly on that Divan; 

Nor showed high relish for the banquet 
prest. 

And less respect for every fellow guest. 

'Twas but a moment's peevish hectic 
passed 

Along his cheek, and tranquillised as 
fast: 

He sate him down in silence, and his 
look 

Resumed the calmness which before 
forsook : 



Canto ii.] 



THE CORSAIR 



365 



The feast was ushered in — but sumptu- 
ous fare 
He shunned as if some poison mingled 

there. 720 

For one so long condemned to toil and 

fast, 
Methinks he strangely spares the rich 

repast. 
"What ails thee, Dervise? eat — dost 

thou suppose 
This feast a Christian's ? or my friends 

thy foes? 
Why dost thou shun the salt? that 

sacred pledge, 
Which, once partaken, blunts the 

sabre's edge, 
Makes even contending tribes in peace 

unite, 
And hated hosts seem brethren to the 

sight!" 

" Salt seasons dainties — and my food 

is still 
The humblest root, my drink the simplest 

rill; 730 

And my stern vow and Order's ^ laws 

oppose 
To break or mingle bread with friends 

or foes; 
It may seem strange — if there be aught 

to dread. 
That peril rests upon my single head ; 
But for thy sway — nay more — thy 

Sultan's throne, 
I taste nor bread nor banquet — save 

alone ; 
Infringed our Order's rule, the Prophet's 

rage 
To Mecca's dome might bar my pil- 
grimage." 

"Well — as thou wilt — ascetic as thou 

art — 
One question answer; then in peace 

depart. 740 

How many? — Ha! it cannot sure be day? 
What Star — what Sun is bursting on 

the bay? 
It shines a lake of fire ! — away — 



away 



' The Dervises [Dervish, Persian darvesh, 
poor] are in colleges, and of different orders, as 
the monks. 



Ho ! treachery ! my guards ! my 

scimitar ! 
The galleys feed the flames — and I 

afar! 
Accursed Dervise ! — these thy tidings 

— thou 

Some villain spy — seize — cleave him 

— slay him now!" 

Up rose the Dervise with that burst of 

light. 
Nor less his change of form appalled 

the sight : 
Up rose that Dervise — not in saintly 

garb, 750 

But like a warrior bounding on his barb, 
Dashed his high cap, and tore his robe 

away — 
Shone his mailed breast, and flashed his 

sabre's ray ! 
His close but glittering casque, and 

sable plume. 
More glittering eye, and black brow's 

sabler gloom. 
Glared on the Moslems' eyes some 

Afrit Sprite, 
Whose demon death-blow left no hope 

for fight. 
The wild confusion, and the swarthy 

glow 
Of flames on high, and torches from 

below ; 
The shriek of terror, and the mingling 

yell — 760 

For swords began to clash, and shouts 

to swell — 
Flung o'er that spot of earth the air of 

Hell! 
Distracted, to and fro, the flying slaves 
Behold but bloody shore and fiery 

waves ; 
Nought heeded they the Pacha's angry 

cry, 
They seize that Dervise ! — seize on 

Zatanai ! ^ 
He saw their terror — checked the first 

despair 
That urged him but to stand and perish 

there, 

'"Zatanai," Satan. [Probably a phonetic 
rendering of <TaTava.{<;'). The Turkish form 
would be sheyldn. Compare letter to Moore, 
April 9, 1814, Letters, 1899, iii. 66, note i.] 



366 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto ii. 



Since far too early and too well obeyed. 
The flame was kindled ere the signal 

made; 77° 

He saw their terror — from his baldric 

drew 
His bugle — brief the blast — but 

shrilly blew; 
'Tis answered — "Well ye speed, my 

gallant crew! 
Why did I doubt their quickness of 

career ? 
And deem design had left me single 

here?" 
Sweeps his long arm — that sabre's 

whirling sway 
Sheds fast atonement for its first 

delay ; 
Completes his fury, what their fear 

begun, 
And makes the many basely quail to 

one. 
The cloven turbans o'er the chamber 

spread, 780 

And scarce an arm dare rise to guard 

its head: 
Even Seyd, convulsed, o'erwhelmed, 

with rage, surprise. 
Retreats before him, though he still 

defies 
No craven he — and yet he dreads the 

blow. 
So much Confusion magnifies his foe ! 
His blazing galleys still distract his 

sight. 
He tore his beard, and foaming fled the 

fight; ^ 
For now the pirates passed the Haram 

gate. 
And burst within — and it were death 

to wait; 
Where wild Amazement shrieking — 

kneeling — throws 790 

The sword aside — in vain — the blood 

o'erflows ! 
The Corsairs pouring, haste to where 

within 
Invited Conrad's bugle, and the din 



' A common and not very novel effect of 
Mussulman anger. See Prince Eugene's Me- 
tnoires, 181 1, p. 6, "The Seraskier received a 
wound in the thigh; he plucked up his beard 
bv the roots, because he was obliged to quit the 
held." 



Of groaning victims, and wild cries for 

life, 
Proclaimed how well he did the work 

of strife. 
They shout to find him grim and lonely 

there, 
A glutted tiger mangling in his lair! 
But short their greeting, shorter his 

reply — 
" 'Tis well — but Seyd escapes — and 

he must die — 
Much hath been done — but more 

remains to do — 800 

Their galleys blaze — why not their 

city too?" 



Quick at the word they seized him each 

a torch, 
And fire the dome from minaret to 

porch. 
A stern delight was fixed in Conrad's 

eye, 
But sudden sunk — for on his ear the 

cry 
Of women struck, and like a deadly 

knell 
Knocked at that heart unmoved by 

Battle's yell. 
" Oh ! burst the Haram — wrong not 

on your lives 
One female form — remember — we 

have wives. 
On them such outrage Vengeance will 

repay; 810 

Man is our foe, and such 'tis ours to 

slay: 
But still we spared — must spare the 

weaker prey. 
Oh ! I forgot — but Heaven will not 

forgive 
If at my word the helpless cease to live ; 
Follow who will — I go — we yet have 

time 
Our souls to lighten of at least a crime." 
He climbs the crackling stair — he 

bursts the door. 
Nor feels his feet glow scorching with the 

floor; 
His breath choked gasping with the 

volumed smoke, 
But still from room to room his way he 

broke. 820 



Canto ii.] 



THE CORSAIR 



367 



They search — they find — they save : 

with lusty arms 
Each bears a prize of unregarded charms ; 
Calm their loud fears, sustain their 

sinking frames 
With all the care defenceless Beauty 

claims : 
So well could Conrad tame their fiercest 

mood, 
And check the very hands with gore 

imbrued. 
But who is she? whom Conrad's arms 

convey, 
From reeking pile and combat's wreck, 

away — 
Who but the love of him he dooms to 

bleed ? 
The Haram queen — but still the slave 

of Seyd ! 830 

VI. 

Brief time had Conrad now to greet 

Gulnare,^ 
Few words to reassure the trembling 

Fair; 
For in that pause Compassion snatched 

from War, ^ 

The foe before retiring, fast and far. 
With wonder saw their footsteps un- 

pursued. 
First slowlier fled — then rallied — 

then withstood. 
This Seyd perceives, then first perceives 

how few. 
Compared with his, the Corsair's roving 

crew, 
And blushes o'er his error, as he eyes 
The ruin wrought by Panic and Sur- 
prise. 840 
Alia il Alia! Vengeance swells the 

cry — 
Shame mounts to rage that must atone 

or die ! 
And flame for flame and blood for blood 

must tell, 
The tide of triumph ebbs that flowed 

too well — 
When Wrath returns to renovated strife. 
And those who fought for conquest 

strike for life. 

• Gulnare, a female name; it means, literally, 
the flower of the pomegranate. 



Conrad beheld the danger — he be- 
held 
His followers faint by freshening foes 

repelled : 
" One effort — one — to break the 

circHng host!" 
They form — unite — charge — waver 

— all is lost ! 850 

Within a narrower ring compressed, 

beset, 
Hopeless, not heartless, strive and 

struggle yet — 
Ah ! now they fight in firmest file no 

more, 
Hemmed in — cut off — cleft down and 

trampled o'er; 
But each strikes singly — silently — 

and home. 
And sinks outwearied rather than o'er- 

come — 
His last faint quittance rendering with 

his breath, 
Till the blade glimmers in the grasp of 

Death ! 



But first, ere came the rallying host to 

blows, 
And rank to rank, and hand to hand 

oppose, 860 

Gulnare and all her Haram handmaids 

freed. 
Safe in the dome of one who held their 

creed, 
By Conrad's mandate safely were 

bestowed, 
And dried those tears for life and fame 

that flowed: 
And when that dark-eyed lady, young 

Gulnare, 
Recalled those thoughts late wandering 

in despair, 
Much did she marvel o'er the courtesy 
That smoothed his accents, softened in 

his eye — 
'Twas strange — that robber thus with 

gore bedewed. 
Seemed gentler then than Seyd in 

fondest mood. 870 

The Pacha wooed as if he deemed the 

slave 
Must seem delighted with the heart he 

gave; 



368 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto ii. 



The Corsair vowed protection, soothed 

affright, 
As if his homage were a Woman's 

right. 
"The wish is wrong — nay, worse for 

female — vain : 
Yet much I long to view that Chief 

again ; 
If but to thank for, what my fear 

forgot. 
The life — my loving Lord remembered 

not!" 



And him she saw, where thickest carnage 

spread, 
But gathered breathing from the hap- 
pier dead; 880 
Far from his band, and battling with a 

host 
That deem right dearly won the field he 

lost. 
Felled — bleeding — baffled of the 

death he sought. 
And snatched to expiate all the ills he 

wrought ; 
Preserved to linger and to live in vain. 
While Vengeance pondered o'er new 

plans of pain. 
And stanched the blood she saves to 

shed again — 
But drop by drop, for Seyd's unglutted 

eye 
Would doom him ever dying — ne'er to 

die! 
Can this be he? triumphant late she 

saw, 890 

When his red hand's wild gesture waved 

a law! 
'Tis he indeed — disarmed but unde- 

prest. 
His sole regret the life he still possest; 
His wounds too slight, though taken 

with that will, 
Which would have kissed the hand that 

then could kill. 
Oh were there none, of all the many 

given. 
To send his soul — he scarcely asked to 

Heaven ? 
Must he alone of all retain his breath. 
Who more than all had striven and 

struck for death ? 



He deeply felt — what mortal hearts 

must feel, 900 

When thus reversed on faithless For- 
tune's wheel. 
For crimes committed, and the victor's 

threat 
Of lingering tortures to repay the debt — 
He deeply, darkly felt; but evil Pride 
That led to perpetrate — now serves to 

hide. 
Still in his stern and self-collected 

mien 
A conqueror's more than captive's air 

is seen. 
Though faint with wasting toil and 

stiffening wound. 
But few that saw — so calmly gazed / 

around : 
Though the far shouting of the distant 

crowd, 910 

Their tremors o'er, rose insolently loud, 
The better warriors who beheld him 

near. 
Insulted not the foe who taught them 

fear; 
And the grim guards that to his durance 

led. 
In silence eyed him with a secret dread. 



The Leech was sent — ■ but not in mercy 

— there. 
To note how much the life yet left could 

bear; 
He found enough to load with heaviest 

chain, 
And promise feeling for the wrench of 

Pain; 
To-morrow — yea — to-morrow's even- 
ing Sun 920 
Will, sinking, see Impalement's pangs 

begun. 
And rising with the wonted blush of 

morn 
Behold how well or ill those pangs are 

borne. 
Of torments this the longest and the 

worst, 
Which adds all other agony to thirst, 
That day by day Death still forbears to 

slake, 
While famished vultures flit around the 

stake. 



Canto ii.] 



THE CORSAIR 



369 



" Oh ! water — water ! " — smiling 

Hate denies 
The victim's prayer, for if he drinks he 

dies. 
This was his doom ; — the Leech, the 

guard, were gone, 930 

And left proud Conrad fettered and 

alone. 



'Twere vain to paint to what his feelings 

grew — - 
It even were doubtful if their victim 

knew. 
There is a war, a chaos of the mind, 
When all its elements convulsed — 

combined — 
Lie dark and jarring with perturbed 

force. 
And gnashing with impenitent Re- 
morse — 
That jugghng fiend, who never spake 

before, 
But cries "I warned thee!" when the 

deed is o'er. 
Vain voice ! the spirit burning but 

unbent, 940 

May writhe — rebel — the weak alone 

repent ! 
Even in that lonely hour when most it 

feels. 
And, to itself, all — all that self re- 
veals, — 
No single passion, and no ruling thought 
That leaves the rest, as once, unseen, 

unsought, 
But the wild prospect when the Soul 

reviews. 
All rushing through their thousand 

avenues — 
Ambition's dreams expiring. Love's 

regret. 
Endangered Glory, Life itself beset; 
The joy untasted, the contempt or 

hate 950 

'Gainst those who fain would triumph 

in our fate; 
The hopeless past, the hasting future 

driven 
Too quickly on to guess it Hell or 

Heaven ; 
Deeds — thoughts — and words, per- 
haps remembered not 

2B 



So keenly till that hour, but ne'er for- 
got; 
Things light or lovely in their acted 

time. 
But now to stern Reflection each a 

crime ; 
The withering sense of Evil unrevealed, 
Not cankering less because the more 

concealed — 
All, in a word, from which all eyes must 

start — 960 

That opening sepulchre, the naked 

heart 
Bares with its buried woes — till Pride 

awake, 
To snatch the mirror from the soul, and 

break. 
Aye, Pride can veil, and Courage brave 

it all — 
All — all — before — beyond — the 

deadliest fall. 
Each hath some fear, and he who least 

betrays, 
The only hypocrite deserving praise: 
Not the loud recreant wretch who 

boasts and flies, — 
But he who looks on Death — and silent 

dies: 
So, steeled by pondering o'er his far 

career, 970 

He half-way meets Him should he 

menace near! 



In the high chamber of his highest 

tower 
Sate Conrad, fettered in the Pacha's 

power. 
His palace perished in the flame — this 

fort 
Contained at once his captive and his 

court. 
Not much could Conrad of his sentence 

blame. 
His foe, if vanquished, had but shared 

the same : — 
Alone he sate — in soHtude had scanned 
His guilty bosom, but that breast he 

manned : 
One thought alone he could not — 

dared not meet — 980 

"Oh, how these tidings will Medora 

greet?" 



370 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto ii. 



Then — only then — his clanking hands 

he raised, 
And strained with rage the chain on 

which he gazed: 
But soon he found, or feigned, or 

dreamed relief, 
And smiled in self-derision of his grief, 
"And now come Torture when it will, 

or may — 
More need of rest to nerve me for the 

day!" 
This said, with languor to his mat he 

crept. 
And, whatsoe'er his visions, quickly 

slept. 

'Twas hardly midnight when that fray 

begun, 990 

For Conrad's plans matured, at once 

were done, 
And Havoc loathes so much the waste 

of time, 
She scarce had left an uncommitted 

crime. 
One hour beheld him since the tide he 

stemmed — 
Disguised — discovered — conquering 

— ta'en — condemned — 
A Chief on land — an outlaw on the 

deep — 
Destroying — saving — prisoned — and 

asleep ! 

XII. 

He slept in calmest seeming, for his 

breath 
Was hushed so deep — Ah ! happy if in 

death ! 
He slept — Who o'er his placid slumber 

bends? 1000 

His foes are gone — and here he hath 

no friends; 
Is it some Seraph sent to grant him 

grace ? 
No, 'tis an earthly form with heavenly 

face ! 
Its white arm raised a lamp — yet 

gently hid, 
Lest the ray flash abruptly on the lid 
Of that closed eye, which opens but to 

pain. 
And once unclosed — but once may 

close again. 



That form, with eye so dark, and cheek 

so fair. 
And auburn waves of gemmed and 

braided hair; 
With shape of fairy lightness — naked 

foot, lOIO 

That shines like snow, and falls on 

earth as mute — 
Through guards and dunnest night how 

came it there ? 
Ah ! rather ask what will not Woman 

dare? 
Whom Youth and Pity lead like thee, 

Gulnare ! 
She could not sleep — and while the 

Pacha's rest 
In muttering dreams yet saw his pirate- 
guest, 
She left his side — his signet-ring she 

bore. 
Which oft in sport adorned her hand 

before — 
And with it, scarcely questioned, won 

her way 
Through drowsy guards that must that 

sign obey. 1020 

Worn out with toil, and tired with 

changing blows. 
Their eyes had envied Conrad his 

repose; 
And chill and nodding at the turret 

door. 
They stretch their listless limbs, and 

watch no more; 
Just raised their heads to hail the 

signet-ring, 
Nor ask or what or who the sign may 

bring. 

XIII. 

She gazed in wonder, "Can he calmly 

sleep, 
While other eyes his fall or ravage weep ? 
And mine in restlessness are wandering 

here — 
What sudden spell hath made this man 

so dear? 1030 

True — 'tis to him my life, and more, 

I owe, 
And me and mine he spared from worse 

than woe: 
'Tis late to think — but soft — his 

slumber breaks — 



Canto ii.] 



THE CORSAIR 



371 



How heavily he sighs ! — he starts — 

awakes!" 
He raised his head, and dazzled with 

the light, 
His eye seemed dubious if it saw aright : 
He moved his hand — the grating of his 

chain 
Too harshly told him that he lived 

again. 
" What is that form ? if not a shape of air, 
Methinks, my jailor's face shows 

wondrous fair ! " 1040 

"Pirate! thou know'st me not, but I 

am one, 
Grateful for deeds thou hast too rarely 

done; . 
Look on me — and remember her, thy 

hand 
Snatched from the flames, and thy more 

fearful band. 
I come through darkness — and I scarce 

know why — 
Yet not to hurt — I would not see thee 

die." 

"If so, kind lady! thine the only eye 
That would not here in that gay hope 

delight : 
Theirs is the chance — and let them use 

their right. 
But still I thank their courtesy or thine. 
That would confess me at so fair a 

shrine!" • 105 1 

Strange though it seem — yet with ex- 

tremest grief 
Is linked a mirth — it doth not bring 

relief — 
That playfulness of Sorrow ne'er be- 
guiles, 
And smiles in bitterness — but still it 

smiles; 
And sometimes with the wisest and the 

best. 
Till even the scaffold * echoes with their 

jest ! 

' In Sir Thomas Moore, for instance, on the 
scaffold, and Anne Boleyn, in the Tower, when, 
grasping her neck, she remarked, that it "was 
too slender to trouble the headsman much." 
During one part of the French Revolution, it 
became a fashion to leave some '' tnot " as a 
legacy; and the quantity of facetious last words 
spoken during that period would form a mel- 
ancholy jest-book of a considerable size. 



Yet not the joy to which it seems akin — 
It may deceive all hearts, save that 

within. 
Whate'er it was that flashed on Conrad, 

now 1060 

A laughing wildness half unbent his 

brow : 
And these his accents had a sound of 

mirth, 
As if the last he could enjoy on earth; 
Yet 'gainst his nature — for through 

that short life, 
Few thoughts had he to spare from 

gloom and strife. 

XIV. 

"Corsair ! thy doom is named — but I 

have power 
To soothe the Pacha in his weaker hour. 
Thee would I spare — nay more — 

would save thee now. 
But this — Time — Hope — nor even 

thy strength allow; 
But all I can, — I will — at least 

delay 1070 

The sentence that remits thee scarce a 

day. 
More now were ruin — even thyself 

were loth 
The vain attempt should bring but 

doom to both." 

"Yes ! — loth indeed: — my soul is 

nerved to all, 
Or fall'n too low to fear a further fall: 
Tempt not thyself with peril — me with 

hope 
Of flight from foes with whom I could 

not cope: 
Unfit to vanquish — shall I meanly fly. 
The one of all my band that would not 

die? 
Yet there is one — to whom my Memory 

clings, 1080 

Till to these eyes her own wild softness 

springs. 
My sole resources in the path I trod 
Were these — my bark — my sword — 

my love — my God ! 
The last I left in youth ! — He leaves me 

now — 
And Man but works his will to lay me 

low. 



372 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto ii. 



I have no thought to mock his throne 

with prayer 
Wrung from the coward crouching of 

Despair; 
It is enough — I breathe — and I can bear. 
My sword is shaken from the worthless 

hand 
That might have better kept so true a 

brand; 1090 

My bark is sunk or captive — but my 

Love — 
For her in sooth my voice would mount 

above : 
Oh! she is all that still to earth can 

bind — 
And this will break a heart so more than 

kind, 
And blight a form — till thine appeared, 

Gulnare ! 
Mine eye ne'er asked if others were as 

fair." 
"Thou lov'st another then? — but what 

to me 
Is this? — 'tis nothing — nothing e'er 

can be: 
But yet — thou lov'st — and — Oh ! I 

envy those 
Whose hearts on hearts as faithful can 

repose, 11 00 

Who never feel the void — the wander- 
ing thought 
That sighs o'er visions — such as mine 

hath wrought." 

"Lady — methought thy love was his, 

for whom 
This arm redeemed thee from a fiery 

tomb." 

"My love stern Seyd's! Oh — No — 

No — not my love — 
Yet much this heart, that strives no 

more, once strove 
To meet his passion — but it would not 

be. 
I felt — I feel — Love dwells with — 

with the free. 
I am a slave, a favoured slave at best. 
To share his splendour, and seem very 

blest! mo 

Oft must my soul the question undergo. 
Of — ' Dost thou love ? ' and burn to 

answer, ' No I ' 



Oh I hard it is that fondness to sustain. 
And struggle not to feel averse in 

vain; 
But harder still the heart's recoil to 

bear, 
And hide from one — perhaps another 

there. 
He takes the hand I give not — nor 

withhold — 
Its pulse nor checked — nor quickened 

— calmly cold: 
And when resigned, it drops a lifeless 

weight 
From one I never loved enough to 

hate. 1 1 20 

No warmth these lips return by his 

imprest, 
And chilled Remembrance shudders 

o'er the rest. 
Yes — had I ever proved that Passion's 

zeal, 
The change to hatred were at least — to 

feel: 
But still — he goes unmourned — re- 
turns unsought — 
And oft when present — absent from 

my thought. 
Or when Reflection comes — and come 

it must — 
I fear that henceforth 'twill but bring 

disgust ; 
I am his slave — but, in despite of 

pride, 
'Twere worse than bondage to become 

his bride. 1130 

Oh ! that this dotage of his breast would 

cease ! 
Or seek another and give mine release. 
But yesterday — I could have said, to 

peace ! 
Yes, if unwonted fondness now I feign. 
Remember — Captive! 'tis to break thy 

chain ; 
Repay the life that to thy hand I 

owe; 
To give thee back to all endeared 

below. 
Who share such love as I can never 

know. 
Farewell — Morn breaks — and I must 

now away: 
'Twill cost me dear — but dread no 

death to-day ! " 1140 



Canto hi.] 



THE CORSAIR 



373 



She pressed his fettered fingers to her 

heart, 
And bowed her head, and turned her to 

depart. 
And noiseless as a lovely dream is 

gone. 
And was she here? and is he now 

alone ? 
What gem hath dropped and sparkles 

o'er his chain? 
The tear most sacred, shed for others' 

pain, 
That starts at once — bright — pure — 

from Pity's mine, 
Already polished by the hand divine ! 
Oh ! too convincing — dangerously 

dear — 
In Woman's eye the unanswerable tear ! 
That weapon of her weakness she can 

wield, 1 15 1 

To save, subdue — at once her spear 

and shield: 
Avoid it — Virtue ebbs and Wisdom 

errs, 
Too fondly gazing on that grief of hers ! 
What lost a world, and bade a hero 

fly? 
The timid tear in Cleopatra's eye. 
Yet be the soft Triumvir's fault for- 
given ; 
By this — how many lose not earth — 

but Heaven ! 
Consign their souls to Man's eternal foe, 
And seal their own to spare some 

Wanton's woe ! 1160 



XVI. 

'Tis Morn — and o'er his altered fea- 
tures play 

The beams — without the Hope of 
yesterday. 

What shall he be ere night? perchance 
a thing 

O'er which the raven flaps her funeral 
wing. 

By his closed eye unheeded and unfelt, 

While sets that Sun, and dews of 
Evening melt. 

Chill, wet, and misty round each 
stiffened limb, 

Refreshing earth — reviving all but him ! 



CANTO THE THIRD. 

" Come vedi — ancor non m'abbandona." 
— Dante, Injerno, v. 105. 



Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be 

run,* 
Along Morea's hills the setting Sun; 
Not, as in Northern climes, obscurely 

bright, 1 17 1 

But one unclouded blaze of living light ! 
O'er the hushed deep the yellow beam 

he throws. 
Gilds the green wave, that trembles as it 

glows. 
On old ^gina's rock, and Idra's isle. 
The God of gladness sheds his parting 

smile; 
O'er his own regions lingering, loves to 

shine. 
Though there his altars are no more 

divine. 
Descending fast the mountain shadows 

kiss 
Thy glorious gulf, unconquered Sala- 

mis! 1180 

Their azure arches through the long 

expanse 
More deeply purpled meet his mellow- 
ing glance. 
And tenderest tints, along their summits 

driven, 
Mark his gay course, and own the hues 

of Heaven; 
Till, darkly shaded from the land and 

deep. 
Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to 

sleep. 

On such an eve, his palest beam he 
cast, 

When — Athens ! here thy Wisest 
looked his last. 

How watched thy better sons his fare- 
well ray, 

' The opening lines, as far as section ii., have 
perhaps little business here, and were annexed 
to an unpublished (though printed) poem [The 
Curse of Minerva]; but they were written on 
the spot, in the Spring of 181 1, and — I scarce 
know why — the reader must excuse their 
appearance here — if he can. [See letter to 
Murray, October 23, 1812.] 



374 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto hi. 



That closed their murdered Sage's ^ 
latest day! 1190 

Not yet — not yet — Sol pauses on the 
hill — 

The precious hour of parting lingers 
still; 

But sad his light to agonising eyes, 

And dark the mountain's once delight- 
ful dyes: 

Gloom o'er the lovely land he seemed to 
pour, 

The land, where Phoebus never frowned 
before: 

But ere he sunk below Cithaeron's head, 

The cup of woe was quaffed — the 
Spirit fled; 

The Soul of him who scorned to fear or 
fly- 

Who lived and died, as none can live or 
die! 1200 

But lo! from high Hymettus to the 
plain, 

The Queen of night asserts her silent 
reign : ^ 

No murky vapour, herald of the storm, 

Hides her fair face, nor girds her glow- 
ing form; 

With cornice glimmering as the moon- 
beams play, 

There the white column greets her 
grateful ray. 

And bright around with quivering beams 
beset. 

Her emblem sparkles o'er the Minaret: 

The groves of olive scattered dark and 
wide 

Where meek Cephisus pours his scanty 
tide; 1210' 

The cypress saddening by the sacred 
Mosque, 

The gleaming turret of the gay Kiosk; ^ 

' Socrates drank the hemlock a short time 
before sunset (the hour of execution), notwith- 
standing the entreaties of his disciples to wait 
till the sun went down. 

" The twilight in Greece is much shorter than 
in our own country: the days in winter are 
longer, but in summer of shorter duration. 

3 The Kiosk is a Turkish summer house : 
the palm is without the present walls of Athens, 
not far from the temple of Theseus, between 
which and the tree, the wall intervenes. — 
Cephisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Ilissus 
has no stream at all. 

[E. Dodwell {Classical Tour, 1819, i. 371) 



And, dun and sombre 'mid the holy 

calm. 
Near Theseus' fane yon solitary palm, 
All tinged with varied hues arrest the 

eye — 
And dull were his that passed them 

heedless by. 

Again the ^gean, heard no more afar, 
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental 

war; 
Again his waves in milder tints unfold 
Their long array of sapphire and of 

gold, 1220 

Mixed with the shades of many a distant 

isle. 
That frown — where gentler Ocean 

seems to smile. 



Not now my theme — why turn my 

thoughts to thee? 
Oh ! who can look along thy native 

sea. 
Nor dwell upon thy name, whate'er the 

tale. 
So much its magic must o'er all prevail ? 
Who that beheld that Sun upon thee 

set, 
Fair Athens ! could thine evening face 

forget ? 
Not he — whose heart nor time nor dis- 
tance frees, 
Spell-bound within the clustering Cyc- 

lades! 1230 

Nor seems this homage foreign to its 

strain. 
His Corsair's isle was once thine own 

domain — -^ 
Would that with freedom it were thine 

again ! 

speaks of "a magnificent palm tree, which shoots 
among the ruins of the Ptolemaion," a short 
distance to the east of the Theseion. There is 
an illustration in its honour. The Theseion 
— which was "within live minutes' walk" of 
Byron's lodgings — contains the remains of 
the scholar, John Tweddell, died 1793, "over 
which a stone was placed, owing to the ex- 
ertions of Lord Byron" (Clarke's Travels, 
Part II. sect. i. p. 534). When Byron died, 
Colonel Stanhope proposed, and the chief, 
Odysseus, decreed, that he should be buried 
in the same spot. — Lije, p. 640.] 

' [After the battle of Salamis, B.C. 480, Faros 
fell under the dominion of Athens.] 



Canto hi.] 



THE CORSAIR 



375 



The Sun hath sunk — and, darker than 

the night, 
Sinks with its beam upon the beacon 

height 
Medora's heart — the third day's come 

and gone — 
With it he comes not — sends not — 

faithless one ! 
The wind was fair though light ! and 

storms were none. 
Last eve Anselmo's bark returned, and 

yet 
His only tidings that they had not met ! 
Though wild, as now, far different were 

the tale 1241 

Had Conrad waited for that single sail. 
The night-breeze freshens — she that 

day had passed 
In watching all that Hope proclaimed 

a mast; 
Sadly she sate on high — Impatience 

bore 
At last her footsteps to the midnight 

shore, 
And there she wandered, heedless of the 

spray 
That dashed her garments oft, and 

warned away: 
She saw not, felt not this — nor dared 

depart, 
Nor deemed it cold — her chill was at 

her heart; 1250 

Till grew such certainty from that sus- 
pense — 
His very Sight had shocked from life or 

sense ! 

It came at last — a sad and shattered 

boat. 
Whose inmates first beheld whom first 

they sought; 
Some bleeding — all most wretched — 

these the few — ■ 
Scarce knew they how escaped — this 

all they knew. 
In silence, darkling, each appeared to 

wait 
His fellow's mournful guess at Conrad's 

fate : 
Something they would have said; but 

seemed to fear 
To trust their accents to Medora's ear. 



She saw at once, yet sunk not — 

trembled not — 1261 

Beneath that grief, that loneliness of lot; 
Within that meek fair form were feelings 

high. 
That deemed not, till they found, their 

energy. 
While yet was Hope they softened, 

fluttered, wept — 
All lost — that Softness died not — but 

it slept; 
And o'er its slumber rose that Strength 

which said, 
"With nothing left to love, there's 

nought to dread." 
'Tis more than Nature's — like the 

burning might 
Delirium gathers from the fever's 

height. 1270 

"Silent you stand — nor would I hear 

you tell 
What — speak not — breathe not — for 

I know it well — 
Yet would I ask — almost my lip denies 
The — quick your answer — tell me 

where he lies." 

"Lady! we know not — scarce with 

life we fled; 
But here is one denies that he is 

dead: 
He saw him bound; and bleeding — 

but alive." 

She heard no further — 'twas in vain 

to strive — 
So throbbed each vein — each thought 

— till then withstood; 
Her own dark soul these words at once 

subdued: 1280 

She totters — falls — and senseless had 

the wave 
Perchance but snatched her from 

another grave; 
But that with hands though rude, yet 

weeping eyes. 
They yield such aid as Pity's haste sup- 
plies: 
Dash o'er her deathlike cheek the ocean 

dew, 
Raise, fan, sustain — till life returns 

anew; 



376 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto hi. 



Awake her handmaids, with the matrons 
leave 

That fainting form o'er which they gaze 
and grieve; 

Then seek Anselmo's cavern, to report 

The tale too tedious — when the tri- 
umph short. 1290 



In that wild council words waxed warm 

and strange, 
With thoughts of ransom, rescue, and 

revenge; 
All, save repose or flight: still Hngering 

there 
Breathed Conrad's spirit, and forbade 

despair; 
Whate'er his fate — the breasts he 

formed and led 
Will save him living, or appease him 

dead. 
Woe to his foes ! there yet survive a few. 
Whose deeds are daring, as their hearts 

are true. 



Within the Haram's secret chamber sate 
Stern Seyd, still pondering o'er his Cap- 
tive's fate; 1300 
His thoughts on love and hate alternate 

dwell, 
Now with Gulnare, and now in Conrad's 

cell; 
Here at his feet the lovely slave rechned 
Surveys his brow — would soothe his 

gloom of mind; 
While many an anxious glance her large 

dark eye 
Sends in its idle search for sympathy. 
His only bends in seeming o'er his 

beads. 
But inly views his victim as he bleeds. 
"Pacha! the day is thine; and on thy 

crest 
Sits Triumph — Conrad taken — fall'n 

the rest ! 13 10 

His doom is fixed — he dies; and well 

his fate 
Was earned — yet much too worthless 

for thy hate: 
Methinks, a short release, for ransom 

told 
With all his treasure, not unwisely sold; 



Report speaks largely of his pirate- 
hoard — 

Would that of this my Pacha were the 
lord! 

While baffled, weakened by this fatal 
fray — 

Watched — followed — he were then 
an easier prey; 

But once cut off — the remnant of his 
band 

Embark their wealth, and seek a safer 
strand." 1320 

"Gulnare! — if for each drop of blood- 

a gem 
Were offered rich as Stamboul's diadem ; 
If for each hair of his a massy mine 
Of virgin ore should supplicating shine; 
If all our Arab tales divulge or dream 
Of wealth were here — that gold should 

not redeem ! 
It had not now redeemed a single hour, 
But that I know him fettered, in my 

power ; 
And, thirsting for revenge, I ponder still 
On pangs that longest rack — and latest 

kill." 1330 

"Nay, Seyd ! I seek not to restrain thy 

rage. 
Too justly moved for Mercy to assuage; 
My thoughts were only to secure for thee 
His riches — thus released, he were not 

free: 
Disabled — shorn of half his might and 

band. 
His capture could but wait thy first 

command." 

"His capture could! — and shall I then 
resign 

One day to him — the wretch already 
mine? 

Release my foe ! — at whose remon- 
strance ? — thine ! 

Fair suitor ! — to thy virtuous grati- 
tude, 1340 

That thus repays this Giaour's relenting 
mood. 

Which thee and thine alone of all could 
spare — 

No doubt, regardless — if the prize were 
fair — 



Canto hi.] 



THE CORSAIR 



377 



My thanks and praise alike are due — 

now hear ! 
I have a counsel for thy gentler ear : 
I do mistrust thee, Woman ! and each 

word 
Of thine stamps truth on all Suspicion 

heard. 
Borne in his arms through fire from yon 

serai — 
Say, wert thou lingering there with him 

to fly ? 
Thou need'st not answer — thy con- 
fession speaks, 1350 
Already reddening on thy guilty cheeks : 
Then — Lovely Dame — bethink thee ! 

and beware: 
'Tis not his life alone may claim such 

care! 
Another word and — nay — I need no 

more. 
Accursed was the moment when he bore 
Thee from the flames, which better far 

— ' but no — 
I then had mourned thee with a lover's 

woe — 
Now 'tis thy lord that warns — deceitful 

thing ! 
Know'st thou that I can clip thy wanton 

wing? 
In words alone I am not wont to chafe : 
Look to thyself — nor deem thy false- 
hood safe!" 1361 

He rose — and slowly, sternly thence 
withdrew. 

Rage in his eye, and threats in his adieu : 

Ah ! little recked that Chief of woman- 
hood — 

Which frowns ne'er quelled, nor menaces 
subdued ; 

And little deemed he what thy heart, 
Gulnare ! 

When soft could feel — and when in- 
censed could dare ! 

His doubts appeared to wrong — nor yet 
she knew 

How deep the root from whence Com- 
passion grew — 

She was a slave — from such may cap- 
tives claim 1370 

A fellow-feeling, differing but in name; 

Still half unconscious — heedless of his 
wrath, 



Again she ventured on the dangerous 

path, 
Again his rage repelled — until arose 
That strife of thought, the source of 

Woman's woes ! 



Meanwhile — long — anxious — weary 

— still the same 
Rolled day and night: his soul could 

Terror tame — 
This fearful interval of doubt and dread. 
When every hour might doom him 

worse than dead; 
When every step that echoed by the 

gate, 1380 

Might entering lead where axe and 

stake await; 
When every voice that grated on his ear 
Might be the last that he could ever 

hear; 
Could Terror tame — that Spirit stern 

and high 
Had proved unwilling as unfit to die; 
'Twas worn — perhaps decayed — yet 

silent bore 
That conflict, deadlier far than all be- 
fore: 
The heat of fight, the hurry of the 

gale. 
Leave scarce one thought inert enough 

to quail: 
But bound and fixed in fettered soli- 
tude, 1390 
To pine, the prey of every changing 

mood; 
To gaze on thine own heart — and 

meditate 
Irrevocable faults, and coming fate — ■ 
Too late the last to shun — the first to 

mend — 
To count the hours that struggle to 

thine end, 
With not a friend to animate, and tell 
To other ears that Death became thee 

well; 
Around thee foes to forge the ready lie. 
And blot Life's latest scene with 

calumny; 
Before thee tortures, which the Soul can 

dare, 1400 

Yet doubts how well the shrinking flesh 

may bear, 



378 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto hi. 



But deeply feels a single cry would 

shame — 
To Valour's praise thy last and dearest 

claim ; 
The life thou leav'st below, denied 

above 
By kind monopolists of heavenly love, 
And — more than doubtful Paradise — 

thy Heaven 
Of earthly hope, thy loved one from 

thee riven ! 
Such were the thoughts that outlaw 

must sustain. 
And govern pangs surpassing mortal 

pain: 
And those sustained he — boots it well 

or ill? 1410 

Since not to sink beneath, is something 

still ! 

VII. 

The first day passed — he saw not her 

— Gulnare — • 
The second, third — and still she came 

not there; 
But what her words avouched, her 

charms had done, 
Or else he had not seen another Sun. 
The fourth day rolled along, and with 

the night 
Came storm and darkness in their 

mingling might. 
Oh! how he listened to the rushing 

deep. 
That ne'er till now so broke upon his 

sleep; 141Q 

And his wild Spirit wilder wishes sent. 
Roused by the roar of his own element ! 
Oft had he ridden on that winged 

wave, 
And loved its roughness for the speed 

it gave; 
And now its dashing echoed on his ear, 
A long known voice — alas ! too vainly 

near! 
Loud sung the wind above; and, doubly 

loud. 
Shook o'er his turret cell the thunder- 
cloud ; 
And flashed the lightning by the latticed 

bar, 
To him more genial than the Midnight 

Star: 



Close to the glimmering grate he dragged 
his chain, 1430 

And hoped that peril might not prove in 
vain. 

He raised his iron hand to Heaven, and 
prayed 

One pitying flash to mar the form it 
made: 

His steel and impious prayer attract 
alike — 

The storm rolled onward, and dis- 
dained to strike; 

Its peal waxed fainter — ceased — he 
felt alone, 

As if some faithless friend had spurned 
his groan ! 

VIII. 

The midnight passed — and to the 

massy door 
A light step came — it paused — it 

moved once more; 
Slow turns the grating bolt and' sullen 

key : 1440 

'Tis as his heart foreboded — that fair 

She! 
Whate'er her sins, to him a Guardian 

Saint, 
And beauteous still as hermit's hope can 

paint ; 
Yet changed since last within that cell 

she came. 
More pale her cheek, more tremulous 

her frame: 
On him she cast her dark and hurried eye, 
Which spoke before her accents — ■ 

"Thou must die ! 
Yes, thou must die — there is but one 

resource, 
The last — the worst — if torture were 

not worse." 
"Lady! I look to none; my lips pro- 
claim 1450 
What last proclaimed they — Conrad 

still the same: 
Why should'st thou seek an outlaw's 

life to spare. 
And change the sentence I deserve to 

bear? 
Well have I earned — nor here alone — 

the meed 
Of Seyd's revenge, by many a lawless 

deed." 



Canto hi.] 



THE CORSAIR 



379 



"Why should I seek? because — Oh! 

didst thou not 
Redeem my life from worse than 

Slavery's lot? 
Why should I seek ? — hath Misery made 

thee blind 
To the fond workings of a woman's 

mind? 
And must I say ? — albeit my heart 

rebel 1460 

With all that Woman feels, but should 

not tell — 
Because — despite thy crimes — that 

heart is moved: 
It feared thee — thanked thee — pitied 

— maddened — loved. 
Reply not, tell not now thy tale again, 
Thou lov'st another — and I love in 

vain: 
Though fond as mine her bosom, form 

more fair, 
I rush through peril which she would 

not dare. 
If that thy heart to hers were truly dear, 
Were I thine own — thou wert not 

lonely here: 
An outlaw's spouse — and leave her 

Lord to roam ! 1470 

What hath such gentle dame to do with 

home? 
But speak not now — o'er thine and 

o'er my head 
Hangs the keen sabre by a single thread ; 
If thou hast courage still, and would'st 

be free, 
Receive this poniard — rise and follow 

me!" 

"Aye — in my chains! my steps will 
gently tread. 

With these adornments, o'er such slum- 
bering head ! 

Thou hast forgot — is this a garb for 
flight ? 

Or is that instrument more fit for jSght ?" 

"Misdoubting Corsair! I have gained 
the guard, 1480 

Ripe for revolt, and greedy for reward. 

A single word of mine removes that 
chain : 

Without some aid how here could I 



Well, since we met, hath sped my busy 

time, 
If in aught evil, for thy sake the crime : 
The crime — 'tis none to punish those 

of Seyd. 
That hated tyrant, Conrad — he must 

bleed ! 
I see thee shudder, but my soul is 

changed — 
Wronged — spurned — reviled — and it 

shall be avenged — 
Accused of what till now my heart dis- 
dained — 1490 
Too faithful, though to bitter bondage 

chained. 
Yes, smile ! — but he had little cause to 

sneer, 
I was not treacherous then — nor thou 

too dear: 
But he has said it — and the jealous 

well, — 
Those tyrants — teasing — tempting to 

rebel, — 
Deserve the fate their fretting lips fore- 
tell. 
I never loved — he bought me — some- 
what high — 
Since with me came a heart he could not 

buy. 
I was a slave unmurmuring; he hath 

said. 
But for his rescue I with thee had fled. 
'Twas false thou know'st — but let 

such Augurs rue, 1501 

Their words are omens Insult renders 

true. 
Nor was thy respite granted to my 

prayer ; 
This fleeting grace was only to prepare 
New torments for thy life — and my 

despair. 
Mine, too, he threatens; but his dotage 

still 
Would fain reserve me for his lordly 

will : 
When wearier of these fleeting charms 

and me, 
There yawns the sack — and yonder 

rolls the sea ! 
What, am I then a toy for dotard's 

play, 15 10 

To wear but till the gilding frets 

away? 



38o 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto hi. 



I saw thee — loved thee — owe thee all 

— would save, 
If but to show how grateful is a slave. 
But had he not thus menaced fame and 

life, — 
And well he keeps his oaths pronounced 

in strife — 
I still had saved thee — but the Pacha 

spared. 
Now I am all thine own — for all pre- 
pared: 
Thou lov'st me not — nor know'st — ■ or 

but the worst. 
Alas ! this love — that hatred — are the 

first — 
Oh ! could'st thou prove my truth, thou 

would'st not start, 1520 

Nor fear the fire that lights an Eastern 

heart ; 
'Tis now the beacon of thy safety — now 
It points within the port a Mainote 

prow: 
But in one chamber, where our path 

must lead. 
There sleeps — he must not wake — 

the oppressor Seyd!" 

"Gulnare — Gulnare — I never felt till 

now 
My abject fortune, withered fame so low : 
Seyd is mine enemy ; had swept my band 
From earth with ruthless but with open 

hand, 
And therefore came I, in my bark of 

war, 1530 

To smite the smiter with the scimitar; 
Such is my weapon — not the secret 

knife ; 
Who spares a Woman's seeks not 

Slumber's life. 
Thine saved I gladly, Lady — not for 

this; 
Let me not deem that mercy shown 

amiss. 
Now fare thee well — more peace be 

with thy breast ! 
Night wears apace, my last of earthly 

rest!" 

"Rest! rest! by sunrise must thy 

sinews shake, 
And thy limbs writhe around the ready 

stake, — 



I heard the order — saw — I will not 

see — 1540 

If thou wilt perish, I will fall with thee. 
My life — my love — my hatred — all 

below 
Are on this cast — Corsair 1 'tis but a 

blow! 
Without it flight were idle — how evade 
His sure pursuit ? — my wrongs too 

unrepaid, 
My youth disgraced — the long, long 

wasted years. 
One blow shall cancel with our future 

fears ; 
But since the dagger suits thee less than 

brand, 
I'll try the firmness of a female hand. 
The guards are gained — one moment 

all were o'er— 155° 

Corsair! we meet in safety or no more; 
If errs my feeble hand, the morning 

cloud 
Will hover o'er thy scaffold, and my 

shroud." 

IX. 

She turned, and vanished ere he could 

reply, 

But his glance followed far with eager 
eye; 

And gathering, as he could, the links 
that bound 

His form, to curl their length, and curb 
their sound, 

Since bar and bolt no more his steps 
preclude. 

He, fast as fettered limbs allow, pur- 
sued. 

'Twas dark and winding, and he knew 
not where 1560 

That passage led; nor lamp nor guard 
was there: 

He sees a dusky glimmering — shall he 
seek 

Or shun that ray so indistinct and weak ? 

Chance guides his steps — a freshness 
seems to bear 

Full on his brow, as if from morning air; 

He reached an open gallery — on his eye 

Gleamed the last star of night, the clear- 
ing sky: 

Yet scarcely heeded these — another 
light 



Canto ur.] 



THE CORSAIR 



381 



From a lone chamber struck upon his 
sight. 

Towards it he moved; a scarcely clos- 
ing door 1570 

Revealed the ray vi'ithin, but nothing 
more. 

With hasty step a figure outward passed, 

Then paused, and turned — and paused 

— 'tis She at last ! 

No poniard in that hand, nor sign of 
ill — 

"Thanks to that softening heart — she 
could not kill!" 

Again he looked, the wildness of her 
eye 

Starts from the day, abrupt and fear- 
fully. 

She stopped — threw back her dark far- 
floating hair. 

That nearly veiled her face and bosom 
fair, 

As if she late had bent her leaning 
head 1580 

Above some object of her doubt or 
dread. 

They meet — upon her brow — un- 
known — forgot — • 

Her hurrying hand had left — 'twas but 
a spot — 

Its hue was all he saw, and scarce with- 
stood — 

Oh ! slight but certain pledge of crime 

— 'tis Blood ! 



He had seen battle — he had brooded 
lone 

O'er promised pangs to sentenced Guilt 
foreshown ; 

He had been tempted — chastened — ■ 
and the chain 

Yet on his arms might ever there re- 
main : 

But ne'er from strife — captivity — re- 
morse — 1590 

From all his feelings in their inmost 
force — 

So thrilled, so shuddered every creeping 
vein. 

As now they froze before that purple 
stain. 

That spot of blood, that light but guilty 
streak, 



Had banished all the beauty from her 
cheek ! 

Blood he had viewed — could view un- 
moved — but then 

It flowed in combat, or was shed by 
men ! 

XI. 

"'Tis done — he nearly waked — but it 

is done. 
Corsair ! he perished — thou art dearly 

won. 
All words would now be vain — away — 

away ! 1600 

Our bark is tossing — 'tis already day. 
The few gained over, now are wholly 

mine, 
And these thy yet surviving band shall 

join : 
Anon my voice shall vindicate my hand, 
When once our sail forsakes this hated 

strand." 

XII. 

She clapped her hands, and through the 
gallery pour, 

Equipped for flight, her vassals — 
Greek and Moor; 

Silent but quick they stoop, his chains 
unbind; 

Once more his limbs are free as moun- 
tain wind ! 

But on his heavy heart such sadness 
sate, 16 10 

As if they there transferred that iron 
weight. 

No words are uttered — at her sign, a 
door 

Reveals the secret passage to the shore; 

The city lies behind — they speed, they 
reach 

The glad waves dancing on the yellow 
beach; 

And Conrad following, at her beck, 
obeyed. 

Nor cared he now if rescued or betrayed ; 

Resistance were as useless as if Seyd 

Yet lived to view the doom his ire de- 
creed. 

XIII. 

Embarked — the sail unfurled — the 

light breeze blew— 1620 

How much had Conrad's memory to 



382 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto hi. 



Sunk he in contemplation, till the 

Cape, 
Where last he anchored, reared its giant 

shape. 
Ah ! — since that fatal night, though 

brief the time, 
Had swept an age of terror, grief, and 

crime. 
As its far shadow frowned above the 

mast, 
He veiled his face, and sorrowed as he 

passed ; 
He thought of all — Gonsalvo and his 

band. 
His fleeting triumph and his failing 

hand ; 
He thought on her afar, his lonely 

bride : 1630 

He turned and saw — Gulnare, the 

Homicide ! 



She watched his features till she could 

not bear 
Their freezing aspect and averted air; 
And that strange fierceness foreign to 

her eye 
Fell quenched in tears, too late to shed 

or dry. 
She knelt beside him and his hand she 

pressed, 
"Thou may'st forgive though Allah's 

self detest; 
But for that deed of darkness what wert 

thou? 
Reproach me — but not yet — Oh ! 

spare me now! 
I am not what I seem — this fearful 

night 1640 

My brain bewildered — do not madden 

quite ! 
If I had never loved — though less my 

guilt — 
Thou hadst not lived to — hate me — if 

thou wilt." 



She wrongs his thoughts — they more 

himself upbraid 
Than her — though undesigned — the 

wretch he made; 
But speechless all, deep, dark, and un- 

exprest, 



They bleed within that silent cell — his 

breast. 
Still onward, fair the breeze, nor rough 

the surge. 
The blue waves sport around the stern 

they urge; 
Far on the Horizon's verge appears a 

speck, 1650 

A spot — a mast — a sail — an armed 

deck! 
Their little bark her men of watch 

descry, 
And ampler canvass woos the wind from 

high; 
She bears her down majestically near, 
Speed on her prow, and terror in her tier; 
A flash is seen — the ball beyond her 

bow 
Booms harmless, hissing to ihe deep 

below. 
Up rose keen Conrad irovz his silent 

trance, 
A long, long absent gladness in his 

glance ; 
'' 'Tis mine — my blood-red flag again 

— again — 1660 

I am not all deserted on the main!" 
They own the signal, answer to the hail, 
Hoist out the boat at once, and slacken 

sail. 
'"Tis Conrad! Conrad!" shouting 

from the deck. 
Command nor Duty could their transport 

check ! 
With light alacrity and gaze of Pride, 
They view him mount once more his 

vessel's side; 
A smile relaxing in each rugged face. 
Their arms can scarce forbear a rough 

embrace. 
He, half forgetting danger and defeat. 
Returns their greeting as a Chief may 

greet, 167 1 

Wrings with a cordial grasp Anselmo's 

hand. 
And feels he yet can conquer and com- 
mand! 



These greetings o'er, the feelings that 

o'erflow. 
Yet grieve to win him back without a 

blow; 



Canto hi.] 



THE CORSAIR 



383 



They sailed prepared for vengeance — 

had they known 
A woman's hand secured that deed her 

own, 
She were their Queen — less scrupulous 

are they 
Than haughty Conrad how they win 

their way. 
With many an asking smile, and won- 
dering stare, 1680 
They whisper round, and gaze upon 

Gulnare; 
And her, at once above — beneath her 

sex. 
Whom blood appalled not, their regards 

perplex. 
To Conrad turns her faint imploring eye. 
She drops her veil, and stands in silence 

by; 
Her arms are meekly folded on that 

breast. 
Which — Conrad safe — to Fate re- 
signed the rest. 
Though worse than frenzy could that 

bosom fill. 
Extreme in love or hate, in good or ill. 
The worst of crimes had left her Woman 

still! 1690 

XVII. 

This Conrad marked, and felt — ah ! 

could he less? — 
Hate of that deed — but grief for her 

distress; 
What she has done no tears can wash 

away. 
And Heaven must punish on its angry 

day: 
But — it was done: he knew, whate'er 

her guilt, 
For him that poniard smote, that blood 

was spilt; 
And he was free ! «— and she for him 

had given 
Her all on earth, and more than all in 

heaven ! 
And now he turned him to that dark- 
eyed slave 
Whose brow was bowed beneath the 

glance he gave, 1700 

Who now seemed changed and humbled, 

faint and meek, 
Bi|t yarying oft the colour of her cheek 



To deeper shades of paleness — all its 

red 
That fearful spot which stained it from 

the dead ! 
He took that hand — it trembled — 

now too late — 
So soft in love — so wildly nerved in 

hate; 
He clasped that hand — it trembled — 

and his own 
Had lost its firmness, and his voice its 

tone. 
" Gulnare ! " — but she replied not 

"dear Gulnare !" 
She raised her eye — her only answer 

there — 17 10 

At once she sought and sunk in his em- 
brace : 
If he had driven her from that resting- 
place. 
His had been more or less than mortal 

heart. 
But — good or ill • — it bade her not 

depart. 
Perchance, but for the bodings of his 

breast, 
His latest virtue then had joined the 

rest. 
Yet even Medora might forgive the kiss 
That asked from form so fair no more 

than this. 
The first, the last that Frailty stole 

from Faith — 
To Ups where Love had lavished all his 

breath, 1720 

To lips — whose broken sighs such 

fragrance fling, 
As he had fanned them freshly with his 

wing ! 



They gain by twilight's hour their lonely 
isle. 

To them the very rocks appear to smile; 

The haven hums with many a cheering 
sound. 

The beacons blaze their wonted stations 
round, 

The boats are darting o'er the curly bay, 

And sportive Dolphins bend them 
through the spray; 

Even the hoarse sea-bird's shrill, dis- 
cordant shriek, 



3^4 



THE CORSAIR 



[Canto hi. 



Greets like the welcome of his tuneless 

beak! 1730 

Beneath each lamp that through its 

lattice gleams, 
Their fancy paints the friends that trim 

the beams. 
Oh ! what can sanctify the joys of 

home, 
Like Hope's gay glance from Ocean's 

troubled foam? 



The lights are high on beacon and from 

bower. 
And 'midst them Conrad seeks Me- 

dora's tower: 
He looks in vain — 'tis strange — and 

all remark, 
Amid so many, hers alone is dark. 
'Tis strange — of yore its welcome 

never failed. 
Nor now, perchance, extinguished — 

only veiled. 1740 

With the first boat descends he for the 

shore. 
And looks impatient on the lingering 

oar. 
Oh! for a wing bevond the falcon's 

flight. 
To bear him like an arrow to that 

height ! 
With the first pause the resting rowers 

gave. 
He waits not — looks not — leaps into 

the wave. 
Strives through the surge, bestrides the 

beach, and high 
Ascends the path familiar to his eye. 

He reached his turret door — he paused 

— no sound 
Broke from within; and all was night 

around. 1750 

He knocked, and loudly — footstep nor 

reply 
Announced that any heard or deemed 

him nigh; 
He knocked, but faintly — • for his 

trembling hand 
Refused to aid his heavy heart's de- 
mand. 
The portal opens — 'tis a well-known 

face — 



But not the form he panted to embrace. 
Its lips are silent — twice his own 

essayed, 
And failed to frame the question they 

delayed; 
He snatched the lamp — its light will 

answer all — 
It quits his grasp, expiring in the 

fall. 1760 

He would not wait for that reviving 

ray — 
As soon could he have lingered there for 

day; 
But, glimmering through the dusky 

corridor, 
Another chequers o'er the shadowed 

floor; 
His steps the chamber gain — his eyes 

behold 
All that his heart believed not — yet 

foretold ! 



He turned not — spoke not — sunk not 

— fixed his look. 
And set the anxious frame that lately 

shook : 
He- gazed — how long we gaze despite 

of pain, 
And know, but dare not own, we gaze 

in vain ! 1770 

In life itself she was so still and fair, 
That Death with gentler aspect withered 

there; 
And the cold flowers ^ her colder hand 

contained. 
In that last grasp as tenderly were 

strained 
As if she scarcely felt, but feigned a 

sleep — 
And made it almost mockery yet to 

weep : 
The long dark lashes fringed her lids 

of snow. 
And veiled — Thought shrinks from 

all that lurked below — 
Oh ! o'er the eye Death most exerts his 

might. 
And hurls the Spirit from her throne 

of light; 1780 

' In the Levant it i.s the custom to strew 
flowers on the bodies of the dead, and in the 
hands of young persons to place a nosegay. 



Canto hi.] 



THE CORSAIR 



2>^S 



Sinks those blue orbs in that long last 
eclipse. 

But spares, as yet, the charm around 
her lips — 

Yet, yet they seem as they forebore to 
smile, 

And wished repjose, — but only for a 
while; 

But the white shroud, and each ex- 
tended tress, 

Long, fair — but spread in utter life- 
lessness. 

Which, late the sport of every summer 
wind. 

Escaped the baffled wreath that strove 
to bind; 

These — and the pale pure cheek, be- 
came the bier — 

But She is nothing — wherefore is he 
here? 1790 



XXI. 

He asked no question — all were 

answered -now 
By the first glance on that still, marble 

brow. 
It was enough — she died — what 

recked it how? 
The love of youth, the hope of better 

years, 
The source of softest wishes, tenderest 

fears, 
The only living thing he could not 

hate. 
Was reft at once — and he deserved his 

fate, 
But did not feel it less; — the Good 

explore. 
For peace, those realms where Guilt can 

never soar: 
The proud, the wayward — who have 

fixed below 1800 

Their joy, and find this earth enough 

for woe. 
Lose in that one their all — perchance 

a mite — 
But who in patience parts with all 

delight ? 
Full many a stoic eye and aspect 

stern 
Mask hearts where Grief hath little 

left to learn; 
2C 



And many a withering thought lies hid, 

not lost, 
In smiles that least befit who wear them 

most. 



By those, that deepest feel, is ill exprest 
The indistinctness of the suffering 

breast; 
Where thousand thoughts begin to end 

in one, 1810 

Which seeks from all the refuge found 

in none; 
No words suffice the secret soul to show, 
For Truth denies all eloquence to Woe. 
On Conrad's stricken soul Exhaustion 

prest, 
And Stupor almost lulled it into rest; 
So feeble now — his mother's softness 

crept 
To those vidld eyes, which Hke an in- 
fant's wept: 
It was the very weakness of his brain, 
Which thus confessed without relieving 

pain. 
None saw his trickling tears — per- 
chance, if seen, 1820 
That useless flood of grief had never 

been: 
Nor long they flowed — he dried them 

to depart; 
In helpless — hopeless — brokenness of 

heart: 
The Sun goes forth, but Conrad's day 

is dim: 
And the night cometh — ne'er to pass 

from him. 
There is no darkness like the cloud of 

mind, 
On Grief's vain eve — the blindest of the 

bhnd ! 
Which may not — dare not see — but 

turns aside 
To blackest shade — nor will endure a 

guide ! 

XXIII. 

His heart was formed for softness — 
warped to wrong, 1830 

Betrayed too early, and beguiled too 
long; 

Each feeling pure — as falls the drop- 
ping dew 



386 



ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE 



Within the grot — Hke that had hard- 
ened too; 
Less clear, perchance, its earthly trials 

passed 
But sunk, and chilled, and petrified at 

last. 
Yet tempests wear, and lightning cleaves 

the rock; 
If such his heart, so shattered it the 

shock. 
There grew one flower beneath its 

rugged brow. 
Though dark the shade — it sheltered 

— saved till now. 
The thunder came — that bolt hath 

blasted both, 1840 

The Granite's firmness, and the Lily's 

growth : 
The gentle plant hath left no leaf to 

tell 
Its tale, but shrunk and withered where 

it fell; 
And of its cold protector, blacken round 
But shivered fragments on the barren 

ground. 

XXIV. 

'Tis morn — to venture on his lonely 

hour 
Few dare; though now Anselmo sought 

his tower. 
He was not there, nor seen along the 

shore ; 
Ere night, alarmed, their isle is traversed 

o'er: 
Another morn — another bids them 

seek, 1850 

And shout his name till Echo waxeth 

weak; 
Mount — grotto — cavern — valley 

searched in vain, 
They find on shore a sea-boat's broken 

chain: 
Their hope revives — they follow o'er 

the main. 
'Tis idle all — moons roll on moons 

away. 
And Conrad comes not, came not since 

that day: 
Nor trace nor tidings of his doom de- 
clare 
Where lives his grief, or perished his 

despair ! 



Long mourned his band whom none 

could mourn beside; 
And fair the monument they gave his 

Bride: i860 

For him they raise not the recording 

stone — - 
His death yet dubious, deeds too widely 

known ; 
He left a Corsair's name to other times, 
Linked with one virtue, and a thousand 

crimes. 



ODE TO NAPOLEON 
BUONAPARTE.i 

"Expende Annibalem: — quot libras in duce 
summo Invenies?" 

. — Juvenal, [Lib. iv.] Sat. x. line 147. 

"The Emperor Nepos was acknowledged 
by the Senate, by the Italians, and by the Pro- 
vincials of Gaul; his moral virtues, and military 
talents, were loudly celebrated; and those who 
derived any private benefit from his government 
announced, in prophetic strains, the restoration 
of the public felicity. * * By this shameful ab- 
dication, he protracted his life about five years, 
in a very ambiguous state, between an Emperor 
and an Exile, till ! ! !" — Gibbon's Decline 
and Fall, 1848, iv. 373, 374. 



'Tis done — but yesterday a King ! 

And armed with Kings to strive — 
And now thou art a nameless thing: 

So abject — yet alive ! 
Is this the man of thousand thrones, 
Who strewed our earth with hostile 
bones. 

And can he thus survive? 
vSince he, miscalled the Morning Star, 
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far. 

II. 

Ill-minded man ! why scourge thy kind 
Who bowed so low the knee? 

By gazing on thyself grown bhnd, 
Thou taught' St the rest to see. 

With might unquestioned, — power to 
save, — 

Thine only gift hath been the grave 

' [The Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte was 
begun April 9, and published April 16, 1814.] 



ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE 



387 



To those that worshipped thee; 
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess 
Ambition's less than littleness ! 



Thanks for that lesson — it will teach 

To after-warriors more 
Than high Philosophy can preach, 

And vainly preached before. 
That spell upon the minds of men 
Breaks never to unite again, 

That led them to adore 
Those Pagod things of sabre-sway, 
With fronts of brass, and feet of clay. 

IV. 

The triumph, and the vanity, 
The rapture of the strife — ^ 

The earthquake-voice of Victory, 
To thee the breath of life; 

The sword, the sceptre, and that sway 

Which man seemed made but to obey, 
Wherewith renown was rife — 

All quelled ! — Dark Spirit ! what must 
be 

The madness of thy memory ! 

V. 

The Desolator desolate ! 

The Victor overthrown ! 
The Arbiter of others' fate 

A Suppliant for his own ! 
Is it some yet imperial hope 
That with such change can calmly cope ? 

Or dread of death alone? 
To die a Prince — or live a slave — 
Thy choice is most ignobly brave ! 



He who of old would rend the oak,^ 
Dreamed not of the rebound; 

Chained by the trunk he vainly broke — 
Alone — how looked he round ? 

Thou, in the sternness of thy strength, 

An equal deed hast done at length. 
And darker fate hast found: 

He fell, the forest prowlers' prey; 

But thou must eat thy heart away! 

'"Certaminis gaudia" — the expression of 
Attila in his harangue to his army, previous to 
the battle of Chalons, given in Cassiodorus. 

' [Milo of Crotona.] 



The Roman,' when his burning heart 

Was slaked with blood of Rome, 
Threw down the dagger — dared de- 
part. 
In savage grandeur, home. — 
He dared depart in utter scorn 
Of men that such a yoke had borne, 

Yet left him such a doom ! 
His only glory was that hour 
Of self-upheld abandoned power. 



The Spaniard, when the lust of sway 

Had lost its quickening spell, 
Cast crowns for rosaries away, 

An empire for a cell; 
A strict accountant of his beads, 
A subtle disputant on creeds, 

His dotage trifled well : ^ 
Yet better had he neither known — 
A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne. 



But thou — from thy reluctant hand • 
The thunderbolt is wrung — 

Too late thou leav'st the high command 
To which thy weakness clung; 

All Evil Spirit as thou art. 

It is not enough to grieve the heart 
To see thine own unstrung; 

To think that God's fair world hath 
been 

The footstool of a thing so mean; 

' Sylla. [Compare: — "I mark this day! 
Napoleon Buonaparte has abdicated the throne 
of the world. 'Excellent well.' Methinks 
Sylla did better; for he revenged, and resigned 
in the height of his sway, red with the slaughter 
of his foes — the finest instance of glorious 
contempt of the rascals upon record. Dio- 
clesian did well too — Amurath not amiss, 
had he become aught except a dervise — Charles 
the Fifth but so so; but Napoleon, worst of all." 
— Journal, April o, 1814, Letters, 1898, ii. 409.] 

^ [Charles V. resigned the kingdom to his son 
Philip, circ. October, 1555, and the imperial 
crown to his brother Ferdinand, August 27, 
1556, and entered the Jeronymite Monastery 
of St Justus at Placencia in Estremadura. 
Before his death (September 21, 1558) he 
dressed himself in his shroud, was laid in his 
coffin, " joined in the prayers which were offered 
up for the rest of his soul, mingling his tears 
with those which his attendants shed, as if 
they had been celebrating a real funeral." — 
Robertson's Charles V., 1798, iv. 180, 205, 254.] 



388 



ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE 



X. 

And Earth hath spilt her blood for him, 

Who thus can hoard his own ! 
And Monarchs bowed the trembUng 
limb, 
And thanked him for a throne ! 
Fair Freedom ! we may hold thee dear, 
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear 

In humblest guise have shown. 
Oh ! ne'er may tyrant leave behind 
A brighter name to lure mankind ! 

XI. 

Thine evil deeds are writ in gore, 

Nor written thus in vain — 
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more, 

Or deepen every stain: 
If thou hadst died as Honour dies, 
Some new Napoleon might arise. 

To shame the world again — 
But who would soar the solar height, 
To set in such a starless night? 



Weighed in the balance, hero dust 

Is vile as vulgar clay; 
Thy scales, Mortality ! are just 

To all that pass away: 
But yet, methought, the living great 
Some higher sparks should animate, 

To dazzle and dismay: 
Nor deemed Contempt could thus make 

mirth 
Of these, the Conquerors of the earth. 



And she, proud Austria's mournful flower, 

Thy still imperial bride; 
How bears her breast the torturing hour ? 

Still clings she to thy side? 
Must she too bend, must she too share 
Thy late repentance, long despair, 

Thou throneless Homicide? 
If still she loves thee, hoard that gem, — 
'Tis worth thy vanished diadem ! 



Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle, 

And gaze upon the sea; 
That element may meet thy smile — • 

It ne'er was ruled by thee ! 
Or trace with thine all idle hand. 
In loitering mood upon the sand, 



That Earth is now as free ! 
That Corinth's pedagogue ^ hath now 
Transferred his by-word to thy brow. 



Thou Timour ! in his captive's cage ^ 

What thoughts will there be thine. 
While brooding in thy prisoned rage ? 

But one — "The world was mine!" 
Unless, like he of Babylon, 
All sense is with thy sceptre gone,^ 

Life will not long confine 
That spirit poured so widely forth — 
So long obeyed — so little worth ! 

XVI. 

Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,* 

Wilt thou withstand the shock? 
And share with him, the unforgiven, 

His vulture and his rock ! 
Foredoomed by God — by man accurst, 
And that last act, though not thy worst, 

The very Fiend's arch mock; ^ 
He in his fall preserved his pride, 
And, if a mortal, had as proudly died ! 



There was a day — there was an hour, 
While earth was Gaul's — Gaul 
thine — 
When that immeasurable power 

Unsated to resign 
Had been an act of purer fame 
Than gathers round Marengo's name, 

And gilded thy decHne, 
Through the long twilight of all time, 
Despite some passing clouds of crime. 

' [Dionysius the Younger, on being for the 
second time banished from Syracuse, retired to 
Corinth (b.c. 344), where "he is said to have 
opened a school for teaching boys to read," but 
not, apparently, with a view to making a living 
by pedagogy. — Grote's Hist, of Greece, 1872, 
ix. 152.] 

= The cage of Bajazet, by order of Tamerlane. 

3 ["Have you heard that Bertrand has re- 
turned to Paris with the account of Napoleon's 
having lost his senses? It is a report; but, if 
true, I must, like Mr Fitzgerald and Jeremiah 
(of lamentable memory), lay claim to prophecy." 
— Letters, 189Q, iii. 95.] 

■♦ Prometheus. 

5"0! 'tis the spite of hell, the fiend's arch- 
mock, 
To lip a wanton in a secure couch, 
And to suppose her chaste!" 

— Othello, act iv. sc. i, lines 69-71. 



Canto i.] 



LARA 



389 



xviir. 

But thou, forsooth, must be a King 

And don the purple vest. 
As if that foolish robe could wring 

Remembrance from thy breast. 
Where is that faded garment ? where 
The gewgaws thou wert fond to wear, 

The star, the string, the crest ? ^ 
Vain forward child of Empire ! say, 
Are all thy playthings snatched away? 

XIX. 

Where may the wearied eye repose 
When gazing on the Great; 

Where neither guilty glory glows, 
Nor despicable state? 

Yes — One — the first — the last — 
the best — 

The Cincinnatus of the W^est, 
Whom Envy dared not hate. 

Bequeathed the name of Washington, 

To make man blush there was but one ! 



LARA : 2 

A TALE. 
CANTO THE FIRST.3 



The Serfs * are glad through Lara's wide 

domain. 
And Slavery half forgets her feudal 

chain ; 

' [Byron had recently become possessed of a 
"fine print" (by Raphael Morghen, after Gerard) 
of Napoieon in his imperial robes, which (see 
Letters, 1808, ii. 303, note 2) became him "as if 
he had been hatched in them." According to 
the catalogue of Morghen 's works, the engraving 
represents "the head nearly full-face, looking to 
the right, crowned with laurel. He wears an 
enormous velvet robe embroidered with bees — 
hanging over it the collar and jewel of the Legion 
of Honour." It was no doubt this "fine print" 
which suggested "the star, the string [i.e. the 
chain of enamelled eagles], the crest."] 

» [Lara was begun circ. May 14, and (together 
with Jacqueline, A Tale, by Samuel Rogers) 
published, August 6, 1814.] 

3 [A revised version of the following "Adver- 
tisement" was prefixed to the First Edition: — 

"The Reader — if the tale of Lara has the 
fortune to meet with one — may probably re- 



He, their unhoped, but unforgotten 
lord, 

The long self-exiled Chieftain, is 
restored : 

There be bright faces in the busy hall, 

Bowls on the board, and banners on the 
wall; 

Far checkering o'er the pictured win- 
dow, plays 

The unwonted faggot's hospitable blaze; 

And gay retainers gather round the 
hearth, 

With tongues all loudness, and with eyes 
all mirth, 10 



The Chief of Lara is returned again : 
And why had Lara crossed the bounding 

main? 
Left by his Sire, too young such loss to 

know. 
Lord of himself, — that heritage of woe. 
That fearful empire which the human 

breast 
But holds to rob the heart v^athin of 

rest ! — 
With none to check, and few to point in 

time 
The thousand paths that slope the way 

to crime; 
Then, when he most required command- 
ment, then 
Had Lara's daring boyhood governed 

men. 20 

It skills not, boots not, step by step, to 

trace 

gard it as a sequel to the Corsair; — the colour- 
ing is of a similar cast, and although the situa- 
tions of the characters are changed, the stories 
are in some measure connected. The counte- 
nance is nearly the same — but with a different 
expression. . . . 

"The poem of Jacqueline is the production of 
a different author and is added at the request of 
the writer of the former tale. . . ."] 

■* The reader is apprised, that the name of 
Lara being Spanish, and no circumstance of 
local and natural description fixing the scene or 
hero of the poem to any country or age, the word 
"Serf," which could not be correctly applied to 
the lower classes in Spain, who were never 
vassals of the soil, has nevertheless been em- 
ployed to designate the followers of our fictitious 
chieftain. 

[Byron, writing to Murray, July 14, 1814, says, 
"The name only is Spanish; the country is not 
Spain, but the Moon" (not "Morea," as hitherto 
printed). — Letters, 1899, iii. no.] 



39° 



LARA 



[Canto i. 



His youth through all the mazes of its 
race ; 

Short was the course his restlessness had 
run, 

But long enough to leave him half un- 
done. 



And Lara left in youth his father- 
land; 

But from the hour he waved his parting 
hand 

Each trace waxed fainter of his course, 
till all 

Had nearly ceased his memory to recall. 

His sire was dust, his vassals could de- 
clare, 

'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not 
there; 30 

Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture 
grew 

Cold in the many, anxious in the few. 

His hall scarce echoes with his wonted 
name. 

His portrait darkens in its fading frame. 

Another chief consoled his destined 
bride. 

The young forgot him, and the old had 
died; 

"Yet doth he live!" exclaims the im- 
patient heir, 

And sighs for sables which he must not 
wear. 

A hundred scutcheons deck with 
gloomy grace 

The Laras' last and longest dwelUng- 
place; 40 

But one is absent from the mouldering 
file. 

That now were welcome in that Gothic 
pile. 

IV. 

He comes at last in sudden loneliness, 
And whence they know not, why they 

need not guess; 
They more might marvel, when the 

greeting's o'er 
Not that he came, but came not long 

before : 
No train is his beyond a single page. 
Of foreign aspect, and of tender age. 
Years had rolled on, and fast they speed 

.awa)^ 



To those that wander as to those that 

stay; 50 

But lack of tidings from another clime 
Had lent a flagging wing to weary 

Time. 
They see, they recognise, yet almost 

deem 
The present dubious, or the past a 

dream. 
He lives, nor yet is past his Manhood's 

prime, 
Though seared by toil, and something 

touched by Time; 
His faults, whate'er they were, if scarce 

forgot, 
Might be untaught him by his varied 

' lot; 
Nor good nor ill of late were known, his 

name 
Might yet uphold his patrimonial 

fame: 60 

His soul in youth was haughty, but his 

sins 
No more than pleasure from the stripling 

wins; 
And such, if not yet hardened in their 

course. 
Might be redeemed, nor ask a long 

remorse. 

V. 

And they indeed were changed — 'tis 

quickly seen, 
Whate'er he be, 'twas not what he had 

been: 
That brow in furrowed lines had fixed 

at last. 
And spake of passions, but of passion 

past : 
The pride, but not the fire, of early days. 
Coldness of mien, and carelessness of 

praise; 70 

A high demeanour, and a glance that 

took 
Their thoughts from others by a single 

look; 
And that sarcastic levity of tongue, 
The stinging of a heart the world hath 

stung, 
That darts in seeming playfulness 

around. 
And makes those feel that will not own 

the wound; 



Canto i. 



LARA 



391 



All these seemed his, and something 

more beneath 
Than glance could well reveal, or accent 

breathe. 
Ambition, Glory, Love, the common 

aim, 
That some can conquer, and that all 

would claim, 80 

Within his breast appeared no more to 

strive. 
Yet seemed as lately they had been 

alive; 
And some deep feeling it were vain to 

trace 
At moments lightened o'er his livid face, 

VI. 

Not much he loved long question of the 

past, 
Nor told of wondrous wilds, and deserts 

vast, 
In those far lands where he had wan- 
dered lone, 
And — as himself would have it seem — ■ 

unknown : 
Yet these in vain his eye could scarcely 

scan. 
Nor glean experience from his fellow 

man ; 90 

But what he had beheld he shunned to 

show, 
As hardly worth a stranger's care to 

know ; 
If still more prying such inquiry grew, 
His brow fell darker, and his words 

more few. 



Not unrejoiced to see him once again, 
Warm was his welcome to the haunts of 

men; 
Born of high lineage, linked in high 

command, 
He mingled with the Magnates of his 

land; 
Joined the carousals of the great and 

gay, 

And saw them smile or sigh their hours 
away; 100 

But still he only saw, and did not share, 

The common pleasure or the general 
care; 

He did not follow what they all pursued 



With hope still baffled still to be re- 
newed ; 

Nor shadowy Honour, nor substantial 
■ Gain, 

Nor Beauty's preference, and the rival's 
pain: 

Around him some mysterious circle 
thrown 

Repelled approach, and showed him 
still alone ; 

Upon his eye sat something of re- 
proof, 

That kept at least Frivolity aloof; no 

And things more timid that beheld him 
near 

In silence gazed, or whispered mutual 
fear; 

And they the wiser, friendlier few con- 
fessed 

They deemed him better ihan his air 
expressed. 



'Twas strange — in youth all action and 

all life. 
Burning for pleasure, not averse from 

strife ; 
Woman — the Field — the Ocean, all 

that gave 
Promise of gladness, peril of a grave. 
In turn he tried — he ransacked all 

below. 
And found his recompense in joy or 

woe, 1 20 

No tame, trite medium; for his feelings 

sought 
In that intenseness an escape from 

thought: 
The Tempest of his Heart in scorn had 

gazed 
On that the feebler Elements hath 

raised; 
The Rapture of his Heart had looked on 

high. 
And asked if greater dwelt beyond the 

sky: 
Chained to excess, the slave of each ex- 
treme. 
How woke he from the wildness of that 

dream ! 
Alas ! he told not — but he did awake 
To curse the withered heart that would 

not break. 130 



392 



LARA 



[Canto i. 



Books, for his volume heretofore was 

Man, 
With eye more curious he appeared to 

scan, 
And oft in sudden mood, for many a 

day, 
From all communion he would start 

away: 
And then, his rarely called attendants 

said, 
Through night's long hours would sound 

his hurried tread 
O'er the dark gallery, where his fathers 

frowned 
In rude but antique portraiture around : 
They heard, but whispered — "that 

must not be known — 
The sound of words less earthly than 

his own. 140 

Yes, they who chose might smile, but 

some had seen 
They scarce knew what, but more than 

should have been. 
Why gazed he so upon the ghastly 

head ' 
Which hands profane had gathered from 

the dead, 
That still beside his opened volume 

lay. 
As if to startle all save him away? 
Why slept he not when others were at 

rest? 
Why heard no music, and received no 

guest ? 
All was not well, they deemed — but 

where the wrong? 
Some knew perchance — but 'twere a 

tale too long; 150 

And such besides were too discreetly 

wise. 
To more than hint their knowledge in 

surmise; 
But if they would — they could" — 

around the board 
Thus Lara's vassals prattled of their 

lord. 



'["The circumstance of his having at this 
time [1808-9] among the ornaments of his study, 
a number of skulls highly polished, and placed 
on light stands round the room, would seem to 
indicate that he rather courted than shunned 
such gloomy associations." — Life, p. 87.] 



It was the night — and Lara's glassy 

stream 
The stars are studding, each with 

imaged beam ; 
So calm, the waters scarcely seem to 

stray. 
And yet they glide like Happiness away; 
Reflecting far and fairy-like from high 
The immortal lights that live along the 

sky: 160 

Its banks are fringed with many a 

goodly tree. 
And flowers the fairest that may feast 

the bee; 
Such in her chaplet infant Dian wove. 
And Innocence would offer to her love. 
These deck the shore; the waves their 

channel make 
In windings bright and mazy like the 

snake. 
All was so still, so soft in earth and air, 
You scarce would start to meet a spirit 

there; 
Secure that nought of evil could delight 
To walk in such a scene, on such a 

night! 170 

It was a moment only for the good: 
So Lara deemed, nor longer there he 

stood. 
But turned in silence to his castle-gate; 
Such scene his soul no more could con- 
template: 
Such scene reminded him of other days, 
Of skies more cloudless, moons of purer 

blaze, 
Of nights more soft and frequent, hearts 

that now — 
No — no — the storm may beat upon 

his brow, 
Unfelt, unsparing — but a night Uke 

this, 
A night of Beauty, mocked such breast 

as his. 180 



He turned within his solitary hall. 
And his high shadow shot along the wall : 
There were the painted forms of other 

times, 
'Twas all they left of virtues or of crimes, 
Save vague tradition; and the gloomy 

vaults 



Canto i.] 



LARA 



393 



That hid their dust, their foibles, and 

their faults; 
And half a column of the pompous page, 
That speeds the specious tale from age 

to age; 
Where History's pen its praise or blame 

supplies, 
And lies like Truth, and still most truly 

lies. 190 

He wandering mused, and as the moon- 
beam shone 
Through the dim lattice, o'er the floor 

of stone. 
And the high fretted roof, and saints, 

that there 
O'er Gothic windows knelt in pictured 

prayer, 
Reflected in fantastic figures grew 
Like life, but not like mortal life, to view ; 
His bristling locks of sable, brow of 

gloom. 
And the wide waving of his shaken 

plume. 
Glanced ■ like a spectre's attributes — 

and gave 
His aspect all that terror gives the 

grave. 200 

XII. 

'Twas midnight — all was slumber; the 
lone light 

Dimmed in the lamp, as loth to break 
the night. 

Hark! there be murmurs heard in 
Lara's hall — 

A sound — a voice — a shriek — a fear- 
ful call ! 

A long, loud shriek — and silence — did 
they hear 

That frantic echo burst the sleeping ear ? 

They heard and rose, and, tremulously 
brave, 

Rush where the sound invoked their aid 
to save; 

They come with half-lit tapers in their 
hands. 

And snatched, in startled haste, un- 
belted brands. 210 



Cold as the marble where his length was 

laid. 
Pale as the beam that o'er his features 

played 



Was Lara stretched; his half-drawn 

sabre near. 
Dropped it should seem in more than 

Nature's fear; 
Yet he was firm, or had been firm till 

now. 
And still Defiance knit his gathered 

brow; 
Though mixed with terror, senseless as 

he lay. 
There lived upon his lip the wish to 

slay; 
Some half formed threat in utterance 

there had died, 
Some imprecation of despairing Pride; 
His eye was almost sealed, but not for- 
sook, 221 
Even in its trance, the gladiator's look, 
That oft awake his aspect could disclose. 
And now was fixed in horrible repose. 
They raise him — bear him ; — hush ! 

he breathes, he speaks. 
The swarthy blush recolours in his 

cheeks, 
His lip resumes its red — his eye, though 

dim. 
Rolls wide and wild; each slowly 

quivering limb 
Recalls its function, but his words are 

strung 
In terms that seem not of his native 

tongue; 230 

Distinct but strange, enough they 

understand 
To deem them accents of another land ; 
And such they were, and meant to meet 

an ear 
That hears him not — alas ! that can- 
not hear! 

XIV. 

His page approached, and he alone 
appeared 

To know the import of the words they 
heard; 

And, by the changes of his cheek and 
brow. 

They were not such as Lara should 
avow. 

Nor he interpret, — yet with less sur- 
prise. 

Than those around, their Chieftain's 
state he eyes; 240 



394 



LARA 



[Canto i. 



But Lara's prostrate form he bent 
beside, 

And in that tongue which seemed his 
own repHed; 

And Lara heeds those tones that gently 
seem 

To soothe away the horrors of his 
dream — 

If dream it were, that thus could over- 
throw 

A breast that needed not ideal woe. 



Whate'er his frenzy dreamed or eye 
beheld, — 

If yet remembered ne'er to be re- 
vealed, — 

Rests at his heart: the customed morn- 
ing came. 

And breathed new vigour in his shaken 
frame; 250 

And solace sought he none from priest 
nor leech, 

And soon the same in movement and in 
speech. 

As heretofore he filled the passing 
hours. 

Nor less he smiles, nor more his fore- 
head lowers, 

Than these were wont ; and if the com- 
ing night 

Appeared less welcome now to Lara's 
sight, 

He to his marvelling vassals showed it 
not. 

Whose shuddering proved their fear 
was less forgot. 

In trembUng pairs (alone they dared 
not) crawl 

The astonished slaves, and shun the 
fated hall; 260 

The waving banner, and the clapping 
door, 

The rustling tapestry, and the echoing 
floor; 

The long dim shadows of surrounding 
trees. 

The flapping bat, the night song of the 
breeze; 

Aught they behold or hear their thought 
appals, 

As evening saddens o'er the dark grey 
walls. 



Vain thought ! that hour of ne'er un- 
ravelled gloom 
Came not again, or Lara could assume 
A seeming of forgetfulness that made 
His vassals more amazed, nor less 

afraid. 270 

Had Memory vanished then with sense 

restored ? 
Since word, nor look, nor gesture of their 

lord 
Betrayed a feeling that recalled to 

these 
That fevered moment of his mind's 

disease. 
Was it a dream ? was his the voice that 

spoke 
Those strange wild accents; his the cry 

that broke 
Their slumber? his the oppressed, o'er- 

laboured heart 
That ceased to beat, the look that made 

them start? 
Could he who thus had suffered so for- 
get, 
When such as saw that suffering shudder 

yet ? 280 

Or did that silence prove his memory 

fixed 
Too deep for words, indelible, unmixed 
In that corroding secrecy which gnaws 
The heart to show the effect, but not 

the cause? 
Not so in him; his breast had buried 

both. 
Nor common gazers could discern the 

growth 
Of thoughts that mortal lips must leave 

half told; 
They choke the feeble words that would 

unfold. 

XVII. 

In him, inexplicably mixed, appeared 
Much to be loved and hated, sought and 
feared; 290 

Opinion varying o'er his hidden lot, 
In praise or railing ne'er his name for- 
got: 
His silence formed a theme for others' 

prate — 
They guessed — they gazed — they fain 
would know his fate. 



Canto i.] 



LARA 



395 



What had he been? what was he, thus 

unknown, 
Who walked their world, his lineage 

only known ? 
A hater of his kind ? yet some would say. 
With them he could seem gay amidst the 

gay; 
But owned that smile, if oft observed 

and near. 
Waned in its mirth, and withered to a 

sneer; 300 

That smile might reach his lip, but 

passed not by, 
Nor e'er coiild trace its laughter to his 

eye: 
Yet there was softness too in his regard. 
At times, a heart as not by nature 

hard, — 
But once perceived, his Spirit seemed to 

chide 
Such weakness as unworthy of its 

pride. 
And steeled itself, as scorning to redeem 
One doubt from others' half-withheld 

esteem; 
In self-inflicted penance of a breast • 
Which Tenderness might once have 

wrung from Rest; 310 

In vigilance of Grief that would compel 
The soul to hate for having loved too 

well. 



There was in him a vital scorn of all : 
As if the worst had fallen which could 

befall, 
He stood a stranger in this breathing 

world, 
An erring Spirit from another hurled; 
A thing of dark imaginings, that shaped 
By choice the perils he by chance es- 
caped; 
But 'scaped in vain, for in their memory 

yet 
His mind would half exult and half 

regret: 320 

With more capacity for love than Earth 
Bestows on most of mortal mould and 

birth. 
His early dreams of good outstripped 

the truth, 
And troubled Manhood followed baflQed 

Youth; 



With thought of years in phantom chase 

misspent. 
And wasted powers for better purpose 

lent; 
And fiery passions that had poured their 

wrath 
In hurried desolation o'er his path. 
And left the better feelings all at strife 
In wild reflection o'er his stormy life; 
But haughty still, and loth himself to 

blame, 331 

He called on Nature's self to share the 

shame. 
And charged all faults upon the fleshly 

form 
She gave to clog the soul, and feast the 

worm ; 
Till he at last confounded good and ill, 
And half mistook for fate the acts of will: 
Too high for common selfishness, he 

could 
At times resign his ow^n for others' good, 
But not in pity — not because he ought, 
But in some strange perversity of 

thought, 340 

That swayed him onward with a secret 

pride 
To do what few or none would do beside; 
And this same impulse would, in tempt- 
ing time. 
Mislead his spirit equally to crime; 
So much he soared beyond, or sunk 

beneath. 
The men with whom he felt condemned 

to breathe, 
And longed by good or ill to separate 
Himself from all who shared his mortal 

state; 
His mind abhorring this had fixed her 

throne 
Far from the world, in regions of her 

own: 350 

Thus coldly passing all that passed 

below. 
His blood in temperate seeming now 

would flow: 
Ah ! happier if it ne'er with guilt had 

glowed. 
But ever in that icy smoothness flowed ! 
'Tis true, with other men their path he 

walked, 
And like the rest in seeming did and 

talked, 



396 



LARA 



[Canto i. 



Nor outraged Reason's rules by flaw 

nor start, 
His Madness was not of the head, but 

heart ; 
And rarely wandered in his speech, or 

drew 
His thoughts so forth as to offend the 

view. 360 

XIX. 

With all that chilling mystery of mien. 
And seeming gladness to remain unseen, 
He had (if 'twere not nature's boon) an 

art 
Of fixing memory on another's heart: 
It was not love perchance — nor hate — 

nor aught 
That words can image to express the 

thought; 
But they who saw him did not see in 

vain, 
And once beheld — would ask of him 

again : 
And those to whom he spake remem- 
bered well. 
And on the words, however light, would 

dwell: 370 

None knew, nor how, nor why, but he 

entwined 
Himself perforce around the hearer's 

mind; 
There he was stamped, in liking, or in 

hate, 
If greeted once; however brief the date 
That friendship, pity, or aversion knew. 
Still there within the inmost thought he 

grew. 
You could not penetrate his soul, but 

found, 
Despite your wonder, to your own he 

wound; 
His presence haunted still; and from 

the breast 
He forced an all unwiUing interest: 380 
Vain was the struggle in that mental 

net — 
His spirit seemed to dare you to forget ! 



There is a festival, where knights and 

dames, 
And aught that wealth or lofty lineage 

claims. 



Appear — a high-born and a welcome 

guest 
To Otho's hall came Lara with the rest. 
The long carousal shakes the illumined 

hall. 
Well speeds alike the banquet and the 

ball; 
And the gay dance of bounding Beauty's 

train 
Links grace and harmony in happiest 

chain : ' 390 

Blest are the early hearts and gentle 

hands 
That mingle there in well according 

bands; 
It is a sight the careful brow might 

smooth. 
And make Age smile, and dream itself 

to youth, 
And Youth forget such hour was passed 

on earth. 
So springs the exulting bosom to that 

mirth ! 



Aftd Lara gazed on these, sedately glad, 

His brow belied him if his soul was sad; 

And his glance followed fast each flutter- 
ing fair, 

Whose steps of lightness woke no echo 
there : 400 

He leaned against the lofty pillar nigh, 

With folded arms and long attentive eye. 

Nor marked a glance so sternly fixed 
on his — 

111 brooked high Lara scrutiny like this: 

At length he caught it — 'tis a face un- 
known. 

But seems as searching his, and his 
alone; 

Prying and dark, a stranger's by his mien, 

Who still till now had gazed on him 
unseen : 

At length encountering meets the mutual 
gaze 

Of keen enquiry, and of mute amaze; 

On Lara's glance emotion gathering 
grew, 411 

As if distrusting that the stranger threw; 

Along the stranger's aspect, fixed and 
stern, 

Flashed more than thence the vulgar eye 
could learn. 



Canto i.] 



LARA 



397 



" 'Tis he ! " the stranger cried, and those 

that heard 
Re-echoed fast and far the whispered 

word. 
'"Tis he !" — "'Tis who?" they ques- 
tion far and near, 
Till louder accents rung on Lara's ear; 
So widely spread, few bosoms well could 

brook 
The general marvel, or that single 

look: 420 

But Lara stirred not, changed not, the 

surprise 
That sprung at first to his arrested eyes 
Seemed now subsided — neither sunk 

nor raised 
Glanced his eye round, though still the 

stranger gazed, — 
And drawing nigh, exclaimed, with 

haughty sneer, 
" 'Tis he ! — how came he thence ? — 

what doth he here?" 



It were too much for Lara to pass by 
Such questions, so repeated fierce and 

high; 
With look collected, but with accent cold, 
More mildly firm than petulantly bold. 
He turned, and met the inquisitorial 

tone — 431 

"My name is Lara — when thine own is 

known. 
Doubt not my fitting answer to requite 
The unlooked for courtesy of such a 

knight. 
'Tis Lara ! — further wouldst thou 

mark or ask? 
I shun no question, and I wear no mask." 

" Thou shunn'st no question ! Pon- 
der — is there none 

Thy heart must answer, though thine 
ear would shun? 

And deem'st thou me unknown too? 
Gaze again ! 

At least thy memory was not given in 
vain. 440 

Oh ! never canst thou cancel half her 
debt — 

Eternity forbids thee to forget." 



With slow and searching glance upon 

his face 
Grew Lara's eyes, but nothing there 

could trace 
They knew, or chose to know — with 

dubious look 
He deigned no answer, but his head he 

shook. 
And half contemptuous turned to pass 

away ; 
But the stern stranger motioned him to 

stay. 

"A word ! — I charge thee stay, and 
answer here 

To one, who, wert thou noble, were thy 
peer, 450 

But as thou wast and art — nay, frown 
not. Lord, 

If false, 'tis easy to disprove the word — 

But as thou wast and art, on thee looks 
down. 

Distrusts thy smiles, but shakes not at 
thy frown. 

Art thou not he? whose deeds — " 

"Whate'er I be. 

Words wild as these, accusers like to 
thee, 

I list no further; those with whom they 
weigh 

May hear the rest, nor venture to gain- 
say 

The wondrous tale no doubt thy tongue 
can tell, 

Which thus begins so courteously and 
well. 460 

Let Otho cherish here his polished guest, 

To him my thanks and thoughts shall 
be expressed." 

And here their wondering host hath in- 
terposed — 
"Whate'er there be between you un- 
disclosed. 

This is no time nor fitting place to mar 

The mirthful meeting with a wordy war. 

If thou. Sir Ezzelin, hast aught to show 

Which it befits Count Lara's ear to 
know. 

To-morrow, here, or elsewhere, as may 
best 

Beseem your mutual judgment, speak 
the rest; 470 

I pledge myself for thee, as not unknown 



398 



LARA 



[Canto i. 



Though, like Count Lara, now re- 
turned alone 
From other lands, almost a stranger 

grown ; 
And if from Lara's blood and gentle 

birth 
I augur right of courage and of worth. 
He will not that untainted line belie, 
Nor aught that Knighthood may accord, 
deny." 

"To-morrow be it," Ezzelin replied, 
"And here our several worth and truth 

be tried; 
I gage my life, my falchion to attest 480 
My words, so may I mingle with the 

blest!" 
What answers Lara? to its centre 

shrunk 
His soul, in deep abstraction sudden 

sunk; 
The words of many, and the eyes of all 
That there were gathered, seemed on 

him to fall; 
But his were silent, his appeared to stray 
In far forgetfulness away — away — 
Alas ! that heedlessness of all around 
Bespoke remembrance only too pro- 
found. 

XXIV. 

"To-morrow ! — aye, to-morrov/ ! " fur- 
ther word, 490 
Than those repeated, none from Lara 

heard ; 
Upon his brow no outward passion 

spoke ; 
From his large eye no flashing anger 

broke ; 
Yet there was something fixed in that 

low tone. 
Which showed resolve, determined, 

though unknown. 
He seized his cloak — his head he 

slightly bowed. 
And passing Ezzelin, he left the crowd; 
And, as he passed him, smiling met the 

frown 
With which that Chieftain's brow would 

bear him down: 
It was nor smile of mirth, nor struggling 

pride 500 

That curbs to scorn the wrath it cannot 

hide; 



But that of one in his own heart secure 

Of all that he would do, or could endure. 

Could this mean peace ? the calmness of 
the good? 

Or guilt grown old in desperate hardi- 
hood? 

Alas ! too like in confidence are each, 

For man to trust to mortal look or 
speech; 

From deeds, and deeds alone, may he 
discern 

Truths which it wrings the unpractised 
heart to learn. 



And Lara called his page, and went his 

way — 510 

Well could that stripling word or sign 

obey : 
His only follower from those climes afar, 
Where the Soul glows beneath a brighter 

star; 
For Lara left the shore from whence he 

sprung. 
In duty patient, and sedate though 

young; 
Silent as him he served, his faith appears 
Above his station, and beyond his years. 
Though not unknown the tongue of 

Lara's land. 
In such from him he rarely heard com- 
mand; 
But fleet his step, and clear his tones 

would come, 520 

When Lara's lip breathed forth the 

words of home: 
Those accents, as his native mountains 

dear. 
Awake their absent echoes in his ear, 
Friends' — kindred's — parents' — 

wonted voice recall. 
Now lost, abjured, for one — his friend, 

his all: 
For him earth now disclosed no other 

guide; 
What marvel then he rarely left his side ? 



Light was his form, and darkly delicate 
That brow whereon his native sun had 

sate. 
But had not marred, though in his 

beams he grew, 530 



Canto i.] 



LARA 



399 



The cheek where oft the unbidden blush 

shone through; 
Yet not such blush as mounts when 

health would show 
All the heart's hue in that delighted 

glow; 
But 'twas a hectic tint of secret care 
That for a burning moment fevered 

there; 
And the wild sparkle of his eye seemed 

caught 
From high, and lightened with electric 

thought, 
Though its black orb those long low 

lashes' fringe 
Had tempered with a melancholy tinge; 
Yet less of sorrow than of pride was- 

there, 540 

Or, 'twere grief, a grief that none should 

share : 
And pleased not him the sports that 

please his age, 
The tricks of Youth, the frolics of the 

Page; 
For hours on Lara he would fix his 

glance, 
As all-forgotten in that watchful trance; 
And from his chief withdrawn, he 

wandered lone. 
Brief were his answers, and his ques- 
tions none; 
His walk the wood, his sport some 

foreign book; 
His resting-place the bank that curbs 

the brook: 
He seemed, hke him he served, to live 

apart 550 

From all that lures the eye, and fills the 

heart ; 
To know no brotherhood, and take 

from earth 
No gift beyond that bitter boon — our 

birth. ' 

XXVII. 

If aught he loved, 'twas Lara; but was 

shown 
His faith in reverence and in deeds 

alone; 
In mute attention; and his care, which 

guessed 
Each wish, fulfilled it ere the tongue 

expressed. 



Still there was haughtiness in all he did, 
A spirit deep that brooked not to be 

chid; 
His zeal, though more than that of 

ser\ale hands, 560 

In act alone obeys, his air commands; 
As if 'twas Lara's less than his desire 
That thus he served, but surely not for 

hire. 
Slight were the tasks enjoined him by 

his Lord, 
To hold the stirrup, or to bear the 

sword ; 
To tune his lute, or, if he willed it more. 
On tomes of other times and tongues to 

pore; 
But ne'er to mingle with the menial 

train. 
To whom he showed nor deference nor 

disdain. 
But that well-worn reserve which proved 

he knew 570 

Xo sympathy with that familiar crew: 
His soul, whate'er his station or his 

stem, 
Could bow to Lara, not descend to 

them. 
Of higher birth he seemed, and better 

days, 
Xor mark of vulgar toil that hand 

betrays. 
So femininely white it might bespeak 
Another sex, when matched with that 

smooth cheek, 
But for his garb, and something in his 

gaze, 
More wild and high than Woman's eye 

betrays ; 
A latent fierceness that far more be- 
came 580 
His fiery climate than his tender frame: 
True, in his words it broke not from his 

breast. 
But from his aspect might be more than 

guessed. 
Kaled his name, though rumour said he 

bore 
Another ere he left his mountain-shore; 
For sometimes he would hear, however 

nigh. 
That name repeated loud without 

reply. 
As unfamiliar — or, if roused again, 



400 



LARA 



[Canto i. 



Start to the sound, as but remembered 

then: 
Unless 'twas Lara's wonted voice that 

spake. 500 

For then — ear — eyes — and heart 

would all awake. 

XXVIII. 

He had looked down upon the festive 

hall. 
And marked that sudden strife so 

marked of all: 
And when the crowd around and near 

him told 
Their wonder at the calmness of the 

bold. 
Their marvel how the high-born Lara 

bore 
Such insult from a stranger, doubly sore. 
The colour of young Kaled went and 

came — 
The lip of ashes, and the cheek of tlame; 
And o'er his brow the dampening heart- 
drops threw 000 
The sickening iciness of that cold dew. 
That rises as the busy bosom sinks 
With heavy thoughts from which Re- 
flection shrinks. 
Yes — there be things which we must 

dream and dare, 
And execute ere thought be half aware: 
Whate'er might Kaled's be, it was enow 
To seal his lip. but agonise his brow. 
He gazed on Ezzelin till Lara cast 
That sidelong smile upon the knight he 

past ; 
When Kaled saw that smile his visage 

fell, 610 

As if on something recognised right 

well: 
His memory read in such a meaning 

more 
Than Lara's aspect unto others wore: 
Forward he sprung — a moment, both 

were gone. 
And all within that hall seemed left 

alone: 
Each had so fixed his eye on Lara's 

mien. 
All had so mixed their feelings with that 

scene, 
That when his long dark shadow 

through the porch 



No more relieves the glare of yon high 

torch. 
Each pulse beats quicker, and all 

bosonis seem Ore 

To bound as doubting from too black 

a dream. 
Such as we know is false, yet dread in 

sooth. 
Because the worst is ever nearest 

truth. 
.\nd they are gone — but Ezzelin is 

there, 
With thoughtful visage and imperious 

air: 
But long remained not; ere an hour 

expired 
He waved his hand to Otho, and retired. 



The crowd are gone, the revellers at 

rest; 
The courteous host, and all-approving 

guest. 
.\gain to that accustomed couch must 

creep 630 

Where Joy subsides, and Sorrow sighs 

to sleep, 
.\nd Man, o'erlaboured with his Being's 

strife, 
Shrinks to that sweet forgetfulness of 

life: 
There lie Love's feverish hope, and 

Cunning's guile, 
Hate's working brain, and lulled Ambi- 
tion's wile: 
O'er each vain eye ObUvion's pinions 

wave, 
.A.nd quenched Existence crouches in a 

grave. 
What better name may Slumber's bed 

become ? 
Night's sepulchre, the universal home. 
Where Weakness — Strength — Vice — 

Virtue — sunk supine. 640 

Alike in naked helplessness recUne: 
Glad for a while to heave unconscious 

breath. 
Yet wake to wrestle with the dread of 

Death. 
And shun — though Day but dawn on 

ills increased — 
That sleep, — the loveliest, since it 

dreams the least. 



Canto ir.] 



LARA 



40X 



CANTO THE SECOND. 



Night wanes — the va[>ours round the 

mountains curled 
Melt into morn, and Light awakes the 

world, 
Man has another day to swell the past, 
And lead him near, to little but his last; 
But mighty Nature bounds as from her 

birth, 650 

The Sun is in the heavens, and Life on 

earth ; 
Flowers in the valley, splendour in the 

beam, 
Health on the gale, and freshness in the 

stream. 
Immortal Man! behold her glories 

shine, 
And cry, exulting inly, "They are 

thine !" 
Gaze on, while yet thy gladdened eye 

may see, — 
A morrow comes when they are not for 

thee: 
And grieve what may above thy senseless 

bier. 
Nor earth nor sky will yield a single tear; 
Nor cloud shall gather more, nor leaf 

shall fall, 660 

Nor gale breathe forth one sigh for thee, 

for all; 
But creeping things shall revel in their 

spoil, 
And fit thy clay to fertilise the soil. 



'Tis morn — 'tis noon — assembled in 
the hall. 

The gathered Chieftains come to Otho's 
call; 

'Tis now the promised hour, that must 
proclaim 

The life or death of Lara's future fame; 

And Ezzelin his charge may here un- 
fold. 

And whatsoe'er the tale, it must be told. 

His faith was pledged, and Lara's 
promise given, 670 

To meet it in the eye of Man and 
Heaven. 

2D 



Why comes he not ? Such truths to be 

divulged, 
Methinks the accuser's rest is long 

indulged. 

ni. 

The hour is past, and Lara too is there. 
With self -confiding, coldly patient air; 
Why comes not Ezzelin? The hour is 

past, 
And murmurs rise, and Otho's brow's 

o'ercast. 
"I know my friend! his faith I cannot 

fear. 
If yet he be on earth, expect him here; 
The roof that held him in the valley 

.stands 680 

Between my own and noble Lara's 

lands; 
My halls from such a guest had honour 

gained. 
Nor had Sir Ezzelin his host disdained, 
But that some previous proof forbade 

his stay, 
And urged him to prepare against 

to-day; 
The word I pledged for his I pledge 

again, 
Or will myself redeem his knighthood's 

stain." 
He ceased — and Lara answered, " I am 

here 
To lend at thy demand a listening ear 
To tales of evil from a stranger's 

tongue, 690 

Whose words already might my heart 

have wrung. 
But that I deemed him scarcely less 

than mad, 
Or, at the worst, a foe ignobly bad. 
I know him not — but me it seems he 

knew 
In lands where — but I must not trifle 

too: 
Produce this babbler — or redeem the 

pledge, 
Here in thy hold, and with thy falchion's 

edge." 

Proud Otho on the instant, reddening, 

threw 
His glove on earth, and forth his sabre 

flew. 



402 



LARA 



[Canto ii. 



"The last alternative befits me best, 700 
And thus I answer for mine absent 
guest." 

With cheek unchanging from its sallow 
gloom, 

However near his own or other's tomb; 

With hand, whose almost careless cool- 
ness spoke 

Its grasp well-used to deal the sabre- 
stroke; 

With eye, though calm, determined not 
to spare, 

Did Lara too his willing weapon bare. 

In vain the circling Chieftains round 
them closed, 

For Otho's frenzy would not be op- 
posed ; 

And from his lip those words of insult 
fell — 710 

His sword is good who can maintain 
them well. 



Short was the conflict; furious, blindly 

rash. 
Vain Otho gave his bosom to the gash : 
He bled, and fell; but not with deadly 

wound, 
Stretched by a dextrous sleight along 

the ground. 
" Demand thy life.! " He answered not : 

and then 
From that red floor he ne'er had risen 

again. 
For Lara's brow upon the moment grew 
Almost to blackness in its demon hue; 
And fiercer shook his angry falchion 

now 720 

Than when his foe's was levelled at his 

brow; 
Then all was stern collectedness and 

art. 
Now rose the unleavened hatred of his 

heart ; 
So little sparing to the foe he felled. 
That when the approaching crowd his 

arm withheld. 
He almost turned the thirsty point on 

those 
Who thus for mercy dared to interpose; 
But to a moment's thought that purpose 

bent; 



Yet looked he on him still with eye in- 
tent, 

As if he loathed the ineffectual strife 730 

That left a foe, howe'er o'erthrown, with 
life; 

As if to search how far the wound he 
gave 

Had sent its victim onward to his grave. 



They raised the bleeding Otho, and the 

Leech 
Forbade all present question, s.ign, and 

speech; 
The others met within a neighbouring 

hall. 
And he, incensed, and heedless of them 

all. 
The cause and conqueror in this sudden 

fray. 
In haughty silence slowly strode away; 
He backed his steed, his homeward 

path he took, 740 

Nor cast on Otho's towers a single look. 

VI. 

But where was he? that meteor of a 

night. 
Who menaced but to disappear with 

light. 
Where was this Ezzelin ? who came and 

went. 
To leave no other trace of his intent. 
He left the dome of Otho long ere morn, 
In darkness, yet so well the path was 

worn 
He could not miss it : near his dwelling 

lay, 
But there he was not; and with coming 

day 
Came fast inquiry, which unfolded 

nought, 750 

Except the absence of the Chief it 

sought. 
A chamber tenantless, a steed at rest. 
His host alarmed, his murmuring squires 

distressed : 
Their search extends along, around the 

path, 
■ In dread to meet the marks of prowlers' 

wrath: 
But none are there, and not a brake 

hath borne 



Canto ii.] 



LARA 



403 



Nor gout of blood, nor shred of mantle 
torn; 

Nor fall nor struggle hath defaced the 
grass, 

Which still retains a mark where Mur- 
der was; 

Nor dabbling fingers left to tell the 
tale, 760 

The bitter print of each convulsive nail. 

When agonised hands that cease to 
guard, 

Wound in that pang the smoothness of 
the sward. 

Some such had been, if here a life was 
reft. 

But these were not — and doubting 
Hope is left; 

And strange Suspicion, whispering 
Lara's name. 

Now daily mutters o'er his blackened 
fame ; 

Then sudden silent when his form ap- 
peared, 

Awaits the absence of the thing it feared. 

Again its wonted wondering to re- 
new, 770 

And dye conjecture with a darker hue. 

VII. 

Days roll along, and Otho's wounds are 

healed, 
But not his pride, and hate no more 

concealed: 
He was a man of power, and Lara's foe, 
The friend of all who sought to work 

him woe, 
And from his country's justice now 

demands 
Account of Ezzelin at Lara's hands. 
Who else than Lara could have cause 

to fear 
His presence? who had made him dis- 
appear, 
If not the man on whom his menaced 

charge 780 

Had sate too deeply were he left at 

large ? 
The general rumour ignorantly loud. 
The mystery dearest to the curious 

crowd ; 
The seeming friendliness of him who 

strove 
To win no confidence, and wake no love; 



The sweeping fierceness which his soul 

betrayed. 
The skill with which he wielded his 

keen blade; 
Where had his arm unwarlike caught 

that art? 
Where had that fierceness grown upon 

his heart? ' 
For it was not the blind capricious 

rage 790 

A word can kindle and a word assuage; 
But the deep working of a soul un- 
mixed 
With aught of pity where its wrath had 

fixed ; 
Such as long power and overgo rged 

success 
Concentrates into all that's merciless: 
These, linked with that desire which ever 

sways 
Mankind, the rather to condemn than 

praise, 
'Gainst Lara, gathering, raised at length 

a storm, 
Such as himself might fear, and foes 

would form, 
And he must answer for the absent 

head 800 

Of one that haunts him still, alive or 

dead. 

VIII. 

Within that land was many a malcon- 
tent, 

Who cursed, the tryanny to which he 
bent; 

That soil full many a wringing despot 
saw. 

Who worked his wantonness in form of 
law; 

Long war without and frequent broil 
within 

Had made a path for blood and giant 
sin, 

That waited but a signal to begin 

New havoc, such as civil discord blends, 

Which knows no neuter, owns but foes 
or friends; 810 

Fixed in his feudal fortress each was 
lord. 

In word and deed obeyed, in soul ab- 
horred. 

Thus Lara had inherited his lands. 



404 



LARA 



[Canto ii. 



And with them pining hearts and slug- 
gish hands; 
But that long absence from his native 

clime 
Had left him stainless of Oppression's 

crime, 
And now, diverted by his milder sway 
All dread by slow degrees had worn 

away. 
The menials felt their usual awe alone. 
But more for him than them that fear 

was grown; 820 

They deemed him now unhappy, though 

at first 
Their evil judgment augured of the 

worst ; 
And each long restless night, and silent 

mood, 
Was traced to sickness, fed by solitude: 
And though his lonely habits threw of 

late 
Gloom o'er his chamber, cheerful was 

his gate; 
For thence the wretched ne'er unsoothed 

withdrew, 
For them, at least, his soul compassion 

knew. 
Cold to the great, contemptuous to the 

high. 
The humble passed not his unheeding 

eye; 830 

Much he would speak not, but beneath 

his roof 
They found asylum oft, and ne'er 

reproof. 
And they who watched might mark 

that, day by day, 
Some new retainers gathered to his 

sway; 
But most of late, since Ezzelin was lost. 
He played the courteous lord and 

bounteous host: 
Perchance his strife with Otho made him 

dread 
Some snare prepared for his obnoxious 

head ; 
Whate'er his view, his favour more 

obtains 
With these, the people, than his fellow 

thanes. 840 

If this were poHcy, so far 'twas sound. 
The million judged but of him as they 

found; 



From him by sterner chiefs to exile driven 
They but required a shelter, and 'twas 

given. 
By him no peasant mourned his rifled 

cot. 
And scarce the Serf could murmur o'er 

his lot; 
With him old Avarice found its hoard 

secure. 
With him Contempt forbore to mock 

the poor; 
Youth present cheer and promised 

recompense 
Detained, till all too late to part from 

thence: 850 

To Hate he offered, with the coming 

change. 
The deep reversion of delayed revenge; 
To Love, long baffled by the unequal 

match. 
The well- won charms success was sure 

to snatch. 
All now was ripe, he waits but to pro- 
claim 
That slavery nothing which was still a 

name. 
The moment came, the hour when Otho 

thought 
Secure at last the vengeance which he 

sought : 
His summons found the destined 

criminal 
Begirt by thousands in bis swarming 

hall; 860 

Fresh from their feudal fetters newly 

riven. 
Defying earth, and confident of heaven. 
That morning he had freed the soil- 
bound slaves. 
Who dig no land for tyrants but their 

graves ! 
Such is their cry — some watchword for 

the fight 
Must vindicate the wrong, and warp the 

right; 
Religion — Freedom — Vengeance — 

what you will, 
A word's enough to raise Mankind to 

kill; 
Some factious phrase by cunning caught 

and spread, 
That Guilt may reign — and wolves 

and worms be fed! 870 



Canto ii. 



LARA 



405 



Throughout that clime the feudal Chiefs 

had gained 
Such sway, their infant monarch hardly 

reigned ; 
Now was the hour for Faction's rebel 

growth, 
The Serfs contemned the one, and hated 

both: 
They waited but a leader, and they 

found 
One to their cause inseparably bound ; 
By circumstance compelled to plunge 

again. 
In self-defence, amidst the strife of men. 
Cut off by some mysterious fate from 

those 
Whom Birth and Nature meant not for 

his foes, 880 

Had Lara from that night, to him 

accurst, 
Prepared to meet, but not alone, the 

worst : 
Some reason urged, whate'er it was, to 

shun 
Inquiry into deeds at distance done; 
By mingling with his own the cause of 

all, 
E'en if he failed, he still delayed his fall. 
The sullen calm that long his bosom 

kept. 
The storm that once had spent itself and 

slept, 
Roused by events that seemed fore- 
doomed to urge 
His gloomy fortunes to their utmost 

verge, 890 

Burst forth, and made him all he once 

had been. 
And is again; he only changed the 

scene. 
Light care had he for life, and less for 

fame, 
But not less fitted for the desperate 

game: 
He deemed himself marked out for 

others' hate. 
And mocked at Ruin so they shared his 

fate. 
And cared he for the freedom of the 

crowd ? 
He raised the humble but to bend the 

proud. 



He had hoped quiet in his sullen lair, 
But Man and Destiny beset him there: 
Inured to hunters, he was found at 

bay; 901 

And they must kill, they cannot snare 

the prey. 
Stern, unambitious, silent, he had been 
Henceforth a calm spectator of Life's 

scene; 
But dragged again upon the arena, stood 
A leader not unequal to the feud; 
In voice — mien — gesture — savage 

nature spoke. 
And from his eye the gladiator broke. 



What boots the oft-repeated tale of 

strife. 
The feast of vultures, and the waste of 

life? 910 

The varying fortune of each separate 

field, 
The fierce that vanquish, and the faint 

that yield? 
The smoking ruin, and the crumbled 

wall? 
In this the struggle was the same with all ; 
Save that distempered passions lent 

their force 
In bitterness that banished all remorse. 
None sued, for Mercy knew her cry was 

vain. 
The captive died upon the battle-plain: 
In either cause, one rage alone possessed 
The empire of the alternate victor's 

breast; 920 

And they that smote for freedom or for 

sway. 
Deemed few were slain, while more re- 
mained to slay. 
It was too late to check the wasting 

brand, 
And Desolation reaped the famished 

land; 
The torch was Hghted, and the flame 

was spread. 
And Carnage smiled upon her daily dead. 

XI. 

Fresh with the nerve the new-born im- 
pulse strung, 

The first success to Lara's numbers 
clung: 



4o6 



LARA 



[Canto ii. 



But that vain victory hath ruined all; 

They form no longer to their leader's 
call: 930 

In blind confusion on the foe they press, 

And think to snatch is to secure success. 

The lust of booty, and the thirst of hate. 

Lure on the broken brigands to their 
fate: 

In vain he doth whate'er a chief may do, 

To check the headlong fury of that 
crew; 

In vain their stubborn ardour he would 
tame, 

The hand that kindles cannot quench 
the flame; 

The wary foe alone hath turned their 
mood, 

And shown their rashness to that erring 
brood : 940 

The feigned retreat, the nightly am- 
buscade. 

The daily harass, and the fight delayed. 

The long privation of the hoped supply. 

The tentless rest beneath the humid sky. 

The stubborn wall that mocks the 
leaguer's art. 

And palls the patience of his bafSed 
heart, 

Of these they had not deemed: the 
battle-day 

They could encounter as a veteran may; 

But more preferred the fury of the 
strife. 

And present death, to hourly suffering 
life: 950 

And Famine wrings, and Fever sweeps 
away 

His numbers melting fast from their 
array ; 

Intemperate triumph fades to discon- 
tent, 

And Lara's soul alone seems still un- 
bent; 

But few remain to aid his voice and 
hand, 

And thousands dwindled to a scanty 
band : 

Desperate, though few, the last and best 
remained 

To mourn the discipline they late dis- 
dained. 
One hope survives, the frontier is not 
far. 



And thence they may escape from native 
war : 960 

And bear within them to the neighbour- 
ing state 

An exile's sorrows, or an outlaw's 
hate: 

Hard is the task their father-land to 
quit. 

But harder still to perish or submit. 

XII. 

It is resolved — they march — consent- 
ing Night 
Guides with her star their dim and 

torchless flight; 
Already they perceive its tranquil beam 
Sleep on the surface of the barrier 

stream ; 
Already they descry — Is yon the bank ? 
Away ! 'tis Uned with many a hostile 

rank. 970 

Return or fly ! — What glitters in the 

rear? 
'Tis Otho's banner — the pursuer's 

spear ! 
Are those the shepherds' fires upon the 

height ? 
Alas ! they blaze too widely for the 

flight: 
Cut off from hope, and compassed in the 

toil. 
Less blood perchance hath bought a 

richer spoil ! 



A moment's pause — 'tis but to breathe 

their band, 
Or shall they onward press, or here with- 
stand ? 
It matters little — if they charge the foes 
Who by the border-stream their march 

oppose, 980 

Some few, perchance, may break and 

pass the line. 
However linked to baffle such design. 
"The charge be ours! to wait for their 

assault 
Were fate well worthy of a coward's 

halt." 
Forth flies each sabre, reined is every 

steed, 
And the next word shall scarce outstrip 

the deed: 



Canto ii.] 



LARA 



407 



In the next tone of Lara's gathering 

breath 
How many shall but hear the voice of 

Death ! 

XIV. 

His blade is bared, — in him there is an 

air 
As deep, but far too tranquil for 

despair; 990 

A something of indifference more than 

then 
Becomes the bravest, if they feel for 

men — 
He turned his eye on Kaled, ever 

near. 
And still too faithful to betray one 

fear; 
Perchance 'twas but the moon's dim 

twilight threw 
Along his aspect an unwonted hue 
Of mournful paleness, whose deep tint 

expressed 
The truth, and not the terror of his 

breast. 
This Lara marked, and laid his hand on 

his: 
It trembled not in such an hour as 

this; 1000 

His lip was silent, scarcely beat his 

heart, 
His eye alone proclaimed, " We will not 

part! 
"Thy band may perish, or thy friends 

may flee, 
" Farewell to Life — but not Adieu to 

thee!" 

The word hath passed his lips, and 

onward driven, 
Pours the linked band through ranks 

asunder riven: 
Well has each steed obeyed the armed 

heel. 
And flash the scimitars, and rings the 

steel; 
Outnumbered, not outbraved, they still 

oppose 
Despair to daring, and a front to foes; 
And blood is mingled with the dashing 

stream, loii 

Which runs all redly till the morning 

beam. 



Commanding — aiding — animating all. 
Where foe appeared to press, or friend 

to fall. 
Cheers Lara's voice, and waves or 

strikes his steel. 
Inspiring hope, himself had ceased to 

feel. 
None fled, for well they knew that flight 

were vain; 
But those that waver turn to smite again, 
While yet they find the firmest of the foe 
Recoil before their leader's look and 

blow: 1020 

Now girt with numbers, now almost 

alone, 
He foils their ranks, or re-unites his own ; 
Himself he spared not — once they 

seemed to fly — 
Now was the time, he waved his hand 

on high, 
And shook — Why sudden droops that 

plumed crest ? 
The shaft is sped — the arrow's in his 

breast ! 
That fatal gesture left the unguarded 

side. 
And Death has stricken down yon arm 

of pride. 
The word of triumph fainted from his 

tongue; 
That hand, so raised, how droopingly 

it hung! 1030 

But yet the sword instinctively retains, 
Though from its fellow shrink the fall- 
ing reins; 
These Kaled snatches: dizzy with the 

blow. 
And senseless bending o'er his saddle- 
bow. 
Perceives not Lara that his anxious page 
Beguiles his charger from the combat's 

rage: 
Meantime his followers charge, and 

charge again; 
Too mixed the slayers now to heed the 

slain ! 



Day glimmers on the dying and the 

dead, 

The cloven cuirass, and the helmless 

head; 1040 



4o8 



LARA 



[Canto ii. 



The war-horse masterless is on the 

earth, 
And that last gasp hath burst his bloody 

girth; 
And near, yet quivering with what Hfe 

remained. 
The heel that urged him and the hand 

that reined; 
And some too near that rolling torrent 

he, 
Whose waters mock the lip of those 

that die; 
That panting thirst which scorches in 

the breath 
Of those that die the soldier's fiery 

death. 
In vain impels the burning mouth to 

crave 
One drop — the last — to cool it for the 

grave; 10^6 

With feeble and convulsive effort 

swept, 
Their limbs along the crimsoned turf 

have crept; 
The faint remains of hfe such struggles 

waste. 
But yet they reach the stream, and bend 

to taste: 
They feel its freshness, and almost par- 
take — 
Why pause? No further thirst have 

they to slake — 
It is unquenched, and yet they feel it 

not; 
It was an agony — but now forgot ! 



Beneath a Hme, remoter from the scene, 
Where but for him that strife had never 

been, 1060 

A breathing but devoted warrior lay: 
'Twas Lara bleeding fast from life 

away. 
His follower once, and now his only 

guide. 
Kneels Kaled watchful o'er his welling 

side. 
And with his scarf would staunch the 

tides that rush, 
With each convulsion, in a blacker gush; 
And then, as his faint breathing waxes 

low. 
In feebler, not less fatal tricklings flow: 



He scarce can speak, but motions him 

'tis vain. 
And merely adds another throb to 

pain. 1070 

He clasps the hand that pang which I 

would assuage, . I 

And sadly smiles his thanks to that dark 

page. 
Who nothing fears — nor feels — nor 

heeds — nor sees — 
Save that damp brow which rests upon 

his knees; 
Save that pale aspect, where the eye, 

though dim. 
Held all the light that shone on earth 

for him. 



The foe arrives, who long had searched 

the field. 
Their triumph nought till Lara too 

should yield: 
They would remove him, but they see 

'twere vain, 
And he regards them with a calm dis- 
dain, 1080 
That rose to reconcile him with his fate, 
And that escape to death from living 

hate : 
And Otho comes, and leaping from his 

steed, 
Looks on the bleeding foe that made him 

bleed. 
And questions of his state; he answers 

not. 
Scarce glances on him as on one forgot. 
And turns to Kaled : — each remaining 

word 
They understood not, if distinctly heard ; 
His dying tones are in that other 

tongue, 
To which some strange remembrance 

wildly clung. 1090 

They spake of other scenes, but what — 

is known 
To Kaled, whom their meaning reached 

alone; 
And he replied, though faintly, to their 

sound. 
While gazed the rest in dumb amaze- 
ment round: 
They seemed even then — that twain — 

unto the last 



Canto ii.] 



LARA 



409 



To half forget the present in the past; 
To share between themselves some 

separate fate, 
Whose darkness none beside should 

penetrate. 



Their words though faint were many — 

from the tone 
Their import those who heard could 

judge alone; 11 00 

From this you might have deemed 

young Kaled's death 
More near than Lara's by his voice and 

breath, 
So sad — so deep — and hesitating 

broke 
The accents his scarce-moving pale lips 

spoke ; 
But Lara's voice, though low, at first 

was clear 
And calm, tiU murmuring Death gasped 

hoarsely near; 
But from his visage little could we guess, 
So unrepentant — dark — and passion- 
less, 
Save that when struggling nearer to his 

last, 
Upon that page his eye was kindly cast; 
And once, as Kaled's answering accents 

ceased, mi 

Rose Lara's hand, and pointed to the 

East: 
Whether (as then the breaking Sun from 

high 
Rolled back the clouds) the morrow 

caught his eye. 
Or that 'twas chance — or some remem- 
bered scene. 
That raised his arm to point where such 

had been, 
Scarce Kaled seemed to know, but turned 

away. 
As if his heart abhorred that coming 

day. 
And shrunk his glance before that 

morning light, 
To look on Lara's brow — where all 

grew night. 11 20 

Yet sense seemed left, though better 

were its loss; 
For when one near displayed the ab- 
solving Cross, 



And proffered to his touch the holy 

bead, 
Of which his parting soul might own the 

need, 
He looked upon it with an eye profane. 
And smiled — Heaven pardon ! if 

'tvv'ere with disdain: 
And Kaled, though he spoke not, nor 

withdrew 
From Lara's face his fixed despairing 

view. 
With brow repulsive, and with gesture 

swift, 
Flung back the hand which held the 

sacred gift, 1130 

As if such but disturbed the expiring 

man. 
Nor seemed to know his life but then 

began — 
That Life of Immortality, secure 
To none, save them whose faith in 

Christ is sure. 



But gasping heaved the breath that 

Lara drew, 
And dull the film along his dim eye 

grew; 
His limbs stretched fluttering, and his 

head drooped o'er 
The weak yet still untiring knee that 

bore; 
He pressed the hand he held upon his 

hea/t — 
It beats no more, but Kaled will not 

part 1 1 40 

With the cold grasp, but feels, and feels 

in Main 
For that faint throb which answers not 

again. 
" It beats ! " — Away, thou dreamer ! he 

is gone — 
It once was Lara which thou look'st 

upon. 



He gazed, as if not yet had passed 

away 
The haughty spirit of that humbled clay; 
And those around have roused him from 

his trance, 
But cannot tear from thence his fixed 

glance; 



4IO 



LARA 



[Canto ii. 



And when, in raising him from where 
he bore 

Within his arms the form that felt no 
more, 1150 

He saw the head his breast would still 
sustain. 

Roll down like earth to earth upon the 
plain; 

He did not dash himself thereby, nor 
tear 

The glossy tendrils of his raven hair. 

But strove to stand and gaze, but reeled 
and fell, 

Scarce breathing more than that he 
loved so well. 

Than that he loved ! Oh ! never yet 
beneath 

The breast of man such trusty love may 
breathe ! 

That trying moment hath at once re- 
vealed 

The secret long and yet but half con- 
cealed; 1 1 60 

In baring to revive that lifeless breast, 

Its grief seemed ended, but the sex con- 
fessed ; 

And life returned, — and Kaled felt no 
shame — 

What now to her was Womanhood or 
Fame? 



And I>ara sleeps not where his fathers 

sleep, 
But where he died his grave was dug as 

deep; 
Nor is his mortal slumber less profound, 
Though priest nor blessed nor marble 

decked the mound, 
And he was mourned by one whose quiet 

grief, 
Less loud, outlasts a people's for their 

Chief. 1 1 70 

Vain was all question asked her of the 

past. 
And vain e'en menace — silent to the 

last; 
She told nor whence, nor why she left 

behind 
Her all for one who seemed but little 

kind. 
Why did she love him ? Curious fool ! — 
'be still — 



Is human love the growth of human will ? 
To her he might be gentleness; the stern 
Have deeper thoughts than your dull 

eyes discern. 
And when they love, your smilers guess 

not how 
Beats the strong heart, though less the 

lips avow. 1 180 

They were not common links, that 

formed the chain 
That bound to Lara Kaled's heart and 

brain; 
But that wild tale she brooked not to 

unfold, 
And sealed is now each lip that could 

have told. 

XXIII. 

They laid him in the earth, and on his 

breast. 
Besides the wound that sent his soul to 

rest. 
They found the scattered dints of many 

a scar, 
Which were not planted there in recent 

war; 
Where'er had passed his summer years 

of life. 
It seems they vanished in a land of 

strife; 11 90 

But all unknown his Glory or his Guilt, 
These only told that somewhere blood 

was spilt, 
And Ezzelin, who might have spoke the 

past. 
Returned no more — that night ap- 
peared his last. 

XXIV. 

Upon that night (a peasant's is the tale) 
A Serf that crossed the intervening vale,' 
When Cynthia's light almost gave way 

to morn, 
And nearly veiled in mist her waning 

horn ; 
A Serf, that rose betimes to thread the 

wood, 



"The event in this section was suggested by 
the description of the death or rather burial of 
the Duke of Gandia. [See Roscoe's Life and 
Pontificate of Leo the Tenth, 1805, i. 265.] 



Canto ii.] 



LARA 



411 



And hew the bough that bought his 

children's food, 1200 

Passed by the river that divides the 

plain 
Of Otho's lands and Lara's broad 

domain: 
He heard a tramp — a horse and horse- 
man broke 
From out the wood — before him was 

a cloak 
Wrapt round some burthen at his 

saddle-bow, 
Bent was his head, and hidden was his 

brow. 
Roused by the sudden sight at such a 

time, 
And some foreboding that it might be 

crime. 
Himself unheeded watched the stranger's 

course, 
Who reached the river, bounded from 

his horse, 12 10 

And lifting thence the burthen which he 

bore 
Heaved up the bank, and dashed it from 

the shore. 
Then paused — and looked — and 

turned — and seemed to v^-atch, 
And still another hurried glance would 

snatch. 
And follow with his step the stream that 

flowed. 
As if even yet too much its surface 

showed ; 
At once he started — stooped — around 

him strown 
The winter floods had scattered heaps 

of stone; 
Of these the heaviest thence he gathered 

there. 
And slung them with a more than com- 
mon care. 1220 
Meantime the Serf had crept to where 

unseen 
Himself might safely mark what this 

might mean; 
He caught a glimpse, as of a floating 

breast, 
And something glittered starlight on the 

vest. 
But ere he well could mark the buoyant 

trunk, 
A massy fragment smote it, and it sunk: 



It rose again, but indistinct to view, 
And left the waters of a purple hue, 
Then deeply disappeared: the horse- 
man gazed 
Till ebbed the latest eddy it had raised; 
Then turning, vaulted on his pawing 

steed, 1 23 1 

And instant spurred him into panting 

speed. 
His face was masked — the features of 

the dead. 
If dead it were, escaped the observer's 

dread; 
But if in sooth a Star its bosom bore. 
Such is the badge that Knighthood ever 

wore, 
And such 'tis known Sir Ezzelin had 

worn 
Upon the night that led to such a morn. 
If thus he perished. Heaven receive his 

soul ! 
His undiscovered limbs to ocean roll; — 
And Charity upon the hope would 

dwell 1 241 

It was not Lara's hand by which he fell. 

XXV. 

And Kaled — Lara — Ezzelin, are gone, 
Alike without their monumental stone! 
The first, all efforts vainly strove to 

wean 
From lingering where her Chieftain's 

blood had been: 
Grief had so tamed a spirit once too 

proud. 
Her tears were few, her wailing never 

loud; 
But furious, would you tear her from 

the spot 
Where yet she scarce believed that he 

was not, 1250 

Her eye shot forth with all the living fire 
That haunts the tigress in her whelpless 

ire; 
But left to waste her weary moments 

there, 
She talked all idly unto shapes of air. 
Such as the busy brain of Sorrow paints, 
And woos to listen to her fond com- 
plaints: 
And she would sit beneath the very 

tree 



412 



HEBREW MELODIES 



Where lay his drooping head upon her 

knee; 
And in that posture where she saw him 

fall, 
His words, his looks, his dying grasp 

recall; 1260 

And she had shorn, but saved her raven 

hair. 
And oft would snatch it from her bosom 

there. 
And fold, and press it gently to the 

ground. 
As if she staunched anew some phan- 
tom's wound. 
Herself would question, and for him 

reply; 
Then rising, start, and beckon him to 

fly 
From some imagined Spectre in pur- 
suit; 
Then seat her down upon some linden's 

root, 
And hide her visage with her meagre 

hand, 
Or trace strange characters along the 

sand — 1270 

This could not last — she lies by him 

she loved; 
Her tale untold — her truth too dearly 

proved. 



HEBREW MELODIESJ 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The subsequent poems were written at 
the request of my friend, the Hon. 
Douglas Kinnaird, for a Selection of 
Hebrew Melodies, and have been pub- 
lished, with the music, arranged by 
Mr Braham and Mr Nathan. 
January, 18 15. 

' [The Hebrew Melodies were \\Titten during 
the late autumn of 1814, and early spring of 1815, 
and were first published ("with appropriate 
symphonies and accompaniments by I. Braham 
and I. Nathan"), in April, 1815.] 



SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY. 



She walks in Beauty, like the night 
Of cloudless cUmes and starry skies; 

And all that's best of dark and bright 
Meet in her aspect and her eyes: 

Thus mellowed to that tender light 
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies. 



One shade the more, one ray the less, 

Had half impaired the nameless grace 
Which waves in every raven tress, 
Or softly lightens o'er her face; 
Where thoughts serenely sweet express, 
How pure, how dear their dwelling- 
place. 

ni. 

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, 
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent. 

The smiles that win, the tints that glow, 
But tell of days in goodness spent, 

A mind at peace with all below, 
A heart whose love is innocent ! 

June 12, 1814. 

THE HARP THE MONARCH 
MINSTREL SWEPT. 



The Harp the Monarch Minstrel 
swept. 
The King of men, the loved of 
Heaven ! 
Which Music hallowed while she wept 
O'er tones her heart of hearts had 
given — 
Redoubled be her tears, its chords are 



' [The inspirer of these lines was Anne Beatrix, 
daughter and co-heiress of Eusebius Horton, of 
Catton Hall, Derbyshire, who married Byron's 
cousin, Robert John Wilmot (1784-1841), son of 
Sir Robert Wilmot of Osmaston. by Juliana, 
second daughter of the Hon. John Byron, and 
widow of the Hon. William Byron. She died 
February 4, 1871. 

Nathan (Fugitive Pieces, 1829, pp. 2, 3) has a 
note to the effect that Byron, while arranging the 
first edition of the Melodies, used to ask for this 
song, and would not unfrequently join in its 
execution.] 



IF THAT HIGH WORLD — OH! WEEP FOR THOSE 



413 



It softened men of iron mould, 
It gave them virtues not their 
own; 
No ear so dull, no soul so cold. 

That felt not — fired not to the 
tone. 
Till David's Lyre grevs^ mightier than his 
Throne ! 



It told the triumphs of our King, 

It wafted glory to our God; 
It made our gladdened valleys ring, 
The cedars bow, the mountains 
nod; 
Its sound aspired to Heaven and there 
abode ! 
Since then, though heard on earth no 
more, 
Devotion and her daughter Love 
Still bid the bursting spirit soar 
To sounds that seem as from 
above. 
In dreams that day's broad light cannot 



IF THAT HIGH WORLD. 



If that high world, which lies beyond 

Our own, surviving Love endears; 
If there the cherished heart be fond. 

The eye the same, except in tears — 
How welcome those untrodden spheres . 

How sweet this very hour to die ! 
To soar from earth and find all fears 

Lost in thy light — Eternity ! 



It must be so: 'tis not for self 

That we so tremble on the brink; 
And striving to o'erleap the gulf. 

Yet cling to Being's severing link. 
Oh ! in that future let us think 

To hold, each heart, the heart that 
shares; 
With them the immortal waters drink, 

And, soul in soul, grow deathless 
theirs I 



THE WILD GAZELLE. 



The wild gazelle on Judah's hills 
Exulting yet may bound, 

And drink from all the Hving rills 
That gush on holy ground; 

Its airy step and glorious eye 

May glance in tameless transport by ; 



A step as fleet, an eye more bright, 
Hath Judah witnessed there; 

And o'er her scenes of lost delight 
Inhabitants more fair. 

The cedars wave on Lebanon, 

But Judah's statelier maids are gone ! 

III. 

More blest each palm that shades those 
plains 

Than Israel's scattered race; 
For, taking root, it there remains 

In solitary grace: 
It cannot quit its place of birth, 
It will not hve in other earth. 



But we must wander witheringly, 

In other lands to die; 
And where our fathers' ashes be, 

Our own may never lie: 
Our temple hath not left a stone, 
And Mockery sits on Salem's throne. 



OH! WEEP FOR THOSE. 



Oh ! weep for those that wept by Babel's 

stream. 
Whose shrines are desolate, whose land 

a dream; 
Weep for the harp of Judah's broken 

shell; 
Mourn — where their God hath dwelt 

the godless dwell 1 



And where shall Israel lave her bleeding 
feet? 



414 



HEBREW MELODIES 



And when shall Zion's songs again seem 

sweet ? 
And Judah's melody once more rejoice 
The hearts that leaped before its 

heavenly voice? 

III. 

Tribes of the wandering foot and weary 

breast, 
How shall ye flee away and be at rest ! 
The wild-dove hath her nest, the fox 

his cave, 
Mankind their country — Israel but the 

grave ! 



ON JORDAN'S BANKS. 



On Jordan's banks the Arab's camels 

stray, 
On Sion's hill the False One's votaries 

pray. 
The Baal-adorer bows on Sinai's steep — 
Yet there — even there — Oh God ! thy 

thunders sleep: 



There — where thy finger scorched the 

tablet stone ! 
There — where thy shadow to thy 

people shone ! 
Thy glory shrouded in its garb of fire: 
Thyself — none Uving see and not 

expire ! 

III. 

Oh ! in the lightning let thy glance 

appear; 
Sweep from his shivered hand the 

oppressor's spear ! 
How long by tyrants shall thy land be 

trod? 
How long thy temple worshipless. Oh 

God? 



JEPHTHA'S DAUGHTER. 



Since our Country, our God — Oh, my 

Sire! 
Demand that thy Daughter expire; 



Since thy triumph was bought by thy 

vow — 
Strike the bosom that's bared for thee 

now! 

II. 

And the voice of my mourning is o'er, 
And the mountains behold me no more: 
If the hand that I love lay me low. 
There cannot be pain in the blow ! 



And of this, oh, my Father ! be sure — 
That the blood of thy child is as pure 
As the blessing I beg ere it flow, 
And the last thought that soothes me 
below. 



Though the virgins of Salem lament, 
Be the judge and the hero unbent ! 
I have won the great battle for thee, 
And my Father and Country are free 



When this blood of thy giving hath 

gushed, 
When the voice that thou lovest is 

hushed, 
Let my memory still be thy pride, 
And forget not I smiled as I died! 



OH! SNATCHED AWAY IN 
BEAUTY'S BLOOM.^ 



Oh! snatched away in Beauty's. 

bloom, 
On thee shall press no ponderous 
tomb; 
But on thy turf shall roses rear 
Their leaves, the earhest of the 
year; 
And the wild cypress wave in tender 
gloom : 

II. 

And oft by yon blue gushing stream 
Shall Sorrow lean her drooping 
head, 

' [It has been surmised, indeed, it may be 
taken for granted, that these lines contain a final 
reminiscence of the mysterious Thyrza.] 



MY SOUL IS DARK — THY DAYS ARE DONE — SAUL 415 



And feed deep thought with many a 
dream, 
And lingering pause and lightly 
tread ; 
Fond wretch! as if her step disturbed 
the dead ! 



Away ! we know that tears are vain, 
That Death nor heeds nor hears 
distress : 
Will this unteach us to complain? 
Or make one mourner weep the 
less? 
And thou — who tell'st me to forget — 
Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet. 
[Pubhshed in the Examiner, April 23, 
1815.] 



MY SOUL IS DARK. 



My soul IS dark — Oh ! quickly string 

The harp I yet can brook to hear; 
And let thy gentle fingers fling 

Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear. 
If in this heart a hope be dear, . 
That sound shall charm it forth 
again: 
If in these eyes there lurk a tear, 

'Twill flow, and cease to burn my 
brain. 

II. 

But bid the strain be wild and deep. 

Nor let thy notes of joy be first: 
I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep. 

Or else this heavy heart will burst; 
For it hath been by sorrow nursed, 

And ached in sleepless silence long; 
And now 'tis doomed to know the worst, 

And break at once — or yield to song. 



I SAW THEE WEEP. 

I. 

I SAW thee weep — the big bright tear 
Came o'er that eye of blue; 

And then, methought, it did appear 
A violet dropping dew: 

I saw thee smile — the sapphire's blaze 
Beside thee ceased to shine; 



It could not match the Uving rays 
That filled that glance of thine. 



As clouds from yonder sun receive 

A deep and mellow dye. 
Which scarce the shade of coming eve 

Can banish from the sky. 
Those smiles unto the moodiest mind 

Their own pure joy impart; 
Their sunshine leaves a glow behind 

That lightens o'er the heart. 



THY DAYS ARE DONE. 



Thy days are done, thy fame begun; 

Thy country's strains record 
The triumphs of her chosen Son, 

The slaughters of his sword ! 
The deeds he did, the fields he won, 

The freedom he restored ! 



Though thou art fall'n, while we are free 
Thou shalt not taste of death ! 

The generous blood that flowed from 
thee 
Disdained "to sink beneath: 

Within our veins its currents be, 
Thy spirit on our breath ! 



Thy name, our charging hosts along, 

Shall be the battle- word ! 
Thy fall, the theme of choral song 

From virgin voices poured ! 
To weep would do thy glory wrong: 

Thou shalt not be deplored. 

SAUL. 



Thou whose spell can raise the dead, 

Bid the Prophet's form appear: — 

"Samuel, raise thy buried head! 

King, behold the phantom Seer!" 

Earth yawned; he stood the centre of a 

cloud: 
Light changed its hue, retiring from his 
shroud. 



4i6 



HEBREW MELODIES 



Death stood all glassy in his fixed eye; 

His hand was withered, and his veins 
were dry; 

His foot, in bony whiteness, glittered 
there, 

Shrunken and sinewless, and ghastly 
bare; 

From lips that moved not and un- 
breathing frame. 

Like caverned winds, the hollow accents 
came. 

Saul saw, and fell to earth, as falls the oak 

At once, and blasted by the thunder- 
stroke. 

II. 

"Why is my sleep disquieted? 
Who is he that calls the dead? 
Is it thou, O King? Behold, 
Bloodless are these limbs, and cold: 
Such are mine; and such shall be 
Thine to-morrow, when with me: 
Ere the coming day is done. 
Such shalt thou be — such thy Son. 
Fare thee well, but for a day. 
Then we mix our mouldering clay. 
Thou — thy race, lie pale and low, 
Pierced by shafts of many a bow; 
And the falchion by thy side 
To thy heart thy hand shall guide: 
Crownless — breathless — headless 

fall, 
Son and Sire — the house of Saul ! " ^ 
Seaham, Feb., 1815. 



SONG OF SAUL BEFORE HIS 
LAST BATTLE. 



Warriors and Chiefs ! should the shaft 

or the sword 
Pierce me in leading the host of the 

Lord, 

'["Since we have spoken of witches," said 
Lord Byron at Cephalonia, in 1823, "what think 
you of the witch of Endor ? I have always thought 
this the finest and most finished witch-scene that 
ever was written or conceived; and you will be 
of my opinion, if you consider all the circum- 
stances and the actors in the case, together with 
the gravity, simplicity, and dignity of the lan- 
guage." — Conversations on Religion with Lord 
Byron, by James Kennedy, M.D., London, 1830, 
P- I54-] 



Heed not the corse, though a King's, in 

your path: 
Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath ! 



Thou who art bearing my buckler and 

bow. 
Should the soldiers of Saul look away 

from the foe. 
Stretch me that moment in blood at thy 

feet ! 
Mine be the doom which they dared not 

to meet. 

III. 

Farewell to others, but never we part, 
Heir to my Royalty — Son of my heart ! 
Bright is the diadem, boundless the 

sway, 
Or kingly the death, which awaits us 

to-day! Seaham, 1815. 



ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE 
PREACHER." 



Fame, Wisdom, Love, and Power were 
mine. 

And Health and Youth possessed me; 
My goblets blushed from every vine, 

And lovely forms caressed me; 
I sunned my heart in Beauty's eyes, 

And felt my soul grow tender; 
All Earth can give, or mortal prize, 

Was mine of regal splendour. 



I strive to number o'er what days 

Remembrance can discover. 
Which all that Life or Earth display 

.Would lure me to Uve over. 
There rose no day, there rolled no hour 

Of pleasure unembittered; 
And not a trapping decked my Power 

That galled not while it gUttered. 



The serpent of the field, by art 

And spells, is won from harming; 

But that which coils around the heart, 
Oh! who hath power of charming? 



FAREWELL/ IF EVER FONDEST PRAYER — LOVE AND GOLD 421 



Deep Sleep came down on every eye 

save mine — 
And there it stood, — all formless — 

but divine: 
Along my bones the creeping flesh did 

quake; 
And as my damp hair stiffened, thus it 

spake: 

II. 

" Is man more just than God ? Is man 
more pure 

Than he who deems even Seraphs in- 
secure ? 

Creatures of clay — vain dwellers in the 
dust! 

The moth survives you, and are ye 
more just? 

Things of a day ! you wither ere the night, 

Heedless and blind to Wisdom's wasted 
light!" 



POEMS 1814-1816. 



FAREWELL ! IF EVER FONDEST 
PRAYER. 



Farewell ! if ever fondest prayer 
For other's weal availed on high, 
Mine will not all be lost in air. 

But waft thy name beyond the sky. 
'Twere vain to speak — to weep — to 
sigh: 
Oh! more than tears of blood can 
tell. 
When wrung from Guilt's expiring eye. 
Are in that word — Farewell ! — 
Farewell ! 

2. 

These lips are mute, these eyes are dry; 

But in my breast and in my brain. 
Awake the pangs that pass not by. 

The thought that ne'er shall sleep 
again. 
My soul nor deigns nor dares complain, 

Though Grief and Passion there rebel: 
I only know we loved in vain — 

I only feel — Farewell ! — Farewell ! 
[First published. Corsair, Second Edi- 
tion, 1814.] 



WHEN WE TWO PARTED. 



When we two parted 

In silence and tears, 
Half broken-hearted 

To sever for years, 
Pale grew thy cheek and cold. 

Colder thy kiss; 
Truly that hour foretold 

Sorrow to this. 



The dew of the morning 

Sunk chill on my brow — 
It felt Hke the warning 

Of what I feel now. 
Thy vows are all broken. 

And light is thy fame: 
I hear thy name spoken, 

And share in its shame. 

3- 
They name thee before me, 

A knell to mine ear; 
A shudder comes o'er me — 

Why wert thou so dear? 
They know not I knew thee, 

JVho knew thee too well: - 
Long, long shall I rue thee, 

Too deeply to tell. 



In secret we met — 

In silence I grieve. 
That thy heart could forget, 

Thy spirit deceive. 
If I should meet thee 

After long years. 
How should I greet thee ? — 

With silence and tears. 
[First published, Poems, 181 6.] 



[LOVE AND GOLD.] 



I CANNOT tarlk of Love to thee, 

Though thou art young and free and 
fair 

There is a spell thou dost not see, 
That bids a genuine love despair. 



422 



POEMS 1814-1816 



And yet that spell invites each youth, 
For thee to sigh, or seem to sigh; 

Makes falsehood wear the garb of 
truth, 
And Truth itself appear a lie. 



If ever doubt a place possest 

In woman's heart, 'twere wise in 
thine: 
Admit not Love into thy breast, 

Doubt others' love, nor trust in mine. 



Perchance 'tis feigned, perchance sin- 
cere. 

But false or true thou canst not tell; 
So much hast thou from all to fear. 

In that unconquerable spell. 



Of all the herd that throng around, 
Thy simpering or thy sighing train, 

Come tell me who to thee is bound 
By Love's or Plutus' heavier chain. 



In some 'tis Nature, some 'tis Art 
That bids them worship at thy shrine: 

But thou deserv'st a better heart. 
Than they or I can give for thine. 



For thee, and such as thee, behold. 
Is Fortune painted truly — blind ! 

Who doomed thee to be bought or sold. 
Has proved too bounteous to be kind. 

8. 

Each day some tempter's crafty suit 
Would woo thee to a loveless bed: 

I see thee to the altar's foot 
A decorated victim led. 



Adieu, dear maid! I must. not speak 
Whate'er my secret thoughts may be; 

Though thou art all that man can seek 
I dare not talk of Love to thee. 

[First published, 1900.] 



STANZAS FOR MUSIC. 



I SPEAK not, I trace not, I breathe not 

thy name. 
There is grief in the sound, there is 

guilt in the fame: 
But the tear which now burns on my 

cheek may impart 
The deep thoughts that dwell in that 

silence of heart. 



Too brief for our passion, too long for 

our peace. 
Were those hours — can their joy or 

their bitterness cease? 
We repent, we abjure, we will break 

from our chain, — 
We will part, we will fly to — unite it 

again ! 

3- 
Oh ! thine be the gladness, and mine 

be the guilt ! 
Forgive me, adored one ! — forsake, if 

thou wilt; — 
But the heart which is thine shall expire 

undebased. 
And man shall not break it — whatever 

thou mayst. 

4- 
And stern to the haughty, but humble 

to thee, 
This soul, in its bitterest blackness, 

shall be: 
And our days seem as swift, and our 

moments more sweet. 
With thee by my side, than with worlds 

at our feet. 

5- 
One sigh of thy sorrow, one look of thy 

love. 
Shall turn me or fix, shall reward or 

reprove ; 

' ["Thou hast asked me for a song, and I 
enclose you an experiment, which has cost me 
something more than trouble, and is, therefore, 
less likely to be worth your taking any in your 
proposed setting. Now, if it be so, throw it into 
the fire without phrase." — Letter to Moore, 
May 4, 1814.] 



ADDRESS TO BE RECITED AT THE CALEDONIAN MEETING 423 



And the heartless may wonder at all I 

resign — 
Thy lip shall reply, not to them, but to 

mine. May 4, 1814. 

[First published, Fugitive Pieces, by 

I. Nathan, 1829.] 



ADDRESS INTENDED TO BE 
RECITED AT THE CALEDO- 
NIAN MEETING.^ 

Who hath not glowed above the page 

where Fame 
Hath fixed high Caledon's unconquered 

name; 
The mountain-land which spurned the 

Roman chain, 
And baffled back the fiery-crested Dane, 
Whose bright claymore and hardihood 

of hand 
No foe could tame — no tyrant could 

command ? 
That race is gone — but still their 

children breathe. 
And Glory crowns them with redoubled 

wreath : 
O'er Gael and Saxon mingling banners 

shine. 
And, England ! add their stubborn 

strength to thine. 
The blood which flowed with Wallace 

flows as free, 
But now 'tis only shed for Fame and 

thee! 
Oh ! pass not by the northern veteran's 

claim, 
But give support — the world hath 

given him fame ! 

The humbler ranks, the lowly brave, 

who bled 
While cheerly following where the 

Mighty led — 
Who sleep beneath the undistinguished 

sod 

' [The "Caledonian Meeting," at which these 
lines were, or were intended to be, recited was a 
meeting of subscribers to the Highland Society, 
held annually in London, in support of the 
[Royal] Caledonian Asylum "for educating and 
supporting children of soldiers, sailors, and 
marines, natives of Scotland."] 



Where happier comrades in their 

triumph trod. 
To us bequeath — 'tis all their fate 

allows — 
The sireless offspring and the lonely 

spouse : 
She on high Albyn's dusky hills may 

raise 
The tearful eye in melancholy gaze. 
Or view, while shadowy auguries dis- 
close 
The Highland Seer's anticipated woes. 
The bleeding phantom of each martial 

form 
Dim in the cloud, or darkling in the 

storm ; 
While sad, she chants the solitary song. 
The soft lament for him who tarries 

long — 
For him, whose distant relics vainly 

crave 
The Coronach's wild requiem to the 

brave ! 

'Tis Heaven — not man — must charm 

away the woe. 
Which bursts when Nature's feelings 

newly flow; 
Yet Tenderness and Time may rob the 

tear 
Of half its bitterness for one so dear; 
A Nation's gratitude perchance may 

spread 
A thornless pillow for the widowed 

head; 
May lighten well her heart's maternal 

care. 
And wean from Penury the soldier's 

heir; 
Or deem to living war-worn Valour just 
Each wounded remnant — Albion's 

cherished trust — 
Warm his decline with those endearing 

rays. 
Whose bounteous sunshine yet may 

gild his days — 
So shall that Country — while he sinks 

to rest — 
His hand hath fought for — by his 

heart be blest ! 

May, 18 14. 
[First published. Letters and Journals, 

1830, i. 559-] 



424 



POEMS 1814-1816 



ELEGIAC STANZAS ON THE 
DEATH OF SIR PETER PAR- 
KER, BART.^ 



There is a tear for all that die, 

A mourner o'er the humblest grave; 

But nations swell the funeral cry. 
And Triumph weeps above the brave. 



For them is Sorrow's purest sigh 
O'er Ocean's heaving bosom sent: 

In vain their bones unburied lie, 
All earth becomes their monument ! 



A tomb is theirs on every page, 
An epitaph on every tongue: 

The present hours, the future age. 
For them bewail, to them belong. 



For them the voice of festal mirth 
Grows hushed, their name the only 
sound ; 
While deep Remembrance pours to 
Worth 
The goblet's tributary round. 



A theme to crowds that knew them not. 

Lamented by admiring foes. 
Who would not share their glorious 
lot? 
Who would not die the death they 
chose ? 

6. 

And, gallant Parker ! thus enshrined 
Thy life, thy fall, thy fame shall 
be; 

And early valour, glowing, find 
A model in thy memory. 

> [Sir P. Parker fell in August, 1814, in his 
twenty-ninth year, whilst leading a party from 
his ship, the Menelaus, at the storming of the 
American camp near Baltimore. He was Byron's 
first cousin (his father, Christopher Parker (1761 
-1804), married Charlotte Augusta, daughter of 
Admiral the Hon. John Byron); but they had 
never met since boyhood.] 



But there are breasts that bleed with 
thee 

In woe, that glory cannot quell; 
And shuddering hear of victory, 

Where one so dear, so dauntless, fell. 



Where shall they turn to mourn thee 
less? 
When cease to hear thy cherished 
name? 
Time cannot teach forgetfulness, 

While Grief's full heart is fed by 
Fame. 

9- 
Alas ! for them, though not for thee. 
They cannot choose but weep the 
more; 
Deep for the dead the grief must be, 
Who ne'er gave cause to mourn 
before. 

October 7, 1814. 
[First published. Morning Chronicle, 
October 7, 1814.] 



JULIAN [A FRAGMENT]. 



The Night came on the Waters — all 

was rest 
On Earth — but Rage on Ocean's 

troubled Heart. 
The Waves arose and rolled beneath 

the blast; 
The Sailors gazed upon their shivered. 

Mast. 
In that dark Hour a long loud gathered 

cry 
From out the billows pierced the sable 

sky. 
And borne o'er breakers reached the 

craggy shore — 
The Sea roars on — that Cry is heard 

no more. 

2. 

There is no vestige, in the Dawning 

light. 
Of those that shrieked thro' shadows of 

the Night. 



JULIAN 



425 



The Bark — the Crew — the very 

Wreck is gone, 
Marred — mutilated — traceless — all 

save one. 
In him there still is Life, the Wave that 

dashed 
On shore the plank to which his form 

was lashed. 
Returned unheeding of its helpless 

Prey — 
The lone survivor of that Yesterday — 
The one of Many whom the withering 

Gale 
Hath left unpunished to record their 

Tale. 
But who shall hear it? on that barren 

Sand 
None comes to stretch the hospitable 

hand. 
That shore reveals no print of human 

foot. 
Nor e'en the pawing of the wilder 

Brute; 
And niggard vegetation will not smile, 
All sunless on that solitary Isle. 



The naked Stranger rose, and wrung his 

hair, 
And that first moment passed in silent 

prayer. 
Alas ! the sound — he sunk into 

Despair — 
He was on Earth — but what was Earth 

to him, 
Houseless and homeless — bare both 

breast and Umb? 
Cut off from all but Memory he 

curst 
His fate — his folly — but himself the 

worst. 
What was his hope? he looked upon 

the Wave — 
Despite of all — it still may be his 

Grave ! 

4- 
He rose and with a feeble effort 

shaped 
His course unto the billows — late 

escaped : 
But weakness conquered — swam his 

dizzy glance, 



And down to Earth he sunk in silent 

trance. 
How long his senses bore its chilling 

chain. 
He knew not — but, recalled to Life 

again, 
A stranger stood beside his shivering 

form — 
And what was he ? had he, too, 'scaped 

the storm? 



He raised young Julian. "Is thy Cup 

so full 
" Of bitterness — thy Hope — thy heart 

so dull 
"That thou shouldst from Thee dash 

the Draught of Life, 
"So late escaped the elemental strife ! 
"Rise — tho' these shores few aids to 

Life supply, 
"Look upon me, and know thou shalt 

not die. 
"Thou gazest in mute wonder — more 

may be 
"Thy marvel when thou knowest mine 

and me. 
"But come — The bark that bears us 

hence shall find 
"Her Haven, soon, despite the warning 

Wind." 

6. 

He raised young Julian from the sand, 

and such 
Strange power of healing dwelt within 

the touch, 
That his weak limbs grew Hght with 

freshened Power, 
As he had slept not fainted in that hour, 
And woke from Slumber — as the 

Birds awake, 
Recalled at morning from the branched 

brake. 
When the day's promise heralds early 

Spring, 
And Heaven unfolded woos their soar- 
ing wing: 
So Julian felt, and gazed upon his 

Guide, 
With honest Wonder what might next 

betide. 

Dec. 12, 1814. 
[First pubHshed, 1900.] 



426 



POEMS 1814-1S16 



TO BELSHAZZAR. 



Belshazzar ! from the banquet turn/> 

Nor in thy sensual fulness fall; -• . 
Behold ! while yet before thee burn / 

The graven words, the glowing wall: 
Many a despot men miscall ^ 

Crowned and anointed from on high^l 
But thou, the weakest, worst of all — t 

Is it not written, thou must die ? v. 



Go ! dash the roses from thy brow — 

Grey hairs but poorly wreathe with 
them; 
Youth's garlands misbecome thee now, 

More than thy very diadem, 
Where thou hast tarnished every gem : — 

Then throw the worthless bauble by, 
Which, worn by thee, ev'n slaves con- 
temn; 

And learn like better men to die ! 



Oh ! early in the balance weighed, 

And ever light of word and worth. 
Whose soul expired ere youth decayed. 

And left thee but a mass of earth. 
To see thee moves the scorner's mirth: 

But tears in Hope's averted eye 
Lament that even thou hadst birth — 

Unfit to govern, live, or die. 

February 12, 181 5. 
[First published, 183 1.] 



STANZAS FOR MUSIC.^ 

"O Lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros 
Ducentium ortus ex animo: quater 
Felix ! in imo qui scatentem 

Pectore te, pia Nympha sensit."' 

— Gray's Poemata. 

[Motto to "The Tear."] 



There's not a joy the world can give 

like that it takes away. 
When the glow of early thought declines 

in Feeling's dull decay; 

' [Byron gave these verses to Moore for Mr 
Power of the Strand, who published them, with 
music by Sir John Stevenson. "I feel merry 



'Tis not on Youth's smooth cheek the 
blush alone, which fades so fast, 

But the tender bloom of heart is gone, 
ere Youth itself be past. 



Then the few whose spirits float above 

the wreck of happiness 
Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or 

ocean of excess: 
The magnet of their course is gone, or 

only points in vain 
The shore to which their shivered sail 

shall never stretch again. 



Then the mortal coldness of the soul 

like Death itself comes down; 
It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare 

not dream its own; 
That heavy chill has frozen o'er the 

fountain of our tears, 
And though the eye may sparkle still, 

'tis where the ice appears. 



Though wit may flash from fluent lips, 

and mirth distract the breast. 
Through midnight hours that yield no 

more their former hope of rest; 
'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruined 

turret wreath. 
All green and wildly fresh without, but 

worn and grey beneath. 



5- 



or be 



Oh, could I feel as I have felt, 

what I have been. 
Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er 

many a vanished scene; 
As springs, in deserts found, seem sweet, 

all brackish though they be, / 

So, 'midst the withered waste of life, 

those tears would flow to me. 

March, 18 15. 
[First published. Poems, 1816.] 

enough," he wTote, March 2, "to send you a sad 
song." And again, March 8, 1815, "An event 
— the death of poor Dorset — and the recollec- 
tion of what I once felt, and ought to have felt 
now, but could not — set me pondering, and 
finally into the train of thought which you have 
in your hands."] 



STANZAS FOR MUSIC — NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL 



427 



ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE 
OF DORSET.! 



I HEARD thy fate without a tear, 

Thy loss with scarce a sigh; 
And yet thou wast surpassing dear, 

Too loved of all to die. 
I know not what hath seared my eye — 

Its tears refuse to start; 
But every drop, it bids me dry, 

Falls dreary on my heart. 



Yes, dull and heavy, one by one, 

They sink and turn to care, 
As caverned waters wear the stone. 

Yet dropping harden there: 
They cannot petrify more fast. 

Than feelings sunk remain. 
Which coldly fixed regard the past. 

But never melt again. 
[First published. Works, Paris, 1826, 
p. 716.] 



STANZAS FOR MUSIC. 



Bright be the place of thy soul 

No loveUer spirit than thine 
E'er burst from its mortal control. 

In the orbs of the blessed to shine. 
On earth thou wert all but divine. 

As thy soul shall immortally be; 
And our sorrow may cease to repine 

When we know that thy God is with 
thee. 

2. 

Light be the turf of thy tomb ! 

May its verdure like emeralds be ! 
There should not be the shadow of 
gloom 

In aught that reminds us of thee. 
Young flowers and an evergreen tree 

May spring from the spot of thy rest: 

' [From an autograph of MS. in the possession 
of Mr Murray. The MS. is headed, in pencil, 
"Lines written on the Death of the Duke of 
Dorset, a College Friend of Lord Byron's, who 
was killed by a fall from his horse while hunt- 
ing."] 



But nor cypress nor yew let us see; 
For why should we mourn for the 

blest ? 
[First published. Examiner, June 4, 

1815.] 



NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL. 

[from the FRENCH.] 



Farewell to the Land, where the gloom 

of my Glory 
Arose and o'ershadowed the earth with 

her name — 
She abandons me now — but the pa,ge 

of her story. 
The brightest or blackest, is filled with 

my fame. 
I have warred with a World which 

vanquished me only 
When the meteor of conquest allured 

me too far; 
I have coped with the nations which 

dread me thus lonely. 
The last single Captive to millions in 



Farewell to thee, France ! when thy 

diadem crowned me, 
I made thee the gem and the wonder of 

earth, — 
But thy weakness decrees I should leave 

as I found thee. 
Decayed in thy glory, and sunk in thy 

worth. 
Oh ! for the veteran hearts that were 

wasted 
In strife with the storm, when their 

battles were won — 
Then the Eagle, whose gaze in that 

moment was blasted. 
Had still soared with eyes fixed on 

Victory's sun ! 



Farewell to thee, France ! — but when 

Liberty rallies 
Once more in thy regions, remember me 

then, — 
The Violet still grows in the depth of thy 

valleys; 



428 



POEMS 1814-1816 



Though withered, thy tear will unfold 
it again — 

Yet, yet, I may baffle the hosts that sur- 
round us, 

And yet may thy heart leap awake to my 
voice — 

There are links which must break in the 
chain that has bound us, 

Then turn thee and call on the Chief of 
thy choice ! 

July 25, 18 1 5. London. 

[First published. Examiner, July 30, 
1815.] 



FROM THE FRENCH.! 

I. 

Must thou go, my glorious Chief, 

Severed from thy faithful few? 
Who can tell thy warrior's grief. 

Maddening o'er that long adieu? 
Woman's love, and Friendship's zeal, 

Dear as both have been to me — 
What are they to all I feel, 

With a soldier's faith for thee? 



Idol of the soldier's soul ! 

First in fight, but mightiest now: 
Many could a world control; 

Thee alone no doom can Idow. 
By thy side for years I dared 

Death; and envied those who fell. 
When their dying shout was heard. 

Blessing him they served so well.^ 

in. 

Would that I were cold with those, 
Since this hour I live to see; 

' ["All wept, but particularly Savary, and a 
Polish officer who had been exalted from the 
ranks by Buonaparte. He clung to his master's 
knees; wrote a letter to Lord Keith, entreating 
permission to accompany him, even in the most 
menial capacity, which could not be admitted." 
— Private Letter from Brussels.] 

» ["At Waterloo one man was seen, whose left 
arm was shattered by a cannon-ball, to wrench it 
off with the other, and, throwing it up in the air, 
exclaimed to his comrades, 'Vive I'Empereur, 
jusqu'a la mort ! ' There were many other in- 
stances of the like: this you may, however, 
depend on as true." — Private Letter from 
Brussels.] 



When the doubts of coward foes 
Scarce dare trust a man with thee, 

Dreading each should set thee free ! 
Oh ! although in dungeons pent, 

All their chains were light to me, 
Gazing on thy soul unbent. 



Would the sycophants of him 

Now so deaf to duty's prayer, 
Wear his borrowed glories dim. 

In his native darkness share? 
Were that world this hour his own, 

All thou calmly dost resign. 
Could he purchase with that throne 

Hearts Uke those which still are thine ; 



My Chief, my King, my Friend, adieu ! 

Never did I droop before; 
Never to my Sovereign sue, 

As his foes I now implore: 
All I ask is to divide 

Every peril he must brave; 
Sharing by the hero's side 

His fall — his exile — and his grave. 
[First published. Poems, 1816.] 



ODE FROM THE FRENCH. 



We do not curse thee, Waterloo ! 
Though Freedom's blood thy plain be- 
dew; 
There 'twas shed, but is not sunk — 
Rising from each gory trunk. 
Like the water-spout from ocean, 
With a strong and growing motion — 
It soars, and mingles in the air. 
With that of lost La Bedoyere — ^ 
With that of him whose honoured 

grave 
Contains the "bravest of the brave." ^ 

' ' [Charles Angelique Francois Huchet, Comte 
de La Bedoyere, born 1786, was in the retreat 
from Moscow, and, in 181 3, distinguished him- 
self at the battles of Lutzcn and Bautzen. On 
the return of Napoleon from Elba he was the 
first to bring him a regiment. He was raised to 
the peerage, but being found in Paris by the 
Allied army, he was tried by a court-martial, and 
suffered death August 15, 181 5.] 

2 [Michel Ney. (Compare Don Juan, Canto 
IX. stanza i. line 8.)] 



ODE FROM THE FRENCH 



429 



A crimson cloud it spreads and glows, 
But shall return to whence it rose; 
When 'tis full 'twill burst asunder — 
Never yet was heard such thunder 
As then shall shake the world with 

wonder — 
Never yet was seen such lightning 
As o'er heaven shall then be bright'ning ! 
Like the Wormwood Star foretold 

By the sainted Seer of old, 
Show'ring down a fiery flood, 
Turning rivers into blood. ^ 

II. 

The Chief has fallen, but not by you, 

Vanquishers of Waterloo ! 

When the soldier citizen 

Swayed not o'er his fellow-men — 

Save in deeds that led them on 

Where Glory smiled on Freedom's son — 

Who, of all the despots banded. 

With that youthful chief competed ? 

Who could boast o'er France de- 
feated. 
Till lone Tyranny commanded ? 
Till, goaded by Ambition's sting, 
The Hero sunk into the King? 
Then he fell : — so perish all, 
Who would men by man enthral ! 



And thou, too, of the snow-white plume ! 
Whose realm refused thee ev'n a tomb; ^ 
Better hadst thou still been leading 
France o'er hosts of hirelings bleeding, 

'See Rev. Chap. viii. V. 7, etc., "The first 
angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire 
mingled with blood," etc. V. 8, "And the 
second angel sounded, and as it were a great 
mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea : 
and the third part of the sea became blood," etc. 
V. 10, "And the third angel sounded, and there 
fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were 
a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the 
rivers, and upon the fountains of waters." V. 
11, "And the name of the star is called Worm- 
wood: and the third part of the waters became 
wormwood ; and many men died of the waters, 
because they were m.ade bitter." 

" Murat's remains are said to have been torn 
from the grave and burnt. ["Poor dear Murat, 
what an end . . . ! His white plume used to 
be a rallying point in battle, like Henry the 
Fourth's. He refused a confessor and a bandage ; 
so would neither suffer his soul or body to be 
bandaged." — Letter to Moore, November 4, 
1815.] 



Than sold thyself to death and shame 
For a meanly royal name; 
Such as he of Naples wears. 
Who thy blood-bought title bears. 
Little didst thou deem, when dashing 

On thy war-horse through the ranks. 

Like a stream which burst its banks, 
While helmets cleft, and sabres clash- 
ing, 
Shone and shivered fast around thee — 
Of the fate at last which found thee: 
Was that haughty plume laid low 
By a slave's dishonest blow? 
Once — as the Moon sways o'er the 

tide. 
It rolled in air, the warrior's guide 
Through the smoke-created night 
Of the black and sulphurous fight, 
The soldier raised his seeking eye 
To catch that crest's ascendancy, — 
And, as it onward rolling rose, 
So moved his heart upon our foes. 
There, where Death's brief pang was 

quickest. 
And the battle's wreck lay thickest, 
Strewed beneath the advancing banner 

Of the eagle's burning crest — 
(There with thunder-clouds to fan her, 

Who could then her wing arrest — 

Victory beaming from her breast?) 
While the broken line enlarging 

Fell, or fled along the plain; 
There be sure was Murat charging! 

There he ne'er shall charge again ! 



O'er glories gone the invaders march, 
Weeps Triumph o'er each levelled 

arch — 
But let Freedom rejoice, 
With her heart in her voice; 
But, her hand on her sword. 
Doubly shall she be adored; 
France hath twice too well been taught 
The "moral lesson" ^ dearly bought — 
Her safety sits not on a throne, 
With Capet or Napoleon ! 
But in equal rights and laws, 
Hearts and hands in one great cause — 

' [" Write, Britain, write the moral lesson 
down. " 

— Scott's Field of Waterloo, Conclusion, 
stanza vi. line 3.] 



43° 



POEMS 1814-1816 



Freedom, such as God hath given 
Unto all beneath his heaven, 
With their breath, and from their birth. 
Though guilt would sweep it from the 

earth ; 
With a fierce and lavish hand 
Scattering nations' wealth like sand; 
Pouring nations' blood like water, 
In imperial seas of slaughter ! 



But the heart and the mind, 
And the voice of mankind. 
Shall arise in communion — 
And who shall resist that proud union ? 
The time is past when swords subdued — 
Man may die — the soul's renewed: 
Even in this low world of care 
Freedom ne'er shall want an heir; 
Millions breathe but to inherit 
Her, for ever bounding, spirit — 
When once more her hosts assemble. 
Tyrants shall believe and tremble — 
Smile they at this idle threat? 
Crimson tears will follow yet.* 

[First published, Morning Chronicle, 
March 15, 1816.] 



STANZAS FOR MUSIC. 



There be none of Beauty's daughters 

With a magic like thee; 
And like music on the waters 

Is thy sweet voice to me: 
When, as if its sound were causing 
The charmed Ocean's pausing 

■ ["Talking of politics, as Caleb Quotem says, 
pray look at the conclusion of my 'Ode on 
Waterloo,' written in the year 1815, and compar- 
ing it with the Duke de Berri's catastrophe in 
1820, tell me if I have not as good a right to the 
character of ' Vates,' in both senses of the word, 
• as Fitzgerald and Coleridge ? 

' Crimson tears will follow yet; ' — 

and have not they?" — Letter to Murray, April 
24, 1820. 

In the Preface to The Tyrants Downfall, etc., 
1814, W. L. Fitzgerald "begs leave to refer his 
reader to the dates of his Napoleonics ... to 
prove his legitimate title to the prophetical mean- 
ing of Vates." Coleridge claimed to have fore- 
told the restoration of the Bourbons in his 
Biographia Literaria (cap. x.).j 



The waves lie still and gleaming. 
And the lulled winds seem dreaming: 



And the Midnight Moon is weaving 
Her bright chain o'er the deep; 

Whose breast is gently heaving. 
As an infant's asleep: 

So the spirit bows before thee, 

To listen and adore thee; 

With a full but soft emotion. 

Like the swell of Summer's ocean. 

March 28 [1816]. 
[First pubHshed, Poems, 1816.] 



ON THE STAR OF "THE LEGION 
OF HONOUR." 

[from the FRENCH,] 



Star of the brave ! — whose beam hath 

shed 
Such glory o'er the quick and dead — 
Thou radiant and adored deceit ! 
Which millions rushed in arms to 

greet, — 
Wild meteor of immortal birth ! 
Why rise in Heaven to set on Earth? 



Souls of slain heroes formed thy rays; 
Eternity flashed through thy blaze; 
The music of thy martial sphere 
Was fame on high and honour here; 
And thy light broke on human eyes, 
Like a Volcano of the skies. 



Like lava rolled thy stream of blood. 
And swept down empires with its flood; 
Earth rocked beneath thee to her base. 
As thou didst lighten through all space; 
And the shorn Sun grew dim in air. 
And set while thou wert dwelling there. 



Before thee rose, and with thee grew, 

A rainbow of the loveHest hue 

Of three bright colours,* each divine, 

» The tricolour. 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH 



431 



And fit for that celestial sign; 

For Freedom's hand had blended them, 

Like tints in an immortal gem. 

5- 
One tint was of the sunbeam's dyes; 
One, the blue depth of Seraph's eyes; 
One, the pure Spirit's veil of white 
Had robed in radiance of its light: 
The three so mingled did beseem 
The texture of a heavenly dream. 



Star of the brave ! thy ray is pale, 
And darkness must again prevail ! 
But, oh thou Rainbow of the free ! 
Our tears and blood must flow for thee. 
When thy bright promise fades away, 
Our life is but a load of clay. 



And Freedom hallows with her tread 
The silent cities of the dead; 
For beautiful in death are they 
Who proudly fall in her array; 
And soon, oh Goddess ! may we be 
For evermore with them or thee ! 
[First published. Examiner, April 7, 
1816.I 



STANZAS FOR MUSIC. 



They say that Hope is happiness; 

But genuine Love must prize the past. 
And Memory wakes the thoughts that 
bless, 
They rose the first — they set the 
last; 

II. 

And all that Memory loves the most 
Was once our only Hope to be. 

And all that Hope adored and lost 
Hath melted into Memory. 



Alas! it is delusion all: 

The future cheats us from afar, 
Nor can we be what we recall. 

Nor dare we think on what we are. 
[First published, Fugitive Pieces, 1829.] 



THE 
SIEGE OF CORINTH.i 

'Guns, Trumpets. Blunderbusses, Drums and 
Thunder." — Pope, Sat. i. 26. 



JOHN HOBHOUSE, ESQ., 

THIS POEM IS INSCRIBED, 
BY HIS 

FRIEND. 

January 22nd, 1816. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

"The grand army of the Turks (in 
1715), under the Prime Vizier, to open 
to themselves a way into the heart of 
the Morea, and to form the siege of 
Napoli di Romania, the most consider- 
able place in all that country,^ thought it 
best in the first place to attack Corinth, 
upon which they made several storms. 
The garrison being weakened, and the 
governor seeing it was impossible to 

' [The Siege of Corinth was written in the 
early spring of 1816 and was published (together 
with Parisina, which had been written in 1815) 
February 7, 1816.] 

' Napoli di Romania is not now the most con- 
siderable place in the Morea, but Tripolitza, where 
the Pacha resides, and maintains his govern- 
ment. Napoli is near Argos. I visited all three 
in 1810-11; and, in the course of journeying 
through the country from my first arrival in 1809, 
I crossed the Isthmus eight times in my way from 
Attica to the Morea, over the mountains; or in 
the other direction, when passing from the Gulf 
of Athens to that of Lepanto. Both the routes 
are picturesque and beautiful, though very 
different: that by sea has more sameness; but 
the voyage, being always within sight of land, 
and often very near it, presents many attractive 
views of the islands Salamis, ^gina, Poros, etc., 
and the coast of the Continent. 

[" Independently of the suitableness of such an 
event to the power of Lord Byron's genius, the 
Fall of Corinth afforded local attractions, by the 
intimate knowledge which the poet had of the 
place and surrounding objects. . . . Thus fur- 
nished with that topographical information 
which could not be well obtained from books 
and maps, he was admirably qualified to depict 
the various operations and progress of the siege " 
— Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Right 
Honourable Lord Byron, London, 1822, p. 222.] 



43« 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH 



hold out such a place against so mighty 
a force, thought it fit to beat a parley: 
but while they were treating about the 
articles, one of the magazines in the 
Turkish camp, wherein they had six 
hundred barrels of powder, blew up by 
accident, whereby six or seven hundred 
men were killed; which so enraged the 
infidels, that they would not grant any 
capitulation, but stormed the place with 
so much fury, that they took it, and put 
most of the garrison, with Signior 
Minotti, the governor, to the sword. 
The rest, with Signior or Antonio 
Bembo, Proveditor Extraordinary, were 
made prisoners of war." — A Compleat 
History of the Turks [London, 1719], 
iii. 151. 



In the year since Jesus died for men,^ 

Eighteen hundred years and ten,^ 

We were a gallant company, 

Riding o'er land, and sailing o'er sea. 

Oh ! but we went merrily ! 

We forded the river, and clomb the high 
hill. 

Never our steeds for a day stood still; 

Whether we lay in the cave or the 
shed, 

Our sleep fell soft on the hardest bed ; 

Whether we couched in our rough 
capote, 10 

On the rougher plank of our gliding 
boat, 

Or stretched on the beach, or our sad- 
dles spread, 

As a pillow beneath the resting head, 

Fresh we woke upon the morrow: 
All our thoughts and words had 

scope, 
We had health, and we had hope, 

' [The intrfxluctory lines, 1-45, were not 
publLshed in the First Edition. First published 
m Letters and Journal^;, 18,30, i. 638, they were 
included among the Occasional Poems in the 
edition of 1831, and first prefixed to the poem in 
the edition of 1832.] 

' [The metrical rendering of the date (mis- 
calculated from the death instead of the birth of 
Christ) may \>e. traced to the opening lines of an 
old ballad — 

"Upxjn the sixteen hunder year 
Of God, and fifty-three. 
From Christ was born, that bought us dear, 
As writings testifie," etc.] 



Toil and travel, but no sorrow. 
We were of all tongues and creeds; — 
Some were those who counted beads, 
Some of mosque, and some of church, 20 

And some, or I mis-say, of neither; 
Yet through the wide world might ye 
search, 

Xor find a mother crew nor blither. 

But some are dead, and some are gone, 
And some are scattered and alone, 
And some are rebels on the hills ^ 

That look along Epirus' valleys, 

Where Freedom still at momenta 
rallies. 
And pays in blood Oppression's ills; 

And some are in a far countree, 30 
And some all restlessly at home; 

But never more, oh ! never, we 
Shall meet to revel and to roam. 
But those hardy days flew cheerily! 
And when they now fall drearily. 
My thoughts, like swallows, skim the 

main. 
And bear my spirit back again 
Over the earth, and through the air, 
A wild bird and a wanderer. 
'Tis this that ever wakes my strain, 40 
And oft, too oft, implores again 
The few who may endure my lay, 
To follow me so far away. 
Stranger, wilt thou follow now, 
And sit with me on Acro-Corinth's 
brow ? 

I. 

Many a vanished year and age, 

And Tempest's breath, and Battle's 

rage. 
Have swept o'er Corinth ; yet she stands, 
A fortress formed to Freedom's hands. 
The Whirlwind's wrath, the . Earth- 
quake's shock, 50 
Have left untouched her hoary rock, 
The keystone of a land, which still, 
Though fall'n, looks proudly on that 

hill. 
The landmark to the double tide 
That purpling rolls on either side, 

' The last tidings recently heard of Dervish 
Cone of the Amauts who followed me) state him 
to be in revolt upon the mountains, at the head 
of some of the bands common in that country in 
times of trouble. 



THE SIEGE OF CORIXTH 



433 



As if their waters chafed to meet. 
Yet pause and crouch beneath her feet. 
But could the blood before her shed 
Since first Timoleon's brother bled/ 
Or baffled Persia's despot fled, 60 

Arise from out the Earth which drank 
The stream of Slaughter as it sank. 
That sanguine Ocean would o'erflow 
Her isthmus idly spread below: 
Or could the bones of all the slain. 
Who perished there, be piled again. 
That rival pyramid would rise 
More mountain-like, through those clear 

skies, 
Than yon tower-capped Acropolis, 
Which seems the verv clouds to kiss. 70 



On dun Cithceron's ridge appears 
The gleam of twice ten thousand spears; 
And downward to the Isthmian plain. 
From shore to shore of either main. 
The tent is pitched, the Crescent 

shines 
Along the ^loslem's leaguering lines; 
And the dusk Spahi's bands - advance 
Beneath each bearded Pacha's glance; 
And far and wide as eye can reach 
The turbaned cohorts throng the 

beach ; 80 

And there the Arab's camel kneels. 
And there his steed the Tartar wheels; 
The Turcoman hath left his herd,^ 
The sabre round his loins to gird ; 
And there the volleying thunders 

pour, 
Till waves grow smoother to the roar. 
The trench is dug, the cannon's breath 
Wings the far hissing globe of death; 
Fast whirl the fragments, from the 

wall, 
Which crumbles with the ponderous 

ball; 90 

And from that wall the foe replies. 
O'er dusty plain and smoky skies, 
With fires that answer fast and well 
The summons of the Infidel. 

' [Timoleon. who had saved the life of his 
brother Timophanes in battle, afterwards put 
him to death for aiming at the supreme power 
in Corinth.] 

' [Turkish holders of military fiefs.] 

3 The life of the Turcomans is wandering and 



patriarchal: they dwell in tents. 



But near and nearest to the wall 
Of those who wish and work its fall, 
With deeper skill in War's black art. 
Than Othman's sons, and high of heart 
As any Chief that ever stood 
Triumphant in the fields of blood; i(X) 
From pxDSt to post, and deed to deed, 
Fast spurring on his reeking steed. 
Where sallying ranks the trench assail, 
And make the foremost Moslem quail; 
Or where the battery, guarded well, 
Remains as yet impregnable. 
Alighting cheerly to inspire 
The soldier slackening in his fire; 
The first and freshest of the host 
Which Stamboul's Sultan there can 
boast, no 

To guide the follower o'er the field. 
To point the tube, the lance to wield, 
Or whirl around the bickering blade; 
Was Alp. the Adrian renegade ! * 



From Venice — once a race of worth 
His gentle Sires — he drew his birth; 
But late an exile from her shore, 
Against his countrymen he bore 
The arms they taught to bear; and now 
The turban girt his shaven brow. 120 
Through many a change had Corinth 

passed 
With Greece to Venice' rule at last; 
And here, before her walls, with those 
To Greece and Venice equal foes. 
He stood a foe. with all the zeal 
Which young and fiery converts feel. 
Within whose heated bosom throngs 
The memory of a thousand wrongs. 
To him had Venice ceased to be 
Her ancient civic boast — "the Free;" 
And in the palace of St Mark 131 

Unnamed* accusers in the dark 
Within the "Lion's mouth" had placed 
A charge against him uneftaced: ^ 

' [The name is probably derived from Moham- 
med surnamed Alp-.\rslan or "" Brave Lion." 
the second of the Seljuk dynasty, in tlie eleventh 
century.] 

^["The Lions' Mouths, under the arcade at 
the summit of the Giants' Stairs, which gaped 
widely to receive anonymous charges, were no 
doubt far more often employed as vehicles of 



434 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH 



He fled in time, and saved his life, 
To waste his future years in strife, 
That taught his land how great her loss 
In him who triumphed o'er the Cross, 
'Gainst which he reared the Crescent 

high. 
And battled to avenge or die. 140 



Coumourgi * — he whose closing scene 
Adorned the triumph of Eugene, 
When on Carlowitz' bloody plain. 
The last and mightiest of the slain, 
He sank, regretting not to die. 
But cursed the Christian's victory — 
Coumourgi — can his glory cease, 
That latest conqueror of Greece, 
Till Christian hands to Greece restore 
The freedom Venice gave of yore? 150 
A hundred years have rolled away 
Since he refixed the Moslem's sway; 
And now he led the Mussulman, 
And gave the guidance of the van 
To Alp, who well repaid the trust 
By cities levelled with the dust; 
And proved, by many a deed of death, 
How firm his heart in novel faith. 



The walls grew weak; and fast and hot 
Against them poured the ceaseless 
shot, 160 

With unabating fury sent 
From, battery to battlement; 
And thunder-Hke the pealing din 
Rose from each heated culverin; 

private malice than of zeal for the public wel- 
fare." — Sketches from Venetian History, 1832, 
ii. 380.] 

' Ali Coumourgi [Damad Ali or Ali Cumurgi 
{i.e. son of the charcoal-burner)], the favourite of 
three sultans, and Grand Vizier to Achmet III., 
after recovering Peloponnesus from the Venetians 
in one campaign, was mortally wounded in the 
next, against the Germans, at the battle of 
Peterwaradin (in the plain of Carlowitz), in 
Hungary, endeavouring to rally his guards. He 
died of his wounds next day [August 16, 17 16]. 
His last order was the decapitation of General 
Breuner, and some other German prisoners, 
and his last words, "Oh that I could thus serve 
all the Christian dogs!" a speech and act not 
unlike one of Caligula. He was a young man 
of great ambition and unbounded presumption: 
on being told that Prince Eugene, then opposed 
to him, "was a great general," he said, "I shall 
become a greater, and at his expense." 



And here and there some crackling 

dome 
Was fired before the exploding bomb; 
And as the fabric sank beneath 
The shattering shell's volcanic breath. 
In red and wreathing columns flashed 
The flame, as loud the ruin crashed, 170 
Or into countless meteors driven, 
Its earth-stars melted into heaven; 
Whose clouds that day grew doubly 

dun. 
Impervious to the hidden -sun, 
With volumed smoke that slowly grew 
To one wide sky of sulphurous hue. 



But not for vengeance, long delayed, 
Alone, did Alp, the renegade. 
The Moslem warriors sternly teach 
His skill to pierce the promised breach: 
Within these walls a Maid was pent 181 
His hope would win, without consent 
Of that inexorable Sire, 
Whose heart refused him in its ire. 
When Alp, beneath his Christian name, 
Her virgin hand aspired to claim. 
In happier mood, and earlier time. 
While unimpeached for traitorous crime, 
Gayest in Gondola or Hall, 
He glittered through the Carnival; 190 
And tuned the softest serenade 
That e'er on Adria's waters played 
At midnight to Italian maid. 



And many deemed her heart was won; 
For sought by numbers, given to none. 
Had young Francesca's hand remained 
Still by the Church's bonds unchained: 
And when the Adriatic bore 
Lanciotto to the Paynim shore. 
Her wonted smiles were seen to fail, 200 
And pensive' waxed the maid and 

pale; 
More constant at confessional, 
More rare at masque and festival; 
Or, seen at such, with downcast eyes 1 
Which conquered hearts they ceased to 

prize : 
With Ustless look she seems to gaze: 
With humbler care her form arrays; 
Her voice less Uvely in the song; 
Her step, though light, less fleet among 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH 



435 



The pairs, on whom the Morning's 
glance 210 

Breaks, yet unsated with the dance. 

IX. 

Sent by the State to guard the land, 
(Which, wrested from the Moslem's 

hand,^ 
While Sobieski tamed his pride 
By Buda's wall and Danube's side, 
The chiefs of Venice wrung away 
From Patra to Euboea's bay,) 
Minotti held in Corinth's towers 
The Doge's delegated powers, 
While yet the pitying eye of Peace 220 
Smiled o'er her long forgotten Greece: 
And ere that faithless truce was broke 
Which freed her from the unchristian 

yoke. 
With him his gentle daughter came ; 
Nor there, since Menelaus' dame 
Forsook her lord and land, to prove 
What woes await on lawless love. 
Had fairer form adorned the shore 
Than she, the matchless stranger, bore. 

X. 

The wall is rent, the ruins yawn; 230 
And, with to-morrow's earliest dawn. 
O'er the disjointed mass shall vault 
The foremost of the fierce assault. 
The bands are ranked — the chosen 

van 
Of Tartar and of Mussulman, 
The full of hope, misnamed "forlorn," 
Who hold the thought of death in scorn. 
And win their way with falchion's force, 
Or pave the path with many a corse. 
O'er which the following brave m.ay 

rise, 240 

Their stepping-stone — the last who 

dies ! 

XI. 

'Tis midnight: on the mountains brown 
The cold, round moon shines deeply 
down ; 

' [The siege of Vienna was raised by John 
Sobieski, King of Poland (1629-1696), Septem- 
ber 12, 1683. Buda was retaken from the Turks 
by Charles VII, Duke of Lorraine, on Septem- 
ber 2, 1686. The conquest of the Morea was 
begun by the Venetians in 1685, and completed 
in 1699.] 



Blue roll the waters, blue the sky 
Spreads Hke an ocean hung on high, 
Bespangled with those isles of light, 
So wildly, spiritually bright; 
Who ever gazed upon them shining 
And turned to earth without repining. 
Nor wished for wings to flee away, 250 
And mix with their eternal ray? 
The waves on either shore lay there 
Calm, clear, and azure as the air; 
And scarce their foam the pebbles 

shook, 
But murmured meekly as the brook. 
The winds were pillowed on the waves; 
The banners drooped along their staves. 
And, as they fell around them furling, 
x\bove them shone the crescent curling; 
And that deep silence was unbroke, 260 
Save where the watch his signal spoke, 
Save where the steed neighed oft and 

shrill. 
And echo answered from the hill. 
And the wild hum of that wild host 
Rustled like leaves from coast to coast. 
As rose the Muezzin's voice in air 
In midnight call to wonted prayer; 
It rose, that chanted mournful strain. 
Like some lone Spirit's o'er the plain: 
'Twas musical, but sadly sweet, 27c 
Such as when winds and harp-strings 

meet. 
And take a long unmeasured tone. 
To mortal minstrelsy unknown. 
It seemed to those within the wall 
A cry prophetic of their fall: 
It struck even the besieger's ear 
With something ominous and drear. 
An undefined and sudden thrill, 
W^hich makes the heart a moment 

still. 
Then beat with quicker pulse, ashamed 
Of that strange sense its silence framed; 
Such as a sudden passing-bell 282 

Wakes, though but for a stranger's 

knell. 



The tent of Alp was on the shore; 
The sound was hushed, the prayer was 

o'er; 
The watch was set, the night-round 

made, 
All mandates issued and obeyed: 



436 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH 



'Tis but another anxious night, 
His pains the morrow may requite 
With all Revenge and Love can pay, 290 
In guerdon for their long delay. 
Few hours remain, and he hath need 
Of rest, to nerve for many a deed 
Of slaughter; but within his soul 
The thoughts like troubled waters roll. 
He stood alone among the host; 
Not his the loud fanatic boast 
To plant the Crescent o'er the Cross, 
Or risk a life with little loss, 
Secure in paradise to be 300 

By Houris loved immortally: 
Nor his, what burning patriots feel, 
The stern exaltedness of zeal, 
Profuse of blood, untired in toil. 
When battling on the parent soil. 
He stood alone — a renegade 
Against the country he betrayed; 
He stood alone amidst his band, 
Without a trusted heart or hand: 
They followed him, for he was brave. 
And great the spoil he got and gave ; 3 1 1 
They crouched to him, for he had skill 
To warp and wield the vulgar will: 
But still his Christian origin 
With them was little less than sin. 
They envied even the faithless fame 
He earned beneath a Moslem name; 
Since he, their mightiest chief, had been 
In youth a bitter Nazarene. 
They did not know how Pride can 

stoop, 320 

When baffled feelings withering droop; 
They did not know how Hate can burn 
In hearts once changed from soft to 

stern; 
Nor all the false and fatal zeal 
The convert of Revenge can feel. 
He ruled them — man may rule the 

worst. 
By ever daring to be first: 
So lions o'er the jackals sway; 
The jackal points, he fells the prey. 
Then on the vulgar, yelling, press, 330 
To gorge the relics of success. 



His head grows fevered, and his pulse 
The quick successive throbs convulse; 
In vain from side to side he throws 
His form, in courtship of repose; 



Or if he dozed, a sound, a start 
Awoke him with a sunken heart. 
The turban on his hot brow pressed, 
The mail weighed lead-like on his 

breast. 
Though oft and long beneath its weight 
Upon his eyes had slumber sate, 341 
Without or couch or canopy. 
Except a rougher field and sky 
Than now might yield a warrior's bed, 
Than now along the heaven was spread. 
He could not rest, he could not stay 
Within his tent to wait for day. 
But walked him forth along the sand. 
Where thousand sleepers strewed the 

strand. 
What pillowed them? and why should 

he 350 

More wakeful than the humblest be. 
Since more their peril, worse their toil ? 
And yet they fearless dream of spoil; 
While he alone, where thousands passed 
A night of sleep, perchance their last, 
In sickly vigil wandered on, 
And envied all he gazed upon. 



He felt his soul become more light 
Beneath the freshness of the night. 359 
Cool was the silent sky, though calm, 
And bathed his brow with airy balm: 
Behind, the camp — before him lay, 
In many a winding creek and bay, 
Lepanto's gulf; and, on the brow 
Of Delphi's hill, unshaken snow. 
High and eternal, such as shone 
Through thousand summers brightly 

gone, 
Along the gulf, the mount, the clime;. 
It will not melt, Hke man, to time: 
Tyrant and slave are swept away, 370 
Less formed to wear before the ray; 
But that white veil, the lightest, frail- 
est,^ 
Which on the mighty mount thou hail- 
est, 

' [The reference is to the almost perpetual 
"cap" of mist on Parnassus (Mount Likeri or 
Liakura), which lies some thirty miles to the 
north-west of Corinth. Compare The Giaour, 
line 566 — 

"For where is he that hath beheld 
The peak of Liakura unveiled?"] 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH 



437 



While tower and tree are torn and rent, 
Shines o'er its craggy battlement; 
In form a peak, in height a cloud. 
In texture Uke a hovering shroud, 
Thus high by parting Freedom spread. 
As from her fond abode she fled, 
And lingered on the spot, where, long, 
Her prophet spirit spake in song. 381 
Oh! still her step at moments falters 
O'er withered fields, and ruined altars, 
And fain would wake, in souls too 

broken, 
By pointing to each glorious token: 
But vain her voice, till better days 
Dawn in those yet remxcmbered rays, 
Which shone upon the Persian flying, 
And saw the Spartan smile in dying. 

XV. 

Not mindless of these mighty times 390 
Was Alp, despite his flight and crimes; 
And through this night, as on he wan- 
dered, 
And o'er the past and present pondered 
And thought upon the glorious dead 
Who there in bitter cause had bled. 
He felt how faint and feebly dim 
The fame that could accrue to him. 
Who cheered the band, and waved the 

sword, 
A traitor in a turbaned horde; 
And led them to the lawless siege, 400 
Whose best success were sacrilege. 
Not so had those his fancy numbered. 
The chiefs whose dust around him 

slumbered; 
Their phalanx marshalled on the plain. 
Whose bulwarks were not then in vain. 
They fell devoted, but undying, — 
The very gale their names seemed sigh- 
ing; 
The waters murmured of their name. 
The woods were peopled with their 

fame ; 
The silent pillar, lone and grey, 410 
Claimed kindred with their sacred clay; 
Their spirits wrapped the dusky moun- 
tain. 
Their memory sparkled o'er the foun- 
tain — 
The meanest rill, the mightiest river 
Rolled mingling with their fame for 



Despite of every yoke she bears, 
That land is Glory's still and theirs! 
'Tis still a watchword to the earth: 
When man would do a deed of worth 
He points to Greece, and turns to tread, 
So sanctioned, on the tyrant's head: 421 
He looks to her, and rushes on 
Where life is lost, or Freedom won. 



Still by the shore Alp mutely mused, 
And wooed the freshness Night diffused. 
There shrinks no ebb in that tideless 

sea,^ 
Which changeless rolls eternally; 
So that wildest of waves, in their angri- 
est mood, 
Scarce break on the bounds of the land 

for a rood; 
And the powerless moon beholds them 

flow. 
Heedless if she come or go: 430 

Calm or high, in main or bay, 
On their course she hath no sway. 
The rock unworn its base doth bare. 
And looks o'er the surf, but it comes not 

there; 
And the fringe of the foam may be seen 

below. 
On the line that it left long ages ago: — • 
A smooth short space of yellow sand 
Between it and the greener land. 

He wandered on along the beach, 440 
Till within the range of a carbine's reach 
Of the leaguered wall ; but they saw him 

not, 
Or how could he 'scape from the hostile 

shot ? 
Did traitors lurk in the Christian's hold ? 
Were their hands grown stiff, or their 

hearts waxed cold? 
I know not, in sooth; but from yonder 

wall 
There flashed no fire, and there hissed 

no ball, 
Though he stood beneath the bastion's 

frown, 
That flanked the seaward gate of the 

town ; 

' The reader need hardly be reminded that 
there are no perceptible tides in the Mediter- 



438 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH 



Though he heard the sound, and could 

almost tell 45° 

The sullen words of the sentinel, 
As his measured step on the stone below 
Clanked, as he paced it to and fro; 
And he saw the lean dogs beneath the 

wall 
Hold o'er the dead their Carnival, 
Gorging and growling o'er carcass and 

limb; 
They were too busy to bark at him ! 
From a Tartar's skull they had stripped 

the flesh, 
As ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh; 
And their white tuskb crunched o'er the 

whiter skulV 4^0 

As it slipped through their jaws, when 

their edge grew dull, 
As they lazily mumbled the bones of the 

dead, 
When they scarce could rise from the 

spot where they fed; 
So well had they broken a lingering fast 
With those who had fallen for that 

night's repast: — 
And Alp knew, by the turbans that 

rolled on the sand. 
The foremost of these were the best of 

his band: 
Crimson and green were the shawls of 

their wear. 
And each scalp had a single long tuft 

of hair,^ 
All the rest was shaven and bare. 470 
The scalps were in the wild dog's maw. 
The hair was tangled round his jaw: 
But close by the shore, on the edge of 

the gulf. 
There sat a vulture flapping a wolf. 
Who had stolen from the hills, but kept 

away, 
Scared by the dogs, from the human 

prey; 

» This spectacle I have seen, such as described, 
beneath the wall of the Seraglio at Constanti- 
nople, in the little cavities vfom by the Bos- 
phorus in the rock, a narrow terrace of which 
projects between the wall and the water. I 
think the fact is also mentioned in Hobhouse's 
Travels {in Albania, 1855, ii. 215]. The bodies 
were probably those of some refractory Jani- 
zaries. 

* This tuft or long lock, is left from a super- 
stition that Mahomet will draw them into 
Paradise by it. 



But he seized on his share of a steed that 

lay. 
Picked by the birds, on the sands of the 

bay. 

XVII. 

Alp turned him from the sickening sight: 
Never had shaken his nerves in fight ; 480 
But he better could brook to behold the 

dying. 
Deep in the tide of their warm blood 

lying, 
Scorched with the death-thirst, and 

writhing in vain. 
Than the perishing dead- who are past 

all pain. 
There is something of pride in the 

perilous hour, 
Whate'er be the shape in which Death 

may lower; 
For Fame is there to say who bleeds, 
And Honour's eye on daring deeds ! 
But when all is past, it is humbUng to 

tread 
O'er the weltering field of the tombless 

dead, 490 

And see worms of the earth, and fowls 

of the air. 
Beasts of the forest, all gathering there; 
All regarding man as their prey, 
All rejoicing in his decay. 



There is a temple in ruin stands, 
Fashioned by long forgotten hands; 
Two or three columns, and many a 

stone, 
Marble and granite, with grass o'er- 

grown ! 
Out upon Time ! it will leave no more 
Of the things to come than the things 

before ! 500 

Out upon Time ! who for ever will 

leave 
But enough of the past for the future to 

grieve 
O'er that which hath been, and o'er that 

which must be: 
What we have seen, our sons shall see; 
Remnants of things that have passed 

away, 
Fragments of stone, reared by creatures 

of clay ! 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH 



439 



He sate him down at a pillar's base, 
And passed his hand athwart his face; 
Like one in dreary musing mood, 
Declining was his attitude; 510 

His head was drooping on his breast, 
Fevered, throbbing, and oppressed; 
And o'er his brow, so downward bent, 
Oft his beating fingers went, 
Hurriedly, as you may see 
Your own run over the ivory key, 
Ere the measured tone is taken 
By the chords you would awaken. 
There he sate all heavily, 
As he heard the night-wind sigh. 520 
Was it the wind through some hollow 

stone, 
Sent that soft and tender moan ? ^ 

I I must here acknowledge a close, though 
unintentional, resemblance in these twelve lines 
to a passage in an unpublished poem of Mr 
Coleridge, called "Christabel." It was not till 
after these lines were written that I heard that 
wild and singularly original and beautiful poem 
recited; and the MS. of that production I never 
saw till very recently, by the kindness of Mr 
Coleridge himself, who, I hope, is convinced 
that I have not been a wilful plagiarist. The 
original idea undoubtedly pertains to Mr Cole- 
ridge, whose poem has been composed above 
fourteen years. Let me conclude by a hope 
that he will not longer delay the publication of 
a production, of which I can only add my mite 
of approbation to the applause of far more com- 
petent judges. 

[The lines in Christabel, Part the First, 43- 
52, 57, 5Q, are these — 

"The night is chill; the forest bare; 
Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? 
There is not wind enough in the air 
To move away the ringlet curl 
From the lovely lady's cheek — _ 
There is not wind enough to twirl 
The one red leaf, the last of its clan. 
That dances as often as dance it can, 
Hanging so light, and hanging so high, 
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky." 
"... What sees she there? 
There she sees a damsel bright, 
Drest in a silken robe of white." 
Byron, in a letter to Coleridge, dated October 
27, 1815, had already expressly guarded himself 
against a charge of plagiarism, by explaining 
that lines 521-532 of stanza xix. were written 
before he heard Walter Scott repeat Christabel 
in the preceding June. Neither in letter or 
note does Byron attempt to deny or explain 
away the coincidence, but pleads that his lines 
were written before he had heard Coleridge's 
poem recited, and that he had not been guilty 
of a "wilful plagiarism." There is no difficulty 
in accepting his statement. Long before the 



He lifted his head, and he looked on 

the sea. 
But it was unrippled as glass may be; 
He looked on the long grass — it waved 

not a blade; 
How was that gentle sound conveyed ? 
He looked to the banners — each flag 

lay still, 
So did the leaves on Cithaeron's hill. 
And he felt not a breath come over his 

cheek; 
What did that sudden sound bespeak? 
He turned to the left — is he sure of 

sight? 531 

There sate a lady, youthful and bright ! 



He started up with more of fear 
Than if an armed foe were near. 
"God of my fathers! what is here? 
Who art thou ? and wherefore sent 
So near a hostile armament?" 
His trembling hands refused to sign 
The cross he deemed no more divine: 
He had resumed it in that hour, 540 
But Conscience wrung away the power. 
He gazed, he saw; he knew the face 
Of beauty, and the form of grace; 
It was Francesca by his side, 
The maid who might have been his 
bride ! 

The rose was yet upon her cheek, 
But mellowed with a tenderer streak: 
Where was the play of her soft lips fled ? 
Gone was the smile that enlivened their 

red. 
The Ocean's calm within their view, 
Beside her eye had less of blue; 551 
But like that cold wave it stood still. 
And its glance, though clear, was chill. 
Around her form a thin robe twining, 
Nought concealed her bosom shining; 
Through the parting of her hair, 
Floating darkly downward there, 
Her rounded arm showed white and bare: 

summer of 181 5 Christabel "had a pretty general 
circulation in the literary world," and he may 
have heard, without heeding, this and other 
passages quoted by privileged readers; or, 
though never a line of Christabel had sounded 
in his ears, he may (as the late Professor Kolbing 
points out) have caught its lilt at second hand 
from the published works of Southey, or of Scott 
himself.] 



440 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH 



And ere yet she made reply, 
Once she raised her hand on high; 560 
It was so wan, and transparent of hue, 
You might have seen the moon shine 
through. 



"I come from my rest to him I loved 

best, 
That I may be happy, and he may be 

blessed. 
I have passed the guards, the gate, the 

wall ; 
Sought thee in safety through foes and 

all. 
'Tis said the lion will turn and flee 
From a maid in the pride of her purity; 
And the Power on high, that can shield 

the good 
Thus from the tyrant of the wood, 570 
Hath extended its mercy to guard me as 

well 
From the hands of the leaguering 

Infidel. 
I come — and if I come in vain, 
Never, oh never, we meet again ! 
Thou hast done a fearful deed 
In falling away from thy fathers' creed : 
But dash that turban to earth, and sign 
The sign of the cross, and for ever be 

mine; 
Wring the black drop from thy heart, 
And to-morrow unites us no more to 

part." 580 

"And where should our bridal couch be 

spread ? 
In the midst of the dying and the dead? 
For to-morrow we give to the slaughter 

and flame 
The sons and the shrines of the Chris- 
tian name. 
None, save thou and thine, I've sworn, 
Shall be left upon the morn: 
But thee will I bear to a lovely spot. 
Where our hands shall be joined, and 

our sorrow forgot. 
There thou yet shalt be my bride, 
When once again I've quelled the pride 
Of Venice; and her hated race 591 
Have felt the arm they would debase 
Scourge, with a whip of scorpions, those 
Whom Vice and Envy made my foes." 



Upon his hand she laid her own — 
Light was the touch, but it thrilled to 

the bone, 
And shot a chillness to his heart, 
Which iixed him beyond the power to 

start. 
Though slight was that grasp so mortal 

cold. 
He could not loose him from its 

hold; 600 

But never did clasp of one so dear 
Strike on the pulse with such feeUng of 

fear, 
As those thin fingers, long and white, 
Froze through his blood by their touch 

that night. 
The feverish glow of his brow was 

gone, 
And his heart sank so still that it felt 

Hke stone, 
As he looked on the face, and beheld its 

hue. 
So deeply changed from what he knew: 
Fair but faint — without the ray 609 
Of mind, that made each feature play 
Like sparkling waves on a sunny 

day; 
And her motionless lips lay still as 

death. 
And her words came forth without her 

breath, 
And there rose not a heave o'er her 

bosom's swell, 
And there seemed not a pulse in her 

veins to dwell. 
Though her eye shone out, yet the Hds 

were fixed, 
And the glance that it gave was wild 

and unmixed 
With aught of change, as the eyes may 

seem 
Of thd restless who walk in a troubled 

dream; 
Like the figures on arras, that gloomily 

glare, 620 

Stirred by the breath of the wintry 

air, 
So seen by the dying lamp's fitful 

light, 
Lifeless, but life-like, and awful to 

sight ; 
As they seem, through the dimness, 

about to come down 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH 



441 



From the shadowy wall where their 

images frown; 
Fearfully flitting to and fro, 
As the gusts on the tapestry come and 

go.' 

" If not for love of me be given 

Thus much, then, for the love of 

Heaven, — 
Again I say — that turban tear 630 
From off thy faithless brow, and swear 
Thine injured country's sons to spare. 
Or thou art lost; and never shalt see — 
Not earth — that's past — but Heaven 

or me. 
If this thou dost accord, albeit 
A heavy doom 'tis thine to meet, 
That doom shall half absolve thy sin. 
And Mercy's gate may receive thee 

within; 
But pause one moment more, and take 
The curse of Him thou didst forsake; 
And look once more to Heaven, and 

see 641 

Its love for ever shut from thee. 
There is a light cloud by the moon — ^ 
'Tis passing, and will pass full soon — 
If, by the time its vapoury sail 
Hath ceased her shaded orb to veil. 
Thy heart within thee is not changed, 
Then God and man are both avenged; 
Dark will thy doom be, darker still 
Thine immortality of ill." 650 

Alp looked to heaven, and saw on high 
The sign she spake of in the sky ; 
But his heart was swollen, and turned 
aside, 

' [In the summer of 1803, Byron, then turned 
fifteen, though offered a bed at Annesley, used at 
first to return every night to Newstead; alleging 
that he was afraid of the family pictures of the 
Chaworths, which he fancied "had taken a 
grudge to him on account of the duel, and would 
come down from their .frames to haunt him." 
Moore thinks this passage may have been sug- 
gested by the recollection {Life, p. 27).] 

"^ I have been told that the idea expressed in 
this and the five following lines has been admired 
by those whose approbation is valuable. I am 
glad of it; but it is not original — at least not 
mine; it may be found much better expressed in 
pages 182-3-4 of the English version [Ed. 1786] 
of "Vathek" (I forget the precise page of the 
French), a work to which I have before referred; 
and never recur to, or read, v/ithout a renewal of 
gratification. 



By deep interminable pride. 
This first false passion of his breast 
Rolled like a torrent o'er the rest. 
He sue for mercy ! He dismayed 
By wild words of a timid maid ! 
He, wronged by Venice, vow to save 
Her sons, devoted to the grave ! 660 
No — though that cloud were thunders 

worst, 
And charged to crush him — let it 

burst ! 

He looked upon it earnestly. 
Without an accent of reply; 
He watched it passing — it is flown: 
Full on his eye the clear moon shone, 
And thus he spake — "Whate'er my 

fate, 
I am no changeHng — 'tis too late: 
The reed in storms may bow and quiver, 
Then rise again; — the tree must 
shiver. 670 

What Venice made me, I must be. 
Her foe in all, save love to thee: 
But thou art safe: oh, fly with me!" 
He turned, but she is gone ! 
Nothing is there but the column stone. 
Hath she sunk in the earth, or melted in 

air? 
He saw not — he knew not — but noth- 
ing is there. 

XXII. 

The night is past, and shines the sun 
As if that morn were a jocund one. 
Lightly and brightly breaks away 680 
The Morning from her mantle grey. 
And the Noon will look on a sultry day. 
Hark to the trump, and the drum. 
And the mournful sound of the barbar- 
ous horn. 
And the flap of the banners, that flit as 

they're borne. 
And the neigh of the steed, and the 

multitude's hum. 
And the clash, and the shout, "They 

come ! they come!" 
The horsetails are plucked from the 

ground, and the sword 
From its sheath; and they form., and 

but wait for the word. 
Tartar, and Spahi, and Turcoman, 690 
Strike your tents, and throng to the van; 



442 



^HE SIEGE OF CORINTH 



Mount ye, spur ye, skirr the plain, 
That the fugitive may flee in vain. 
When he breaks from the town, and 

none escape. 
Aged or young, in the Christian shape; 
While your fellows on foot, in a fiery 

mass, 
Blood stain the breach through which 

they pass. 
The steeds are all bridled, and snort to 

the rein; 
Curved is each neck, and flowing each 

mane; 
White is the foam of their champ on the 

bit: 700 

The spears are uplifted, the matches are 

lit. 
The cannon are pointed, and ready to 

roar, 
And crush the wall they have crumbled 

before : 
Forms in his phalanx each Janizar — 
Alp at their head; his right arm is 

bare, 
So is the blade of his scimitar; 
The Khan and the Pachas are all at 

their post: — 
The Vizier himself at the head of the 

host. 
When the culverin's signal is fired, then 

on; 
Leave not in Corinth a living one — 710 
A priest at her altars, a chief in her 

halls, 
A hearth in her mansions, a stone on her 

walls. 
God and the prophet — Alia Hu ! 
Up to the skies with that wild halloo ! 
"There the breach lies for passage, the 

ladder to scale; 
And your hands on your sabres, and how 

should ye fail? 
He who first downs with the red cross 

may crave 
His heart's dearest wish; let him ask it, 

and have !" 
Thus uttered Coumourgi, the dauntless 

Vizier; 
The reply was the brandish of sabre and 

spear, 720 

And the shout of fierce thousands in 

joyous ire: — ■ 
Silence — hark to the signal — fire ! 



As the wolves, that headlong go 
On the stately buffalo. 
Though with fiery eyes, and angry roar, 
And hoofs that stamp, and horns that 

gore. 
He tramples on earth, or tosses on high 
The foremost, who rush on his strength 

but to die: 
Thus against the wall they went. 
Thus the first were backward bent; 730 
Many a bosom, sheathed in brass. 
Strewed the earth hke broken glass, 
Shivered by the shot, that tore 
The ground whereon they moved no 

more : 
Even as they fell, in files they lay. 
Like the mower's grass at the close of 

day. 
When his work is done on the levelled 

plain; 
Such was the fall of the foremost slain. 

XXIV. 

As the spring-tides, with heavy plash. 
From the chffs invading dash 740 

Huge fragments, sapped by the ceaseless 

flow. 
Till white and thundering down they go, 
Like the avalanche's snow 
On the Alpine vales below; 
Thus at length, outbreathed and worn, 
Corinth's sons were downward borne 
By the long and oft renewed 
Charge of the Moslem multitude. 
In firmness they stood, and in masses 

they fell, 
Heaped by the host of the Infidel, 750 
Hand to hand, and foot to foot: 
Nothing there, save Death, was mute; 
Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry 
For quarter, or for victory. 
Mingle there with the volleying thunder, 
Which makes the distant cities wonder 
How the sounding battle goes. 
If with them, or for their foes; 
If they must mourn, or may rejoice 
In that annihilating voice, 760 

Which pierces the deep hills through 

and through 
With an echo dread and new: 
You might have heard it, on that day. 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH 



443 



O'er Salamis and Megara, 

(We have heard the hearers say,) 

Even unto Piraeus' bay. 



From the point of encountering blades 

to the hilt, 
Sabres and swords with blood were gilt ; 
But the rampart is won, and the spoil 

begun, 
And all but the after carnage done. 770 
Shriller shrieks now mingling com.e 
From within the plundered dome: 
Hark to the haste of flying feet. 
That splash in the blood of the slippery 

street; 
But here and there, where 'vantage 

ground 
Against the foe may still be found. 
Desperate groups, of tv/elve or ten. 
Make a pause, and turn again — 
With banded backs against the wall. 
Fiercely stand, or fighting fall. 780 

There stood an old man — his hairs 

were white. 
But his veteran arm was full of 

might: 
So gallantly bore he the brunt of the 

fray. 
The dead before him, on that day. 
In a semicircle lay; 
Still he combated unwounded, 
Though retreating, unsurrounded. 
Many a scar of former fight 
Lurked beneath his corslet bright; 
But of every wound his body bore, 790 
Each and all had been ta'en before: 
Though aged, he was so iron of limb. 
Few of our youth could cope with 

him; 
And the foes, whom he singly kept at 

bay, 
Outnumbered his thin hairs of silver 

grey. 
From right to left his sabre swept: 
Many an Othman mother wept 
Sons that were unborn, when dipped 
His weapon first in Moslem gore. 
Ere his years could count a score. 800 
Of all he might have been the sire 
Who fell that day beneath his ire: 
For, sonless left long years ago, 
His wrath made many a childless foe; 



And since the day, when in the strait ^ 
His only boy had met his fate, 
His parent's iron hand did doom 
More than a human hecatomb. 
If shades by carnage be appeased, 
Patroclus' spirit less was pleased 810 
Than his, Minotti's son, who died 
Where Asia's bounds and ours divide. 
Buried he lay, where thousands before 
For thousands of years were inhumed 

on the shore; 
What of them is left, to tell 
Where they lie, and how they fell ? 
Not a stone on their turf, nor a bone in 

their graves; 
But they live in the verse that immortally 

saves. 



Hark to the Allah shout ! a band 

Of the Mussulman bravest and best is 

at hand; 820 

Their leader's nervous arm is bare. 
Swifter to smite, and never to spare — 
Unclothed to the shoulder it waves them 

on; 
Thus in the fight is he ever known: 
Others a gaudier garb may show. 
To tempt the spoil of the greedy foe; 
Many a hand's on a richer hilt. 
But none on a steel more ruddily gilt; 
Many a loftier turban may wear, — 
Alp is but known by the white arm 

bare; 830 

Look through the thick of the fight, 'tis 

there ! 
There is not a standard on that shore 
So well advanced the ranks before; 
There is not a banner in Moslem war 
Will lure the Delhis half so far; 
It glances like a falHng star! 
Where'er that mighty. arm is seen, 
The bravest be, or late have been; 
There the craven cries for quarter 
Vainly to the vengeful Tartar; 840 

Or the hero, silent lying. 
Scorns to yield a groan in dying; 
Mustering his last feeble blow 
'Gainst the nearest levelled foe, 
Though faint beneath the mutual wound, 
Grappling on the gory ground. 

' In the naval battle at the mouth of the 
Dardanelles, between the Venetians and Turks. 



444 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH 



Still the old man stood erect, 
And Alp's career a moment checked. 
"Yield thee, Minotti ! quarter take, 
For thine own, thy daughter's sake." 
"Never, Renegado, never! 851 

Though the life of thy gift would last for 



" Francesca ! — Oh, my promised bride ! 
Must she too perish by thy pride?" 

"She is safe." — "Where? where?" — 

"In Heaven; 
From whence thy traitor soul is driven — 
Far from thee, and undefiled." 
Grimly then Minotti smiled. 
As he saw Alp staggering bow 
Before his words, as with a blow. 860 

"Oh God! when died she?" — "Yes- 
ternight — 
Nor weep I for her spirit's flight: 
None of my pure race shall be 
Slaves to Mahomet and thee — 
Come on!" — That challenge is in 

vain — 
Alp's already with the slain ! 
While Minotti's words were wreaking 
More revenge in bitter speaking 
Than his falchion's point had found, 
Had the time allowed to wound, 870 
From within the neighbouring porch 
Of a long defended church, 
Where the last and desperate few 
Would the failing fight renew. 
The sharp'shot dashed Alp to the ground ; 
Ere an eye could view the wound 
That crashed through the brain of the 

infidel, 
Round he spun, and down he fell; 
A flash like fire within his eyes 
Blazed, as he bent no more to rise, 880 
And then eternal darkness sunk 
Through all the palpitating trunk; 
Nought of life left, save a quivering 
Where his limbs were slightly shivering: 
They turned him on his back; his breast 
And brow were stained with gore and 

dust. 
And through his lips the life-blood 

oozed, 
From its deep veins lately loosed; 



But in his pulse there was no throb. 
Nor on his lips one dying sob; 890 

Sigh, nor word, nor struggUng breath 
Heralded his way to death: 
Ere his very thought could pray, 
Unaneled he passed away. 
Without a hope from Mercy's aid, — 
To the last a Renegade. 

XXVIII. 

Fearfully the yell arose 

Of his followers, and his foes ; — 

These in joy, in fury those: 

Then again in conflict mixing, 900 

Clashing swords, and spears transfixing, 

Interchanged the blow and thrust, 

Hurling warriors in the dust. 

Street by street, and foot by foot, 

Still Minotti dares dispute 

The latest portion of the land 

Left beneath his high command; 

With him, aiding heart and hand, 

The remnant of his gallant band. 

Still the church is tenable, 910 

Whence issued late the fated ball 
That half avenged the city's fall. 
When Alp, her fierce assailant, fell: 
Thither bending sternly back. 
They leave before a bloody track; 
And, with their faces to the foe, 
Dealing wounds with every blow, 
The Chief, and his retreating train, 
Join to those within the fane; 
There they yet may breathe awhile, 920 
Sheltered by the massy pile. 



Brief breathing-time ! the turbaned host. 
With added ranks and raging boast. 
Press onwards with such strength and 

heat, 
Their numbers balk their own retreat; 
For narrow the way that led to the 

spot 
Where still the Christians yielded not; 
And the foremost, if fearful, may vainly 

try 
Through the massy column to turn and 

fly- 
They perforce must do or die. 930 

They die; but ere their eyes could close. 
Avengers o'er their bodies rose; 
Fresh and furious, fast they fill 



THE SIEGE OF CORINTH 



445 



The ranks unthinned, though slaugh- 
tered still; 
And faint the weary Christians wax 
Before the still renewed attacks: 
And now the Othmans gain the gate; 
Still resists its iron weight, 
And still, all deadly aimed and hot. 
From every crevice comes the shot ; 940 
From every shattered window pour 
The volleys of the sulphurous shower: 
But the portal wavering grows and 

weak — 
The iron yields, the hinges creak — 
It bends — it falls — and all is o'er; 
Lost Corinth may resist no more ! 



Darkly, sternly, and all alone, 
Minotti stood o'er the altar stone: 
Madonna's face upon him shone. 
Painted in heavenly hues above, 950 
With eyes of light and looks of love; 
And placed upon that holy shrine 
To fix our thoughts on things divine, 
When pictured there, we kneeling see 
tier, and the boy-God on her knee, 
Smiling sweetly on each prayer 
To Heaven, as if to waft it there. 
Still she smiled ; even now she smiles. 
Though slaughter streams along her 

aisles: 
Minotti lifted his aged eye, 960 

And made the sign of a cross with a sigh. 
Then seized a torch which blazed there- 

by; 
And still he stood, while, with steel and 

flame. 
Inward and onward the Mussulman 

came. 

XXXI. 

The vaults beneath the mosaic stone 
Contained the dead of ages gone; 
Their names were on the graven floor, 
But now illegible with gore; 
The carved crests, and curious hues 
The varied marble's veins diffuse, 970 
Were smeared, and slippery — stained, 

and strown 
With broken swords, and helms o'er- 

thrown : 
There were dead above, and the dead 

below 



Lay cold in many a cofifined row; 
You might see them piled in sable state. 
By a pale light through a gloomy grate; 
But War had entered their dark caves, 
And stored along the vaulted graves 
Her sulphurous treasures, thickly spread 
In masses by the fleshless dead: 980 
Here, throughout the siege, had been 
The Christians' chief est magazine; 
To these a late formed train now led, 
Minotti's last and stern resource 
Against the foe's o'erwhelming force. 



The foe came on, and few remain 
To strive, and those must strive in vain: 
For lack of further lives, to slake 
The thirst of vengeance now awake, 
With barbarous blows they gash the 

dead, 990 

And lop the already lifeless head, 
And fell the statues from their niche, 
And spoil the shrines of offerings rich. 
And from each other's rude hands wrest 
The silver vessels Saints had blessed. 
To the high altar on they go; 
Oh, but it made a glorious show ! 
On its table still behold 
The cup of consecrated gold; 
Massy and deep, a glittering prize, 1000 
Brightly it sparkles to plunderers' eyes: 
That morn it held the holy wine. 
Converted by Christ to his blood so 

divine. 
Which his worshippers drank at the 

break of day. 
To shrive their souls ere they joined in 

the fray. 
Still a few drops within it lay; 
And round the sacred table glow 
Twelve lofty lamps, in splendid row, 
From the purest metal cast; 
A spoil — the richest, and the last. loio 



So near they came, the nearest stretched 
To grasp the spoil he almost reached, 

When old Minotti's hand 
Touched with the torch the train — 

'Tis fired ! 
Spire, vaults, the shrine, the spoil, the 

slain, 



446 



PARI SIN A 



The turbaned victors, the Christian 

band, 
All that of living or dead remain. 
Hurled on high with the shivered fane. 
In one wild roar expired ! 1020 

The shattered town — the walls thrown 

down — 
The waves a moment backward bent — 
The hills that shake, although unrent, 

As if an Earthquake passed — 
The thousand shapeless things all driven 
In cloud and flame athwart the heaven, 

By that tremendous blast — 
Proclaimed the desperate conflict o'er 
On that too long afllicted shore: 
Up to the sky like rockets go 1030 

All that mingled there below: 
Many a tall and goodly man, 
Scorched and shrivelled to a span. 
When he fell to earth again 
Like a cinder strewed the plain: 
Down the ashes shower like rain; 
Some fell in the gulf, which received the 

sprinkles 
With a thousand circling wrinkles; 
Some fell on the shore, but, far away. 
Scattered o'er the isthmus lay; 1040 
Christian or Moslem, which be they ? 
Let their mothers see and say ! 
When in cradled rest they lay. 
And each nursing mother smiled 
On the sweet sleep of her child. 
Little deemed she such a day 
Would rend those tender limbs away. 
Not the matrons that them bore 
Could discern their offspring more; 
That one moment left no trace 1050 
More of human form or face 
Save a scattered scalp or bone: 
And down came blazing rafters, strown 
Around, and many a falling stone. 
Deeply dinted in the clay. 
All blackened there and reeking lay. 
All the Hving things that heard 
The deadly earth-shock disappeared: 
The wild birds fl_ew — the wild dogs 

fled, 1059 

And howling left the unburied dead; 
The camels from their keepers broke; 
The distant steer forsook the yoke — 
The nearer steed plunged o'er the plain, 
And burst his girth, and tore his rein; 
The bull-frog's note, from out the marsh, 



Deep-mouthed arose, and doubly harsh; 
The wolves yelled on the caverned hill 
Where Echo rolled in thunder still; 
The jackal's troop, in gathered cry/ 
Bayed from afar complainingly, 1070 
With a mixed and mournful sound. 
Like crying babe, and beaten hound: 
With sudden wing, and ruflied breast, 
The eagle left his rocky nest. 
And mounted nearer to the sun, 
The clouds beneath him seemed so dun; 
Their smoke assailed his startled beak, 
And made him higher soar and shriek — 
Thus was Corinth lost and won ! 



PARISINA.2 



TO 

SCROPE BERDMORE 
DAVIES, ESQ. 

THE FOLLOWING POEM 

Is Inscribed, 

BY ONE WHO HAS LONG ADMIRED HIS 
TALENTS AND VALUED HIS FRIENDSHIP. 

January 22, 18 16. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The following poem is grounded on a 
circumstance mentioned in Gibbon's 
"Antiquities of the House of Bruns- 
wick." I am aware, that in modern 
times, the delicacy or fastidiousness of 
the reader may deem such subjects unfit 

' I believe I have taken a poetical licence to 
transplant the jackal from Asia. In Greece I 
never saw nor heard these animals; but among 
the ruins of Ephesus I have heard them by 
hundreds. They haunt ruins, and follow armies. 

' [The critics fell foul of the subject-matter of 
this poem — ■ the guilty passion of a bastard son 
for his father's wife. "The story of Parisina 
includes adultery not to be named" {Literary 
Panorama); while the Eclectic, on grounds of 
taste rather than of morals, gave judgment that 
"the subject of the tale was purely unpleasing" 
— "the impression left simply painful." The 



PARI SIN A 



447 



for the purposes of poetry. The Greek 
dramatists, and some of the best of our 
old English writers, were of a different 
opinion: as Alfieri and Schiller have 
also been, more recently, upon the Con- 
tinent. The following extract will ex- 
plain the facts on which the story is 
founded. The name of Azo is substi- 
tuted for Nicholas, as more metrical. 

"Under the reign of Nicholas III. 
[a.d. 1425] Ferrara was polluted with a 
domestic tragedy. By the testimony of 
a maid, and his own observation, the 
Marquis of Este discovered the incestu- 
ous loves of his wife Parisina, and Hugo 
his bastard son, a beautiful and valiant 
youth. They were beheaded in the 
castle by the sentence of a father and 
husband, who published his shame, and 
survived their execution. He was un- 
fortunate, if they were guilty: if they 
were innocent, he was still more unfor- 
tunate; nor is there any possible situa- 
tion in which I can sincerely approve 
the last act of the justice of a parent." — 
Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, vol. iii. 
p. 470. — [Ed. 1837, p. 830.] 



It is the hour when from the boughs 

The nightingale's high note is heard; 
It is the hour when lovers' vows 

Seem sweet in every whispered word; 
And gentle winds, and waters near, 
Make music to the lonely ear. 
Each flower the dews have lightly wet, 
And in the sky the stars are met. 
And on the wave is deeper blue. 
And on the leaf a browner^hue, 10 

And in the heaven that clear obscure, 
So softly dark, and darkly pure, 
Whicn follows the decline of day, 
As twilight melts beneath the moon 
away. 

II. 

"But it is not to list to the waterfall 
That Parisina leaves her hall, 

modem reader, without being attracted or re- 
pelled by the story, will take pleasure in the 
strength and beauty of the poetic strain. Byron 
may have gone to the " nakedness of history" for 
his facts, but he clothed them in singing robes of 
.a fine and delicate texture.] 



And it is not to gaze on the heavenly 

light 
That the Lady walks in the shadow of 

night, 
And if she sits in Este's bower, 
'Tis not for the sake of its full-blown 

flower; 20 

She listens — but not for the nightin- 
gale — 
Though her ear expects as soft a tale. 
There glides a step through the foliage 

thick. 
And her cheek grows pale, and her heart 

beats quick. 
There whispers a voice through the 

rustling leaves, 
And her blush returns, and her bosom 

heaves : _ 

A moment more — and they shall meet — 
'Tis past — her Lover's at her feet. 



And what unto them is the world beside. 
With all its change of time and tide ? 30 
Its Ii\ang things — its earth and sky — 
Are nothing to their mind and eye. 
And heedless as the dead are they 

Of aught around, above, beneath; 
As if all else had passed away. 

They only for each other breathe; 
Their very sighs are full of joy 

So deep, that did it not decay. 
That happy madness would destroy 

The hearts which feel its fiery sway: 
Of guilt, of peril, do they deem 41 

In that tumultuous tender dream? 
Who that have felt that passion's power. 
Or paused, or feared in such an hour? 
Or thought how brief such moments 

last? 
But yet — they are already past ! 
Alas! we must awake before 
We know such \asion comes no more. 



With manv a lingering look they leave 
The spo't of guilty gladness past: 50 

And though they hope, and vow, they 
grieve. 
As if that parting were the last. 

The frequent sigh — the long embrace — 
The lip that there would cling for ever, 

While gleams on Parisina's face 



448 



PARI SIN A 



The Heaven she fears will not forgive 
her, 
As if each calmly conscious star 
Beheld her frailty from afar — 
The frequent sigh, the long embrace. 
Yet binds them to their trysting-place. 
But it must come, and they must part 6i 
In fearful heaviness of heart, 
With all the deep and shuddering chill 
Which follows fast the deeds of ill. 



And Hugo is gone to his lonely bed, 

To covet there another's bride; 
But she must lay her conscious head 

A husband's trusting heart beside. 
But fevered in her sleep she seems. 
And red her cheek with troubled dreams, 

And mutters she in her unrest 71 
A name she dare not breathe by day, 

And clasps her Lord unto the breast 
Which pants for one away: 
And he to that embrace awakes. 
And, happy in the thought, mistakes 
That dreaming sigh and warm caress. 
For such as he was wont to bless; 
And could in very fondness weep 
O'er her who loves him even in sleep. 80 



He clasped her sleeping to his heart, 

And listened to each broken word: 
He hears — Why doth Prince Azo start, 

As if the Archangel's voice he heard ? 
And well he may — a deeper doom 
Could scarcely thunder o'er his tomb. 
When he shall wake to sleep no more. 
And stand the eternal throne before. 
And well he may — his earthly peace 
Upon that sound is doomed to cease. 90 
That sleeping whisper of a name 
Bespeaks her guilt and Azo's shame. 
And whose that name? that o'er his 

pillow 
Sounds fearful as the breaking billow, 
Which rolls the plank upon the shore. 

And dashes on the pointed rock 
The wretch who sinks to rise no more, — 

So came upon his soul the shock. 
And whose that name ? — 'tis Hugo's — 

his — 
In sooth he had not deemed of this ! — 
'Tis Hugo's, — he, the child of one loi 



He loved — his own all-evil son — 
The offspring of his wayward youth, 
When he betrayed Bianca's truth, 
The maid whose folly could confide 
In him who made her not his bride. 



He plucked his poniard in its sheath. 

But sheathed it ere the point was bare ; 
Howe'er unworthy now to breathe. 
He could not slay a thing so fair — 
At least, not smiling — sleeping — 
there — 1 1 1 

Nay, more: — he did not wake her then, 
But gazed upon her with a glance 
Which, had she roused her from her 
trance, 
Had frozen her sense to sleep again; 
And o'er his brow the burning lamp 
Gleamed on the dew-drops big and 

damp. 
She spake no more — but still she 

slumbered — 
While, in his thought, her days are 
numbered. 



And with the morn he sought and 
found, 120 

In many a tale from those around. 
The proof of all he feared to know, 
Their present guilt — his future woe; 
The long conniving damsels seek 

To save themselves, and would trans- 
fer 
The guilt — the shame — the doom 
— to her: 
Concealment is no more — they speak 
All circumstance which may compel 
Full credence to the tale they tell: 
And Azo's tortured heart and ear 130 
Have nothing more to feel or hear. 



He was not one who brooked delay: 
Within the chamber of his state, 

The Chief of Este's ancient sway 
Upon his throne of judgment sate; 

His nobles and his guards are there, — 

Before him is the sinful pair; 

Both young, — and one how passing 
fair! 

With swordless belt, and fettered hand, 



PARI SIN A 



449 



Oh, Christ ! that thus a son should 
stand 140 

Before a father's face ! 
Yet thus must Hugo meet his sire, 
And hear the sentence of .his ire, 

The tale of his disgrace ! 
And yet he seems not overcome, 
Although, as yet, his voice be dumb. 



And still, — and pale — and silently 

Did Parisina wait her doom; 
How changed since last her speaking 
eye 

Glanced gladness round the glittering 

room, 150 

Where high-born men were proud to 

wait — 
Where Beauty watched to imitate 

Her gentle voice — her lovely mien — 
And gather from her air and gait 

The graces of its Queen: 
Then, — had her eye in sorrow wept, 
A thousand warriors forth had leapt, 
A thousand swords had sheathless 

shone. 
And made her quarrel all their own. 
Now, — what is she ? and what are 
they? 160 

Can she command, or these obey? 
All silent and unheeding now, 
With downcast eyes and knitting brow. 
And folded arms, and freezing air, 
And Hps that scarce their scorn forbear, 
Her knights, her dames — her court is 

there: 
And he — the chosen one, whose lance 
Had yet been couched before her 

glance. 
Who — were his arm a moment free — 
Had died, or gained her Uberty; 170 
The minion of his father's bride, — 
He, too, is fettered by her side; 
Nor sees her swoln and full eye swim 
Less for her own despair than him : 
Those Uds — o'er which the violet vein 
Wandering, leaves a tender stain. 
Shining through the smoothest white 
That e'er did softest kiss invite — 
Now seemed with hot and livid glow 
To press, not shade, the orbs below, 180 
Which glance so heavily, and fill. 
As tear on tear grows gathering still. 



And he for her had also wept. 

But for the eyes that on him gazed: 
His sorrow, if he felt it, slept; 

Stern and erect his brow was raised. 
Whate'er the grief his soul avowed. 
He would not shrink before the 

crowd ; 
But yet he dared not look on her; 
Remembrance of the hours that were — 
His guilt — his love — his present 

state — 191 

His father's wrath, all good men's 

hate — 
His earthly, his eternal fate — 
And hers, — oh, hers ! he dared not 

throw 
One look upon that death-like brow ! 
Else had his rising heart betrayed 
Remorse for all the wreck it made. 



XII. 

And Azo spake: — "But yesterday 

I gloried in a wife and son; 
That dream this m-orning passed away; 

Ere day declines, I shall have none. 
My life must linger on alone; 202 

Well, — let that pass, — there breathes 

not one 
Who would not do as I have done: 
Those ties are broken — not by me; 

Let that too pass; — the doom's pre- 
pared ! 
Hugo, the priest awaits on thee. 

And then — thy crime's reward ! 
Away ! address thy prayers to Heaven ; 

Before its evening stars are met, 210 
Learn if thou there canst be for- 
given; 

Its mercy may absolve thee yet. 
But here, upon the earth beneath, 

There is no spot where thou and I 
Together for an hour could breathe: 

Farewell ! I will not see thee die — 
But thou, frail thing! shalt view his 
head — 

Away! I cannot speak the rest: 

Go! woman of the wanton breast; 
Not I, but thou his blood dost shed : 220 
Go ! if that sight thou canst outlive, 
And joy thee in the life I give." 



45° 



PARI SIN A 



And here stern Azo hid his face — 
For on his brow the swelling vein 
Throbbed as if back upon his brain 
The hot blood ebbed and flowed again ; 
And therefore bowed he for a space, 
And passed his shaking hand along 
His eye, to veil it from the throng; 
While Hugo raised his chained hands, 
And for a brief delay demands 231 
His father's ear: the silent sire 
Forbids not what his words require. 

"It is not that I dread the death — 
For thou hast seen me by thy side 
All redly through the battle ride. 
And that — not once a useless brand — 
Thy slaves have wrested from my 

hand 
Hath shed more blood in cause of 

thine, 
Than e'er can stain the axe of mine : 240 
Thou gav'st, and may'st resume my 
breath, 
A gift for which I thank thee not; 
Nor are my mother's wrongs forgot. 
Her slighted love and ruined name, 
Her offspring's heritage of shame; 
But she is in the grave, where he. 
Her son — thy rival — soon shall be. 
Her broken heart — ■ my severed head — 
Shall witness for thee from the dead 
How trusty and how tender were 250 
Thy youthful love — paternal care. 
'Tis true that I have done thee wrong — 
But wrong for wrong: — this, — 

deemed thy bride, 
The other victim of thy pride, — 
Thou know'st for me was destined 

long; 
Thou saw'st, and coveted'st her 
charms; 
And with thy very crime — my 

birth, — 
Thou taunted'st me — as little worth; 
A match ignoble for her arms; 
Because, forsooth, I could not claim 260 
The lawful heirship of thy name, 
Nor sit on Este's lineal throne: 

Yet, were a few short summers mine. 
My name should more than Este's 
shine 
With honours all my own. 
I had a sword — and have a breast 



That should have won as haught ^ a 

crest 
As ever waved along the line 
Of all these sovereign sires of thine. 
Not always knightly spurs are worn 270 
The brightest by the better born; 
And mine have lanced my courser's 

flank 
Before proud chiefs of princely rank, 
When charging to the cheering cry 
Of ' Este and of Victory ! ' 
I will not plead the cause of crime, 
Nor sue thee to redeem from time 
A few brief hours or days that must 
At length roll o'er my reckless dust; — 
Such maddening moments as my past. 
They could not, and they did not, 
last; — 281 

Albeit my birth and name be base. 
And thy nobility of race 
Disdained to deck a thing like me — 

Yet in my lineaments they trace 

Some features of my father's face, 
And in my spirit — all of thee. 
From thee this tamelessness of heart — ■ 
From thee — nay, wherefore dost thou 

start ? — 
From thee in all their vigour came 290 
My arm of strength, my soul of flame — 
Thou didst not give me life alone, 
But all that made me more thine own. 
See what thy guilty love hath done ! 
Repaid thee with too Hke a son ! 
I am no bastard in my soul, 
For that, like thine, abhorred control; 
And for niy breath, that hasty boon 
Thou gav'st and wilt resume so soon, 
I valued it no more than thou, 300 

When rose thy casque above thy brow, 
And we, all side by side, have striven, 
And o'er the dead our coursers driven: 
The past is nothing — and at last 
The future can but be the past; 
Yet would I that I then had died ! 

For though thou work'dst my mother's 
ill, 
And made thy own my destined bride, 

I feel thou art my father still: 
And harsh as sounds thy hard decree, 

I Haught — haughty. "Away, haught man, 
thou art insulting me." — Shakespeare [Rich- 
ard II., act iv. sc. I, line 254 — 
"No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,"] 



PARI SIN A 



451 



'Tis not unjust, although from thee, 311 
Begot in sin, to die in shame, 
My life begun and ends the same: 
As erred the sire, so erred the son, 
And thou must punish both in one. 
My crime seems worst to human view, 
But God must judge between us too!" 



He ceased — and stood with folded 
arms. 
On which the circling fetters sounded; 
And not an ear but felt as wounded. 
Of all the chiefs that there were 
ranked, 321 

When those dull chains in meeting 
clanked: 
Till Parisina's fatal charms 
Again attracted every eye — 
Would she thus hear him doomed to die ! 
She stood, I said, all pale and still, 
The living cause of Hugo's ill: 
Her eyes unmoved, but full and wide. 
Not once had turned to either side — 
Nor once did those sweet eyelids close. 
Or shade the glance o'er which they 
rose, _ 331 

But round their orbs of deepest blue 
The circling white dilated grew — 
And there with glassy gaze she stood 
As ice were iri her curdled blood; 
But every now and then a tear 
So large and slowly gathered sUd 
From the long dark fringe of that fair 
lid: 
It was a thing to see, not hear ! 
And those who saw, it did surprise, 340 
Such drops could fall from human eyes. 
To speak she thought — the imperfect 

note 
Was choked within her swelling throat. 
Yet seemed in that low hollow groan 
Her whole heart gushing in the tone. 
It ceased — again she thought to speak. 
Then burst her voice in one long shriek. 
And to the earth she fell like stone 
Or statue from its base o'erthrown, 
More like a thing that ne'er had life, — 
A monument of Azo's wife, — 351 

Than her, that living guilty thing. 
Whose every passion was a sting, 
Which urged to guilt, but could not bear 
That guilt's detection and despair. 



But yet she lived — and all too soon 
Recovered from that death-like swoon — 
But scarce to reason — every sense 
Had been o'erstrung by pangs intense; 
And each frail fibre of her brain 360 
(As bowstrings, when relaxed by rain. 
The erring arrow launch aside) 
Sent forth her thoughts all wild and 

wide — 
The past a blank, the future black, 
With glimpses of a dreary track. 
Like lightning on the desert path, 
When midnight storms are mustering 

wrath. 
She feared — she felt that something ill 
Lay on her soul, so deep and chill; 
That there was sin and shame she 

knew, ' 370 

That some one was to die — but who ? 
She had forgotten : — did she breathe ? 
Could this be still the earth beneath, 
The sky above, and men around; 
Or were they fiends who now so 

frowned 
On one, before whose eyes each eye 
Till then had smiled in sympathy? 
All was confused and undefined 
To her all-jarred and wandering mind; 
A chaos of wild hopes and fears: 380 
And now in laughter, now in tears, 
But madly still in each extreme. 
She strove with that convulsive dream; 
For so it seemed on her to break: 
Oh ! vainly must she strive to wake ! 



The Convent bells are ringing, 
But mournfully and slow; 

In the grey square turret swinging, 
With a deep sound, to and fro. 
Heavily to the heart they go ! 390 

Hark ! the hymn is singing — 
The song for the dead below. 
Or the living who shortly shall be so ! 

For a departed being's soul 

The death-hymn peals and the hollow 
bells knoll: 

He is near his mortal goal; 

Kneeling at the Friar's knee. 

Sad to hear, and piteous to see — 

Kneeling on the bare cold ground. 

With the block before and the guards 
around ; 400 



452 



PARI SIN A 



And the headsman with his bare arm 

ready, 
That the blow may be both swift and 

steady, 
Feels if the axe be sharp and true 
Since he set its edge anew: 
While the crowd in a speechless circle 

gather 
To see the Son fall by the doom of the 

Father. 



It is a lovely hour as yet 
Before the summer sun shall set, 
Which rose upon that heavy day, 
And mocked it with his steadiest ray; 
And his evening beams are shed 41 1 
Full on Hugo's fated head, 
As his last confession pouring 
To the monk, his doom deploring 
In penitential holiness, 
He bends to hear his accents bless 
With absolution such as may 
Wipe our mortal stains away. 
That high sun on his head did glisten 
As he there did bow and listen, 420 
And the rings of chestnut hair 
Curled half down his neck so bare; 
But brighter still the beam was thrown 
Upon the axe which near him shone 
With a clear and ghastly gUtter — 
Oh ! that parting hour was bitter ! 
Even the stern stood chilled with awe: 
Dark the crime, and just the law — 
Yet they shuddered as they saw. 



The parting prayers are said and over 
Of that false son, and daring lover ! 431 
His beads and sins are all recounted, 
His hours to their last minute mounted ; 
His mantling cloak before was stripped. 
His bright brown locks must now be 

clipped ; 
'Tis done — all closely are they shorn; 
The vest which till this moment worn — 
The scarf which Parisina gave — 
Must not adorn him to the grave. 
Even that must now be thrown aside. 
And o'er his eyes the kerchief tied; 441 
But no — that last indignity 
Shall ne'er approach his haughty eye. 
All feelings seemingly subdued, 



In deep disdain were half renewed. 
When headsman's hands prepared to 

bind 
Those eyes which would not brook such 

bUnd, 
As if they dared not look on death. 
"No — yours my forfeit blood and 

breath ; 
These hands are chained, but let me 

die 450 

At least with an unshackled eye — 
Strike:" — and as the word he said, 
Upon the block he bowed his head ; 
These the last accents Hugo spoke: 
" Strike " — and flashing fell the stroke — 
Rolled the head — and, gushing, sunk 
Back the stained and heaving trunk. 
In the dust, which each deep vein 
Slaked with its ensanguined rain; 
His eyes and lips a moment quiver, 460 
Convulsed and quick — then fix for 

ever. 
He died, as erring man should die, 
Without display, without parade; 
Meekly had he bowed and prayed, 
As not disdaining priestly aid. 
Nor desperate of all hope on high. 
And while before the Prior kneehng, 
His heart was weaned from earthly feel- 
ing; 
His wrathful Sire — his Paramour — 
What were they in such an hour? 470 
No more reproach, — no more despair, 
No thought but Heaven, — no word but 

prayer — 
Save the few which from him broke. 
When, bared to meet the headsman's 

stroke 
He claimed to die with eyes unbound, 
His sole adieu to those around. 



Still as the lips that closed in death, 
Each gazer's bosom held his breath: 
But yet, afar, from man to man, 
A cold electric shiver ran, 480 

As down the deadly blow descended 
On him whose life and love thus ended; 
And, with a hushing sound com- 
pressed, 
A sigh shrunk back on every breast; 
But no more thrilling noise rose there, 
Beyond the blow that to the block 



PARISINA 



453 



Pierced through with forced and sullen 
shock, 
Save one: — what cleaves the silent air 
So madly shrill, so passing wild ? 
That, as a mother's o'er her child, 490 
Done to death by sudden blow, 
To the sky these accents go. 
Like a soul's in endless woe. 
Through Azo's palace-lattice driven, 
That horrid voice ascends to heaven, 
And every eye is turned thereon; 
But sound and sight alike are gone ! 
It was a woman's shriek — and ne'er 
In madlier accents rose Despair; 
And those who heard it, as it past, 500 
In mercy wished it were the last. 

XIX. 

Hugo is fallen; and, from that hour. 

No more in palace, hall, or bower. 

Was Parisina heard or seen: 

Her name — as if she ne'er had been — 

Was banished from each lip and ear. 

Like words of wantonness or fear; 

And from Prince Azo's voice, by none 

Was mention heard of wife or son; 

No tomb — no memory had they; 510 

Theirs was unconsecrated clay — 

At least the Knight's who died that day. 

But Parisina's fate lies hid 

Like dust beneath the cofl&n lid: 

Whether in Convent she abode. 

And won to heaven her dreary road, 

By blighted and remorseful years 

Of scourge, and fast, and sleepless tears; 

Or if she fell by bowl or steel, 

For that dark love she dared to feel ; 520 

Or if, upon the moment smote, 

She died by tortures less remote. 

Like him she saw upon the block. 

With heart that shared the headsman's 

shock, 
In quickened brokenness that came, 
In pity, o'er her shattered frame. 
None knew — and none can ever know: 
But whatsoe'er its end below. 
Her life began and closed in w^oe ! 



And Azo found another bride, 530 
And goodly sons grew by his side; 
But none so lovely and so brave 
As him who withered in the gr^ve; 



Or if they were — on his cold eye 
Their growth but glanced unheeded by, 
Or noticed with a smothered sigh. 
But never tear his cheek descended, 
And never smile his brow unbended; 
And o'er that fair broad brow were 

wrought 
The intersected lines of tfiought; 540 
Those furrows which the burning share 
Of Sorrow ploughs untimely there; 
Scars of the lacerating mind 
Which the Soul's war doth leave be- 
hind. 
He was past all mirth or woe: 
Nothing more remained below 
But sleepless nights and heavy days, 
A mind all dead to scorn or praise, 
A heart which shunned itself — and yet 
That would not yield, nor could for- 
.get, _ ' 550 

Which, when it least appeared to melt, 
Intensely thought — intensely felt: 
The deepest ice which ever froze 
Can only o'er the surface close; 
The living stream lies quick below, 
And flows, and cannot cease to fiow. 
Still was his sealed-up bosom haunted 
By thoughts which Nature hath im- 
planted; 
Too deeply rooted thence to vanish, 
Howe'er our stifled tears we banish; 560 
When struggling as they rise to start, 
We check those waters of the heart, 
They are not dried — those tears un- 
shed 
But flow back to the fountain head. 
And resting in their spring more pure, 
For ever in its depth endure. 
Unseen — unwept — but uncongealed, 
And cherished most where least re- 
vealed. 
With inward starts of feeling left, 
To throb o'er those of life bereft, 570 
Without the power to fill again _ • 
The desert gap which made his pain; 
Without the hope to meet them where 
United souls shall gladness share: — 
With all the consciousness that he 
Had only passed a just decree. 
That they had wrought their doom of 

ill: — 
Yet Azo's age was wretched still. 
The tainted branches of the tree, 



454 



POEMS OF THE SEPARATION 



If lopped with care, a strength may 
give, 580 

By which the rest shall bloom and live 
All greenly fresh and wildly free: 
But if the hghtning, in its wTath, 
The waving boughs with fury scathe, 
The massy trunk the ruin feels, 
And never more a leaf reveals. 



POEMS OF THE 
SEPARATION.! 



FARE THEE WELL. 

"Alas! they had been friends in youth; 
But whispering tongues can poison truth: 
And Constancy lives in reahns above; 
And Life is thorny; and youth is vain: 
And to be wroth with one we love, 
Doth work like madness in the brain; 

:i: :f: 4: :): 4: * 

But never either found another 

To free the hollow heart from paining — 

They stood aloof, the scars remaining, 

Like cliffs which had been rent asunder; 

A dreary sea now flows between, 

But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, • \ 

Shall wholly do away, I ween, , 

The marks of that which once hath been." 

— Coleridge's Christabel. ^ 

V Fare thee well ! and if for ever, (^ 

Still for ever, fare thee ivell: 
Even though unforgiving, never 

'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel. 
Would that breast were bared before 
thee 

Where thy head so oft hath lain, 
While that placid sleep came o'er thee 

Which thou ne'er canst know again: 
Would that breast, by thee glanced over, 

Every inmost thought could show ! 10 

' [Early in March 1816 a deed of separation 
between Lord Byron and his wife was drawn up 
and signed. Fare Thee Well (March 18), and 
A Sketch (March 29), which had been printed for 
distribution among friends, were published, 
without Byron's knowledge or assent, in tlie 
Champion, Sunday, April 14, and in the course 
of the ensuing week the two poems appeared 
either singly or together in the Sun, the Courier, 
the Times, and other London journals. Hence 
the publicity and wide diffusion of the scandal 
arising from the quarrel and separation.] 



Then thou would'st at last discover 

'Twas not well to spurn it so. 
Though the world for this commend 
thee • — ■ 

Though it smile upon the blow, 
Even its praises must offend thee,' 

Founded on another's woe: 
Though my many faults defaced me. 

Could no other arm be found. 
Than the one which once embraced me, 

To inflict a cureless wound? 20 

Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not — 

Love may sink by slow decay, 
But by sudden wrench, believe not 

Hearts can thus be torn away: 
Still thine own its life retaineth — 

Still must mine, though bleeding, 
beat; 
And the undying thought which paineth 

Is — that we no more may meet. 
These are words of deeper sorrow 

Than the wail above the dead; 30 
Both shall live — but every morrow 

Wake us from a widowed bed. 
And when thou Vv'ould'st solace gather — 

Wlien our child's first accents flow — 
'- Wilt thou teach her to say "Father!" 

Though his care she must forego? 
When her little hands shall press 
thee — 

When her lip to thine is pressed — 
Think of him whose prayer shall bless 
thee — 

Think of him thy love had blessed ! 
Should her lineaments resemble 41 

Those thou never more may'st see. 
Then thy heart will softly tremble 

With a pulse yet true to me. 
All my faults perchance thou knowest — 

All my madness — none can know; 
All my hopes — where'er thou goest — 

Wither — yet with thee they go. 
Every feeling hath been shaken; 

Pride — which not a world could 
bow — 50 

Bows to thee — by thee forsaken. 

Even my soul forsakes me now. 
But 'tis done — all words are idle — 

Words from me are vainer still; 
But the thoughts we cannot bridle 

Force their way without the will. 
Fare thee well ! thus disunited — 

Torn from every nearer tie — 



POEMS OF THE SEPARATION 



455 



Seared in heart — and lone — and 

blighted — 
More than this I scarce can die. 60 

[First draft, March 18, 1816.] 
First printed as published, April 4, 

1816.] 

A SKETCH.! 

" Honest — honest lago ! 
If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee." 
— Shakespe.are. 

Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred. 

Promoted thence to deck her mistress' 
head; 

Next — for some gracious service un- 
expressed, 

And from its wages only to be guessed — 

Raised from the toilet to the table, — 
where 

Her wondering betters wait behind her 
chair. 

With eye unmoved, and forehead un- 
abashed. 

She dines from off the plate she lately 
washed. 

Quick with the tale, and ready with the 
lie. 

The genial confidante and general spy — 

Who could, ye gods ! her next employ- 
ment guess — II 

An only infant's earliest governess ! 

She taught the child to read, and taught 
so well. 

That she herself, by teaching, learned to 
spell. 

An a.dept next in penmanship she grows. 

As many a nameless slander deftly 
shows : 

What she had made the pupil of her 
art. 

None know — but that high Soul se- 
cured the heart. 

And panted for the truth it could not 
hear, 

' [The original of A Sketch was a Mrs Cler- 
, mont, the daughter of a respectable tradesman, 
who had been employed by Lady Byron's mother, 
at first as lady's maid, and afterwards as nursery- 
governess to her only child. Bvron was led to 
believe that she had made mischief, and was, in 
fact, the cause of the separation, by a statement 
(perhaps statements) of his valet's wife, Mrs 
Fletcher. There is reason to believe that he was 
misinformed and mistaken.] 



breast and undeluded 

ear. 20 

Foiled was perversion by that youthful 

mind, 
Which Flattery fooled not. Baseness 

could not blind. 
Deceit infect not, near Contagion soil. 
Indulgence weaken, nor Example spoil. 
Nor mastered Science tempt her to look 

down 
On humbler talents with a pitying frown, 
Nor Genius swell, nor Beauty render 

vain, 
Nor Envy ruffle to retaliate pain, 
Nor Fortune change. Pride raise, nor 

Passion bow, 
Nor Virtue teach austerity — till now. 
Serenely purest of her sex that live, 31 
But wanting one sweet weakness — to 

forgive ; 
Too shocked at faults her soul can 

never know. 
She deems that all could be like her 

below: 
Foe to all vice, yet hardly Virtue's 

friend — 
For Virtue pardons those she would / 

amend. 



\ Fo 



.^ 



But to the theme, now laid aside too 

long. 
The baleful burthen of this honest song, 
Though all her former functions are no 

more. 
She rules the circle which she served 

before. 40 

If mothers — none know why — before 

her quake; 
If daughters dread her for the mother's 

sake; 
If early habits — those false links, 

which bind 
At times the loftiest to the meanest 

mind — 
Have given her power too deeply to instil 
The angry essence of her deadly will; 
If like a snake she steal within your 

walls. 
Till the black slime betray her as she 

crawls ; 
If like a viper to the heart she wind, 
And leave the venom there she did not 

find; 50 



45^ 



POEMS OF THE SEPARATION 



What marvel that this hag of hatred 

works 
Eternal evil latent as she lurks, 
To make a Pandemonium where she 

dwells, 
And reign the Hecate of domestic 

hells? 
Skilled by a touch to deepen Scandal's 

tints 
With all the kind mendacity of hints. 
While mingling truth with falsehood — 

sneers with smiles — 
A thread of candour with a web of wiles; 
A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken 

seeming, 
To hide her bloodless heart's soul- 
hardened scheming; 60 
A lip of lies; a face formed to conceal. 
And, without feeling, mock at all who 

feel: 
With a vile mask the Gorgon would dis- 
own, — 
A cheek of parchment, and an eye of 

stone. 
Mark, how the channels of her yellow 

blood 
Ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to 

mud, 
Cased like the centipede in saffron mail, 
Or darker greenness of the scorpion's 

scale — 
(For drawn from reptiles only may we 

trace 
Congenial colours in that soul or face) — 
Look on her features! and behold her 

mind 71 

As in a mirror of itself defined: 
Look on the picture ! deem it not o'er- 

charged — 
There is no trait which might not be 

enlarged: 
Yet true to "Nature's journeymen," 

who made 
This monster when their mistress left 

off trade — 
This female dog-star of her little sky. 
Where all beneath her influence droop 

or die. 

Oh ! wretch without a tear — without 

a thought, 
Save joy above the ruin thou hast 

wrought — 80 



The time shall come, nor long remote, 

when thou 
Shalt feel far more than thou inflictest 

now; 
Feel for thy vile self-loving self in vain, 
And turn thee howling in unpitied pain. 
May the strong curse of crushed affec- 
tions light 
Back on thy bosom with reflected blight ! 
And make thee in thy leprosy of mind 
As loathsome to thyself as to mankind ! 
Till all thy self-thoughts curdle into 

hate. 
Black — as thy will for others would 

create : 90 

Till thy hard heart be calcined into dust, 
And thy soul welter in its hideous crust. 
Oh, may thv grave be sleepless as the 

bed, 
The widowed couch of fire, that thou 

hast spread ! 
Then, when thou fain wouldst weary 

Heaven with prayer, 
Look on thine earthly victims — and 

despair ! 
Down to the dust ! — and, as thou rott'st 

away, 
Even worms shall perish on thy poison- 
ous clay. 
But for the love I bore, and still must 

bear. 
To her thy malice from all ties would 

tear — ■ 100 

Thy name — thy human name — to 

every eye 
The climax of all scorn should hang on 

high, 
/ Exalted o'er thy less abhorred com^ 
( peers — 

• And festering in the infamy of years. 
[First draft, March 29, 1816. 
First printed as published, April 4, 

1816.] 

STANZAS TO AUGUSTA.^ 

When all around grew drear and dark, 
And Reason half withheld her ray — 

And Hope but shed a dying spark 
Which more misled my lonely way; 

' [Byron's half-sister, the Honourable Augusta 
Byron (1783-1851), was the daughter of Captain 
John Byron by his first wife, Amelia D'Arcy, 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 



457 



^ 



In that deep midnight of the mind, 

And that internal strife of heart, 
When dreading to be deemed too kind. 

The weak despair — the cold depart; 
When Fortune changed — and Love 
fled far, 

And Hatred's shafts flew thick and 
fast, ID 

Thou wert the solitary star 

Which rose and set not to the last. 
Oh ! blest be thine unbroken light ! 

That watched me as a Seraph's eye, 
And stood between me and the night, 

For ever shining sweetly nigh. 
And when the cloud upon us came, 

W' hich strove to blacken o'er thy ray — 
Then purer spread its gentle flame, 
N. And dashed the darkness all away. 20 
Still may thy Spirit dwell on mine. 

And teach it what to brave or brook — 
There's more in one soft word of thine 

Than in the world's defied rebuke. 
Thou stood'st, as stands a lovely tree, 

That still unbroke, though gently bent, 
Still waves with fond fidelity 

Its boughs above a monument. 
The winds might rend — the skies 
might pour. 

But there thou wert — and still 
wouldst be 30 

Devoted in the stormiest hour 

To shed thy weeping leaves o'er me. 
But thou and thine shall know no blight, 

Whatever fate on me may fall; 
For Heaven in sunshine will requite 

The kind — and thee the most of all. 
Then let the ties of baffled love 

Be broken — thine will never break; 
Thy heart can feel — but will not move ; 

Thy soul, though soft, will never 
shake. 40 

And these, when all was lost beside, 

Were found and still are fixed in 
thee; — 
And bearing still a breast so tried, 

Earth is no desert — ev'n to me. 

[First published, Poems, 1816.] 

Baroness Conyers in her own right, the divorced 
wife of Francis, Marquis of Carmarthen, after- 
wards fifth Duke of Leeds. She married (1807) 
her first cousin, Colonel George Leigh of the 
Tenth Dragoons, son of General Charles Leigh, 
by Frances, daughter of the Admiral, the 
Honourable John Byron.] 



THE PRISONER OF 
CHILLON.i 



. SONNET ON CHILLON. 

Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind! 
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty ! thou 

art: 
For there thy habitation is the heart — 
The heart which love of thee alone can 

bind; 
And when thy sons to fetters are con- 
signed — 
To fetters, and the damp vault's day- 
less gloom, 
Their country conquers with their 
martyrdom. 
And Freedom's fame finds wings on 

every wind. 
Chillon ! thy prison is a holy place. 
And thy sad floor an altar — for 
'twas trod, 
Until his very steps have left a trace 
Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a 
sod, 
By Bonnivard ! — May none those 
marks efface ! 
For they appeal from tyranny to God, 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

When this poem was composed, I was 
not suflftciently aware of the history of 
Bonnivard,^ or I should have endeav- 
oured to dignify the subject by an at- 
tempt to celebrate his courage and his 
virtues. With some account of his life 
I have been furnished, by the kindness 
of a citizen of that repubUc, which is 
still proud of the memory of a man 
worthy of the best age of ancient free- 
dom: — 

"Francois De Bonnivard, fils de 
Louis de Bonnivard, originaire de 

' [The Prisoner of Chillon was written at 
Ouchy, near Lausanne, at the end of June, and 
published, December 5, 1816.] 

2 [Bonivard. There is no contemporary 
authority for Bonnivard.! 



45^ 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLOX 



Seyssel et Seigneur de Lunes, naquit en 
1496. II fit ses etudes a Turin: en 
1 5 10 Jean Aime de Bon-nivard, son 
oncle, lui resigna le Prieure de St 
Victor, qui aboutissoit aux murs de 
Geneve, et qui formait un benefice 
considerable. ... 

"Ce grand homme — (Bonnivard 
merite ce titre par la force de son a me, la 
droiture de son cceur, la noblesse de ses 
intentions, la sagesse de ses conseils, 
le courage de ses demarches, I'etendue 
de ses connaissances, et la vivacite de 
son esprit), — ce grand homme, qui 
excitera I'admiration de tous ceux 
qu'une vertu heroique peut encore 
emouvoir, inspirera encore la plus vive 
reconnaissance dans les coeurs des 
Genevois qui arment Geneve. Bonni- 
vard en fut toujours un des plus fermes 
appuis: pour assurer la liberte de notre 
Republique, il ne craignit pas de perdre 
souvent la sienne ; il oublia son repos ; il 
meprisa ses richesses; il ne negligea rien 
pour affermir le bonheur d'une patrie 
qu'il honora de son choix: des ce 
moment il la cherit comme le plus zele 
de ses citoyens; il la servit avec I'in- 
trepidite d'un heros, et il ecrivit son 
Histoire avec la naivete d'un philosophe 
et la chaleur d'un patriote. 

"II dit dans le commencement de son 
Histoire de Geneve, que, des qu'il eut 
commonce de lire I histoire des nations, 
il se sentit entraine par son gout pour les 
Repuhliques, dont il epousa toujours les 
inter ets: c'est ce gout pour la liberte qui 
lui fit sans doute adopter Geneve pour 
sa patrie. . . . 

• "Bonnivard, encore jeune, s'annonca 
hautement comme le defenseur de 
Geneve contre le Due de Savoye et 
I'Eveque. . . . 

"En 1519, Bonnivard devient le 
martyr de sa patrie: Le Due de 
Savoye etant entre dans Geneve avec 
cinq cents hommes, Bonnivard craint le 
ressentiment du Due; il voulut se 
retirer a Fribourg pour en eviter les 
suites; mais il fut trahi par deux 
hommes qui I'accompagnaient, et con- 
duit par ordre du Prince a Grolee, ou 
il resta prisonnier pendant deux ans. 



Bonnivard etait malheureux dans ses 
voyages: comme ses malheurs n'avaient 
point ralenti son zele pour Geneve, 
il- etait toujours un ennemi redoutable 
pour ceux qui la menag;aient, et par 
consequent il devait etre expose a leurs 
coups. II fut rencontre en 1530 sur le k 
Jura par des voleurs, qui le depouillerent, ■ 
et qui le mirent encore entre les mains 
du Due de Savoye: ce Prince le fit en 
fermer dans le Chateau de Chillon, ou 
il resta sans etre interroge jusques en 
1536; il fut alors delivre par les Bernois, 
qui s'emparerent du Pays-de-Vaud. 

"Bonnivard, en sortant de sa cap- 
tivite, eut le plaisir de trouver Geneve 
libre et reformee: la Republique s'em- 
pressa de lui temoigner sa reconnais- 
sance, et de le dedommager des maux 
qu'il avoit soufferts; elle le rejut 
Bourgeois de la ville au m^ois de Juin, 
1536; elle lui donna la maison habitee 
autrefois par le Vicaire-General, et elle 
lui assigna une pension de deux cents 
ecus d'or tant qu'il sejournerait a 
Geneve. II fut admis dans le Conseil 
des Deux-Cent en 1537. 

"Bonnivard n'a pas fini d'etre utile: 
apres avoir travaille a rendre Geneve 
libre, il reussit a la rendre tolerante. 
Bonnivard engagea le Conseil a 
accorder [aux ecclesiastiques et aux 
paysans] un tems suffisant pour 
examiner les propositions qu'on leur 
faisait; il reussit par sa douceur: on 
preche toujours le Christianisme avec 
succes quand on le preche avec 
charite. . . . 

"Bonnivard fut savant: ses manu- 
scrits, qui sont dans la bibHotheque 
publique, prouvent qu'il avait bien lu 
les auteurs classiques Latins, et qu'il 
avait approfondi la theologie et 1' histoire. 
Ce grand homme aimait les sciences, et 
il croyait qu'elles pouvaient faire la 
gloire de Geneve; aussi il ne negligea 
rien pour les fixer dans cette ville 
naissante; en 1551 il donna sa bibHo- 
theque au public; elle fut le com- 
mencement de notre bibHotheque pub- 
lique; et ces Hvres sont en partie les 
rares et belles editions du quinzieme 
siecle qu'on voit dans notre collection. 



THE PRISOXER OF CHILLON 



459 



Enfin, pendant la meme annee, ce bon 
patriote institua la Repubiique son 
heritiere, a condition qu'elle employerait 
ses biens a entretenir le college dont on 
projettait la fondation. 

"II parait que Bonnivard mourut en 
1570; mais on ne peut I'assurer, parce 
qu'il y a une lacune dans le Necrologe 
depuis le mois de Juillet, 1570, jusques 
en 1571-" — [Hist ire Li tf era ire de 
Geuei'e, par Jean Senebier (1741-1809), 
1-786,1.131-137.] 



My hair is grey, but not with years. 
Nor grew it v\-hite 

In a single night, ^ 
As men's have grown from sudden fears: 
My limbs are bowed, though not vdih 
toil. 

But rusted vnih a vile repose, 
For they have been a dungeon's spoil. 

And mine has been the fate of those 
To whom the goodly earth and air 
Are banned, and barred — forbidden 
fare; 10 

But this was for my father's faith 
I suffered chains and courted death; 
That father perished at the stake 
For tenets he would not forsake; 
And for the same his hneal race 
In darkness found a dwelhng place; 
We were seven — who now are one, 

Six in youth, and one in age, 
Finished as they had begun. 

Proud of Persecution's rage; 20 

One in fire, and two in field, 
Their belief with blood have sealed. 
Dying as their father died, 
For the God their foes denied; — 
Three were in a dungeon cast. 
Of whom this wreck is left the last. 



There are seven pillars of Gothic mould,^ 

' Ludovico Sforza, and others. — The same 
is asserted of Marie Antoinette's, the • wife of 
Louis the Sixteenth, though not in quite so short 
a period. Grief is said to have the same effect; 
to such, and not to fear, this change in hers was. 
to be attributed. 

2 ["This is really so; the loop-holes that are 



In Chillon's dungeons deep and old, 
There are seven columns, massy and 

grey, 
Dim with a dull imprisoned ray, 30 
A sunbeam which hath lost its wav. 
And through the crevice and the cleft 
Of the thick wall is fallen and left; 
Creeping o'er the floor so damp. 
Like a marsh's meteor lamp: 
And in each pillar there is a ring,^ 

And in each ring there is a chain; 
That iron is a cankering thing. 

For in these limbs its teeth remain, 
With marks that will not wear awav, 40 
Till I have done ^^•ith this new day, 
Which now is painful to these eyes, 
Which have not seen the sun so rise 
For years — I cannot count them o'er, 
I lost their long and heavy score 
When my last brother dropped and died. 
And I lay Uving by his side. 



They chained us each to a column 

stone. 
And we were three — yet, each alone ; 
We could not move a single pace, 50 
We could not see each other's face. 
But with that pale and h\-id light 
That made us strangers in our sight: 
And thus together — yet apart. 
Fettered in hand, but joined in heart, 
'Twas still some solace in the dearth 
Of the pure elements of earth. 
To hearken to each other's speech. 
And each turn comforter to each 

partly stopped up are now but long crences or 
clefts, but Bonivard. from the spot where he was 
chained, could, perhaps, never get an idea of the 
loveliness and variety of radiating light which the 
sunbeam shed at different hours of the day. . . . 
In the morning this light is of luminous and 
transparent shining, which the curves of the 
vatilts send back all along the hall. During the 
afternoon the hall assumes a much deeper and 
warmer colouring, and the blue transparency of 
the morning disappears; but at eventide, after 
the Sim has set behind the Jura, the scene changes 
to the deep glow of fire. . . ." — Guide to the 
Castle of ChiUflfi, by A. Xaef, 1896, pp. 35, 36.] 
'[This "... is not exactly so: the third 
column does not seem to have ever had a ring, 
but the traces of these rings are very visible in 
the two first columns from the entrance. . . . 
The fifth column is said to be the one to which 
Bonivard was chained during four years. By- 
ron's name is carved on the southern side of 
tl.o third column."] 



460 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 



With some new hope, or legend old, 60 

Or song heroically bold; 

But even these at length grew cold. 

Our voices took a dreary tone. 

An echo of the dungeon stone, 

A grating sound, not full and free, 
As they of yore were wont to be: 
It might be fancy — but to me 

They never sounded Uke our own. 



I was the eldest of the three. 

And to uphold and cheer the rest 70 
I ought to do — and did my best — 
And each did well in his degree. 

The youngest, whom my father loved. 
Because our mother's brow was given 
To him, with eyes as blue as heaven — 

For him my soul was sorely moved: 
And truly might it be distressed 
To see such bird in such a nest; 
For he was beautiful as day — 

(When day was beautiful to me 80 
As to young eagles, being free) — 
A polar day, which will not see 
A sunset till its summer's gone, 

Its sleepless summer of long light. 
The snow-clad offspring of the sun: 

And thus he was as pure and bright, 
And in his natural spirit gay. 
With tears for naught but others' ills. 
And then they flowed Hke mountain rills. 
Unless he could assuage the woe 90 
Which he abhorred to view below. 



The other was as pure of mind, 
But formed to combat with his kind; 
Strong in his frame, and of a mood 
Which 'gainst the world in war had 

stood, 
And perished in the foremost rank 

With joy : — but not in chains to pine : 
His spirit withered with their clank, 

I saw it silently decline — 

And so perchance in sooth did mine: 
But yet I forced it on to cheer loi 

Those relics of a home so dear. 
He was a hunter of the hills. 

Had followed there the deer and 
wolf; 
To him this dungeon was a gulf. 
And fettered feet the worst of ills. 



Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls: 
A thousand feet in depth below 
Its massy waters meet and flow; 
Thus much the fathom-Hne was sent no 
From Chillon's snow-white battlement, 

Which round about the wave inthralls : 
A double dungeon wall and wave 
Have made — and like a living grave. 
Below the surface of the lake ^ 
The dark vault lies wherein we lay: 
We heard it ripple night and day; 

Sounding o'er our heads it knocked; 
And I have felt the winter's spray 
Wash through the bars when winds 
were high 120 

And wanton in the happy sky; 

And then the very rock hath rocked, 

And I have felt it shake, unshocked, 



' The Chateau de Chillon is situated between 
Clarens and Villeneuve, which last is at one 
extremity of the Lake of Geneva. On its left 
are the entrances of the Rhone, and opposite are 
the heights of Meillerie and the range of Alps 
above Boveret and St Gingo. Near it, on a hill 
behind, is a torrent: below it, washing its walls, 
the lake has been fathomed to the depth of 800 
feet, French measure: within it are a range of 
dungeons, in which the early reformers, and 
subsequently prisoners of state, were confined. 
Across one of the vaults is a beam black with 
age, on which we were informed that the con- 
demned were formerly executed. In the cells 
are seven pillars, or, rather, eight, one being 
half merged in the wall; in some of these are 
rings for the fetters and the fettered: in the 
pavement the steps of Bonnivard have left their 
traces. He was confined here several years. 
It is by this castle that Rousseau has fixed the 
catastrophe of his Heloise, in the rescue of one 
of her children by Julie from the water; the 
shock of which, and the illness produced by the 
immersion, is the cause of her death. The 
chateau is large, and seen along the lake for a 
great distance. The walls are white. 

[The belief or tradition that Bonivard's 
prison is "below the surface of the lake," for 
which Shelley as well as Rousseau is responsible, 
but which Byron only records in verse, may be 
traced to a statement attributed to Bonivard 
himself, who says {Memoir es, etc., 1845, iv. 268) 
that the commandant thrust him "en unes 
croctes desquelles le fond estoit plus bas que le 
lac sur lequel Chillon estoit citue." As a matter 
of fact, "the level [of les souterrains] is now 
three metres higher than the level of the water, 
and even if we take off the difference arising from 
the fact that the level of the lake was once much 
higher, and that the floor of the halls has been 
raised, still the halls must originally have been 
built about two metres above the surface of the 
lake." — Guide, etc., pp. 28, sg.] 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 



461 



Because I could have smiled to see 
The death that would have set me free. 

VII. 

I said my nearer brother pined, 
I said his mighty heart declined, 
He loathed and put away his food; 
It was not that 'twas coarse and rude, 
For we were used to hunter's fare, 130 
And for the like had little care: 
The milk drawn from the mountain goat 
Was changed for water from the moat, 
Our bread was such as captives' tears 
Have moistened many a thousand years, 
Since man first pent his fellow men 
Like brutes within an iron den; 
But what were these to us or him ? 
These wasted not his heart or limb; 
My brother's soul was of that mould 
Which in a palace had grown cold, 141 
Had his free breathing been denied 
The range of the steep mountain's side; 
But why delay the truth ? — he died. 
I saw, and could not hold his head. 
Nor reach his dying hand — nor dead, — 
Though hard I strove, but strove in 

vain. 
To rend and gnash my bonds in twain. 
He died — and they unlocked his chain, 
And scooped for him a shallow grave 150 
Even from the cold earth of our cave. 
I begged them, as a boon, to lay 
His corse in dust whereon the day 
Might shine — it w^as a foolish thought, 
But then within my brain it wrought. 
That even in death his freeborn breast 
In such a dungeon could not rest. 
I might have spared my idle prayer — 
They coldly laughed — and laid him 

there: 
The flat and turfless earth above 160 
The being we so much did love; 
His empty chain above it leant, 
Such Murder's fitting monument ! 



But he, the favourite and the flower. 
Most cherished since his natal hour. 
His mother's image in fair face, 
The infant love of all his race, 
His martyred father's dearest thought, 
My latest care, for whom I sought 
To hoard my life, that his might be 1 70 



Less wretched now, and one day free; 

He, too, who yet had held untired 

A spirit natural or inspired — 

He, too, was struck, and day by day 

Was withered on the stalk away. 

Oh, God ! it is a fearful thing 

To see the human soul take wing 

In any shape, in any mood : 

I've seen it rushing forth in blood, 

I've seen it on the breaking ocean ' 180 

Strive with a swoln convulsive motion, 

I've seen the sick and ghastly bed 

Of Sin deUrious with its dread: 

But these were horrors — this was woe 

Unmixed with such — but sure and 

slow : 
He faded, and so calm and meek, 
So softly worn, so sweetly weak, 
So tearless, yet so tender — kind, 
And grieved for those he left behind; 
With all the while a cheek whose bloom 
Was as a mockery of the tomb, 191 
Whose tints as gently sunk away 
As a departing rainbow's ray; 
An eye of most transparent light, 
That almost made the dungeon bright; 
And not a word of murmur — not 
A groan o'er his untimely lot, — 
A little talk of better days, 
A little hope my own to raise, 
For I was sunk in silence — lost 200 
In this last loss, of all the most; 
And then the sighs he would suppress 
Of fainting Nature's feebleness. 
More slowly drawn, grew less and less: 
I listened, but I could not hear; 
I called, for I was wild with fear; 
I knew 'twas hopeless, but my dread 
Would not be thus admonished; 
I called, and thought I heard a sound — 
I burst my chain with one strong 

bound, 210 

And rushed to him: — I found him not, 
/ only stirred in this black spot, 
/ only lived, / only drew 
The accursed breath of dungeon-dew; 
The last, the sole, the dearest link 
Between me and the eternal brink. 
Which bound me to my failing race, 
Was broken in this fatal place. 
One on the earth, and one beneath — 
My brothers — both had ceased to 

breathe! 220 



462 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 



I took that hand which lay so still, 
Alas! my own was full as chill; 
I had not strength to stir, or strive. 
But felt that I was still alive — 
A frantic feeling, when we know 
That what we love shall ne'er be so. 

I know not why 

I could not die, 
I had no earthly hope — but faith. 
And 'that forbade a selfish death. 230 



What next befell me then and there 

I know not well — I never knew — 
First came the loss of light, and air, 

And then of darkness too: 
I had no thought, no feeling — none — 
Among the stones I stood a stone, 
And was, scarce conscious what I wist. 
As shrubless crags within the mist; 
For all was blank, and bleak, and grey; 
It was not night — it was not day; 240 
It was not even the dungeon-light. 
So hateful to my heavy sight, 
But vacancy absorbing space, 
And fixedness — without a place ; 
There were no stars — no earth — no 

time — 
No check — no change — no good — no 

crime — 
But silence, and a stirless breath 
Which neither was of life nor death; 
A sea of stagnant idleness, 
Bhnd, boundless, mute, and motion- 
less ! 250 

X. 

A light broke in upon my brain, — 

It was the carol of a bird; 
It ceased, and then it came again. 

The sweetest song ear ever heard. 
And mine was thankful till my eyes 
Ran over with the glad surprise. 
And they that moment could not see 
I was the mate of misery; 
But then by dull degrees came back 
My senses to their wonted track; 260 
I saw the dungeon walls and floor 
Close slowly round me as before, 
I saw the glimmer of the sun 
Creeping as it before had done, 
But through the crevice where it came 
That bird was perched, as fond and tame, 



And tamer than upon the tree; 
A lovely bird, with azure wings, 
And song that said a thousand things, 

And seemed to say them all for me ! 
I never saw its Uke before, 271 

I ne'er shall see its likeness more: 
It seemed like me to want a mate, 
But was not half so desolate, 
And it was come to love me when 
None lived to love me so again. 
And cheering from my dungeon's 

brink, 
Had brought me back to feel and think. 
I know not if it late were free. 

Or broke its cage to perch on mine, 
But knowing well captivity, 281 

Sweet bird ! I could not wish for 
thine ! 
Or if it were, in winged guise, 
A visitant from Paradise; 
For — Heaven forgive that thought ! the 

while 
Which made me both to weep and 

smile — 
I sometimes deemed that it might be 
My brother's soul come down to me; 
But then at last away it flew. 
And then 'twas mortal well I knew, 290 
For he would never thus have flown — 
And left me twice so doubly lone, • — • 
Lone — as the corse within its shroud. 
Lone — as a solitary cloud, 

A single cloud on a sunny day. 
While all the rest of heaven is clear, 
A frown upon, the atmosphere. 
That hath no business to appear 

When skies are blue, and earth is gay. 



A kind of change came in my fate, 300 

My keepers grew compassionate; 

I know not what had made them so. 

They were inured to sights of woe, 

But so it was: — my broken chain 

With links unfastened did remain, 

And it was liberty to stride 

Along my cell from side to side. 

And up and down, and then athwart. 

And tread it over every part; 

And round the pillars one by one, 310 

Returning where my walk begun. 

Avoiding only, as I trod, 

]My brothers' graves without a sod; 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 



46; 



For if I thought with heedless tread 
My step profaned their lowly bed, 
My breath came gaspingly aud thick, 
And my crushed heart felt blind and 
sick. 



I made a footing in the wall, 

It was not therefrom to escape, 
For I had buried one and all, 320 

Who loved me in a human shape; 
And the whole earth would henceforth 

be 
A wider prison unto me: 
No child — no sire — no kin had I, 
No partner in my misery; 
I thought of this, and I was glad. 
For thought of them had made me 

mad; 
But I was curious to ascend 
To my barred windows, and to bend 
Once more, upon the mountains high. 
The quiet of a loving eye. 331 

XIII. 

I saw them — and they were the 

same, 
They were not changed like me in 

frame ; 
I saw their thousand years of snow 
On high — their wide long lake be- 
low, 
And the blue Rhone in fullest flow; 
I heard the torrents leap and gush 
O'er channelled rock and broken bush; ^ 
I saw the white-walled distant town. 
And whiter sails go skimming down ; 340 
And then there was a little isle,^ 
Which in my very face did smile. 

The only one in view; 
A small green isle, it seemed no more, 
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor, 
But in it there w^ere three tall- trees, 
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze. 
And by it there were waters flowing, 

' [Villeneuve.] 

2 Between the entrances of the Rhone and 
Villeneuve, not far from Chillon, is a very small 
island [He de Paix]; the only one I could per- 
ceive in my voyage round and over the lake, 
within its circumference. It contains a few 
trees (I think not above three), and from its 
singleness and diminutive size has a peculiar 
effect upon the view. 



And on it there were young flowers 
growing. 
Of gentle breath and hue. 350 

The fish swam by the castle wall. 
And they seemed joyous each and all; 
The eagle rode the rising blast, 
Methought he never flew so fast 
x\s then to me he seemed to fly; 
And then new tears came in my eye, 
And I felt troubled — and would fain 
I had not left my recent chain; 
And when I did descend again, 
The darkness of my dim abode 360 
Fell on me as a heavy load; 
It was as is a new-dug grave, 
Closing o'er one we sought to save, — 
And yet my glance, too much opprest, 
Had almost need of such a rest. 



It might be months, or years, or 

days — 
I kept no count, I took no note — 
I had no hope my eyes to raise. 

And clear them of their dreary mote; 

At last men came to set me free; 370 

I asked not why, and recked not 

where ; 
It was at length the same to me, 
Fettered or fetterless to be, 
I learned to love despair. 
And thus when they appeared at last, 
And all m.y bonds aside were cast, 
These heavy walls to me had grown 
A hermitage — and all my own ! 
And half I felt as they were come 
To tear me from a second home : 380 
With spiders I had friendship made. 
And watched them in their sullen 

trade. 
Had seen the mice by moonlight 

play. 
And why should I feel less than 

they ? 
We were all inmates of one place, 
And I, the monarch of each race. 
Had power to kill — yet, strange to 

tell ! 
In quiet we had learned to dwell; 
My very chains and I grew friends, 
So much a long communion tends 390 
To make us what we are ; — even I 
Regained my freedom with a sigh. 



POEMS OF JULY-SEPTEMBER, 1816 



POEMS OF JULY- 
SEPTEMBER, 1816. 



THE DREAM. 



Our life is twofold: Sleep hath its own 
world, 

A boundary between the things mis- 
named 

Death and existence: Sleep hath its own 
world, 

And a wide realm of wild reality, 

And dreams in their development have 
breath. 

And tears, and tortures, and the touch of 

Joy; 

They leave a weight upon our waking 

thoughts, 
They take a weight from off our waking 

toils, 
They do divide our being; they be- 
come 
A portion of ourselves as of our time, 10 
And look like heralds of Eternity; 
They pass like spirits of the past, — they 

speak 
Like Sibyls of the future; they have 

power — 
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain; 
They make us what we were not — 

what they will, 
And shake us with the vision that's 

gone by. 
The dread of vanished shadows — Are 

they so? 
Is not the past all shadow — What are 

they? 
Creations of the mind? — The mind 

can make 
Substance, and people planets of its 

own 20 

With beings brighter than have been, 

and give 
A breath to forms which can outUve all 

flesh. 
I would recall a vision which I dreamed 

' [The Dream was written at the Villa Dio- 
dati, Geneva, July, 1816. It was published 
with The Prisoner of Chillon, Dec. 5, i8i6.] 



Perchance in sleep — for, in itself, a 

thought, 
A slumbering thought, is capable of 

years, 
And curdles a long life into one hour. 



I saw two beings in the hues of youth 
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hMI, 
Green and of mild decUvity, the last 
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of 

such, 30 

Save that there was no sea to lave its 

base. 
But a most living landscape, and the 

wave 
Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes 

of men 
Scattered at intervals, and wreathing 

smoke 
Arising from such rustic roofs ; — the 

hill 
Was crowned with a peculiar diadem ^ 
Of trees, in circular array, so fixed. 
Not by the sport of nature, but of man: 
These two, a maiden and a youth, were 

there 
Gazing — the one on all that was 

beneath 40 

Fair as herself — but the Boy gazed on 

her; 
And both were young, and one was 

beautiful: 
And both were young — yet not alike 

in youth. 
As the sweet moon on the horizon's 

verge. 
The Maid was on the eve of Woman- 
hood; 
The Boy had fewer summers, but his 

heart 
Had far outgrown his years, and to his 

eye 
There was but one beloved face on 

earth. 
And that was shining on him: he had 

looked 
Upon it till it could not pass away; 50 

' ["Diadem Hill" is the cape or rounded spur 
of the long ridge of Howatt Hill which lies about 
half a mile to the south-east of Annesley Hall, at 
that time the property of Byron's distant cousin 
and near neighbour, Mary Anne Chaworth.] 



THE DREAM 



465 



He had no breath, no being, but in hers; 
She was his voice; he did not speak to 

her, 
But trembled on her words; she was 

his sight. 
For his eye followed hers, and saw with 

hers. 
Which coloured all his objects: — he 

had ceased 
To live within himself; she was his life, 
The ocean to the river of his thoughts, 
Which terminated all: upon a tone, 
A touch of hers, his blood would ebb 

and flow, 
And his cheek change tempestuously — 

his heart 60 

Unknowing of its cause of agony. 
But she in these fond feelings had no 

share : 
Her sighs were not for him; to her he 

was 
Even as a brother — but no more ; 

'twas much. 
For brotherless she was, save in the 

name 
Her infant friendship had bestowed on 

him; 
Herself the solitary scion left 
Of a time-honoured race. — It was a 

name 
Which pleased him, and yet pleased 

him not — and why ? 
Time taught him a deep answer — 

when she loved 70 

Another: even now she loved another. 
And on the summit of that hill she stood 
Looking afar if yet her lover's steed ^ 
Kept Dace with her expectancy, and 



A change came o'er the spirit of my 

dream. 
There was an ancient mansion, and 

before 
Its walls there was a steed caparisoned: 
V/'thin an antique Oratory ^ stood 

' [Mary Chaworth was looking for her lover's 
steed a.'ong tlie road as it winds up the common 
from Hucknall Torkard. Her lover was her 
future h\isband, John Musters.] 

' [The- "antique oratory" is a small room 
biiilt over the porch and looking into the court- 
yard of the hell.] 



The Boy of whom I spake; — he was 

alone, 
And pale, and pacing to and fro: 

anon 80 

He sate him down, and seized a pen, and 

traced 
Words which I could not guess of; then 

he leaned 
His bowed head on his hands, and 

shook as 'twere 
With a convulsion — then arose again. 
And with his teeth and quivering hands 

did tear 
What he had written, but he shed no 

tears. 
And he did calm himself, and fix his 

brow 
Into a kind of quiet: as he paused, 
The Lady of his love re-entered there; 
She was serene and smiHng then, and 

yet 90 

She knew she was by him beloved — 

she kruew, 
For quickly comes such knowledge, that 

his heart 
Was darkened with her shadow, and 

she saw 
That he was wretched, but she saw not 

all. 
He rose, and with a cold and gentle 

grasp 
He took her hand; a moment o'er his 

face 
A tablet of unutterable thoughts 
Was traced, and then it faded, as it 

came; 
He dropped the hand he held, and with 

slow steps 
Retired, but not as bidding her adieu, 
For they did part with mutual smiles; 

he passed loi 

From out the massy gate of that old 

Hall, 
And mounting on his steed he went his 

way; 
And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold 

more. 



A change came o'er the spirit of my 

dream. 
The Boy was sprung to manhood: in 

the wilds 



466 



POEMS OF JULY -SEPT EMBER, 1816 



Of fiery climes he made himself a 

home, 
And his Soul drank their sunbeams: he 

was girt 
With strange and dusky aspects; he 

was not 
Himself like what he had been; on the 

sea no 

And on the shore he was a wanderer; 
There was a mass of many images 
Crowded like waves upon me, but he 

was 
A part of all; and in the last he lay 
Reposing from the noontide sultriness. 
Couched among fallen columns, in the 

shade 
Of ruined walls that had survived the 

names 
Of those who reared them; by his sleep- 
ing side 
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly 

steeds 
Were fastened near a fountain; and a 

man 120 

Clad in a flowing garb did watch the 

while. 
While many of his tribe slumbered 

around : 
And they were canopied by the blue sky, 
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful. 
That God alone was to be seen in 

Heaven.^ 



A change came o'er the spirit of my 

dream. 
The Lady of his love was wed with One 
Who did not love her better: — in her 

home, 
A thousand leagues from his, • — her 

native home. 
She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy, 
Daughters and sons of Beauty, — ■ but 

behold! 131 

Upon her face there was the tint of 

grief. 
The settled shadow of an inward 

strife. 
And an unquiet drooping of the eye. 
As if its lid were charged with unshed 

tears. 

' [" Byron's Dream " is the subject of a well- 
known picture by Sir Charles Eastlake.] 



What could her grief be ? — she had all 

she loved, 
And he who had so loved her was not 

there 
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish. 
Or ill-repressed affliction, her pure 

thoughts. 
What could her grief be ? — she had 

loved him not, 140 

Nor given him cause to deem himself 

beloved. 
Nor could he be a part of that which 

preyed 
Upon her mind — a spectre of the past. 



A change came o'er the spirit of my 

dream. 
The Wanderer was returned. — I saw 

him stand 
Before an Altar ^ — -with a gentle bride; 
Her face was fair, but was not that which 

made 
The Starlight ^ of his Boyhood; — as he 

stood 
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there 

came 
The self-same aspect, and the quivering 

shock 2 150 

That in the antique Oratory shook 
His bosom in its solitude; and then — • 

' [An old servant of the Chaworth family, 
Mary Marsden, told Washington Irving {Abbots- 
ford and Ncwstead Abbey, 1835, p. 204) that 
Byron used to call Mary Chaworth "his bright 
morning star of Annesley." Compare the well- 
known lines — 

"She was a form of Life and Light, 
That, seen, became a part of sight; • 
And rose, where'er I turned mine eye, 
The Morning-star of Memory!" 

— The Giaour, lines 1127-1130.] 

' ["This touching picture agrees closely, in 
many of its circumstances, with Lord Byron's 
own prose account of the wedding in his Mem- 
oranda; in which he describes himself as wak- 
ing, on the morning of his marriage, with the 
most melancholy reflections, on seeing his 
wedding-suit spread out before him. In t\ie 
same mood, he wandered about the grounds 
alone, till he was summoned for the ceremony, 
and joined, for the first time on that da'y, his 
bride and her family. He knelt down — he 
repeated the words after the clergymfin; but 
a mist was before his eyes — his thoug'hts were 
elsewhere: and he was but awakened by the 
congratulations of the bystanders to find that 
he was — married." — Lz/i", p. 272.] 



THE DREAM 



467 



As in that hour — a moment o'er his face 
The tablet of unutterable thoughts 
Was traced, — and then it faded as it 

came, 
And he stood calm and quiet, and he 

spoke 
The fitting vows, but heard not his own 

words, 
And all things reeled around him; he 

could see 
Not that which was, nor that which 

should have been — 
But the old mansion, and the accus- 
tomed hall, 160 
And the remembered chambers, and 

the place. 
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and 

the shade. 
All things pertaining to that place and 

hour. 
And her who was his destiny, came back 
And thrust themselves between him 

and the light: 
What business had they there at such 

a time? 

VII. 

A change came o'er the spirit of my 
dream. 

The Lady of his love; — Oh ! she was 
changed 

As by the sickness of the soul; her mind 

Had wandered from its dweUing, and 
her eyes 170 

They had not their own lustre, but the 
look 

Which is not of the earth; she was be- 
come 

The Queen of a fantastic realm; her 
thoughts 

Were combinations of disjointed things; 

And forms, impalpable and unperceived 

Of others' sight, familiar were to hers. 

And this the world calls frenzy; but the 
wise 

Have a far deeper madness — and the 
glance 

Of melancholy is a fearful gift; 

^'hat is it but the telescope of truth ? 180 

Wi^ich strips the distance of its fan- 
tasies. 

And brings life near in utter nakedness, 

Making the cold reaUty too real ! 



A change came o'er the spirit of my 

dream. 
The Wanderer was alone as heretofore. 
The beings which surrounded him were 

gone. 
Or were at war with him; he was a 

mark 
For blight and desolation, compassed 

round 
With Hatred and Contention ; Pain was 

mixed 
In all which was served up to him, 

until, 190 

Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,^ 
He fed on poisons, and they had no 

power, 
But were a kind of nutriment; he 

lived 
Through that which had been death to 

many men, 
And made him friends of mountains: 

with the stars 
And the quick Spirit of the Universe 
He held his dialogues; and they did 

teach 
To him the magic of their mysteries; 
To him the book of Night was opened 

wide. 
And voices from the deep abyss re- 
vealed 200 
A marvel and a secret. — Be it so. 



My dream was past; it had no further 

change. 
It was of a strange order, that the 

doom 
Of these two creatures should be thus 

traced out 
Almost like a reality — the one 
To end in madness — both in misery. 

July, 18 1 6. 
[First published. The Prisoner of 

Chillon, etc., 18 16.] 

' Mithridates of Pontus. [Mithridates, King 
of Pontus (B.C. 120-63), surnamed Eupator, 
succeeded to the throne when he was only eleven 
years of age. He is said to have safeguarded 
himself against the designs of his enemies by 
drugging himself with antidotes against poison, 
and so effectively that, when he was an old man, 
he could not poison himself, even when he was 
minded to do so.] 



468 



POEMS OF JULY -SEPT EMBER, iSi6 



DARKNESS. 

I HAD a dream, which was hot all a 

dream. 
The bright sun was extinguished, and 

the stars 
Did wander darkling in the eternal 

space, 
Ravless, and pathless, and the icy 

' Earth 
Swung blind and blackening in the 

moonless air; 
Morn came and went — and came, and 

brought no day, 
And men forgot their passions in the 

dread 
Of this their desolation; and all hearts 
Were chilled into a selfish prayer for 

light: 
And they did live by watchfires — and 

the thrones, lo 

The palaces of crowned kings — the 

huts, 
The habitations of all things which 

dwell, 
Were burnt for beacons; cities were 

consumed, 
And men were gathered round their 

blazing homes 
To look once more into each other's 

face; 
Happy were those who dwelt within the 

eye: 
Of the volcanoes, and their mountain- 
torch : 
A fearful hope was all the World con- 
tained; 
Forests were set on fire — but hour by 

hour 
They fell and faded — and the crackling 

trunks 20 

Extinguished with a crash — and all 

was black. 
The brows of men by the despairing 

light 
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits 
The flashes fell upon them; some lay 

down 
And hid their eyes and wept; and some 

did rest 
Their chins upon their clenched hands, 

and smiled; 



And others hurried to and fro, and fed 
Their funeral piles with fuel, and 

looked up. 
With mad disquietude on the dull sky, 
The pall of a past World; and then 

again 30 

With curses cast them down upon the 

dust, 
And gnashed their teeth and howled: 

the wild birds shrieked. 
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground 
And flap their useless wings; the wildest 

brutes 
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers 

crawled 
And twined themselves among the mul- 
titude, 
Hissing, but stingless — they were slain 

for food: 
And War, which for a moment was no 

more. 
Did glut himself again : — a meal was 

bought 
With blood, and each sate sullenly 

apart 40 

Gorging himself in gloom : no Love was 

left; 
All earth was but one thought — and 

that was Death, 
Immediate and inglorious; and the 

pang 
Of famine fed upon all entrails — men 
Died, and their bones were tombless as 

their flesh; 
The meagre by the meagre were de- 
voured. 
Even dogs assailed their masters, all 

save one. 
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept 
The birds and beasts and famished men 

at bay. 
Till hunger clung them,^ or the dropping 

dead 50 

Lured their lank jaws; himself sought 

out no food, 
But with a piteous and perpetual moan, 
And a quick desolate cry, hcking the- 

hand 
Which answered not with a caress — ^-^e 

died. 



' [Fruit is said to be "dung" when the skin 
shrivels, and a corpse when the face bf-'^O'^cs 
wasted and gaunt.] 



i 



CHURCHILL'S GRAVE 



469 



The crowd was famished by degrees; 
but two 

Of an enormous city did survive, 

And they were enemies: they met be- 
side 

The dying embers of an altar-place 

Where had been heaped a mass of holy 
things 

For an unholy usage; they raked up, 60 

And shivering scraped with their cold 
skeleton hands 

The feeble ashes, and their feeble 
breath 

Blew for a little life, and made a 
flame 

Which was a mockery; then they lifted 

Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld 
Each other's aspects — saw, and 

shrieked, and died — 
Even of their mutual hideousness they 

died, 
Unknowing who he was up)on whose 

brow 
Famine had written Fiend. The World 

was void, 
The populous and the powerful was a 

lump, 70 

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, 

lifeless — 
A lump of death — a chaos of hard clay. 
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood 

still, 
And nothing stirred within their silent 

depths; 
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, 
And their masts fell down piecemeal : as 

they dropped 
They slept on the abyss without a 

surge — 
The waves were dead; the tides were in 

their grave. 
The Moon, their mistress, had expired 

before; 
The winds were withered in the stag- 
nant air, 80 
And the clouds perished; Darkness had 

no need 
O/ aid from them — She was the Uni- 
verse. 

Diodati, July, i8i6. 
[First published, Prisoner of Chillon, 

ttc, 1816.] 



CHURCHILL'S GRAVE.^ 

A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED. 

I STOOD beside the grave of him who 

blazed 
The Comet of a season, and I saw 
The humblest of all sepulchres, and 

gazed 
With not the less of sorrow and of av/e 
On that neglected turf and quiet stone, 
With name no clearer than the names 

unknown. 
Which lay unread around it; and I 

asked 
The Gardener of that ground, why 

it might be 
That for this plant strangers his memory 

tasked. 
Through the thick deaths of half a 

century; 10 

And thus he answered — " Well, I do 

not know 
Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims 

so; 
He died before my day of Sextonship, 
And I had not the digging of this 

grave." 
And is this all ? I thought, — and do 

we rip 
The veil of Immortality, and crave 
I know not what of honour and of light 
Through unborn ages, to endure this 

blight ? 
So soon, and so ^successless? As I said, 

' [Charles Churchill was bom in February, 
1 73 1, and died at Boulogne, November 4, 1764. 
The body was brought to Dover and buried in the 
churchyard attached to the demolished church of 
St Martin-le-Grand, a small deserted cemetery 
in an obscure lane above the market-place. 
There is a tablet to his memory on the south 
wail of St Mary's Church, and the present 
headstone in the graveyard (it was a "plain 
headstone" in 1816) bears the following in- 
scription: — 

" 1764- 

Here lie the remains of the celebrated 

C. Churchill. 

'Life to the last enjoy'd, here Churchill lies.'" 

Byron spent Sunday, April 25, 181 6, at Dover. 
He was to sail that night for Ostend, and, to 
while away the time, "turned to Pilgrim" and 
thought out, perhaps began to write, the lines 
which were finished three months later at the 
Villa Diodati.] 



47© 



POEMS OF JULY-SEPTEMBER, 1816 



The Architect of all on which we tread, 
For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay 
To extricate remembrance from the 

clay, 22 

Whose minglings might confuse a 

Newton's thought, 
Were it not that all life must end in 

one, 
Of which we are but dreamers; — as he 

caught 
As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun, 
Thus spoke he, — "I believe the man 

of whom 
You wot, who lies in this selected tomb, 
Was a most famous writer in his day. 
And therefore travellers step from out 

their way 30 

To pay him honour, — and myself 

whate'er 
Your honour pleases:" — then most 

pleased I shook 
From out my pocket's avaricious nook 
Some certain coins of silver, which as 

'twere 
Perforce I gave this man, though I could 

spare 
So much but inconveniently: — Ye 

smile, 
I see ye, ye profane ones ! all the while, 
Because my homely phrase the truth 

would tell. 
You are the fools, not I — for I did 

dwell 
With a deep thought, and with a softened 

eye, 40 

On that old Sexton's natural homily. 
In which there was Obscurity and 

Fame, — 
The Glory and the Nothing of a Name. 

Diodati, 181 6. 
[First published. Prisoner of Chillon, 

etc., 1816.] 

PROMETHEUS. 



Titan ! to whose immortal eyes 
The sufferings of mortality, 
Seen in their sad reality. 

Were not as things that gods despise; 

What was thy pity's recompense? 

A silent suffering, and intense; 



The rock, the vulture, and the chain. 
All that the proud can feel of pain. 
The agony they do not show, 
The suffocating sense of woe. 

Which speaks but in its loneliness. 
And then is jealous lest the sky 
Should have a Ustener, nor will sigh 
Until its voice is echoless. 



Titan ! to thee the strife was given 
Between the suffering and the will. 
Which torture where they cannot lull; 
And the inexorable Heaven, 
And the deaf tyranny of Fate, 
The ruling principle of Hate, 
Which for its pleasure doth create 
The things it may annihilate. 
Refused thee even the boon to die: 
The wretched gift Eternity 
Was thine — and thou hast borne it well. 
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee 
Was but the Menace which flung back 
On him the torments of thy rack; 
The fate thou didst so well foresee. 
But would not to appease him tell; 
And in thy Silence was his Sentence, 
And in his Soul a vain repentance, 
And evil dread so ill dissembled, 
That in his hand the lightnings trem- 
bled. 

III. 

Thy Godlike crime was to be kind. 
To render with thy precepts less 
The sum of human wretchedness. 

And strengthen Man with his own 
mind; 

But baffled as thou wert from high, 

Still in thy patient energy, 

In the endurance, and repulse 
Of thine impenetrable Spirit, 

Which Earth and Heaven could not Cihi- 
vulse, 
A mighty lesson we inherit: 

Thou art a symbol and a sign 

To Mortals of their fate and forr^, 

Like thee, Man is in part divine, 

A troubled stream from a pure source ; 

And Man in portions can foresee 

His own funereal destiny; 

His wretchedness, and his resistanr -', 

And his sad unallied existence: 

To which his Spirit may oppose 



A FRAGMENT — SONNET TO LAKE LEMAN 



471 



Itself — an equal to all woes — 

And a firm will, and a deep sense, 
Which even in torture can descry 

Its own concentered recompense. 
Triumphant where it dares defy. 
And making Death a Victory. 

Diodati, July, 18 16. 
[First published. Prisoner of Chillon, 
etc., 1816.] 



A FRAGMENT.^ 

Could I remount the river of my years 
To the first fountain of our smiles and 

tears, 
I would not trace again the stream of 

hours 
Between their outworn banks of 

withered flowers. 
But bid it flow as now — until it glides 
Into the number of the nameless tides. 



What is this Death ? — a quiet of the 

heart ? 
The whole of that of which we are a 

part? 
For Life is but a vision — ■ what I see 
Of all which lives alone is Life to me, 10 
And being so — the absent are the 

dead. 
Who haunt us from tranquillity, and 

spread 
A dreary shroud around us, and invest 
With sad remembrancers our hours of 

rest. 
The absent are the dead — for they 

are cold. 
And ne'er cr.n be w^hat once we did 

behold; 
And they are changed, and cheerless, — 

or if yet 
The unforgotten do not all forget, 
Since thus divided — equal must it be 
If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea; 
It may be both — but one day end it 

must 21 

In the dark union of insensate dust. 

' [.4 Fragmenf, which remained unpublished 
till 1830, was written at the same time as Church- 
ill's Grave (July, 1816), and is closely allied to 
it in purport and in sentiment.] 



The under-earth inhabitants — are 

they 
But mingled millions decomposed to 

clay? 
The ashes of a thousand ages spread 
Wherever Man has trodden or shall 

tread ? 
Or do they in their silent cities dwell 
Each in his incommunicative cell? 
Or have they their own language? and 

a sense 
Of breathless being ? — darkened and 

intense 30 

As Midnight in her solitude ? — Oh 

Earth ! 
Where are the past ? — and wherefore 

had they birth? 
The dead are thy inheritors — and we 
But bubbles on thy surface; and the key 
Of thy profundity is in the Grave, 
The ebon portal of thy peopled cave, 
Where I would walk in spirit, and behold 
Our elements resolved to things untold. 
And fathom hidden wonders, and ex- 
plore 
The essence of great bosoms now no 

more. 40 



Diodati, Jtdy, 181 6. 
[First published, Letters and Journals, 
1830, ii. 36.] 



SONNET TO LAKE LEMAN. 

Rousseau — Voltaire — our Gibbon 
— and De Stael — 
Leman ! ^ these names are worthy of 

thy shore, 
Thy shore of names like these ! wert 
thou no more. 
Their memory thy remembrance would 

recall : 
To them thy banks were lovely as to all, 
But they have made them lovelier, for 

the lore 
Of mighty minds doth hallow in the 
core 
Of human hearts the ruin of a wall 
Where dwelt the wise and wondrous; 
but by thee 

' Geneva, Ferney, Copet, Lausanne. 



472 



POEMS OF JULY-SEPTEMBER, 1816 



How much more, Lake of Beauty ! do 
we feel, 
In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea, 
The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal, 

Which of the Heirs of Immortality 
Is proud, and makes the breath of Glory 
real! 

Diodati, July, 18 16. 
[First published, Prisoner of Chillon, 
etc., 1816.] 

STANZAS TO AUGUSTA. 



Though the day of my Destiny's over, 

And the star of my Fate hath decHned, 
Thy soft heart refused to discover 

The faults which so many could find; 
Though thy Soul with my grief was 
acquainted, 

It shrunk not to share it with me, 
And the Love which my Spirit hath 
painted 

It never hath found but in Thee. 

n. 

Then when Nature around me is smil- 
ing. 
The last smile which answers to 
mine, 
I do not believe it beguiling. 

Because it reminds me of thine; 
And when winds are at war with the 
ocean, 
As the breasts I believed in with me, 
If their billows excite an emotion, 
It is that they bear me from Thee. 

III. 

Though the rock of my last Hope is 
shivered. 
And its fragments are sunk in the 
wave. 
Though I feel that my soul is delivered 

To Pain — it shall not be its slave. 
There is many a pang to pursue me: 
They may crush, but they shall not 
contemn — 
They may torture, but shall not subdue 
me — 
'Tis of Thee that I think — not of 
them. 



l 



Though human, thou didst not deceive 
me, 
Though woman, thou didst not for- 
sake. 
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve 
me. 
Though slandered, thou never couldst 
shake, — 
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim 
me, 
Though parted, it was not to fly, 
Though watchful, 'twas not to defame 
me. 
Nor, mute, that the v;orld might belie. 

V. 

Yet I blame not the World, nor despise 

it, 
.. Nor t he war of the ma ny with one; 
If my Soul was not fittedTo prize it,"^ 

'Twas folly not sooner to shun: 
And if dearly that error hath cost me. 

And more than I once could foresee, 
I have found that, whatever it lost me, 

It could not deprive me of Thee. 



From the wreck of the past, which hath 
perished, 
Thus much I at least may recall. 
It hath taught me that what I most 

cherished 
1 "Deserved to be dearest of all: 
iSnhe Desert a fountain is springing, 

In the wide waste there still is a tree, 
And a bird in the soHtude singing. 
Which speaks to my spirit of Thee. 
July 24, 1816. 
[First published. Prisoner of Chillon, 
etc., 1816.] 

EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA. 



My Sister ! my sweet Sister ! if a name 
Dearer and purer were, it should be 

thine. 
Mountains and seas divide us, but I 

claim 
No tears, but tenderness to answer 

mine: 



EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA 



473 



Go where I will, to me thou art the 

same — 
A lovedj^egretjsyhich I would not resign. 
There yet are twoTKings in my destiny,— 
A world to roam through, and a home 

with thee. 

II. 

The first were nothing — had I still the 

last, 
It were the haven of my happiness; 
But other claims and other ties thou 

hast. 
And mine is not the wish to make them 

less. 
A strange doQm_is_4hy father's son's, 

and past ~ ~~ 

Recalling, as it lies beyond redress; 
Reversed for him our grandsire's ^ fate 

of yore, — 
He had no rest at^sea^^npr I on shore. 



If^^nvinheritance of storms hath been 
InotKeFelemenrs, and" orrttre rocks 
Of perils, overlooked or unforeseen, 
I have sustained my share of worldly 

shocks, 
The fault was mine; nor do I seek to 

screen 
My errors with defensive paradox; 
I have been cunning in mine overthrow. 
The careful pilot of my proper woe. 



Mine were my faults, and mine be their 

reward. 
My whole life was a contest, since the 

day 
That gave me being, gave me that 

which marred 
The gift, — a fate, or will, that walked 

astray ; 

' ["Admiral Byron was remarkable for never 
making a voyage without a tempest. He was 
known to the sailors by the facetious name of 
'Foul-weather Jack' (or 'Hardy Byron'). 
"'But, though it were tempest-toss'd, 
Still his bark could not be lost.' 
He returned safely from the wreck of the Wager 
(in Anson's vorage), and many years after cir- 
cumnavigated the world, as commander of a 
similar expedition" (Moore). Admiral the 
Hon. John Byron (1723-1786), next brother to 
William, fifth Lord Byron, published his Nar- 
rative, of his shipwreck in the Wager, in 1768.] 



And I at times have found the struggle 

hard. 
And thought of shaking off my bonds of 

clay: 
But now I fain would for a time survive, 
If but to see what next can well arrive. 

V. 

Kingdoms and Empires in my little day 
I have outlived, and yet I am not old; 
And when I look on this, the petty spray 
Of my own years of trouble, which have 

rolled 
Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: 
Something — I know not what — does 

still uphold 
A spirit of slight patience; — not in vain, 
Even for its own sake, do we purchase 

Pain. 



Perhaps the workings of defiance stir 
Within me — or, perhaps, a cold despair 
Brought on when ills habitually recur, — 
Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air, 
(For even to this may change of soul 

refer. 
And with light armour we may learn to 

bear,) 
Have taught me a strange quiet, which 

was not 
The chief companion of a calmer lot. 



I feel almost at times as I have felt 

In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, 

and brooks, 
Which do remember me of w^here I 

dwelt. 
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to 

books, 
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt 
My heart with recognition of their 

looks ; 
And even at moments I could think I see 
Some Uving thing to love — but none 

like thee. 

VIII. 

Here are the Alpine landscapes which 

create 
A fund for contemplation ; — to admire 
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date; 



474 



POEMS OF JULY-SEPTEMBER, 1816 



But something worthier do such scenes 

inspire : 
Here to be lonely is not desolate, 
For much I view which I could most 

desire, 
And, above all, a Lake I can behold 
LoveHer, not dearer, than our own of 

old. 

IX. 

Oh that thou wert but with me ! — but 

I grow 
The fool of my own wishes, and forget 
The solitude which I have vaunted so 
Has lost its praise in this but one regret; 
There may be others which I less may 

show; — 
I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet, 
I feel an ebb in my philosophy. 
And the tide rising in my altered eye. 

X. 

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake,^ 
By the old Hall which may be mine no 

more. 
Leman's is fair ; but think not I forsake 
The sweet remembrance of a dearer 

shore : 
Sad havoc Time must with my memory 

make, 
Ere that or thou can fade these eyes 

before ; 
Though, like all things which I have 

loved, they are 
Resigned for ever, or divided far. 

XI. 

The world is all before me; I but ask 
Of Nature that with which she will 

comply — 
It is but in her Summer's sun to bask, 
To mingle with the quiet of her sky. 
To see her gentle face without a mask. 
And never gaze on it with apathy. 
She was my early friend, and now shall be 
My sister — till I look again on thee. 



I can reduce all feelings but this one, — 
And that I would not; — for at length 
I see 

» [For a description of the lake at Newstead, 
see Don Juan, Canto XIII. stanza Ivii.] 



Such scenes as those wherein my life 

begun — 
The earUest — even the only paths for 

me — 
Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to 

shun, 
I had been better than I now can be; 
The Passions which have torn me would 

have slept — 
/ had not suffered, and thou hadst not 

wept. 

XIII. 

With false Ambition what had I to do? 
Little with Love, and least of all with 

Fame; 
And yet they came unsought, and with 

me grew, 
And made me all which they can make 

— a Name. 
Yet this was not the end I did pursue; 
Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. 
But all is over — I am one the more 
To baffled millions which have gone 

before. 

XIV. 

And for the future, this world's future 

may 
From me demand but little of my care: 
I have outUved myself by many a day. 
Having survived so many things that 

were; 
My years have been no slumber, but the 

prey 
Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share 
Of life which might have filled a century, 
Before its fourth in time had passed me 

by. 

XV, 

And for the remnant which may be to 
come 

I am content; and for the past I feel 

Not thankless, — for within the crowded 
sum 

Of struggles. Happiness at times would 
steal. 

And, for the present, I would not be- 
numb 

My feelings farther. — Nor shall I con- 
ceal 

That with all this I still can look around. 

And worship Nature with a thought 
profound. 



LINES ON HEARING THAT LADY BYRON WAS ILL 475 



/ 



XVI. 

For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy 

heart 
I know myself secure, as thou in mine; 
We were and are — I am, even as thou 

art — 
Beings who ne'er each other can resign; 
It is the same, together or apart — 
From Life's commencement to its slow 

decline 
We are entwined — let Death come slow 

or fast,^ 
The tie which bound the first endures 

the last! 
[First published. Letters and Journals^ 

1830, ii. 38-41.] 



LINES ON HEARING THAT LADY 
BYRON WAS ILL.i 

And thou wert sad — yet I was not with 
thee; 
And thou wert sick, and yet I was not 
near; 
Methought that Joy and Health alone 
could be 
Where I was not — and pain and 
sorrow here ! 
And is it thus ? — it is as I foretold, 
And shall be more so; for the mind 
recoils 
Upon itself, and the wrecked heart lies 
cold, 
While Heaviness collects the shat- 
tered spoils. 
It is not in the storm nor in the strife 
We feel benumbed, and wish to be 

no more. 
But in the after-silence on the shore. 
When all is lost, except a little life. 

I am too well avenged ! — but 'twas mv 

right; 
Whate'er my sins might be, thou wert 

not sent 
To be the Nemesis who should requite — 

[These verses were written immediately after 
the fruitless intervention of Madame de Stael, 
who had persuaded Byron "to write a letter to 
a friend in England, declaring himself still will- 
ing to be reconciled to Lady Byron" {Life, p. 
321), but were not intended for the public eye.] 



Nor did Heaven choose so near an 
instrument. 
Mercy is for the merciful ! — if thou 
Hast been of such, 'twill be accorded 

now. 
Thy nights are banished from the realms 
of sleep: — 
Yes ! they may flatter thee, but thou 

shalt feel 
A hollow agony which will not heal, 
For thou art pillowed on a curse too 

deep; 
Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must 
reap 
The bitter harvest in a woe as real ! 
I have had many foes, but none like thee ; 
""^or 'gainst the rest myself I could 
defend, 
And be avenged, or turn them into 
friend ; 
But thou in safe implacability 
Hadst nought to dread — in thy own 

weakness shielded, 
And in my love, which hath but too 
much yielded, 
And spared, for thy sake, some I 
should not spare; 
And thus upon the world — trust in thy 

truth. 
And the wild fame of my ungoverned 
youth — 
On things that were not, and on 
things that are — 
Even upon such a basis hast thou built 
A monument, whose cement hath been 
guilt. 
The moral Clytemnestra of thy lord ! 
And hewed down, with an unsus- 
pected sword. 
Fame, peace, and hope — and all the 
better life 
Which, but for this cold treason of thy 
heart, 
Might still have risen from out the grave 
of strife. 
And fou^d a nobler duty than to part. 
But of thy virtues didst thou make a 
vice. 
Trafficking with them in a purpose 

cold. 
For present anger, and for future 
gold — 
And buying others' grief at any price. 



476 



MONODY ON THE DEATH OF SHERIDAN 



And thus once entered into crooked 
ways, 

The early truth, which was thy proper 
praise, 

Did not still walk beside thee — but at 
times. 

And with a breast unknowing its own 
crimes, 

Deceit, averments incompatible, 

Equivocations, and the thoughts which 
dwell 
In Janus-spirits — the significant eye 

Which learns to lie with silence — the 
pretext 

Of prudence, with advantages an- 
nexed — 

The acquiescence in all things which 
tend. 

No matter how, to the desired end — 
All found a place in thy philosophy. 

The means were worthy, and the end is 
won — 

I would not do by thee as thou hast 
done! 

September, 1816. 

[First published. New Monthly Maga- 
zine, August, 1832, vol. XXXV. 
pp. 142, 143.] 



MONODY ON THE DEATH 

OF THE 

RIGHT HON. R. B. 
SHERIDAN,! 

SPOKEN AT DRURY-LANE 
THEATRE, LONDON. 

When the last sunshine of expiring Day 
In Summer's twilight weeps itself away, 
Who hath not felt the softness of the 

hour 
Sink on the heart, as dew. along the 

flower ? 
With a pure feeling which absorbs and 

awes 

' [The Monody, etc., was written at the Villa 
Diodati, July 17, 1816. It was spoken by Mrs 
Davison at Drury Lane Theatre, September 7, 
and published September 9, 18 16.] 



While Nature makes that melancholy 

pause — 
Her breathing moment on the bridge 

where Time 
Of light and darkness forms an arch 

sublime — 
Who hath not shared that calm, so still 

and deep, 
The voiceless thought which would not 

speak but weep, 10 

A holy concord, and a bright regret, 
A glorious sympathy with suns that set ? 
'Tis not harsh sorrow, but a tenderer 

woe. 
Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts 

below. 
Felt without bitterness — but full and 

clear, 
A sweet dejection — a transparent tear, 
Unmixed with worldly grief or selfish 

stain — 
Shed without shame, and secret without 

pain. 
Even as the tenderness that hour in- 
stils 
When Summer's day declines along the 

hills, 20 

So feels the fulness of our heart and 

eyes 
When all of Genius which can perish 

dies. 
A mighty Spirit is eclipsed — a power 
Hath passed from day to darkness — to 

whose hour 
Of light no likeness is bequeathed — 

no name, 
Focus at once of all the rays of Fame ! 
The flash of Wit — the bright Intelli- 
gence, 
The beam of Song — the blaze of Elo- 
quence, 
Set with their Sun, but still have left 

behind 
The enduring produce of immortal 

Mind; 30 

Fruits of a genial morn, and glorious 

noon, 
A deathless part of him who died too 

soon. 
But small that portion of the wondrous 

whole, 
These sparkling segments of that circling 

Soul, 



MONODY ON THE DEATH OF SHERIDAN 



477 



Which all embraced, and lightened over 

all, 
To cheer — to pierce — to please — or 

to appal. 
From the charmed council to the festive 

board. 
Of human feelings the unbounded lord; 
In whose acclaim the loftiest voices vied. 
The praised — the proud — who made 

his praise their pride. 40 

When the loud cry of trampled Hindo- 

stan 
Arose to Heaven in her appeal from 

Man, 
His was the thunder — his the avenging 

rod, 
The wrath — the delegated voice of 

God! 
Which shook the nations through his 

lips, and blazed 
Till vanquished senates trembled as 

they praised.^ 

And here, oh! here, where yet all 

young and warm, 
The gay creations of. his spirit charm, 
The matchless dialogue — the deathless 

wit, 
Which knew not what it was to inter- 
mit; 50 
The glowing portraits, fresh from life, 

that bring 
Home to our hearts the truth from which 

they spring; 
These wondrous beings of his fancy, 

wrought 
To fulness by the fiat of his thought, 
Here in their first abode you still may 

meet, 
Bright with the hues of his Promethean 

heat; 
A Halo of the light of other days, 
Which still the splendour of its orb 

betrays. 
But should there be to whom the fatal 

blight 

Of failing Wisdom yields a base delight. 

Men who exult when minds of heavenly 

j tone 61 

Jar in the music which was born their 

own, 

' [Sheridan's first speech on behalf of the 
Becum of Oude was delivered February 7, 1787.] 



Still let them pause — ah ! little do they 
know 

That what to them seemed Vice might 
be but Woe. 

Hard is his fate on whom the public 
gaze 

Is fixed for ever to detract or praise; 

Repose denies her requiem to his name, 

And Folly loves the martyrdom of 
Fame. 

The secret enemy whose sleepless eye 

Stands sentinel — accuser — judge — 
and spy; 70 

The foe, the fool, the jealous, and the 
vain. 

The envious who but breathe in others' 
pain — 

Behold the host ! delighting to deprave, 

Who track the steps of Glory to the 
grave, 

Watch every fault that daring Genius 
owes 

Half to the ardour which its birth 
bestows. 

Distort the truth, accumulate the lie. 

And pile the pyramid of Calumny ! 

These are his portion — but if joined to 
these 

Gaunt Poverty should league with deep 
Disease, 80 

If the high Spirit must forget to soar, 

And stoop to strive with Misery at the 
door,^ 

To soothe Indignity — and face to face 

Meet sordid Rage, and wrestle with 
Disgrace, 

To find in Hope but the renewed caress, 

The serpent-fold of further Faithless- 
ness: — 

If such may be the Ills which men assail. 

What marvel if at last the mightiest fail ? 

Breasts to whom all the strength of feel- 
ing given 

Bear hearts electric — charged with fire 
from Heaven, 90 

Black with the rude collision, inly torn, 

By clouds surrounded, and on whirl- 
winds borne, 

I [Only a few days before his death, Sheridan 
wrote thus to Rogers: "I am absolutely undone 
and broken-hearted. They are going to put the 
carpets out of window, and break into Mrs S.'s 
room and take me. For God's sake let me see 
you!" (Moore's Life uf Sheridan, 1825, ii. 455).] 



478 



MANFRED 



[Act I. 



Driven o'er the lowering atmosphere 
that nurst 

Thoughts which have turned to thun- 
der — scorch, and burst. 

But far from us and from our mimic 
scene 

Such things should be — if such have 
ever been; 

Ours be the gentler wish, the kinder task. 

To give the tribute Glory need not ask. 

To mourn the vanished beam, and add 
our mite 

Of praise in payment of a long delight. 

Ye Orators ! whom yet our councils 
yield, loi 

Mourn for the veteran Hero of your field ! 

The worthy rival of the wondrous 
Three ! ^ 

Whose words were sparks of Immor- 
tality ! 

Ye Bards ! to whom the Drama's Muse 
is dear. 

He was your Master — emulate him here! 

Ye men of wit and social eloquence ! 

He was your brother — bear his ashes 
hence ! 

While Powers of mind almost of bound- 
less range. 

Complete in kind, as various in their 
change, no 

While Eloquence — Wit — Poesy — and 
Mirth, 

That humbler Harmonist of care on 
Earth, 

Survive within our souls — while lives 
our sense 

Of pride in Merit's proud pre-eminence. 

Long shall we seek his likeness — long 
in vain. 

And turn to all of him which may re- 
main, 

Sighing that Nature formed but one 
such man. 

And broke the die — in moulding Sheri- 
dan ! ^ 



' Fox — Pitt — Burke. 

' [It has often been pointed out that this fine 
metaphor may be traced to Ariosto's Orlando 
Fiirioso. The subject is Zerbino, the son of the 
King of Scotland — 

"Non e vu si bello in tante altre persone: 
Natura il fece e poi ruppe la stampa." 
— Canto X. stanza Ixxxiv. lines 5, 6.] 



MANFRED:! 
A DRAMATIC POEM. 



'There are more things in heaven and earth, 

Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." 

[Hamlet, Act i. Scene 5, Lines 166, 167.] 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 

Manfred. 
Chamois Hunter. 
Abbot of St Maurice. 

Manuel. 
Herman, 

Witch of the Alps. 

Arimanes. 
Nemesis. _ 
The Destinies. 
Spirits, etc. 



The Scene of the Drama is amongst the 
Higher Alps — partly in the Castle of 
Manfred, and partly in the Mountains. 

[Manfred, a choral tragedy in three 
acts, was performed at Covent Garden 
Theatre, October 29-November 14, 
1834 [Denvil (afterwards known as 
"Manfred" Denvil) took the part of 
"Manfred," and Miss Ellen Tree 
(afterwards Mrs. Charles Kean) played 
"The Witch of the Alps"]; at Drury 
Lane Theatre, October 10, 1863-64 
[Phelps played "Manfred," Miss Rosa 
Le Clercq "The Phantom of Astarte," i 
and Miss Heath "The Witch of the 
Alps"]; at the Prince's Theatre, Man- 
chester, March 27-April 20, 1867 
[Charles Calvert played "Manfred"]; 
and again, in 1867, under the same 
management, at the Royal Alexandra 
Theatre, Liverpool; and at the Prin- ; 
cess's Theatre Royal, London, August j 
16, 1873 [Charles Dillon played "Man- 
fred"; music by Sir Henry Bishop, as 
in 1834].]. 

' [Acts i. and ii. of Manfred were written in < 
Switzerland, September 17-29, 1816. Act iii. 
was written in Venice, April, 181 7. Manfred 
was published June 16, 181 7.] 



Scene i.] 



MANFRED 



479 



ACT I. 

Scene I. — Manfred alone. — Scene, a 
Gothic Gallery. — Time, Midnight. 

Man. The lamp must be replen- 
ished, but even then 
It will not burn so long as I must watch : 
My slumbers — if I slumber — are not 

sleep, 
But a continuance of enduring thought, 
Which then I can resist not: in my heart 
There is a vigil, and these eyes but close 
To look within; and yet I live, and bear 
The aspect and the form of breathing 

men. 
But Grief should be the Instructor of the 

wise; 
Sorrow is Knowledge: they who know 

the most lo 

Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal 

truth — 
The Tree of Knowledge is not that of 

Life. 
Philosophy and Science, and the springs 
Of Wonder, and the wisdom of the 

World, 
I have essayed, and in my mind there is 
A power to make these subject to 

itself — 
But they avail not: I have done men 

good. 
And I have met with good even among 

men — 
But this availed not :. I have had my foes. 
And none have baffled, many fallen 

before me — ■ 20 

But this availed not : — Good — or evil 

— life — 
Powers, passions — all I see in other 

beings. 
Have been to me as rain unto the sands. 
Since that all-nameless hour. I have 

no dread. 
And feel the curse to have no natural 

fear, 
Nor fluttering throb that beats with 

hopes or wishes, 
Or lurking love of something on the 

earth. 
Now to my task. — 

Mysterious Agency ! 
Ye Spirits of the unbounded Universe ! 



Whom I have sought in darkness and in 



light 



30 



Ye, who do compass earth about, and 

dwell 
In subtler essence — ye, to whom the 

tops 
Of mountains inaccessible are haunts, 
And Earth's and Ocean's caves familiar 

things — 
I call upon ye by the written charm 
Which gives me power upon you — 

Rise ! Appear ! 

YA pause. 
They come not yet. — Now by the 

voice of him 
Who is the first among you ^ — by this 

, sign. 
Which makes you tremble — by the 

claims of him 
Who is undying, — Rise ! Appear ! — 

Appear ! 40 

YA pause. 
If it be so. — Spirits of Earth and Air, 
Ye shall not so elude me ! By a power. 
Deeper than all yet urged, a tyrant- 
spell. 
Which had its birthplace in a star con- 
demned. 
The burning wreck of a demolished 

world, 
A wandering hell in the eternal Space; 
By the strong curse which is upon my 

Soul, 
The thought which is within me and 

around me, 
I do compel ye to my will. — Appear ! 
[A star is seen at the darker end of the 

gallery; it is stationary: and a 

voice is heard singing. 

First Spirit. 

Mortal ! to thy bidding bowed, 50 

From my mansion in the cloud. 
Which the breath of Twilight builds, 
And the Summer's sunset gilds 
With the azure and vermilion, 
Which is mixed for my pavilion; 
Though thy quest may be forbidden, 
On a star-beam I have ridden. 
To thine adjuration bowed: 
Mortal — be thy wish avowed ! 

» [The Prince of the Spirits is Arimanes, vide 
post, act ii. sc, 4. line i seq.] 



48o 



MANFRED 



[Act I. 



Voice of the Second Spirit. 
Mont Blanc is the Monarch of moun- 
tains; 60 

They crowned him long ago 
On a throne of rocks, in a robe of 
clouds, 

With a Diadem of snow. 
Around his waist are forests braced, 

The Avalanche in his hand; 
But ere it fall, that thundering ball 

Must pause for my command. 
The Glacier's cold and restless mass 

Moves onward day by day; 
But I am he who bids it pass, 70 

Or with its ice delay. 
I am the Spirit of the place. 

Could make the mountain bow 
And quiver to his caverned base — 

And what with me would'st Thou? 

Voice of the Third Spirit. 

In the blue depth of the waters. 

Where the wave hath no strife, 
Where the Wind is a stranger. 

And the Sea-snake hath life. 
Where the Mermaid is decking 80 

Her green hair with shells. 
Like the storm on the surface 

Came the sound of thy spells; 
O'er my calm Hall of Coral 

The deep Echo rolled — 
To the Spirit of Ocean 

Thy wishes unfold ! 

Fourth Spirit. 

Where the slumbering Earthquake 

Lies pillowed on fire, ^ 
And the lakes of bitumen 90 

Rise boilingly higher; 
Where the roots of the Andes 

Strike deep in the earth. 
As their summits to heaven 

Shoot soaringly forth; 
I have quitted my birthplace, 
I Thy bidding to bide — 
\ Thy spell hath subdued me, 

Thy will be my guide! 

Fifth Spirit. 

I am the rider of the wind, 100 

The stirrer of the storm; 



The hurricane I left behind 
Is yet with lightning warm; 

To speed to thee, o'er shore and sea- 
I swept upon the blast: 

The fleet I met sailed well — and yet 
'Twill sink ere night be past. 

Sixth Spirit. 

My dwelling is the shadow of the Night, 
Why doth thy magic torture me with 
light? 

Seventh Spirit. 
The Star which rules thy destiny no 
Was ruled, ere earth began, by me: 
It was a World as fresh and fair 
As e'er revolved round Sun in air; 
Its course was free and regular, 
Space bosomed not a lovelier star. 
The Hour arrived — and it became 
A wandering mass of shapeless flame, 
A pathless Comet, and a curse. 
The menace of the Universe; 
Still rolling on with innate force, 120 
Without a sphere, without a course, 
A bright deformity on high, 
The monster of the upper sky ! 
And Thou! beneath its influence born — 
Thou worm ! whom I obey and scorn — 
Forced by a Power (which is not thine, 
And lent thee but to make thee mine) 
For this brief moment to descend, 
Where these weak Spirits round thee 

bend 
And parley with a thing like thee — 130 
What would'st thou. Child of Clay! 

with me? 

The Seven Spirits. 
Earth — ocean — air — night — moun- 
tains — winds — thy Star, 
Are at thy beck and bidding. Child of 
Clay! 
Before thee at thy quest their Spirits 
are — 
What would'st thou with us. Son of 

mortals — say ? 
Man. Forgetfulness — 
First Spirit. Of what — of 

whom — and why ? 
Man. Of that which is within me; 
read it there — 
Ye know it — and I cannot utter it. 



Scene. I.] 



MANFRED 



481 



Spirit. We can but give thee that 

which we possess: 

Ask of us subjects, sovereignty, the 

power 140 

O'er earth — the whole, or portion — or 

a sign 
Which shall control the elements, 

whereof 
We are the dominators, — each and all, 
These shall be thine, 

Man. Oblivion — self-oblivion ! 

Can ye not wring from out the hidden 

realms 
Ye offer so profusely — what I ask ? 
Spirit. It is not in our essence, in our 
skill; 
But — thou may'st die. 

Man. Will Death bestow it on me? 
Spirit. We are immortal, and do not 
forget ; 
We are eternal; and to us the past 150 
Is, as the future, present. Art thou 
answered ? 
Man. Ye mock me — but the Power 
which brought ye here 
Hath made you mine. Slaves, scoff not 

at my will ! 
The Mind — the Spirit — the Pro- 
methean spark, 
The lightning of my being, is as bright. 
Pervading, and far darting as your 

own. 
And shall not yield to yours, though 

cooped in clay ! 
Answer, or I will teach you what I am. 
Spirit. We answer — as we an- 
swered; our reply 
Is even in thine own words. 

Man. Why say ye so? 160 

Spirit. If, as thou say'st, thine 
essence be as ours. 
We have repHed in telling thee, the thing 
Mortals call death hath nought to do 
with us. 
Man. I then .have called ye from 
your realms in vain; 
Ye cannot, or ye will not, aid me. 

Spirit. Say — 

What we possess we offer; it is thine: 
Bethink ere thou dismiss us; — ask 

again ; 
Kingdom, and sway, and strength, and 
length of days — 



Man. Accursed! what have I to do 
with days? 
They are too long already. — Hence — 
begone! ' 170 

Spirit. Yet pause: being here, our 
will would do thee service; 
Bethink thee, is there then no other gift 
Which we can make not worthless in 
thine eyes? 
Man. No, none : yet stay — one 
moment, ere we part, 
I would behold ye face to face. I hear 
Your voices, sweet and melancholy 

sounds. 
As Music on the waters ; and I see 
The steady aspect of a clear large Star — 
But nothing more. Approach me as ye 

are, 
Or one — or all — in your accus- 
tomed forms. 180 
Spirit. We have no forms, beyond 
the elements 
Of which we are the mind and prin- 
ciple: 
But choose a form — in that we will 
appear. 
Man. I have no choice; there is no 
form on earth 
Hideous or beautiful to me. Let him, 
Who is most powerful of ye, take such 

aspect 
As unto him may seem most fitting — 
Come! 
Seventh Spirit {appearing in the 
shape of a beautiful female figure).^ 
Behold ! 
Man. Oh God ! if it be thus, and thou 
Art not a madness and a mockery, 
I yet might be most happy. I will clasp 
thee, 190 

And we again will be — 

[TJie figure vanishes. 

My heart is crushed ! 

[Manfred falls senseless. 

{A voice ' is heard in the Incantation 
which follows. 

When the Moon is on the wave, 

And the glow-worm in the grass. 
And the meteor on the grave, 

' [It is evident that the female figure is not 
that of Astarte, but of the subject of the "In- 
cantation."] 



482 



MANFRED 



[Act I. 



And the wisp on the morass; 
When the falling stars are shooting, 
And the answered owls are hooting, 
And the silent leaves are still 
In the shadow of the hill, 
Shall my soul be upon thine, 200 

With a power and with a sign. 

Though thy slumber may be deep, 
Yet thy Spirit shall not sleep; 
There are shades which will not vanish, 
There are thoughts thou canst not ban- 
ish; 
By a Power to thee unknown, 
Thou canst never be alone; 
Thou art wrapt as with a shroud. 
Thou art gathered in a cloud; 
And for ever shalt thou dwell 210 

In the spirit of this spell. 

Though thou seest me not pass by, 
Thou shalt feel me with thine eye 
As a thing that, though unseen. 
Must be near thee, and hath been; 
And when in that secret dread 
Thou hast turned around thy head. 
Thou shalt marvel I am not 
As thy shadow on the spot. 
And the power which thou dost feel 220 
Shall be what thou must conceal. 

And a magic voice and verse 

Hath baptized thee with a curse; 

And a Spirit of the air 

Hath begirt thee with a snare; 

In the wind there is a voice 

Shall forbid thee to rejoice; 

And to thee shall Night deny 

All the quiet of her sky; 

And the day shall have a sun, 230 

Which shall make thee wish it done. 

From thy false tears I did distil 
An essence which hath strength to kill; 
From thy own heart I then did wring 
The black blood in its blackest spring; 
From thy own smile I snatched the 

snake, 
For there it coiled as in a brake; 
From thy own Up I drew the charm 
Which gave all these their chief est harm; 
In proving every poison known, 240 
I found the strongest was thine own. 



By the cold breast and serpent smile, 
By thy unfathomed gulfs of guile, 
By that most seeming virtuous eye. 
By thy shut soul's hypocrisy; 
By the perfection of thine art 
Which passed for human thine own 

heart : 
By thy delight in others' pain, 
And by thy brotherhood of Cain, 
I call upon thee ! and compel 250 

Thyself to be thy proper Hell ! 

And on thy head I pour the vial 

Which doth devote thee to this trial; 

Nor to slumber, nor to die, 

Shall be in thy destiny; 

Though thy death shall still seem near 

To thy wish, but as a fear; 

Lo ! the spell now works around thee, 

And the clankless chain hath bound 

thee; 
O'er thy heart and brain together 260 
Hath the word been passed — now 

wither ! 

Scene II. — The Mountain of the 
Jungfrau. — Time, Morning. — 
Manfred alone upon the cliffs. 

Man. The spirits I have raised 

abandon me. 
The spells which I have studied bafifle 

me, 
The remedy I recked of tortured me: 
I lean no more on superhuman aid, 
It hath no power upon the past, and for 
The future, till the past be gulfed in 

darkness. 
It is not of my search. — My Mother 

Earth ! 
And thou fresh-breaking Day, and you, 

ye Mountains, 
Why are ye beautiful ? I cannot love ye. 
And thou, the bright Eye of the Uni- 
verse, 10 
That openest over all, and unto all 
Art a delight — thou shin'st not on my 

heart. 
And you, ye crags, upon whose extreme 

edge 
I stand, and on the torrent's brink 

beneath 
Behold the tall pines dwindled as to 

shrubs 



Scene IT.] 



MANFRED 



483 



In dizziness of distance; when a leap, 
A stir, a motion, even a breath, would 

bring 
My breast upon its rocky bosom's bed 
To rest for ever — wherefore do I pause ? 
I feel the impulse — yet I do not plunge; 
I see the peril — yet do not recede; 21 
And my brain reels — and yet my foot 

is firm: 
There is a power upon me which with- 
holds, 
And makes it my fatality to live, — 
If it be life to wear within myself 
This barrenness of Spirit, and to be 
My own Soul's sepulchre, for I have 

ceased 
To justify my deeds unto myself — 
The last infirmity of evil. Aye, 
Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minis- 
ter, 30 
[An Eagle passes. 
Whose happy flight is highest into 

heaven. 
Well may'st thou swoop so near me — I 

should be 
The prey, and gorge thine eaglets ; thou 

art gone 
Where the eye cannot follow thee; but 

thine 
Yet pierces downward, onward, or 

above, 
With a pervading vision. — Beautiful ! 
How beautiful is all this visible world ! 
How glorious in its action and itself ! 
But we, who name ourselves its sove- 
reigns, we, 
Half dust, half deity, alike unfit 40 
To sink or soar, with our mixed essence 

make 
A conflict of its elements, and breathe 
The breath of degradation and of pride. 
Contending with low wants and lofty 

will, 
Till our Mortality predominates, 
And men are — what they name not to 

themselves, 
And trust not to each other. Hark ! the 

note, 
\The Shepherd's pipe in the distance is 

heard. 
The natural music of the mountain 

reed — 
For here the patriarchal days are not 



A pastoral fable — pipes in the liberal 

air, 50 

Mixed with the sweet bells of the 

sauntering herd; 
My soul would drink those echoes. Oh, 

that I were 
The viewless spirit of a lovely sound, 
A living voice, a breathing harmony, 
A bodiless enjoyment — born and dying 
With the blest tone which made me ! 

Enter from below a Chamois Hunter. 

Chamois Hunter. Even so 

This way the Chamois leapt : her nimble 

feet 
Have baffled me; my gains to-day will 

scarce 
Repay my break-neck travail. — What 

is here? 
Who seems not of my trade, and yet hath 

reached 60 

A height which none even of our 

mountaineers. 
Save our best hunters, may attain : his 

garb 
Is goodly, his mien manly, and his air 
Proud as a free-born peasant's, at this 

distance: — 
I will approach him nearer, 

Man. [not perceiving the other). To 

be thus — 
Grey-haired with anguish, Hke these 

blasted pines. 
Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, 

branchless, 
A blighted trunk upon a cursed root, 
Which but supplies a feeling to Decay — 
And to be thus, eternally but thus, 70 
Having been otherwise! Now fur- 
rowed o'er 
With wrinkles, ploughed by moments, 

not by years 
And hours, all tortured into ages — 

hours 
Which I outlive ! — Ye toppling crags 

of ice ! 
Ye Avalanches, whom a breath draws 

down 
In mountainous o'erwhelming, come 

and crush me ! 
I hear ye momently above, beneath. 
Crash with a frequent conflict; but ye 

pass, 



484 



MANFRED 



[Act I. 



And only fall on things that still would 

live; 
On the young flourishing forest, or the 

hut 80 

And hamlet of the harmless villager. 
C. Hun. The mists begin to rise 

from up the valley; 
I'll warn him to descend, or he may 

chance 
To lose at once his way and life together. 
Man. The mists boil up around the 

glaciers; clouds 
Rise curling fast beneath me, white and 

sulphury. 
Like foam from the roused ocean of deep 

Hell, 
Whose every wave breaks on a living 

shore, 
Heaped with the damned like pebbles. 

— I am giddy. 
C. Hun. I must approach him 

cautiously; if near, 90 

A sudden step will startle him, and 

he 
Seems tottering already. 

Man. Mountains have fallen, 

Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with 

the shock 
Rocking their Alpine brethren; filling 

up 
The ripe green valleys with Destruc- 
tion's sphnters; 
Damming the rivers with a sudden 

dash. 
Which crushed the waters into mist, and 

made 
Their fountains find another channel — 

thus. 
Thus, in its old age, did Mount Rosen- 
berg — ^ 

' [The fall of* the Rossberg took place Septem- 
ber 2, 1806. "A huge mass of conglomerate 
rock, 1000 feet broad and 100 feet thick, de- 
tached itself from the face of the mountain 
(Rossberg or Rufiberg, near Goldau, south of 
Lake Zug), and slipped down into the valley 
below. . . . More than four hundred and 
fifty human beings perished, and whole herds 
of cattle were swept away. Five minutes sufficed 
to complete the work of destruction. The 
inhabitants were first roused by a loud and 
grating sound like thunder . . . and beheld the 
valleys shrouded in a cloud of dust; when it had 
cleared away they found the face of nature 
changed." — Handbook of Switzerland, Part I. 
pp. 58, 59-] 



Why stood I not beneath it ? 

C. Hun. Friend ! have a care, 100 
Your next step may be fatal ! — for the 

love 
Of Him who made you, stand not on 

that brink ! 
Man. {not hearing him). Such would 

have been for me a fitting tomb; 
My bones had then been quiet in their 

depth; 
They had not then been strewn upon 

the rocks 
For the wind's pastime — as thus — 

thus they shall be — 
In this one plunge. — Farewell, ye 

opening Heavens ! 
Look not upon me thus reproachfully — 
You were not meant for me — Earth ! 

take these atoms ! 
[A s Manfred is in act to spring froyn 

the cliff, the Chamois Hunter 

seizes and retains him with a sudden 

grasp. 
C. Hun. Hold, madman ! — though 

aweary of thy life, no 

Stain not our pure vales with thy. guilty 

blood: 
Away with me — • I will not quit my 

hold. 
Man. I am most sick as heart — nay, 

grasp me not — 
I am all feebleness — the mountains 

whirl. 
Spinning around me — I grow blind 

— What art thou ? 
C. Hun. I'll answer that anon. — 

Away with me — 
The clouds grow thicker — there — 

now lean on m.e — 
Place your foot here — here, take this 

staff, and cling 
A moment to that shrub — • now give me 

your hand, 
And hold fast by my girdle — • softly — 

well — 120 

The Chalet will be gained within an 

hour: 
Come on, we'll quickly find a surer 

footing, 
And something like a pathway, which 

the torrent 
Hath washed since winter. — Come, 

'tis bravely done — 



Scene i.] 



MANFRED 



48s 



You should have been a hunter. — Fol- 
low me. 

[As they descend the rocks with difficulty, 
the scene closes. 



ACT II. 

Scene I. — A Cottage among the 
Bernese Alps. — Manfred and the 
Chamois Hunter. 

C. Hun. No — no — yet pause — 

thou must not yet go forth: 
Thy mind and body are alike unfit 
To trust each other, for some hours, at 

least ; 
When thou art better, I will be thy 

guide — 
But whither? 

Man. It imports not: I do know 
My route full well, and need no further 

guidance. 
C. Hun. Thy garb and gait bespeak 

thee of high lineage — 
One of the many chiefs, whose castled 

crags 
Look o'er the lower valleys — which of 

these 
May call thee lord ? I only know their 

portals; 10 

My way of life leads me but rarely down 
To bask by the huge hearths of those old 

halls, 
Carousing with the vassals; but the 

paths, 
Which step from out our m.ountains to 

their doors, 
I know from childhood — which of 

these is thine? 
Man. No matter. 
C. Hun. Well, Sir, pardon me 

the question. 
And be of better cheer. Come, taste my 

wine; 
'Tis of an ancient vintage ; many a day 
'T has thawed my veins among our 

glaciers, now 
Let it do thus for thine — Come, pledge 

me fairly ! 20 

Man. Away, away ! there's blood 

upon the brim ! 
Will it then never — never sink in the 

earth ? 



C. Hun. What dost thou mean ? thy 

senses wander from thee. 
Man. I say 'tis blood — my blood ! 

the pure warm stream 
Which ran in the veins of my fathers, 

and in ours 
When we were in our youth, and had 

one heart, 
And loved each other as we should not 

love. 
And this was shed: but still it rises up. 
Colouring the clouds, that shut me out 

from Heaven, 
Where thou art not — and I shall never 

be. 30 

C. Hun. Man of strange words, and 

some half-maddening sin, 
Which makes thee people vacancy, 

whate'er 
Thy dread and sufferance be, there's 

comfort yet — 
The aid of holy men, and heavenly 

patience — 
Man. Patience — and patience ! 

Hence — that word was made 
For brutes of burthen, not for birds of 

prey ! 
Preach it to mortals of a dust like 

thine, — 
I am not of thine order. 

C. Hun. Thanks to Heaven ! 

I would not be of thine for the free fame 
Of William Tell; but whatsoe'er thine 

ill, 40 

It must be borne, and these wild starts 

are useless. 
Man. Do I not bear it ? — Look on 

me — I live. 
C. Hun. This is convulsion, and no 

healthful life. 
Man. I tell thee, man ! I have hved 

many years. 
Many long years, but they are nothing 

now 
To those which I must number : ages — 

ages — 
Space and eternity — and consciousness, 
With the fierce thirst of death — and 

still unslaked ! 
C. Hun. Why, on thy brow the seal 

of middle age 
Hath scarce been set; I am thine elder 

far. 50 



486 



MANFRED 



[Act II, 



Man. Think'st thou existence doth 

depend on time? 
It doth; but actions are our epochs: 

mine 
Have made my days and nights im- 
perishable, 
Endless, and all alike, as sands on the 

shore. 
Innumerable atoms; and one desert, 
Barren and cold, on which the wild 

waves break, 
But nothing rests, save carcasses and 

wrecks, 
Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitter- 
ness. 
C. Hun. Alas ! he's mad — but yet 

I must not leave him. 
Man. I would I were — for then the 

things I see 60 

Would be but a distempered dream. 

C. Hun. What is it 

That thou dost see, or think thou 

look'st upon? 
Man. Myself, and thee — a peasant 

of the Alps — 
Thy humble virtues, hospitable home. 
And spirit patient, pious, proud, and 

free ; 
Thy self-respect grafted on innocent 

thoughts; 
Thy days of health, and nights of sleep : 

thy toils, 
By danger dignified, yet guiltless; hopes 
Of cheerful old age and a quiet grave. 
With cross and garland over its green 

turf, 70 

And thy grandchildren's love for 

epitaph ! 
This do I see — and then I look 

within — 
It matters not — my Soul was scorched 

already ! 
C. Hun. And would' st thou then 

exchange thy lot for mine? 
Man. No, friend ! I would not wrong 

thee, nor exchange 
My lot with living being: I can bear — 
However wretchedly, 'tis still to bear — 
In life what others could not brook to 

dream. 
But perish in their slumber. 

C. Hun. And with this — 

This cautious feeling for another's pain. 



Canst thou be black with evil ? — say not 

so. 81 

Can one of gentle thoughts have wreaked 

revenge 
Upon his enemies? 

Man. Oh ! no, no, no ! 

My injuries came down on those who 

loved me — 
On those whom I best loved: I never 

quelled 
An enemy, save in my just defence — 
But my embrace was fatal. 

C. Hun. Heaven give thee rest ! 
And Penitence restore thee to thyself; 
My prayers shall be for thee. 

Man. I need them not, 

But can endure thy pity. I depart — 
'Tis time — farewell ! — Here's gold, 

and thanks for thee — 91 

No words — it is thy due. — Follow me 

not — 
I know my path — the mountain peril's 

past: 
And once again I charge thee, follow 

not! {Exit Manfred. 



Scene II. — A lower Valley in the 
Alps. — A Cataract.^ 

Enter Manfred. 

It is not noon — the Sunbow's rays ^ 
still arch 

The torrent with the many hues of 
heaven, 

And roll the sheeted silver's waving 
column 

O'er the crag's headlong perpendicular, 

And fling its line of foaming light along, 

And to and fro, like the pale courser's 
tail. 

The Giant steed, to be bestrode by 
Death, 

As told in the Apocalypse. No eyes 

But mine now drink this sight of loveli- 
ness; 

I should be sole in this sweet solitude, 10 

' [The original of the cataract was the Staub- 
bach; see Letters, 1899, iii. 358, 359] 

^ This iris is formed by the rays of the sun 
over the lower part of the Alpine torrents: it is 
exactly like a rainbow come down to pay a visit, 
and so close that you may walk into it; this 
'effect lasts till noon. 



Scene ii. 



MANFRED 



487 



And with the Spirit of the place divide 
The homage of these waters. — I will 

call her. 
[Manfred takes some of the water into 

the palm of his hand and flings it 

into the air, muttering the adjura- 
tion. After a pause, the Witch of 

THE Alps rises beneath the arch of 

the sunboiv of the torrent. 
Beautiful Spirit ! with thy hair of light, 
And dazzUng eyes of glory, in whose 

form 
The charms of Earth's least mortal 

daughters grow 
To an unearthly stature, in an essence 
Of purer elements; while the hues of 

youth, — 
Carnationed like a sleeping Infant's 

cheek, 
Rocked by the beating of her mother's 

heart, 
Or the rose tints, which Summer's twi- 
light leaves 20 
Upon the lofty Glacier's virgin snow, 
The blush of earth embracing with her 

Heaven, — 
Tinge thy celestial aspect, and make 

tame 
The beauties of the Sunbow which bends 

o'er thee. 
Beautiful Spirit ! in thy calm clear 

brow. 
Wherein is glassed serenity of Soul, 
Which of itself shows immortality, 
I read that thou wilt pardon to a Son 
Of Earth, whom the abstruser powers 

permit 
At times to commune with them — if 

that he 30 

Avail him of his spells — to call thee 

thus. 
And gaze on thee a moment. 

Witch. Son of Earth ! 

I know thee, and the Powers which give 

thee power ! 
I know thee for a man of many thoughts, 
And deeds of good and ill, extreme in 

both. 
Fatal and fated in thy sufferings. 
I have expected this — what would'st 

thou with me? 
Man. To look upon thy beauty — 

nothing further. 



The face of the earth hath maddened 

me, and I 
Take refuge in her mysteries, and pierce 
To the abodes of those who govern 

her — 41 

But they can nothing aid me. I have 

sought 
From them what they could not bestow, 

and now 
I search no further. 

Witch. What could be the quest 

Which is not in the power of the most 

powerful. 
The rulers of the invisible? 

Man. A boon ; — 

But why should I repeat it? 'twere in 

vain. 
Witch. I know not that; let thy lips 

utter it. 
Man. Well, though it torture me, 

'tis but the same; 
My pang shall find a voice. From my 

youth upwards 50 

My Spirit walked not with the souls of 

men, 
Nor looked upon the earth with human 

eyes; 
The thirst of their ambition was not 

mine, 
The aim of their existence was not 

mine; 
My joys — my griefs — my passions — 

and my powers, 
Made me a stranger; though I wore the 

form, 
I had no sympathy with breathing flesh, 
Nor 'midst the Creatures of Clay that 

girded me 
Was there but One who — but of her 

anon. 
I said with men, and with the thoughts 

of men, 60 

I held but sHght communion; but in- 
stead, 
My joy was in the wilderness, — to 

breathe 
The difficult air of the iced mountain's 

top. 
Where the birds dare not build — nor 

insect's wing 
Flit o'er the herbless granite; or to 

plunge 
Into the torrent, and to roll along 



488 



MANFRED 



[Act il 



On the swift whirl of the new-breaking 

wave 
Of river-stream, or ocean, in their flow. 
In these my early strength exulted; or 
To follow through the night the moving 

moon, 70 

The stars and their development; or 

catch 
The dazzling lightnings till my eyes 

grew dim; 
Or to look, Hst'ning, on the scattered 

leaves, 
While Autumn winds were at their 

evening song. 
These were my pastimes, and to be 

alone ; 
For if the beings, of whom I was one, 
Hating to be so, — crossed me in my 

path, 
I felt myself degraded back to them, 
And was all clay again. And then I 

dived, 
In my lone wanderings, to the caves of 

Death, 80 

Searching its cause in its effect; and 

drew 
From withered bones, and skulls, and 

heaped up dust, 
Conclusions most forbidden. Then I 

passed 
The nights of years in sciences untaught, 
Save in the old-time; and with time 

and toil. 
And terrible ordeal, and such penance 
As in itself hath power upon the air, 
And spirits that do compass air and 

earth, 
Space, and the peopled Infinite, I made 
Mine eyes familiar with Eternity, 90 
Such as, before me, did the Magi, and 
He who from out their fountain-dwell- 
ings raised 
Eros and Anteros,^ at Gadara, 

I The philosopher Jamblicus. The story of 
the raising of Eros and Anteros may be found in 
his life by Eunapius. It is well told. ["It is 
reported of him," says Eunapius, " that while 
he and his scholars were bathing in the hot baths 
of Gadara, in Syria, a dispute arising concern- 
ing the baths, he, smiling, ordered his disciples 
to ask the inhabitants, by what names the two 
lesser springs, that were fairer than the rest, 
were called. To which the inhabitants replied, 
that ' the one was called Love, and the other 
Love's Contrary, but for what reason they knew 



As I do thee; — and with my knowledge 

grew 
The thirst of knowledge, and the power 

and joy 
Of this most bright intelligence, until — 
Witch. Proceed. 
Man. Oh ! I but thus prolonged my 

words, 
Boasting these idle attributes, because 
As I approach the core of my heart's 

grief — 
But — to my task. I have not named to 

thee 100 

Father or mother, mistress, friend, or 

being. 
With whom I wore the chain of human 

ties; 
If I had such, they seemed not such to 

me — 
Yet there was One — 

Witch. Spare not thyself — pro- 

ceed. 
Man. She was like me in lineaments 

— her eyes — 
Her hair — her features — all, to the 

very tone 
Even of her voice, they said were like to 

mine; 
But softened all, and tempered into 

beauty : 
She had the same lone thoughts and 

wanderings. 
The quest of hidden knowledge, and a 

mind no 

To comprehend the Universe: nor 

these 
Alone, but with them gentler powers 

than mine. 
Pity, and smiles, and tears — which I 

had not; 

not.' Upon which lamblichus, who chanced 
to be sitting on the fountain's edge where the 
stream flowed out, put his hand on the water, 
and, having uttered a few words, called up 
from the depths of the fountain a fair-skinned 
lad, not over- tall, whose golden locks fell in 
sunny curls over his breast and back, so that 
he looked like one fresh from the bath; and 
then, going to the other spring, and doing as he 
had done before, called up another Amoretto 
like the first, save that his long flowing locks 
now seemed black, now shot with sunny gleams. 
Whereupon both the Amoretti nestled and clung 
round lamblichus as if they had been his own 
children." — Eunapii Sardiani Vita Philo- 
suphorum el Sophistariim (28, 29).] 



Scene ii.] 



MANFRED 



489 



And tenderness — but that I had for 

her; 
Humility — and that I never had. 
Her faults were mine — her virtues were 

her own — 
I loved her, and destroyed her ! 

Witch. With thy hand? 

Man. Not with my hand, but heart, 

which broke her heart; 
It gazed on mine, and withered. I have 

shed 
Blood, but not hers — and yet her blood 

was shed; 120 

I saw — and could not stanch it. 

Witch. And for this — 

A being of the race thou dost despise — 
The order, which thine own would rise 

above, 
Mingling with us and ours, — thou dost 

forego 
The gifts of our great knowledge, and 

shrink'st back 
To recreant mortality — Away ! 

Man. Daughter of Air ! I tell thee, 

since that hour — 
But words are breath — look on me in 

my sleep. 
Or watch my watchings — Come and 

sit by me! 
My solitude is solitude no more, 130 
But peopled with the Furies; — I have 

gnashed 
My teeth in darkness till returning 

morn, 
Then cursed myself till sunset; — I 

have prayed 
For madness as a blessing — 'tis denied 

me. 
I have affronted Death — but in the 

war 
Of elements the waters shrunk from me, 
And fatal things passed harmless; the 

cold hand 
Of an all-pitiless Demon held me back, 
Back by a single hair, which would not 

break 
In Fantasy, Imagination, all 140 

The afHuence of my soul — which one 

day was 
A Croesus in creation — I plunged deep, 
But, like an ebbing wave, it dashed me 

back 
Into the gulf of my unfathomed thought. 



I plunged amidst Mankind — Forget- 

fulness 
I sought in all, save where 'tis to be 

found — 
And that I have to learn — my Sciences, 
My long pursued and superhuman art. 
Is mortal here : I dwell in my despair — 
And live — and live for ever. 

Witch. It may be 150 

That I can aid thee. 

Man. To do this thy power 

Must wake the dead, or lay me low with 

them. 
Do so — in any shape — in any hour — 
With any torture — so it be the last. 
Witch. That is not in my province; 

but if thou 
Wilt swear obedience to my will, and 

do 
My bidding, it may help thee to thy 

wishes. 
Man. I will not swear — Obey ! and 

whom? the Spirits 
Whose presence I command, and be the 

slave 
Of those who served me — Never ! 

Witch. Is this all ? 160 

Hast thou no gentler answer ? — Yet 

bethink thee. 
And pause ere thou rejectest. 

Man. I have said it. 

Witch. Enough ! I may retire then — 

say! 
Man. Retire ! 

\The Witch disappears. 
Man. {alone). We are the fools of 

Time and Terror: Days 
Steal on us, and steal from us; yet we 

live. 
Loathing our life, and dreading still to 

die. 
In all the days of this detested yoke — 
This vital weight upon the struggling 

heart. 
Which sinks with sorrow, or beats quick 

with pain, 
Or joy that ends in agony or faint- 

ness — 170 

In all the days of past and future — for 
In life there is no present — we can 

number 
How fev/ — how less than few — 

wherein the soul 



490 



MANFRED 



[Act II. 



Forbears to pant for death, and yet 
draws back 

As from a stream in winter, though the 
chill 

Be but a moment's. I have one re- 
source 

Still in my science — I can call the dead, 

And ask them what it is we dread to be : 

The sternest answer can but be the 
Grave, 

And that is nothing: if they answer 
not — 1 80 

The buried Prophet answered to the 
Hag 

Of Endor; and the Spartan Monarch 
drew 

From the Byzantine maid's unsleeping 
spirit 

An answer and his destiny — he slew 

That which he loved, unknowing what 
he slew, 

And died unpardoned — though he 
called in aid 

The Phyxian Jove, and in Phigalia 
roused 

The Arcadian Evocators to compel 

The indignant shadow to depose her 
wrath. 

Or fix her term of vengeance — she 
replied 190 

In words of dubious import, but ful- 
filled.^ 

If I had never lived, that which I love 

Had still been living; had I never loved 

That which I love would still be beauti- 
ful, 

• The story of Pausanias, king of Sparta (who 
commanded the Greeks at the battle of Platea, 
and afterwards perished for an attempt to betray 
the Lacedaemonians), and Cleonice, is told in 
Plutarch's life of Cimon; and in the Laconics 
of Pausanias the sophist in his description of 
Greece. 

[The following is the passage from Plutarch: 
" It is related that when Pausanias was at 
Byzantium, he cast his eyes upon a young virgin 
named Cleonice, of a noble family there, and 
insisted on having her for a mistress. The 
parents, intimidated by his power, were under 
the hard necessity of giving up their daughter. 
The young woman begged that the light might 
be taken out of his apartment, that she might 
go to his bed in secrecy and silence. When she 
entered he was asleep, and she unfortunately 
stumbled upon the candlestick, and threw it 
down. The noise waked him suddenly, and 
he, in his confusion, thinking it was an enemy 
coming to assassinate him, unsheathed a dagger 



Happy and giving happiness. What is 

she? 
What is she now ? — a sufferer for my 

sins — 
A thing I dare not think upon — or 

nothing. 
Within few hours I shall not call in 

vain — 
Yet in this hour I dread the thing I dare: 
Until this hour I never shrunk to gaze 
On spirit, good or evil — now I trem- 
ble, 201 
And feel a strange cold thaw upon my 

heart. 
But I can act even what I most abhor. 
And champion human fears. — The 

night approaches. [Exit. 

Scene III. — The summit of the Jung- 
frau Mountain. 

Enter First Destiny. 

The Moon is rising broad, and round, 

and bright; 
And here on snows, where never human 

foot 
Of common mortal trod, we nightly 

tread, 
And leave no traces: o'er the savage sea, 

that lay by him, and plunged it into the virgin's 
heart. After this he could never rest. Her 
image appeared to him every night, and with 
a menacing tone repeated this heroic verse — 

'Go to the fate which pride and lust prepare !' 
The allies, highly incensed at this infamous 
action, joined Cimon to besiege him in Byzan- 
tium. But he found means to escape thence; 
and, as he was still haunted by the spectre, he 
is said to have applied to a temple at Heracle.a, 
where the manes of the dead were consulted. 
There he invoked the spirit of Cleonice, and 
entreated her pardon. She appeared, and 
told him 'he would soon be delivered from all 
his troubles, after his return to Sparta': in 
which, it seems, his death was enigmatically 
foretold." "Thus," adds the translator in a 
note, "we find that it was a custom in the pagan 
as well as in the Hebrew theology to conjure up 
the spirits of the dead, and that the witch of 
Endor was not the only witch in the world." — 
Langhorne's Plularch, 1838, p. 33Q. 

The same story is told in the Periegesis 
Graci(z, lib. iii. cap. xvii., but Pausanias adds, 
"This was the deed from the guilt of which 
Pausanias could never fly, though he employed 
all-various purifications, received the depreca- 
tions of Jupiter Phyxius, and went to Phigalea 
to the Arcadian evocators of souls." — (Trans- 
lation by T. Taylor), 1794, i. 304, 305.] 



Scene hi.] 



MANFRED 



491 



The glassy ocean of the mountain ice, 
We skim its rugged breakers, which put 

on 
The aspect of a tumbling tempest's foam 
Frozen in a moment — a dead Whirl- 
pool's image: 
And this most steep fantastic pinnacle, 
The fretwork of some earthquake — 
where the clouds 10 

Pause to repose themselves in passing 

by- 
Is sacred to our revels, or our vigils; 
Here do I wait my sisters, on our way 
To the Hall of Arimanes — for to-night 
Is our great festival — 'tis strange they 
come not, 

A Voice without, singing. 

The Captive Usurper, 

Hurled down from the throne, 
Lay buried in torpor. 

Forgotten and lone; 
I broke through his slumbers, 20 

I shivered his chain, 
I leagued him with numbers — 

He's Tyrant again ! 
With the blood of a miUion he'll answer 

my care, 
With a Nation's destruction — his flight 
and despair ! ^ 

Second Voice, without. 

The Ship sailed on, the Ship sailed fast. 
But I left not a sail, and I left not a 

mast; 
There is not a plank of the hull or the 

deck. 
And there is not a wretch to lament o'er 

his wreck; 
Save one, whom I held, as he swam, 

by the hair, 30 

And he was a subject well worthy my 

care; 
A traitor on land, and a pirate at sea — ^ 
But I saved him to wreak further havoc 

for me. 

' [Compare Napoleon's Farewell, stanza 3. 
The "Voice" prophesies that St Helena will 
prove a second Elba, and that Napoleon will 
"live to fight another day."] 

= [Byron may have had in his mind Thomas 
Lord Cochrane (1775-1860), "who had done 
brilliant service in his successive commands — 



First Destiny, answering. 

The City lies sleeping; 

The morn, to deplore it, 
May dawn on it weeping: 

Sullenly, slowly, 
The black plague flew o'er it — 

Thousands lie lowly; 
Tens of thousands shall perish; 40 

The living shall fly from 
The sick they should cherish; 

But nothing can vanquish 
The touch that they die from. 

Sorrow and anguish. 
And evil and dread, 

Envelop a nation; 
The blest are the dead, 
Who see not the sight 

Of their own desolation; 
This work of a night — 
This wreck of a realm — this deed of 

my doing — 
For ages I've done, and shall still be 



50 



renewmg 



Ettter the Second and Third Des- 
tinies. 

The Three. 

Our hands contain the hearts of men, 

Our footsteps are their graves; 
We only give to take again 

The Spirits of our slaves ! 
First Des. Welcome ! — Where's 

Nemesis ? 
Second Des. At some great work; 
But what I know not, for my hands were 

full. 
Third Des. Behold she cometh. 

Enter Nemesis. 

First Des. Say, where hast thou 

been ? 60 

My Sisters and thyself are slow to- 
night. 
Nem. I was detained repairing shat- 
tered thrones — 
Marrying fools, restoring dynasties — 
Avenging men upon their enemies, 

the Speedy, Pallas, Imperiense, and the flotilla 
of fire-ships at Basque Roads in 1809." In 
his Diary, March 10, 1814, he speaks of him as 
"the stock-jobbing hoaxer" {Letters, 1898, ij. 
396, note t).] 



492 



MANFRED 



[Act II. 



• And making them repent their own re- 
venge; 

Goading the wise to madness; from the 
dull 

Shaping out oracles to rule the world 
.« Afresh — for they were waxing out of 
I date, 

And mortals dared to ponder for them- 
selves, 

To weigh kings in the balance — and to 
speak 70 

Of Freedom, the forbidden fruit. — 
Away ! 

We have outstayed the hour — mount 
we our clouds! {Exeunt. 

Scene IV. — The Hall of Arimanes} 
— Arimanes on his Throne, a 
Globe of Fire, surrounded by the 
Spirits. 

Hymn of the Spirits. 

Hail to our Master ! — Prince of Earth 
and Air ! 
Who walks the clouds and waters — 
in his hand 
The sceptre of the Elements, whichtear 
Themselves to chaos at his high com- 
mand! 
He breatheth — and a tempest shakes 
the sea; 
He speaketh — and the clouds reply 
in thunder; 
He gazeth — from his glance the sun- 
beams flee; 
He moveth — Earthquakes rend the 
world asunder. 
Beneath his footsteps the Volcanoes rise ; 
His shadow is the Pestilence: his 
path 10 

The comets herald through the crack- 
ling skies; 
And Planets turn to ashes at his 
wrath. 
To him War offers daily sacrifice; 
To him Death pays his tribute; Life 
is his. 
With all its Infinite of agonies — 
And his the Spirit of whatever is ! 

' [Arimanes, the Aherman of Vaihek, the 
Arimanius of Greek and Latin writers, is the 
Ahriman, the spirit of evil, the counter-creator 
of the Zend-Avesla.] 



Enter the Destinies and Nemesis. 

First Des. Glory to Arimanes! on 
the earth 

His power increaseth — both my sisters 
did 

His bidding, nor did I neglect my duty ! 

Second Des. Glory to Arimanes ! we 

who bow 20 

The necks of men, bow down before his 
throne ! 
Third Des. Glory to Arimanes! we 
await 

His nod ! 

Nem. Sovereign of Sovereigns! we 
are thine, 

And all that liveth, more or less, is ours. 

And most things wholly so; still to in- 
crease 

Our power, increasing thine, demands 
our care. 

And we are vigilant. Thy late com- 
mands 

Have been fulfilled to the utmost. 



Enter Manfred. 

A Spirit. What is here? 

A mortal ! — Thou most rash and fatal 

wretch. 
Bow down and worship ! 

Second Spirit. I do know the man 
A Magian of great power, and fearful 
skill! 31 

Third Spirit. Bow down and wor- 
ship, slave ! — What, know'st thou 
not 
Thine and our Sovereign ? — Tremble, 
and obey ! 
All the Spirits. Prostrate thyself, and 
thy condemned clay. 
Child of the Earth ! or dread the worst. 
Man. I know it; 

And yet ye see I kneel not. 

Fourth Spirit. 'Twill be taught thee. 
Man. 'Tis taught already; — many 
a night on the earth, 
On the bare ground, have I bowed 1 

down my face. 
And strewed my head with ashes; I 

have known 
The fulness of humiliation — for 40 
I sunk before my vain despair, and i 
knelt I 



*# 



Scene iv.] 



MANFRED 



493 



To rny own desolation. 

Fifth Spirit. Dost thou dare 

Refuse to Arimanes on his throne 

What the whole earth accords, behold- 
ing not 

The terror of his Glory ? — Crouch ! I 
say. 
Man. Bid him bow down to that 
which is above him, 

The overruling Infinite — the Maker 

Who made him not for worship — let 
him kneel, 

And we will kneel together. 

The Spirits. Crush the worm ! 

Tear him in pieces ! — 

First Des. Hence ! Avaunt ! — he's 
mine, 50 

Prince of the Powers invisible ! This 
man 

Is of no common order, as his port 

And presence here denote: his suffer- 
ings 

Have been of an immortal nature — 
like 

Our own; his knowledge, and his pow- 
ers and will. 

As far as is compatible with clay, 

Which clogs the ethereal essence, have 
been such 

As clay hath seldom borne; his aspira- 
tions 

Have been beyond the dwellers of the 
earth, 

And they have only taught him what 
we know — 60 

That knowledge is not happiness, and 
science 

But an exchange of ignorance for that 

Which is another kind of ignorance. 

This is not all — the passions, attri- 
butes 

Of Earth and Heaven, from which no 
power, nor being, 

Nor breath from the worm upwards is 
exempt, 

Have pierced his heart; and in their 
consequence 

Made him a thing — which — I who 
pity not, 

Yet pardon those who pity. He is 
mine — 

And thine it may be; be it so, or not — 

No other Spirit in this region hath 71 



A soul like his — or power upon his 
soul. 
Nern. What doth he here then? 
First Des. Let him answer that. 

Man. Ye know what I have known; 
and without power 
I could not be amongst ye: but there 

are 
Powers deeper still beyond — I come in 

quest 
Of such, to answer unto what I seek. 
Nejn. What would'st thou? 
Man. Thou canst not reply to me. 
Call up the dead — my question is for 
them. 
Nem. Great Arimanes, doth thy will 
avouch 80 

The wishes of this mortal? 
Ari. Yea. 

Nem. Whom wouldst thou 

Uncharnel ? 

Man. One without a tomb — call up 
Astatte.^ 

Nemesis. 

Shadow ! or Spirit ! 

Whatever thou art, 
Which still doth inherit 
The whole or a part 
Of the form of thy birth, 

Of the mould of thy clay. 
Which returned to the earth, 90 

Re-appear to the day ! 
Bear what thou borest, 

The heart and the form, 
And the aspect thou worest • 
Redeem from the worm. 
Appear ! — Appear ! — Appear ! 
Who sent thee there requires thee 

here ! 
The Phantom of Astarte rises and 

stands in the midst. 
Man. Can this be death? there's 
bloom upon her cheek; 
But now I see it is no living hue. 
But a strange hectic — like the un- 
natural red 100 
Which Autumn plants upon the perished 

leaf. 
It is the same ! Oh, God ! that I should 
dread 

I [Milton's 

"Mooned Ashtaroth, 
Heaven's queen and mother both."] 



494 



MANFRED 



[Act II. 



To look upon the same — Astarte ! — 

No, 
I cannot speak to her — but bid her 

speak — 
Forgive me or condemn me. 

Nemesis. 

By the Power which hath broken 
The grave which enthralled thee, 

Speak to him who hath spoken, 
Or those who have called thee ! 

Man. She is silent, no 

And in that silence I am more than 

answered. 
Nem. My power extends no further. 

Prince of Air ! 
It rests with thee alone — command 

her voice. 
Ari. Spirit — obey this sceptre ! 
Nem. Silent still ! 

She is not of our order, but belongs 
To the other powers. Mortal ! thy 

quest is vain. 
And we are baffled also. 

Man. Hear me, hear me — 

Astarte ! my beloved ! speak to me : 
I have . so much endured — so much 

endure — 
Look on me ! the grave hath not 

changed thee more 
Than I am changed for thee. Thou 

lovedst me 120 

Too much, as I loved thee : we were not 

made 
To torture thus each other — though it 

were 
The deadliest sin to love as we have 

loved. 
Say that thou loath'st me not — that I 

do bear 
This punishment for both — that thou 

wilt be 
One of the blessed — and that I shall 

die; 
For hitherto all hateful things conspire 
To bind me in existence — in a life 
Which makes me shrink from Immor- 
tality — 
A future like the past. I cannot rest. 
I know not what I ask, nor what I 

seek: 131 

I feel but what thou art, and w^hat I am ; 



And I would hear yet once before I 

perish 
The voice which was my music — speak 

to me! 
For I have called on thee in the still 

night. 
Startled the slumbering birds from the 

hushed boughs. 
And woke the mountain wolves, and 

made the caves 
Acquainted with thy vainly echoed 

name, 
Which answered me — many things 

answered me — 
Spirits and men — but thou wert silent 
all. 140 

Yet speak to me ! I have outwatched 

the stars, 
And gazed o'er heaven in vain in search 

of thee. 
Speak to me ! I have wandered o'er the 

earth. 
And never found thy likeness — Speak 

to me ! 
Look on the fiends around — they feel 

for me: 
I fear them not, and feel for thee alone. 
Speak to me ! though it be in wrath; — 

but say — 
I reck not what — but let me hear thee 

once — 
This once — once more ! 

Phantom of Astarte. Manfred! 

Man. Say on, say on — 

I live but in the sound — it is thy voice ! 

Phan. Manfred ! to-morrow ends 

thine earthly ills. 151 

Farewell ! 

Man. Yet one word more — am I 

forgiven ? 
Phan. Farewell I 

Man. Say, shall we meet again? 

Phan. Farewell ! 

Man. One word for mercy ! Say 

thou lovest me. 
Phan. Manfred ! 

{The Spirit of Astarte disappears. 
Nem. She's gone, and will not be 
recalled : 
Her words will be fulfilled. Return to 
the earth. 
A Spirit. He is convulsed — This is 
to be a mortal, 



Sc^np: I. 



MANFRED 



495 



And seek the things beyond mortality. 
Another Spirit. Yet, see, he master- 
eth himself, and makes 
His torture tributary to his will. i6o 
Had he been one of us, he would have 

made 
An awful Spirit. 

Nem. Hast thou further question 
Of our great sovereign, or his wor- 
shippers ? 
Man. None. 

Nem. Then, for a time, farewell. 
Man. We meet then ! Where? On 
the earth ? — 
Even as thou wilt: and for the grace 

accorded 

I now depart a debtor. Fare ye well ! 
[Exit Manfred. 
(Scene closes.) 



ACT HI. 

Scene I. — A Hall in the Castle of 
Manfred. 

Manfred and Herman. 

Man. What is the hour? 
Her, It wants but one till sunset, 
And promises a lovely twilight. 

Alan. Say, 

Are all things so disposed of in the 

tower 
As I directed? 

Her. All, my Lord, are ready: 

Here is the key and casket. 

Man. It is well : 

Thou mayst retire. [Exit Herman. 

Man. (alone). There is a calm upon 
me — 
Inexplicable stillness ! which till now 
Did not belong to what I knew of life. 
If that I did not know PhilosoiDhy 
To be of all our vanities the motliest, lo 
The merest word that ever fooled the 

ear 
From out the schoolman's jargon, I 

should dQem 
The golden secret, the sought "Kalon," 

found. 
And seated in my soul. It will not last. 
But it is well to have known it, though 
but once: 



It hath enlarged my thoughts with a 

new sense, 
And I within my tablets would note 

down 
That there is such a feeling. Who is 

there ? 

Re-enter Herman. 

Her. My Lord, the Abbot of St 
Maurice craves 
To greet your presence. 

Enter the Abbot of St Maurice.^ 

Abbot. Peace be with Count Man- 
fred ! 20 
Man. Thanks, holy father! wel- 
come to these walls; 
Thy presence honours them, and bless- 

eth those 
Who dwell within them. 

Abbot. Would it were so. Count ! — 

But I would fain confer with thee alone. 

Man. Herman, retire. — What would 

my reverend guest? 
Abbot. Thus, without prelude: — 
Age and zeal — my office — 
And good intent must plead my privi- 
lege; 
Our near, though not acquainted neigh- 
bourhood. 
May also be my herald. Rumours 

strange. 
And of unholy nature, are abroad, 30 
And busy with thy name — a noble 

name 
For centuries : may he who bears it now 
Transmit it unimpaired ! 

Man. Proceed, — I listen. 

Abbot. 'Tis said thou boldest con- 
verse with the things 
Which are forbidden to the search of 

man; 
That with the dwellers of the dark 

abodes. 
The many evil and unheavenly spirits 
Which walk the valley of the Shade of 
Death, 



' [St Maurice is in the Rhone valley, some 
sixteen miles from Villeneuve. The abbey (now 
occupied by Augustinian monks) was founded in 
the fourth century, and endowed by Sigismund, 
King of Burgundy.] 



496 



MANFRED 



[Act III. 



Thou communest. I know that with 

mankind, 
Thy fellows in creation, thou dost 

rarely 40 

Exchange thy thoughts, and that thy 

solitude 
Is as an Anchorite's — were it but holy. 
Man. And what are they who do 

avouch these things? 
Abbot. My pious brethren — the 

scared peasantry — 
Even thy own vassals — who do look 

on thee 
With most unquiet eyes. Thy life's in 

peril ! 
Man. Take it. 
Abbot. I come to save, and not 

destroy: 
I would not pry into thy secret soul; 
But if these things be sooth, there still 

is time 
For penitence and pity: reconcile thee 
With the true church, and through the 

church to Heaven. 51 

Man. I hear thee. This is my reply 

— whate'er 
I may have been, or am, doth rest 

between 
Heaven and myself — I shall not choose 

a mortal 
To be my mediator — Have I sinned 
Against your ordinances? prove and 

punish ! 
Abbot. My son! I did not speak of 

punishment, 
But penitence and pardon; — with thy- 
self 
The choice of such remains — and for 

the last, 
Our institutions and our strong belief 60 
Have given me power to smooth the 

path from sin 
To higher hope and better thoughts; 

the first 
I leave to Heaven, — "Vengeance is 

mine alone!" 
So saith the Lord, and with all humble- 
ness 
His servant echoes back the awful word. 
I Man. Old man! there is no power 
I in holy men, 
(Nor charm in prayer, nor purifying 

form 



Of penitence, nor outward look, nor 

fast, 
Nor agony — nor, greater than all these. 
The innate tortures of that deep Despair, 
Which is Remorse without the fear of 
Hell, 71 

But all in all sufficient to itself 
Would make a hell of Heaven — can 

exorcise 
From out the unbounded spirit the quick 

sense 
Of its own sins — wrongs — sufferance 

— and revenge 
Upon itself; there is no future pang 
Can deal that justice on the self -con- 
demned 
He deals on his own soul. 

Abbot. All this is well; 

For this will pass away, and be suc- 
ceeded 
By an auspicious hope, which shall 
look up 80 

With calm assurance to that blessed 

place, 
Which all who seek may win, what- 
ever be 
Their earthly errors, so they be atoned: 
And the commencement of atonement is 
The sense of its necessity. Say on — 
And all our church can teach thee shall 

be taught; 
And all we can absolve thee shall be 
pardoned. 
Man. When Rome's sixth Emperor ^ 
was near his last, 
The victim of a self-inflicted wound, 
To shun the torments of a pubUc death 
From senates once his slaves, a certain 
soldier, 91 

With show of loyal pity, would have 

stanched 
The gushing throat with his officious 

robe; 
The dying Roman thrust him back, and 

said — 
Some empire still in his expiring glance — 
"It is too late — is this fidelity?" 
Abbot. And what of this? 
Man. I answer with the Roman — 
"It is too late!" 

Abbot. It never can be so, 

To reconcile thyself with thy own soul, 

' [Nero.] 



Scene i.] 



MANFRED 



497 



And thy own soul with Heaven. Hast 

thou no hope? loo 

'Tis strange — even those who do 

despair above, 
Yet shape themselves some fantasy on 

earth, 
To which frail twig they cling, like 

drowning men. 
Man. Aye — father ! I have had 

those early visions, 
And noble aspirations in my youth. 
To make my own the mind of other men. 
The enlightener of nations; and to rise 
I knew not whither — it might be to 

fall; 
But fall, even as the mountain-cataract. 
Which having leapt from its more 

dazzling height, no 

Even in the foaming strength of its 

abyss, 
(Which casts up misty columns that 

become 
Clouds raining from the re-ascended 

skies,) ^ 
Lies low but mighty still. — But this is 

past, 
My thoughts mistook themselves. 

Abbot. And wherefore so? 

Man. I could not tame my nature 

down; for he 
Must serve who fain would sway; and 

soothe, and sue. 
And watch all time, and pry into all 

place. 
And be a living Lie, who would become 
A mighty thing amongst the mean — 

and such 120 

The mass are; I disdained to mingle 

with 
A herd, though to be leader — and of 
\ wolves. 

^he lion is alone, and so am 1. 
■ Abbot. And why not live and act 

with other men? 
Man. Because my nature was averse 

from life; 
And yet not cruel: for I would not 

make, 
But find a desolation. Like the Wind, 

' [A reminiscence of the clouds of spray from 
the Fall of the Staubbach, which, in certain 
aspects, appear to be springing upwards from 
the bed of the waterfall.] 

2 K 



The red-hot breath of the most lone 

Simoom, 
Which dwells but in the desert, and 

sweeps o'er 
The barren sands which bear no shrubs 

to blast, 130 

And revels o'er their wild and arid 

waves. 
And seeketh not, so that it is not sought, 
But being met is deadly, — such hath. 

been 
The course of my existence; but there 

came 

Things in my path which are no more. 

Abbot. Alas! 

I 'gin to fear that thou art past all aid 

From me and from my caUing; yet so 

young, 
I still would — • 

Man. Look on me ! there is an order 
Of mortals on the earth, who do become 
Old in their youth, and die ere middle 

age, 140 

Without the violence of warUke death; 
Some perishing of pleasure — some of 

study — 
Some worn with toil, some of mere 

weariness, — 
Some of disease — and some insanity — 
And some of withered, or of broken 

hearts ; 
For this last is a malady which slays 
More than are numbered in the lists of 

Fate, 
Taking all shapes, and bearing many 

names. 
Look upon me ! for even of all these 

things 
Have I partaken; and of all these 

things 150 

One were enough; then wonder not 

that I 
Am what I am, but that I ever was. 
Or having been, that I am still on earth. 
Abbot. Yet, hear me still — 
Man. Old man ! I do respect 

Thine order, and revere thine years; I 

deem 
Thy purpose pious, but it is in vain: 
Think me not churlish; I would spare 

thyself. 
Far more than me, in shunning at this 

time 



498 



MANFRED 



[Act III. 



All further colloquy — and so — fare- 
well. [Exit Manfred. 
Abbot. This should have been a noble 
creature: he i6o 

Hath all the energy which would have 
made 

A goodly frame of glorious elements, 

Had they been wisely mingled ; as it is, 

It is an awful chaos — Light and Dark- 
ness — 

And mind and dust — and passions and 
pure thoughts 

Mixed, and contending without end or 
order, — 

All dormant or destructive. He will 
perish — 

And yet he must not — I will try once 
more, 

For such are worth redemption; and 
my duty 

Is to dare all things for a righteous end. 

I'll follow him — but cautiously, though 

surely. 171 

[Exit Abbot. 



Scene II. — Another Chamber. 

Manfred and Herman. 

Her. My lord, you bade me wait on 
you at sunset: 
He sinks behind the mountain. 

Man. Doth he so? 

I will look on him. 

[Manfred advances to the Win- 
dow of the Hall. 

Glorious Orb ! the idol 
Of early nature, and the vigorous race 
Of undiseased mankind, the giant sons ^ 
Of the embrace of Angels, with a sex 
More beautiful than they, which did 

draw down 
The erring Spirits who can ne'er re- 
turn. — 
Most glorious Orb ! that wert a wor- 
ship, ere 

' "And it came to pass, that the Sons of God 
saw the daughters of men, that they were fair," 
etc. — "There were giants in the earth in those 
dayc ; and also after that, when the Sons of God 
came in unto the daughters of men, and they 
bare children to them, the same became mighty 
men which were of old, men of renown." — 
Genesis, ch. vi. verses 2 and 4. 



The mystery of thy making was re- 
vealed! 10 
Thou earliest minister of the Almighty, 
Which gladdened, on their mountain 

tops, the hearts 
Of the Chaldean shepherds, till they 

poured 
Themselves in orisons ! Thou material 

God! 
And representative of the Unknown — 
Who chose thee for his shadow ! Thou 

chief Star! 
Centre of many stars ! which mak'st 

our earth 
Endurable, and temperest the hues 
And hearts of all who walk within thy 

rays! 
Sire of the seasons! Monarch of the 

climes, 20 

And those who dwell in them ! for near 

or far. 
Our inborn spirits have a tint of thee 
Even as our outward aspects; — thou 

dost rise, 
And shine, and set in glory. Fare thee 

well ! 
I ne'er shall see thee more. As my first 

glance 
Of love and wonder was for thee, then 

take 
My latest look: thou wilt not beam on 

one 
To whom the gifts of life and warmth 

have been 
Of a more fatal nature. He is gone — 

I follow. [Exit Manfred. 



Scene III. — The Mountains — The 
Castle of Manfred at some dis- 
tance — A Terrace before a Tower. 
— Time, Twilight. 

Herman, Manuel, and other depend- 
ants of Manfred. 

Her. 'Tis strange enough ! night 

after night, for years, 
He hath pursued long vigils in this 

tower, 
Without a witness. I ha,ve been within 

it, — 
So have we all been oft-times; but from 

it. 



Scene hi.] 



MANFRED 



499 



Or its contents, it were impossible 

To draw conclusions absolute, of aught 

His studies tend to. To be sure, there 

is 
One chamber where none enter: I 

would give 
The fee of what I have to come these 

three years, 
To pore upon its mysteries. 

Manuel. 'Twere dangerous; lo 

Content thyself with what thou know'st 

already. 
Her. Ah ! Manuel ! thou art elderly 

and wise, 
And couldst say much; thou hast dwelt 

within the castle — 
How many years is't? 

Manuel. Ere Count Manfred's 

birth, 
I served his father, whom he nought 

resembles. 
Her. There be more sons in like 

predicament ! 
But wherein do they differ? 

Manuel. I speak not 

Of features or of form, but mind and 

habits; 
Count Sigismund was proud, but gay 

and free, — 
A warrior and a reveller; he dwelt not 
With books and sohtude, nor made the 

night 2 1 

A gloomy vigil, but a festal time, 
Merrier than day; he did not walk the 

rocks 
And forests like a wolf, nor turn aside 
I From men and their delights. 
! Her. Eeshrew the hour. 

But those were jocund times ! I would 

that such 
Would visit the old walls again; they 

look 
As if they had forgotten them. 

Manuel. These walls 

Must change their chieftain first. Oh ! 

I have seen 
Some strange things in them, Herman. 
Her. Come, be friendly; 30 

Relate me some to while away our 

watch : 

I've heard thee darkly speak of an event 
Which happened hereabouts, by this 

same tower. 



Manuel. That was a night indeed ! 

I do remember 
'Twas twilight, as it may be now, and 

such 
Another evening: — yon red cloud, 

which rests 
On Eigher's pinnacle, so rested then, — 
So like that it might be the same; the 

wind 
Was faint and gusty, and the mountain 

snows 
Began to glitter with the cHmbing 

moon; 40 

Count Manfred was, as now, within his 

tower, — 
How occupied, we knew not, but with 

him 
The sole companion of his wanderings 
And watchings — her, whom of all 

earthly things 
That lived, the only thing he seemed to 

love, — 
As he, indeed, by blood was bound to 

do. 
The Lady Astarte, his — 

Hush ! who comes here ? 

Enter the Abbot. 

Abbot. Where is your master? 

Her. Yonder in the tower. 

Abbot. I must speak with him. 

Manuel. 'Tis impossible; 

He is most private, and must not be 
thus 50 

Intruded on. 

Abbot. Upon myself I take 

The forfeit of my fault, if fault there 

be — 
But I must see him. 

Her. Thou hast seen him once 

This eve already. 

Abbot. Herman! I command thee. 
Knock, and apprize the Count of my 
approach. 

Her. We dare not. 

Abbot. Then it seems I must be 

herald 
Of my own purpose. 

Manuel. Reverend father, stop — 
I pray you pause. 

Abbot. Why so? 

Manuel. But step this way, 

And I will tell you further. {Exeunt. 



500 



MANFRED 



[Act III. 



Scene IV. — Interior of the Tower. 

Manfred alone. 

The stars are forth, the moon above the 

tops 
Of the snow-shining mountains. — 

Beautiful ! 
I linger yet with Nature, for the Night 
Hath been to me a more familiar face 
Than that of . man ; and in her starry 

shade v 

Of dim and solitary loveliness, 
I learned the language of another world. 
I do remember me, that in my youth, 
When I was wandering, — upon such 

a night 
I stood within the Coliseum's wall, lo 
'Midst the chief relics of almighty 

Rome; 
The trees which grew along the broken 

arches 
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and 

the stars 
Shone through the rents of ruin; from 

afar 
The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; 

and 
More near from out the Caesar's palace 

came 
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly, 
Of distant sentinels the fitful song 
Begun and died upon the gentle wind. 
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn 

breach 20 

Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they 

stood 
Within a bowshot. Where the Caesars 

dwelt, 
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, 

amidst 
A grove which springs through levelled 

battlements. 
And twines its roots with the imperial 

hearths, 
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth ; — 
But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands, 
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection. 
While Caesar's chambers, and the 

Augustan halls, 
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. — 30 
And thou didst shine, thou rolling Moon, 

upon 



All this, and cast a wide and tender 

light. 
Which softened down the hoar austerity 
Of rugged desolation, and filled up. 
As 'twere anew, the gaps of centuries; 
Leaving that beautiful which still was so, 
And making that which was not — ■ till 

the place 
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er 
With silent worship of the Great of 

old, — 
The dead, but sceptred. Sovereigns, who 

still rule 40 

Our spirits from their urns. 

'Twas such a night! 
'Tis strange that I recall it at this time; 
But I have found our thoughts take 

wildest flight 
Even at the moment when they should 

array 
Themselves in pensive order. 

Enter the Abbot. 

Abbot. My good Lord! 

I crave a second grace for this approach ; 
But yet let not my humble zeal offend 
By its abruptness — all it hath of ill 
Recoils on me; its good in the effect 
May light upon your head — could I say 
heart — 50 

Could I touch that, with words or 

prayers, I should 
Recall a noble spirit which hath wan- 
dered. 
But is not yet all lost. 

Man. Thou know'st me not; 

My days are numbered, and my deeds 

recorded: 
Retire, or 'twill be dangerous — Away ! 
Abbot. Thou dost not mean to 

menace me? 
Man. Not 1 1 

I simply tell thee peril is at hand, 
And would preserve thee. 

Abbot. What dost thou mean?, 

Man. Look there! 

What dost thou see? 

Abbot. Nothing. 

Man. Look there, I say, 

And steadfastly; — now tell me what 

thou see'st? 60 

Abbot. That which should shake 

me, — but I fear it not: 



Scene iv.] 



MANFRED 



501 



I see a dusk and awful figure rise, 
Like an infernal god, from out the 

earth ; 
His face wrapt in a mantle, and his form 
Robed as with angry clouds: he stands 

between 
Thyself and me — but I do fear him not. 
Man. Thou hast no cause — he shall 
not harm thee : — but 
His sight may shock thine old limbs 

into palsy. 
I say to thee — Retire ! 

Abbot. And I reply — 

Never — till I have battled with this 
fiend: — 70 

What doth he here? 

Man. Why — aye — what doth 

he here? 
I did not send for him, — he is unbid- 
den. 
Abbot. Alas! lost Mortal! what with 
guests like these 
Hast thou to do? I tremble for thy 

sake: 
Why doth he gaze on thee, and thou on 

him? 
Ah! he unveils his aspect: on his brow 
The thunder-scars are graven; from 

his eye 
Glares forth the immortality of Hell — 
Avaunt ! — 

Man. Pronounce — what is thy mis- 
sion? 
Spirit. Come ! 

Abbot. What art thou, unknown 

being ? answer ! — speak ! 80 

Spirit. The genius of this mortal. — 

Come ! 'tis time. 
Man. I am prepared for all things, 
but deny 
The Power which summons me. Who 
sent thee here? 
Spirit. Thou' It know anon — Come! 

come! 
Man. I have commanded 

Things of an essence greater far than 

thine, 
A-nd striven with thy masters. Get thee 

hence ! 
- Spirit. Mortal! thine hour is. come 
— Away ! I say. 
Man. I knew, and know my hour is 
come, but not 



To render up my soul to such as thee: 

Away ! I'll die as I have lived — alone. 

Spirit. Then I must summon up my 

brethren. — Rise ! 91 

[Other Spirits rise up. 

Abbot. Avaunt! ye evil ones! — 

Avaunt ! I say, — 
Ye have no power where Piety hath 

power. 
And I do charge ye in the name — 

Spirit. Old man! 

We know ourselves, our mission and 

thine order; 
Waste not thy holy words on idle uses — 
It were in vain: this man is forfeited. 
Once more — I summon him — Away ! 

Away ! 
Man. I do defy ye, — though I feel 

my soul 
Is ebbing from me, yet I do defy ye; 100 
Nor will I hence, while I have earthly 

breath 
To breathe my scorn upon ye — earthly 

strength 
To wrestle, though with spirits; what 

ye take 
Shall be ta'en Hmb by Hmb. 

Spirit. Reluctant mortal! 

Is this the Magian who would so per- 
vade 
The world invisible, and make himself 
Almost our equal ? Can it be that thou 
Art thus in love with life ? the very life 
Which made thee wretched ? 

Man. Thou false fiend, thou liest! 
My life is in its last hour, — that I 

know, no 

Nor would redeem a moment of that 

hour; 
I do not combat against Death, but thee 
And thy surrounding angels; my past 

power 
Was purchased by no compact with thy 

crew. 
But by superior science — penance, 

daring, 
And length of watching, strength of 

mind, and skill 
In knowledge of our Fathers — when 

the earth 
Saw men and spirits walking side by 

side, 
And gave ye no supremacy: I stand 



502 



THE LAMENT OF TASSO 



Upon my strength — I do defy — 

deny — 120 

Spurn back, and scorn ye ! — 

Spirit. But thy many crimes 

Have made thee — 

Man. What are they to such as thee ? 
Must crimes be punished but by other 

crimes, 
And greater criminals ? — Back to thy 

heli ! 
Thou hast no power upon me, that I feel ; 
Thou never shalt possess me, that I 

know : 
What I have done is done ; I bear within 
A torture which could nothing gain 

from thine: 
The Mind which is immortal makes 

itself 
f ^ Requital for its good or evil thoughts, — 
^'''- Is its own origin of ill and end — 131 
And its own place and time: its innate 

sense, 
When stripped of this mortality, de- 
rives 
No colour from the fleeting things with- 
out, 
But is absorbed in suiTerance or in joy, 
Born from the knowledge of its own 

desert. 
Thou didst not tempt me, and thou 

couldst not tempt me; 
I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy 

prey — 
But was my own destroyer, and will be 
My own hereafter. — Back, ye baffled 

fiends! 140 

The hand of Death is on me — but not 

yours ! \The Demons disappear. 
Abbot. Alas! how pale thou art — 

thy lips are white — 
And thy breast heaves — and in thy 

gasping throat 
The accents rattle: Give thy prayers to 

Heaven — 
Pray — albeit but in thought, — but 

die not thus. 
Man. 'Tis over — my dull eyes can 

fix thee not; 
But all things swim around me, and the 

earth 
Heaves as it were beneath me. Fare 

thee well — 
Give me thy hand. 



Abbot. Cold — cold — even to the 

heart — 
But yet one prayer — Alas ! how fares 

it with thee? 150 

Man. Old man ! 'tis not so difficult 

to die. [Manfred expires. 

Abbot. He's gone — his soul hath 

ta'en its earthless flight; 
Whither ? I dread to think — but he is 

gone. 



THE LAMENT OF 
TASSO.i 



ADVERTISEMENT 

At Ferrara, in the Library, are preserved 
the original MSS. of Tasso's Gerusa- 
lemme and of Guarini's Pastor Fido, with 
letters of Tasso, one from Titian to 
Ariosto, and the inkstand and chair, the 
tomb and the house, of the latter. But, 
as misfortune has a greater interest for 
posterity, and Uttle or none for the co- 
temporary, the cell where Tasso was 
confined in the hospital of St Anna 
attracts a more fixed attention than the 
residence or the monument of Ariosto — 
at least it had this effect on me. There 
are two inscriptions, one on the outer 
gate, the second over the cell itself, in- 
viting, unnecessarily, the wonder and 
the indignation of the spectator. Fer- 
rara is much decayed and depopulated: 
the castle still exists entire; and I saw 
the court where Parisina and Hugo were 
beheaded, according to the annal of 
Gibbon. 



Long years ! — It tries the thrilling 

frame to bear 
And eagle-spirit of a Child of Song — 
Long years of outrage — ■ calumny — 

and wrong; 
.Imputed madness, prisoned solitude, 

' [The MS. of The Lament of Tasso is dated 
April 20, 1817. The poem was published, 
June 17, 1817.] 



THE LAMENT OF TASSO 



503 



And the Mind's canker in its savage 

mood, 
When the impatient thirst of light and 

air 
Parches the heart; and the abhorred 

grate, 
Marring the sunbeams with its hideous 

shade, 
Works through the throbbing eyeball to 

the brain, 
With a hot sense of heaviness and pain ; 
And bare, at once, Captivity displayed 1 1 
Stands scoffing through the never-opened 

gate, 
Which nothing through its bars admits, 

save day. 
And tasteless food, which I have eat 

alone 
Till its unsocial bitterness is gone; 
And I can banquet like a beast of prey. 
Sullen and lonely, couching in the cave 
Which is my lair, and — it may be — 

my grave. 
All this hath somewhat worn me, and 

may wear, 
But must be borne. I stoop not to 

despair; 20 

For I have battled with mine agony, 
And made me wings wherewith to over- 

fly 
The narrow circus of my dungeon wall. 
And freed the Holy Sepulchre from 

thrall; 
And revelled among men and things 

divine, 
And poured my spirit over Palestine, 
In honour of the sacred war for Him, 
The God who was on earth and is in 

Heaven, 
For He has strengthened me in heart 

and limb. 
That through this sufferance I might be 

forgiven, 30 

I have employed my penance to record 
How Salem's shrine was won, and how 

adored. 

II. 

But this is o'er — my pleasant task is 
done : — ^ 

I [Tasso's imprisonment in the Hospital of 
Sant' Anna lasted from March, 1579, to July, 
1586. The Geriisalemnie had been finished 
many years before.] 



My long sustaining Friend of many 

years ! 
If I do blot thy final page with tears, 
Know, that my sorrows have wrung from 

me none. 
But Thou, my young creation ! my 

Soul's child ! 
Which ever playing round me came and 

smiled, 
And wooed me from myself with thy 

sweet sight, 
Thou too art gone — and so is my de- 
light : 40 
And therefore do I weep and inly bleed 
With this last bruise upon a broken reed. 
Thou too art ended — what is left me 

now? 
For I have anguish yet to bear — and 

how? 
I know not that — but in the innate 

force 
Of my own spirit shall be found resource. 
I have not sunk, for I had no remorse. 
Nor cause for such: they called me mad 

— and why ? 
Oh Leonora ! wilt not thou reply ? 
I was indeed delirious in my heart 50 
To lift my love so lofty as thou art; 
But still my frenzy was not of the mind : 
I knew my fault, and feel my punish- 
ment 
Not less because I suffer it unbent. 
That thou wert beautiful, and I not 

blind. 
Hath been the sin which shuts me from 

mankind ; 
But let them go, or torture as they will. 
My heart can multiply thine image still: 
Successful Love may sate itself away; 
The wretched are the faithful; 'tis their 

fate 60 

To have all feeling, save the one, decay. 
And every passion into one dilate. 
As rapid rivers into Ocean pour; 
But ours is fathomless, and hath no 

shore. 



Above me, hark ! the long and maniac 

cry 
Of minds and bodies in captivity. 
And hark ! the lash and the increasing 

howl, 



504 



THE LAMENT OF TASSO 



And the half-inarticulate blasphemy ! 
There be some here with worse than 

frenzy foul, 
Some who do still goad on the o'er- 

laboured mind, 70 

And dim the little light that's left behind 
With needless torture, as their tyrant 

Will 
Is wound up to the lust of doing ill: 
With these and with their victims am I 

classed; 
'Mid sounds and sights like these long 

years have passed; 
'Mid sights and sounds like these my life 

may close: 
So let it be — for then I shall repose. 

IV. 

I have been patient, let me be so yet; 
I had forgotten half I would forget, 
But it revives — Oh ! would it were my 

lot 80 

To be forgetful as I am forgot ! — 
Feel I not wroth with those who bade 

me dwell 
In this vast Lazar-house of many 

woes ? 
Where laughter is not mirth, nor thought 

the mind, 
Nor words a language, nor ev'n men 

mankind ; 
Where cries reply to curses, shrieks to 

blows. 
And each is tortured in his separate 

hell — 
For we are crowded in our solitudes — 
Many, but each divided by the wall. 
Which echoes madness in her babbling 

moods, 90 

While all can hear, none heed his neigh- 
bour's call — 
None ! save that One, the veriest wretch 

of all. 
Who was not made to be the mate of 

these. 
Nor bound between Distraction and 

Disease. 
Feel I not wroth with those who placed 

me here ? 
Who have debased me in the minds of 

men, 
Debarring me the usage of my own. 
Blighting my life in best of its career. 



Branding my thoughts as things to shun 
and fear? 

Would I not pay them back these pangs 
again, 

And teach them inward Sorrow's stifled 
groan? 100 

The struggle to be calm, and cold dis- 
tress. 

Which undermines our Stoical success? 

No ! — still too proud to be vindictive 
— I 

Have pardoned Princes' insults, and 
would die. 

Yes, Sister of my Sovereign ! for thy 
sake 

I weed all bitterness from out my breast, 

It hath no business where thou art a 
guest: 

Thy brother hates — but I cannot de- 
test; 

Thou pitiest not — but I cannot for- 
sake, no 

V. 

Look on a love which knows not to de- 
spair, 
But all unquenched is still my better 

part, 
Dwelling deep ,in my shut and silent 

heart, 
As dwells the gathered lightning in its 

cloud, 
Encompassed with its dark and rolling 

shroud, 
Till struck, — forth flies the all-ethereal 

dart! 
And thus at the collision of thy name 
The vivid thought still flashes through 

my frame. 
And for a moment all things as they 

were 
Flit by me; — they are gone — I am the 

same. 120 

And yet my love without ambition grew ; 
I knew thy state — my station — and I 

knew 
A Princess was no love-mate for a bard: ^ 

' [It is highly improbable that Tasso openly, 
indulged, or secretly nourished, a consuming 
passion for Leonora d'Este, and it is certain that 
the "Sister of his Sovereign" had nothing to do 
with his being shut up in the Hospital of Sant' 
Anna. That poet and princess had known each 
other for over thirteen years, that the princess 
was seven years older than the poet, and, in 



THE LAMENT OF TASSO 



505 



I told it not — I breathed it not — it was 

Sufficient to itself, its own reward; 

And if my eyes revealed it, they, alas ! 

Were punished by the silentness of thine, 

And yet I did not venture to repine. 

Thou wert to me a crystal-girded shrine, 

Worshipped at holy distance, and 
around 130 

Hallowed and meekly kissed the saintly 
ground; 

Not for thou wert a Princess, but that 
Love 

Had robed thee with a glory, and ar- 
rayed 

Thy lineaments in beauty that dis- 
mayed — 

Oh ! not dismayed — but awed, like 
One above ! 

And in that sweet severity there was 

A something which all softness did sur- 
pass — 

I know not how — thy Genius mastered 
mine — 

My Star stood still before thee: — if it 
were 

Presumptuous thus to love without de- 
sign, 140 

That sad fatality hath cost me dear; 

But thou art dearest still, and I should 
be 

Fit for this cell, which wrongs me — but 
for thee. 

The very love which locked me to my 
chain 

Hath lightened half its weight; and for 
the rest, 

Though heavy, lent me vigour to sus- 
tain, 

And look to thee with undivided breast, 

And foil the ingenuity of Pain. 



It is no marvel — from my very birth 
My soul was drunk with Love, — which 
did pervade 150 

March, 1579, close upon forty-two years of age, 
are points to be considered; but the fact that 
she died in February, 1581, and that Tasso 
remained in confinement for five years longer, is 
a stronger argument against the truth of the 
legend. She was a beautiful woman, his 
patroness and benefactress, and the theme of 
sonnets and canzoni; but it was not for her 
"sweet sake" that Tasso lost either his wits or 
his liberty.] 



And mingle with whate'er I saw on 

earth: 
Of objects all inanimate I made 
Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers, 
And rocks, whereby they grew, a Para- 
dise, 
Where I did lay me down within the 

shade 
Of waving trees, and dreamed un- 
counted hours, 
Though I was chid for wandering; and 

the Wise 
Shook their white aged heads o'er me, 

and said 
Of such materials wretched men were 

made. 
And such a truant boy would end in 

woe, 160 

And that the only lesson was a blow; 
And then they smote me, and I did not 

weep. 
But cursed them in my heart, and to my 

haunt 
Returned and wept alone, and dreamed 

again 
The visions which arise without a sleep. 
And with my years my soul began to, 

pant 
With feelings of strange tumult and soft 

pain; 
And the whole heart exhaled into One 

Want, 
But undefined and wandering, till the 

day 
I found the thing I sought — and that 

was thee; 170 

And then I lost my being, all to be 
Absorbed in thine; — the world was 

past away ; — 
Thou didst annihilate the earth to me ! 



I loved all Solitude — but little thought 
To spend I know not what of life, remote 
From all communion with existence, save 
The maniac and his tyrant; — had I 

been 
Their fellow, many years ere this had 

seen 
My mind like theirs corrupted to its 

grave. 
But who hath seen me writhe, or heard 

me rave? 180 



5o6 



THE LAMENT OF TASSO 



Perchance in such a cell we suffer more 
Than the wrecked sailor on his desert 

shore; 
The world is all before him — mine is 

here, 
Scarce twice the space they must accord 

my bier. 
What though he perish, he may lift his 

eye, 
And with a dying glance upbraid the sky ; 
I will not raise my own in such reproof, 
Although 'tis clouded by my dungeon 

roof. 

VIII. 

Yet do I feel at times my mind decline. 
But with a sense of its decay: — I 

see 190 

Unwonted lights along my prison shine, 
And a strange Demon, ^ who is vexing 

me 
With pilfering pranks and petty pains, 

below 
The feeling of the healthful and the free; 
But much to One, who long hath suf- 
fered so, 
Sickness of heart, and narrowness of 

place. 
And all that may be borne, or can debase. 
I thought mine enemies had been but 

Man, 
But Spirits may be leagued wdth them 

— all Earth 
Abandons — Heaven forgets me; — in 

the dearth 200 

Of such defence the Powers of Evil 

can — 
It may be — tempt me further, — and 

prevail 
Against the outworn creature they assail. 
Why in this furnace is my spirit proved, 

» [In a letter to Maurizio Cataneo, dated 
December 25, 1585, Tasso gives an account of 
his sprite {folletto): "The little thief has stolen 
from me many crowns. ... He puts all my 
books topsy-turvy {mi mette tutli i libri sottoso- 
pro), opens my chest and steals my keys, so 
that I can keep nothing." Again, December 30, 
with regard to his hallucinations he says, "Know 
then that in addition to the wonders of the 
Folletto ... I have many nocturnal alarms. 
For even when awake I have seemed to behold 
small flames in the air, and sometimes my eyes 
sparkle in such a manner, that I dread the loss 
of sight, and I have . . . seen sparks issue 
from them." — Letters 454, 456, Le Lettere, 1853, 
ii. 475, 479.] 



Like steel in tempering fire? because I 

loved ? 
Because I loved what not to love, and 

see. 
Was more or less than mortal, and than 

me. 

IX. 

I once was quick in feeling — that is 

o'er; — 
My scars are callous, or I should have 

dashed 
My brain against these bars, as the sun 

flashed 210 

In mockery through them; — If I bear 

and bore 
The much I have recounted, and the 

more 
Which hath no words, — 'tis that I 

would not die 
And sanction with self-slaughter the dull 

lie 
Which snared me here, and with the 

brand of shame 
Stamp Madness deep into my memory. 
And woo Compassion to a blighted 

name. 
Sealing the sentence which my foes pro- 
claim. 
No — it shall be immortal ! — and I 

make 
A future temple of my present cell, 220 
Which nations yet shall visit for my 

sake. 
While thou, Ferrara ! when no longer 

dwell 
The ducal chiefs within thee, shalt fall 

down. 
And crumbling piecemeal view thy 

hearthless halls, 
A Poet's wreath shall be thine only 

crown, — 
A Poet's dungeon thy most far renown, 
While strangers wonder o'er thy un- 
peopled walls ! 
And thou, Leonora ! — thou — who 

wert ashamed 
That such as I could love — who blushed 

to hear 
To less than monarchs that thou couldst 

be dear, 230 

Go! tell thy brother, that my heart, 

untamed 



BEPPO 



507 



By grief — years — weariness — and it 

may be 
A taint of that he would impute to me — 
From long infection of a den like this, 
Where the mind rots congenial with the 

abyss, — 
Adores thee still; — and add — that 

when the towers 
And battlements which guard his joy- 
ous hours 
Of banquet, dance, and revel, are forgot. 
Or left untended in a dull repose, 
This — this — shall be a consecrated 

spot ! 240 

But Thou — when all that Birth and 

Beauty throws 
Of magic round thee is extinct — shalt 

have 
One half the laurel which o'ershades my 

grave. 
No power in death can tear our names 

apart, 
As none in life could rend thee from my 

heart. 
Yes, Leonora ! it shall be our fate 
To be entwined for ever — but too late ! 



BEPPO:' 

A VENETIAN STORY. 

Rosalind. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller; Look, 
you lisp, and wear strange suits: disable all the 
benefits of your own country; be out of love with 
your Nativity, and almost chide God for making 
you that countenance you are; or I will scarce 
think you have swam in a Gondola. 

— As Yon Like It, act iv. sc. i, lines 33-35. 

Annotation of the Commentators. 

That is, been at Venice, which was much 
visited by the young English gentlemen of those 
times, and was then what Paris is now — the 
seat of all dissoluteness. — S. A. 

[The initials S. A. (Samuel Ayscough) are not 
attached to this note, but to another note on the 
same page (see Dramatic Works of William 
Shakespeare, 1807, i. 242).] 

I. 

'Tis known, at least it should be, that 
throughout 

' [Beppo was wTitten in the Autumn (Sept. 6 
-Oct. 12) of 1817, and published, February 28, 
1818. Byron admitted that the metre (the 



All countries of the Catholic persua- 
sion, 
Some weeks before Shrove Tuesday 
comes about, 
The People take their fill of recrea- 
tion, 
And buy repentance, ere they grow de- 
vout. 
However high their rank, or low their 
station. 
With fiddling, feasting, dancing, drink- 
ing, masquing, 
And other things which may be had for x 
asking. ^t*'*' 

II. 

The moment night with dusky mantle 
covers 
The skies (and the more duskily the 
better). 
The Time less liked by husbands than 
by lovers 
Begins, and Prudery flings aside her 
fetter; 
And Gaiety on restless tiptoe hovers. 
Giggling with all the gallants who be- 
set her; 
And there are songs and quavers, roar- 
ing, humming, 
Gliitars, and every other sort of strum- 
ming. 

III. 

And there are dresses splendid, but fan- 
tastical. 
Masks of all times and nations, Turks 
and Jews, 

And harlequins and clowns, with feats 
gymnastical, 
Greeks, Romans, Yankee-doodles, 
and Hindoos; 

All kinds of dress, except the ecclesiasti- 
cal. 
All people, as their fancies hit, may 
choose, 

But no one in these parts may quiz the 
Clergy, — 

Therefore take heed, ye Freethinkers ! 
I charge ye. 

.QUa2!£L-rJma joi. the Italians) and style of Beppo 
was "after the excellent manner" of John Hook- 
ham Frere's jeti d'esprit generally known as 
Whistlecraft, but entitled Prospectus and Speci- 
men of an Intended National Work by William 
and Robert Whistlecraft, London, 1817.] 



;;o8 



BEPPO 



You'd better walk about begirt with 

briars, 
Instead of coat and small clothes, than 

put on 
A single stitch reflecting upon friars, 
Although you swore it only was in 

fun; 
They'd haul you o'er the coals, and stir 

the fires 
Of Phlegethon with every mother's 

son. 
Nor say one mass to cool the cauldron's 

bubble 
That boiled your bones, unless you paid 

them double. 



But saving this, you may put on whate'er 
You hke by way of doublet, cape, or 
cloak, 
Such as in Monmouth-street, or in Rag 
Fair, 
Would rig you out in seriousness or 
joke ; 
And even in Italy such places are. 
With prettier name in softer accents 
spoke, 
For, bating Covent Garden, I can hit on 
Xo place that's called " Piazza " in Great 
Britain. 

VI. 

This feast is named the Carnival, which 

being 
Interpreted, implies "farewell to 

flesh" — 
So called, because the name and thing 

agreeing, 
Through Lent they live on fish both 

salt and fresh. 
But why they usher Lent with so much 

glee in, 
Is more than I can tell, although I 

guess 
'Tis as we take a glass \\-ith friends at 

parting. 
In the Stage-Coach or Packet, just at 

starting. 



And thus they bid farewell to carnal 
dishes, 



And soHd meats, and highly spiced 
ragouts. 
To live for forty days on ill-dressed 
fishes. 
Because they have no sauces to their 
stews ; 
A thing which causes many "poohs" 
and "pishes," 
And several oaths (which would not 
suit the Muse), 
From travellers accustomed from a boy 
To eat their salmon, at the least, with 
soy ; 

VIII. 

And therefore humbly I would recom- 
mend 
"The curious in fish-sauce," before 
they cross 
The sea, to bid their cook, or wife, or 
friend. 
Walk or ride to the Strand, and buy in 
gross 
(Or if set out beforehand, these may send 

By any means least liable to loss). 
Ketchup, Soy, Chili-vinegar, and Har- 
vey, 
Or, by the Lord ! a Lent will well nigh 
starve ye; 

IX. 

That is to say, if your i-eligion's Roman, 
And you at Rome would do as Ro- 
mans do, 
According to the proverb, — although 
no man. 
If foreign, is obliged to fast; and you. 
If Protestant, or sickly, or a woman. 

Would rather dine in sin on a ragout — 
Dine and be d — d ! I don't mean to be 

coarse. 
But that's the penalty, to say no worse. 



Of all the places where the Carnival 
Was most facetious in the days of yore, 

For dance, and song, and serenade, and 
ball. 
And Masque, and Mime, and Mys- 
tery, and more 

Than I have time to tell now, or at all, 
Venice the bell from every city bore, — 

And at the moment when I fix my story, 

That sea-born city was in all her glory. 



BEPPO 



509 



They've pretty faces yet, those same 

Venetians, 
Black eyes, arched brows, and sweet 

expressions still; 
Such as of old were copied from the 

Grecians, 
In ancient arts by moderns mimicked 

ill; 
And like so many Venuses of Titian's 
(The best's at Florence — see it, if ve 

will,) 
They look when leaning over the bal- 
cony. 
Or stepped from out a picture by Gior- 

gione, 

XII. 

Whose tints are Truth and Beauty at 
their best; 
And when you to Manfrini's palace go 
That picture (howsoever fine the rest) 
Is loveliest to my mind of all the show; 
It may perhaps be also to your zest. 
And that's the cause I rhyme upon it 
so: 
'Tis but a portrait of his Son, and Wife, 
And self ; but such a. \W oma.nl Love in 
Life ! ^ 

xin. 

Love in full and length, not love ideal. 
No, nor ideal beauty, that fine name. 
But something better still, so ver}' real, 
That the sweet Model must have been 
the same; 
A thing that you would purchase, beg, 
or steal, 
Wer't not impossible, besides a 
shame: 
The face recalls some face, as 'twere 

with pain. 
You once have seen, but ne'er will see 
again; 

• [The picture which caught Byron's fancy 
was the so-called Famiglia di Giorgione, which 
was removed from the 5lanfrmi Palace in 1S56, 
and is now in the Palazzo Giovanelli. It repre- 
sents "an almost nude woman, probably a gipsy, 
seated with a child in her lap, and a sunding 
warrior gazing upon her, a storm breaking over 
the landscape." — Handbook of Painting, by 
Austen H. Layard, 1801, part ii. p. 553.] 

[According to \'asari and others, Giorgione 
(Giorgio Barbarelli, b. 1478) was never married. 
He died of the plague, .a..d. 1511.] 



One of those forms which flit by us, 
when we 
Are young, and fix our eyes on every 
face; 
And, oh ! the Loveliness at times we see 
In momentary gliding, the soft grace, 
The Youth, the Bloom, the Beauty 
which agree, 
In many a nameless being we retrace, 
Whose course and home we knew not, 

nor shall know. 
Like the lost Pleiad seen no more below. 



I said that like a picture by Giorgione 

Venetian women were, and so they are, 
Particularly seen from a balcony, 
(For beauty's sometimes best set off 
afar) 
And there, just like a heroine of Goldoni,^ 
They peep from out the bUnd, or o'er 
the bar; 
And truth to say, they're mostly very 

pretty. 
And rather like to show it, more's the 
pity ! 

XVI. 

For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs, 
. Sighs wishes, \Nishes words, and 

words a letter. 
Which flies on ^^ings of light-heeled Mer- 
curies, 
Who do such things because they 
know no better; 
And then, God knows what mischief 
may arise. 
When Love links two young people 
in one fetter, 
Mle assignations, and adulterous beds, 
Elopements, broken vows, and hearts, 
and heads. 

XAH. 

Shakespeare described the sex in Desde- 
mona 
As very fair, but yet suspect in fame, 
And to this day from Venice to Verona 

'[Carlo Goldoni (1707-1703)- His play, 
Belisarius, was first performed November 24, 
1734; Le Boiirru Bienfaisant, November 4, 
1771. La Bottega del Caffe, La Locandiera, etc., 
still hold the stage.] 



5 TO 



BEPPO 



Such matters may be probably the 
same, 
Except that since those times was never 
known a 
Husband whom mere suspicion could 
inflame 
To suffocate a wife no more than 

twenty, 
Because she had a "Cavalier Servente." 

XVIII. 

Their jealousy (if they are ever jealous) 

Is of a fair complexion altogether, 
Not like that sooty devil of Othello's 
Which smothers women in a bed of 
feather. 
But worthier of these much more jolly 
fellows, 
When weary of the matrimonial tether 
His head for such a wife no mortal 

bothers, 
But takes at once another, or another's. 



Didst ever see a Gondola ? For fear 
You should not, I'll describe it you 
exactly: 
'Tis a long covered boat that's com- 
mon here, 
Carved at the prow, built lightly, but 
compactly. 
Rowed by two rowers, each called " Gon- 
dolier," 
It glides along the water looking 
blackly, 
Just like a coffin clapt in a canoe. 
Where none can make out what you say 
or do. 



And up and down the long canals they 
go, 
And under the Rialto ^ shoot along. 
By night and day, all paces, swift or 
slow. 
And round the theatres, a sable throng. 
They wait in their dusk livery of woe, — 

'["An English abbreviation. Rialto is the 
name, not of the bridge, but of the island from 
which it is called; and the Venetians say, // 
Ponle di Rialto, as we say Westminster Bridge." 
Note to the Brides of Venice, Poems, by Samuel 
Rogers, 1852, ii. 88, 89.] 



But not to them do woeful things 
belong, 

For sometimes they contain a deal of 
fun. 

Like mourning coaches when the fun- 
eral's done. 

XXI. 

But to my story. — 'Twas some years 
ago, ' 
It may be thirty, forty, more or less. 
The Carnival was at its height, and so 
Were all kinds of buffoonery and 
dress ; 
A certain lady went to see the show, 
Her real name I know not, nor can 
guess. 
And so we'll call her Laura, if you please, 
Because it slips into my verse with ease. 

XXII. 

She was not old, nor young, nor at the 
years 
Which certain people call a '^certain 
age," 

Which yet the most uncertain age ap- 
pears. 
Because I never heard, nor could en- 
gage 

A person yet by prayers, or bribes, or 
tears. 
To name, define by speech, or write 
on page. 

The period meant precisely by that 
word, — 

Which surely is exceedingly absurd. 



Laura was blooming still, had made the 

best 
Of Time, and Time returned the 

compliment. 
And treated her genteelly, so that, 

dressed, 
She looked extremely well where'er 

she went; 
A pretty woman is a welcome guest, 
And Laura's brow a frown had rarely 

bent; 
Indeed, she shone all smiles, and 

seemed to flatter 
Mankind with her black eyes for look- 
ing at her. 



BEPPO 



5" 



XXIV. 

She was a married woman; 'tis con- 
venient, 
Because in Christian countries 'tis a 
rule 
To view their little slips with eyes more 
lenient; 
Whereas if single ladies play the fool, 
(Unless within the period intervenient 
A well-timed wedding makes the 
scandal cool) 
I don't know how they ever can get over it. 
Except they manage never to discover it. 



Her husband sailed upon the Adriatic, 
And made some voyages, too, in other 
seas. 
And when he lay in Quarantine for 
pratique ^ 
(A forty days' precaution 'gainst dis- 
ease). 
His wife would mount, at times, her 
highest attic, 
For thence she could discern the ship 
with ease: 
He was a merchant trading to Aleppo, 
His name Giuseppe, called more briefly, 
Beppo.^ 

XXVI. 

He was a man as dusky as a Spaniard, 
Sunburnt with travel, yet a portly 
figure ; 
Though coloured, as it were, within a 
tanyard. 
He was a person both of sense and 
vigour — 
A better seaman never yet did man yard; 
And she, although her manner showed 
no rigour. 
Was deemed a woman of the strictest 

principle. 
So much as to be thought almost invin- 
cible. 

XXVII. 

But several years elapsed since they had 
met; 
Some people thought the ship was 
lost, and some 

' [A clean blU of health ^fter quarantine.! 
» Beppo jg the *'Joe" of the Italian Joseph, 



That he had somehow blundered into 
debt. 
And did not like the thought of steer- 
ing home; 

And there were several offered any bet, 
Or that he would, or that he would not 
come; 

For most men (till by losing rendered 
sager) 

Will back their own opinions with a 
wager. 

XXVIII. 

'Tis said that their last parting was 
pathetic, 
As partings often are, or ought to be, 
And their presentiment was quite pro- 
phetic. 
That they should never more each 
other see, 
(A sort of morbid feeling, half poetic, 
Which I have known occur in two or 
three,) 
When kneeling on the shore upon her 

sad knee 
He left this Adriatic Ariadne. 

XXIX. 

And Laura waited long, and wept a 

little, 
And thought of wearing weeds, as well 

she might; 
She almost lost all appetite for victual. 
And could not sleep with ease alone 

at night; 
She deemed the window-frames and 

shutters brittle 
Against a daring housebreaker or 

sprite. 
And so she thought it prudent to connect 

her 
With a vice-husband, chiefly to protect 

her. 

XXX. 

She chose, (and what is there they will 
not choose. 
If only you will but oppose their 
choice ?) 
Till Beppo should return from his long 
cruise. 
And bid once more her faithful heart 
rejoice, 
A man some women like, and yet abuse — 



512 



BEPPO 



A Coxcomb was he by the public 

voice; 
A Count of wealth, they said, as well as 

quality, 
And in his pleasures of great liberality. 

XXXI. 

And then he was a Count, and then he 
knew 
Music, and dancing, fiddling, French 
and Tuscan; 
The last not easy, be it known to you. 
For few Italians speak the right Etrus- 
can. . 
He was a critic upon operas, too, 

And knew all niceties of sock and bus- 
kin; 
And no Venetian audience could en- 
dure a 
Song, scene, or air, when he cried ''sec- 
catura!" ^ 

XXXII. 

His "bravo" was decisive, for that 

sound 
Hushed "Academie" sighed in silent 

awe; 
The fiddlers trembled as he looked 

around, 
For fear of some false note's detected 

flaw; 
The "Prima Donna's" tuneful heart 

would bound. 
Dreading the deep damnation of his 

"Bah!" 
Soprano, Basso, even the Contra-Alto, 
Wished him five fathom under the 

Rialto. 



He patronised the Improvisatori, 

Nay, could himself extemporise some 
stanzas. 
Wrote rhymes, sang songs, could also 
tell a story, 
Sold pictures, and was skilful in the 
dance as 

' ["Some of the Italians liked him [a famous 
improvisatore], others called his performance 
^seccatura' (a devilish good word, by the way), 
and all Milan was in controversy about him." — 
Letter to Moore, November 6, 1816, Letters, 
1899, iii. 384.] 



Italians can be, though in this their 

glory 
Must surely yield the palm to that 

which France has; 
In short, he was a perfect Cavaliero 
And to his very valet seemed a hero.* 

XXXIV. 

Then he was faithful too, as well as 
amorous ; 
So that no sort of female could com- 
plain. 
Although they're now and then a little 
clamorous. 
He never put the pretty souls in pain; 
His heart was one of those which most 
enamour us, 
Wax to receive, and marble to retain : 
He was a lover of the good old school. 
Who still become more constant as they 
cool. 

XXXV. 

No wonder such accomplishments 
should turn 
A female head, however sage and 
steady — 

With scarce a hope that Beppo could re- 
turn, 
In law he was almost as good as dead, 
he 

Nor sent, nor wrote, nor showed the 
least concern. 
And she had waited several years al- 
ready: 

And really if a man won't let us know 

That he's alive, he's dead — or should 
be so. 

XXXVI. 

Besides, within the Alps, to every 
woman, 
(Although, God knows, it is a grievous 
sin,) 

'Tis, I may say, permitted to have two 
men; 
I can't tell who first brought the cus- 
tom in, 

But "Cavalier Serventes" are quite 
common 

I [The saying, "II n'y a point de heros pour 
son valet de chambre," is attributed to Marechal 
(Nicholas) Catinat (16,^7-1712). His biogra- 
pher speaks of presenting "/e heros en disha- 
bille." (See his Memoires, 1819, ii. 118.)] 



BEPPO 



513 



And no one notices or cares a pin; 
And we may call this (not to say the 

worst) 
A second marriage which corrupts the 
first. 

XXXVII. 

The word was formerly a "Cicisbeo," ^ 
But that is now grown vulgar and in- 
decent; 
The Spaniards call the person a "Car- 
te jo," ^ 
For the same mode subsists in Spain, 
though recent; 
In short it reaches from the Po to Teio, 
And may perhaps at last be o'er the 
sea sent: 
But Heaven preserve Old England from 

such courses ! 
Or what becomes of damage and di- 
vorces ? 

XXXVIII. 

However, I still think, with all due defer- 
ence 
To the fair single part of the creation, 
That married ladies should preserve the 
preference 
In tete a tete or general conversation — 
And this I say without pecuHar reference 
To England, France, or any other 
nation — 
Because they know the world, and are at 

ease, 
And being natural, naturally please. 

XXXIX. 

'Tis true, your budding Miss is very 
charming. 
But shy and awkward at first coming 
out. 
So much alarmed, that she is quite 
alarming, 
All Giggle, Blush — half Pertness, 
and half Pout; 

^ [The origin of the word is obscure. Ac- 
cording to the Vocab. delta Crusca, "cicisbeo" 
is an inversion of "bel cece," beautiful chick 
(pea). Pasqualino, cited by Diez, says it is 
derived from the French chiche bean. — A''. 
Eng. Did., art. "Cicisbeo."] 

» Cortejo is pronounced Corte/zo, with an 
aspirate, according to the Arabesque guttural. 
It means what there is as yet no precise name for 
in England, though the practice is as common as 
in any tramontane country whatever. 

2 L 



And glancing at Mamma, for fear there's 

harm in 
What you, she, it, or they, may be 

about: 
The Nursery still lisps out in all they 

utter — 
Besides, they always smell of bread and 

butter. 



But "Cavalier Servente" is the phrase 
Used in politest circles to express 

This supernumerary slave, who stays 
Close to the lady as a part of dress, 

Her word the only law which he obeys. 
His is no sinecure, as you may guess; 

Coach, servants, gondola, he goes to call. 

And carries fan and tippet, gloves and 
shawl. 

XLI. 

With all its sinful doings, I must say, 

That Italy's a pleasant place to me, 
Who love to see the Sun shine every day. 
And vines (not nailed to walls) from 
tree to tree 
Festooned, much like the back scene of 
a play. 
Or melodrame, which people flock to 
see. 
When the first act is ended by a dance 
In vineyards copied from the south of 
France. 

XLII. 

I Hke on Autumn evenings to ride out, 
Without being forced to bid my groom 

be sure 
My cloak is round his middle strapped 

about. 
Because the skies are not the most 

secure; 
I know too that, if stopped upon my 

route. 
Where the green alleys windingly al- 
lure. 
Reeling with grapes red wagons choke 

the way, — 
In England 'twould be dung, dust, or a 

dray. 

XLIII. 

I also like to dine on becaficas. 

To see the Sun set, sure he'll rise to- 
morrow, 



514 



BEPPO 



Not through a misty morning twinkling 
weak as 
A drunken man's dead eye in maudlin 
sorrow, 

But with all Heaven t'himself; the day 
will break as 
Beauteous as cloudless, nor be forced 
to borrow 

That sort of farthing candlelight which 
glimmers 

Where reeking London's smoky cauld- 
ron simmers. 

XLIV. 

I love the language, that soft bastard 
Latin, 
Which melts like kisses from a female 
mouth, 

And sounds as if it should be writ on 
satin, 
With syllables which breathe of the 
sweet South, 

And gentle liquids ghding all so pat in, 
That not a single accent seems un- 
couth. 

Like our harsh northern whistling, grunt- 
ing guttural, 

Which we're obliged to hiss, and spit, 
and sputter all. 



I like the women too (forgive my folly !), 
From the rich peasant cheek of ruddy 
bronze, 
And large black eyes that flash on you a 
volley 
Of rays that say a thousand things at 
once. 
To the high Dama's brow, more melan- 
choly, 
But clear, and with a wild and liquid 
glance. 
Heart on her lips, and soul within her 

eyes. 
Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies. 

XLVI. 

Eve of the land which still is Paradise ! 

Italian Beauty didst thou not inspire 

Raphael, who died in thy embrace, and 

vies 

With all we know of Heaven, or can 

desire, 



In what he hath bequeathed us ? — in 

what guise 
Though flashing from the fervour of 

the Lyre, 
Would words describe thy past and 

present glow. 
While yet Canova can create below ? ^ 

>- <*"^-r" '' XLVii. 

" England ! with all thy faults I love thee 
'^ still,'' 2 

I said at Calais, and have not forgot it ; 
I like to speak and lucubrate my fill; 

I like the government (but that is not 

it); 

I like the freedom of the press and quill; 
I like the Habeas Corpus (when we've 
got it);_ 
I like a Parliamentary debate. 
Particularly when 'tis not too late; 

XLVIII. 

I like the taxes, when they're not too 
many; 

1 like a seacoal fire, when not too 
dear; 

I like a beef-steak, too, as well as any; 

Have no objection to a pot of beer; 

I like the weather, — when it is not 

rainy. 
That is, I like two months of every 

year. 
And so God save the Regent, Church, 

and King ! 
Which means that I Hke all and every 

thing. 

XLIX. 

Our standing army, and disbanded sea- 
men, I 

' [" (In talking thus, the writer, more especially | 

Of women, would be understood to say, 
He speaks as a Spectator, not officially, | 

And always. Reader, in a modest way; ^ 
Perhaps, too, in no very great degree shall he ' 

Appear to have offended in this lay, ( 
Since, as all know, without the Sex, our i 

Sonnets | 

Would seem unfinished, like their untrimmed 

bonnets.) 

"(Signed) Printer's Devil."] 

2 [The Task, by William Cowper, ii. 2o6« 
Compare The Farewell, line 27, by Charles 
Churchill — 

" Be England what she will, 
With all her faults, she is ray Country still."] 



BEPPO 



S'^S 



Poor's rate, Reform, my own, the na- 
tion's debt, 
Our little riots, just to show we're free 
men, 
Our trifling bankruptcies in the Ga- 
zette, 
Our cloudy climate, and our chilly 
women. 
All these I can forgive, and those for- 
get, 
And greatly venerate our recent glories. 
And wish they were not owing to the 
Tories. 

L. 

But to my tale of Laura, — for I find 

Digression is a sin, that by degrees 
Becomes exceeding tedious to my mind. 
And, therefore, may the reader too 
displease — 
The gentle reader, who may wax unkind. 
And caring little for the Author's 
ease. 
Insist on knowing what he means — a 

hard 
And hapless situation for a Bard. 



Oh! that I had the art of easy writing 
What should be easy reading ! could 
I scale 
Parnassus, where the Muses sit inditing 
Those pretty poems never known to 
fail, 
How quickly would I print (the world 
delighting) 
A Grecian, Syrian,^ or yl^^yrian tale; 
And sell you, mixed with western Senti- 

mentalism, 
Some samples of the finest Orientalism. 

LII. 

But I am but a nameless sort of person, 
(A broken. Dandy lately on my 
travels) 
And take for rhyme, to hook my ram- 
bUng verse on. 
The first that Walker's Lexicon un- 
ravels. 
And when I can't find that, I put a worse 
on, 

I [The allusion is to Gallv Knight's Ilderim, 
a Syrian Tale.] 



Not caring as I ought for critics' 

cavils; 
I've half a mind to tumble down to prose, 
But verse is more in fashion — so here 

goes ! 

LIII. 

The Count and Laura made their new 
arrangement. 
Which lasted, as arrangements some- 
times do. 
For half a dozen years without estrange- 
ment; 
They had their little differences, too; 
Those jealous whiffs, which never any 
change meant; 
In such affairs there probably are few 
Who have not had this pouting sort of 

squabble. 
From sinners of high station to the rab- 
ble. 

LIV. 

But, on the whole, they were a happy 

pair. 
As happy as unlawful love could make 

them; 
The gentleman was fond, the lady 

fair, 
Their chains so slight, 'twas not worth 

while to break them: 
The World beheld them with indulgent 

air; 
The pious only wished "the Devil take 

them ! " 
He took them not; he very often waits. 
And leaves old sinners to be young ones' 

baits. 

LV. 

But they were young: Oh! what with- 
out our Youth 
Would Love be ! What w^ould Youth 
be without Love ! 

Youth lends its joy, and sweetness, vig- 
our, truth. 
Heart, soul, and all that seems as from 
above; 

But, languishing with years, it grows 
uncouth — 
One of few things Experience don't 
improve; 

Which is, perhaps, the reason why old 
fellows 

Are always so preposterously jealous. 



5i6 



BEPPO 



It was the Carnival, as I have said 
Some six and thirty stanzas back, and, 
so, 
Laura the usual preparations made, 
Which you do when your mind's made 
up to go 
To-night to Mrs. Boehm's masquerade,^ 

Spectator, or partaker in the show; 
The only difference known between the 

cases 
Is — here, we have six weeks of "var- 
nished faces." 



Laura, when dressed, was (as I sang be- 
fore) 
A pretty woman as was ever seen, 
Fresh as the Angel o'er a new inn door. 

Or frontispiece of a new Magazine, 
With all the fashions which the last 
month wore. 
Coloured, and silver paper leaved be- 
tween 
That and the title-page, for fear the 

Press 
Should soil with parts of speech the parts 
of dress. 

LVIII. 

They went to the Ridotto; 'tis a hall 
Where People dance, and sup, and 

dance again; 
Its proper name, perhaps, were a 

masqued ball. 
But that's of no importance to my 

strain ; 
'Tis (on a smaller scale) Hke our Vaux- 

hall, 
Excepting that it can't be spoilt by 

rain; 
The company is "mixed" (the phrase I 

quote is 
As much as saying, they're below your 

notice) ; 

LIX. 

For a "mixed company" implies that, 
save 

'[The Morning Chronicle of June 17, 1817, 
reports at length "Mrs. Boehm's Grand 
Masquerade." Mrs. Boehm was the widow of 
a West Indian merchant, a millionairess, and on 
more or less intimate terms with the Royal 
Family.] 



Yourself and friends, and half a hun- 
dred more. 
Whom you may bow to without looking 
grave, • 
The rest are but a vulgar set, the bore 
Of public places, where they basely 
brave 
The fashionable stare of twenty score 
Of w^ell-bred persons, called "The 

World" ; but I, 
Although I know them, really don't 
know why. 

LX. 

This is the case in England ; at least was 
During the dynasty of Dandies, now 

Perchance succeeded by some other class 
Of imitated Imitators: • — how 

Irreparably soon decline, alas ! 

The Demagogues of fashion: all be- 
low 

Is frail; how easily the world is lost 

By Love, or War, and, now and then, 
by Frost! 

LXI. 

Crushed was Napoleon by the northern 

Thor, 
Who knocked his army down with icy 

hammer. 
Stopped by the Elements ^ — like a 

Whaler — or 
A blundering novice in his new French 

grammar; 
Good cause had he to doubt the chance 

of war. 
And as for Fortune — but I dare not 

d — n her. 
Because, were I to ponder to Infinity, 
The more I should believe in her Di- 
vinity. 

LXII. 

She rules the present, past, and all to be 
yet. 
She gives us luck in lotteries, love, 
and marriage; 

'["When Brummel was obliged ... to 
retire to France, he knew no French; and having 
obtained a Grammar for the purposes of study, 
our friend Scrope Davies was asked what prog- 
ress Brummel had made in French ... he 
responded, 'that Brummel had been stopped, 
like Buonaparte in Russia, by the Elements.'" — 
Detached Thoughts, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 422, 
423.] 



BEPPO 



517 



I cannot say that she's done much for 
me yet; 
Not that I mean her bounties to dis- 
parage, 

We've not yet closed accounts, and we 
shall see yet 
How much she'll make amends for 
past miscarriage; 

Meantime the Goddess I'll no more im- 
portune, 

Unless to thank her when she's made my 
fortune. 

LXIII. 

To turn, — and to return; — the Devil 

take it ! 
This story slips for ever through my 

fingers. 
Because, just as the stanza likes to make 

It needs must be — • and so it rather 
lingers; 
This form of verse began, I can't well 
break it. 
But must keep time and tune like 
public singers; 
But if I once get through my present 

measure, 
I'll take another when I'm next at leisure. 

LXIV. 

They went to the Ridotto ('tis a place 
To which I mean to go myself to- 
morrow, 
Just to divert my thoughts a little 

space 
Because I'm rather hippish, and may 

borrow 
Some spirits, guessing at what kind of 

face 
May lurk beneath each mask; and as 

my sorrow 
Slackens its pace sometimes, I'll make, 

or find, 
Something shall leave it half an hour 

behind). 

LXV. 

Now Laura moves along the joyous 

crowd. 
Smiles in her eyes, and simpers on her 

lips; 
To some she whispers, others speaks 

aloud; 



To some she curtsies, and to some she 
dips, 
Complains of warmth, and, this com- 
plaint avowed, 
Her lover brings the lemonade she sips ; 
She then surveys, condemns, but pities 

still 
Her dearest friends for being dressed so 
ill. 

LXVI. 

One has false curls, another too much 

paint, 
A third — where did she buy that 

frightful turban ? 
A fourth's so pale she fears she's going 

to faint, 
A fifth's look's vulgar, dowdyish, and 

suburban, 
A sixth's white silk has got a yellow 

taint, 
A seventh's thin musUn surely will be 

her bane. 
And lo ! an eighth appears, — "I'll see 

no more !" 
For fear, like Banquo's kings, they reach 

a score. 

LXVII. 

Meantime, while she was thus at others 
gazing. 
Others were levelling their looks at 
her; 

She heard the mxn's half-whispered 
mode of praising. 
And, till 'twas done, determined not 
to stir; 

The women only thought it quite amaz- 
ing 
That, at her time of life, so many were 

Admirers still, — but "Men are so de- 
based — 

Those brazen Creatures always suit their 
taste." 

LXVIII. 

For my part, now, I ne'er could under- 
stand 
Why naughty women — but I won't 
discuss 
A thing which is a scandal to the land, 
I only don't see why it should be thus; 
And if I were but in a gown and 
band. 
Just to entitle me to make a fuss, 



5i8 



BEPPO 



I'd preach on this till Wilberforce and 

Romilly 
Should quote in their next speeches from 

my homily. 

LXIX. 

While Laura thus was seen and seeing, 

smiling, 
Talking, she knew not why, and cared 

not what, 
So that her female friends, with envy 

broiling, 
Beheld her airs, and triumph, and all 

that; 
And well-dressed males still kept before 

her fiUng, 
And passing bowed and mingled with 

her chat; 
More than the rest one person seemed to 

stare 
With pertinacity that's rather rare. 



He was a Turk, the colour of mahogany; 
And Laura saw him, and at first was 

glad. 
Because the Turks so much admire 

philogyny, - 

Although their usage of their wives is 

sad; 
'Tis said they use no better than a dog 

any 
Poor woman, whom they purchase 

like a pad: 
They have a number, though they ne'er 

exhibit 'em, 
Four wives by law, and concubines "ad 

libitum." 

LXXI. 

They lock them up, and veil, and guard 
them daily, 
They scarcely can behold their male 
relations. 
So that their moments do not pass so 
gaily 
As is supposed the case with northern 
nations; 
Confinement, too, must make them look 
quite palely; 
And as the Turks abhor long con- 
versations, 



Their days are either passed in doing 

nothing. 
Or bathing, nursing, making love, and 

clothing. 

LXXII. 

They cannot read, and so don't lisp in 

criticism; 
Nor write, and so they don't affect the 

Muse; 
Were never caught in epigram or witti- 
cism. 
Have no romances, sermons, plays, 

reviews, — 
In Harams learning soon would make a 

pretty schism ! 
But luckily these Beauties are no 

"Blues"'; 
No bustling Botherhy ^ have they to 

show 'em 
"That charming passage in the last 

new poem": 



No solemn, antique gentleman of rhyme. 
Who having angled all his life for 
Fame, 
And getting but a nibble at a time. 
Still fussily keeps fishing on, the 
same 
Small "Triton of the minnows," the 
sublime 
Of Mediocrity, the furious tame, 
The Echo's echo, usher of the school 
Of female wits, boy bards — in short, a 
fool! 



A stalking oracle of awful phrase. 
The approving "Good!" (by no 
means good in law) 
Humming Hke flies around the newest 
blaze. 
The bluest of bluebottles you e'er saw, 
Teasing with blame, excruciating with 
praise. 
Gorging the little fame he gets all 
raw, . 

' [Botherby is the poet William Sotheby. In 
the English Bards (line 818) he is bracketed with 
Gifford and Macneil honoris causa, but at this 
time (1817-18) Byron was at odds with Sotheby, 
under the impression that he had sent him an 
anonymous note accompanying a copy of the 
Prisoner of Chillon.] 



BEPPO 



519 



Translating tongues he knows not even 


A missionary author — just to preach 


by letter, 


Our Christian usage of the parts of 


And sweating plays so middling, bad 


speech. 


were better. 


LXXVIII. 


LXXV. 


No Chemistry for them unfolds her 


One hates an author that's all author — 


gases, 
No Metaphysics are let loose in lec- 


fellows 


tures. 


In foolscap uniforms turned up with 


No Circulating Library amasses 


ink, 


Religious novels, moral tales, and 


So very anxious, clever, fine, and jeal- 


strictures 


ous, 


Upon the living manners, as they pass 


One don't know what to say to them. 


us; 


or think, 


No Exhibition glares with annual pic- 


Unless to puff them with a pair of bel- 


tures ; 


lows ; 


They stare not on the stars from out 


Of Coxcombry's worst coxcombs e'en 


their attics, 


the pink 


Nor deal (thank God for that!) in 


Are preferable to these shreds of paper, 


Mathematics. 


These unquenched snuffings of the mid- 




night taper. 


LXXIX. 


LXXVI. 


Why I thank God for that is no great 
matter, 


Of these same we see several, and of 


I have my reasons, you no doubt sup- 


others. 


pose, 


Men of the World, who know the 


And as, perhaps, they would not highly 


World like Men, 


flatter. 


Scott, Rogers, Moore, and all the better 


I'll keep them for my life (to come) in 


brothers, 


prose ; 


Who think of something else besides 


I fear I have a little turn for Satire, 


the pen; 


And yet methinks the older that one 


But for the children of the "Mighty 


grows 


Mother's," 


Inclines us more to laugh than scold. 


The would-be wits, and can't-be 


though Laughter 


gentlemen, 


Leaves us so doubly serious shortly after. 


I leave them to their daily " tea is 




ready," 


LXXX. 


Smug coterie, and literary lady. 


Oh, Mirth and Innocence ! ' Oh, Milk 




and Water! 


LXXVII. 


Ye happy mixtures of more happy 


The poor dear Mnssulwomen whom I 


days! 


mention 


In these sad centuries of sin and 


Have none of these instructive pleas- 


slaughter, 


ant people, 


Abominable Man no more allays 


And one would seem to them a new in- 


His thirst with such pure beverage. No 


vention. 


matter. 


Unknown as bells within a Turkish 


I love you both, and both shall have 


steeple; 


my praise: 


I think 'twould almost be worth while to 


Oh, for old Saturn's reign of sugar- 


pension 


candy ! — 


(Though best-sown projects very 


Meantime I drink to your return in 


often reap ill) 


brandy. 



520 



BEPPO 



Our Laura's Turk still kept his eyes 

upon her, 
Less in the Mussulman than Christian 

way, 
Which seems to say, "Madam, I do you 

honour, 
And while I please to stare, you'll 

please to stay." 
Could staring win a woman, this had 

won her, 
But Laura could not thus be led astray ; 
She had stood fire too long and well, to 

boggle 
Even at this Stranger's most outlandish 

ogle. 

LXXXII. 

The morning now was on the point of 
breaking, 
A turn of time at which I would ad- 
vise 
Ladies who have been dancing, or par- 
taking 
In any other kind of exercise, 
To make their preparation for forsaking 
The ball-room ere the Sun begins to 
rise. 
Because when once the lamps and can- 
dles fail, 
His blushes make them look a little pale. 

LXXXIII. 

I've seen some balls and revels in my 

time. 
And stayed them over for some silly 

reason, 
And then I looked (I hope it was no 

crime) 
To see what lady best stood out the 

season ; 
And though I've seen some thousands 

in their prime 
Lovely and pleasing, and who still 

may please on, 
I never saw but one (the stars with- 
drawn) 
Whose bloom could after dancing dare 

the Dawn. 

LXXXIV, 

The name of this Aurora I'll not men- 
tion, 



Although I might, for she was nought 
to me 
More than that patent work of God's in- 
vention, 
A charming woman, whom we like to 
see; 
But writing names would merit repre- 
hension, 
Yet if you like to find out this fair She, | 
At the next London or Parisian ball 
You still may mark her cheek, out- 
blooming all. 

LXXXV. 

Laura, who knew it would not do at 

all 
To meet the daylight after seven 

hours' sitting 
Among three thousand people at a ball, 
To make her curtsey thought it right 

and fitting; 
The Count was at her elbow with her 

shawl, 
And they the room were on the point 

of quitting, 
When lo ! those cursed Gondoliers had 

got 
Just in the very place where they should 

not. 

LXXXVI. 

In this they're like our coachmen, and 
the cause 
Is much the same — the crowd, and 
pulling, hauling, 

With blasphemies enough to break their 
jaws, 
They make a never intermitted bawl- 
ing. 

At home, our Bow-street gem'men keep 
the laws. 
And here a sentry stands within your 
calling; 

But for all that, there is a deal of swear- 
ing, 

And nauseous words past mentioning or 
bearing. 

LXXXVII, 

The Count and Laura found their boat 

at last. 
And homeward floated o'er the silent 

tide. 
Discussing all the dances gone and past; 



BEPPO 



521 



• The dancers and their dresses, too, be- 
side; 

Some little scandals eke; but all aghast 
(As to their palace-stairs the rowers 
glide) 

Sate Laura by the side of her adorer, 

When lo ! the Mussulman was there be- 
fore her! 

LXXXVIII. 

"Sir," said the Count, with brow ex- 
ceeding grave, 
** Your unexpected presence here will 
make 
It necessary for myself to crave 

Its import? But perhaps 'tis a mis- 
take; 
I hope it is so; and, at once to waive 
All compliment, I hope so for your 
sake; 
You understand my meaning, or you 

shall r 
"Sir," (quoth the Turk) "'tis no mis- 
take at all : 

LXXXIX. 

"That Lady is my wife!'' Much won- 
der paints 
The lady's changing cheek, as well it 
might; 
But where an Englishwoman sometimes 
faints, 
Italian females don't do so outright; 
They only call a little on their Saints, 
And then come to themselves, almost, 
or quite; 
Which saves much hartshorn, salts, and 

sprinkling faces. 
And cutting stays, as usual in such cases. 



She said, — what could she say ? Why, 
not a word; 
But the Count courteously invited in 
The Stranger, much appeased by what 
he heard: 
"Such things, perhaps, we'd best dis- 
cuss within,". 
Said he; "don't let us make ourselves 
absurd 
In pubhc, by a scene, nor raise a din. 
For then the chief and only satisfaction 
Will be much quizzing on the whole 
transaction." 



They entered, and for Coffee called — 

it came, 
A beverage for Turks and Christians 

both. 
Although the way they make it's not the 

same. 
Now Laura, much recovered, or less 

loth 
To speak, cries "Beppo! what's your 

pagan name? 
Bless me ! your beard is of amazing 

growth ! 
And how came you to keep away so 

long? 
Are you not sensible 'twas very 

wrong ? 



"Are you really, truly, now a 

Turk? 
With any other women did you 

wive? 
Is't true they use their fingers for a 

fork? 
Well, that's the prettiest Shawl — as 

I'm alive ! 
You'll give it me ? They say you eat no 

pork. 
And how so many years did you con- 
trive 
To — Bless me! did I ever? No, I 

never 
Saw a man grown so yellow! How's 

your liver? 

XCIII. 

"Beppo! that beard of yours becomes 

you not; 
It shall be shaved before you're a day 

older: 
Why do you wear it ? Oh ! I had for- 
got — 
Pray don't you think the weather here 

is colder? 
How do I look? You shan't stir from 

this spot 
In that queer dress, for fear that 

some beholder 
Should find you out, and make the story 

known. 
How short your hair is ! Lord ! how 

grey it's grown!" 



5^ 



BEPPO 



XCIV. 

What answer Beppo made to these de- 
mands 
Is more than I know. He was cast 
away 

About where Troy stood once, and noth- 
ing stands; 
Became a slave of course, and for his 
pay 

Had bread and bastinadoes, till some 
bands 
Of pirates landing in a neighbouring 
bay. 

He joined the rogues and prospered, and 
became 

A renegado of indifferent fame. 



xcv. 

But he grew rich, and with his riches 
grew so 
Keen the desire to see his home again, 
He thought himself in duty bound to do 
so. 
And not be always thieving on the 
main; 
Lonely he felt, at times, as Robin Cru- 
soe, 
And so he hired a vessel come from 
Spain, 
Bound for Corfu: she was a fine polacca. 
Manned with twelve hands, and laden 
with tobacco. 

xcvi. 

Himself, and much (heaven knows how 

gotten !) cash. 
He then embarked, with risk of life 

and limb. 
And got clear off, although the attempt 

was rash; 
He said that Providence protected 

him — 
For my part, I say nothing — lest we 

clash 
In our opinions: — well — the ship 

was trim, 
Set sail, and kept her reckoning fairly 

on. 
Except three days of calm when off Cape 

Bonn.i 



' [Cap Bon, or Ras Adden, is the northern- 
most point of Tunis.] 



XCVII. 

They reached the Island, he transferred 
his lading. 
And self and live stock to another bot- 
tom, 

And passed for a true Turkey-merchant, 
trading 
With goods of various names — but 
I've forgot 'em. 

However, he got off by this evad- 
ing. 
Or else the people would perhaps have 
shot him; 

And thus at Venice landed to re- 
claim 

His wife, religion, house, and Christian 
name. 

XCVIII. 

His wife received, the Patriarch re- 
baptized him, 
(He made the Church a present, by 
the way;) 

He then threw off the garments which 
disguised him, 
And borrowed the Count's small- 
clothes for a day: 

His friends the more for his long ab- 
sence prized him, 
Finding he'd wherewithal to make 
them gay, 

With dinners, where he oft became the 
laugh of them. 

For stories — but / don't believe the 
half of them. 

xcix. 

Whate'er his youth had suffered, his old 
age 
With wealth and talking made him 
some amends; 

Though Laura sometimes put him in a 
rage, 
I've heard the Count and he were al- 
ways friends. 

My pen is at the bottom of a page, 
Which being finished, here the story 
ends: 

'Tis to be wished it had been sooner 
done, 

But stories somehow lengthen when be- 
gun. 



ODE ON VENICE 



523 



ODE ON VENICE.i 



Oh Venice ! Venice ! when thy marble 

walls 

Are level with the waters, there shall 

be 

A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls, 

; A loud lament along the sweeping sea ! 

If I, a northern wanderer, weep for 

thee. 
What should thy sons do ? — anything 
but weep: 
] And yet they only murmur in their sleep. 
^ In contrast with their fathers — as the 

slime, 

I The dull green ooze of the receding deep, 

Is with the dashing of the spring-tide 

foam, 10 

That drives the sailor shipless to his 

home, 
Are they to those that were; and thus 

they creep. 
Crouching and crab-like, through their 

sapping streets. 
Oh ! agony — that centuries should reap 
No mellower harvest! Thirteen hun- 
dred years 
Of wealth and glory turned to dust and 

tears; 
I And every monument the stranger meets. 
Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner 

greets; 
And even the Lion all subdued appears. 
And the harsh sound of the barbarian 
drum, 20 

With <iull and daily dissonance, repeats 
The echo of thy Tyrant's voice along 
The soft waves, once all musical to song. 
That heaved beneath the moonlight with 

the throng 
Of gondolas — and to the busy hum 
Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful 

deeds 
Were but the overheating of the heart. 
And flow of too much happiness, which 

needs 
The aid of age to turn its course apart 

' [The Ode on Venice, (originally Ode) was 
completed by July 10, 1818 {Letters, 1000, iv. 
[245), but was published at the same time as 
'Mazeppa and A Fragment, June 28, 1819.] 



From the luxuriant and voluptuous 

flood OQ 

Of sweet sensations, battling with the 

blood. 
But these are better than the gloomy 

errors, 
The weeds of nations in their last decay, 
When Vice walks forth with her un- 

softened terrors. 
And Mirth is madness, and but smiles to 

slay; 
And Hope is nothing but a false delay, 
The sick man's lightning half an hour ere 

Death, 
When Faintness, the last mortal birth 

of Pain, 

And apathy of limb, the dull beginning 

Of the cold staggering race which Death 

is winning, 40 

Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse 

away; 
Yet so relieving the o'ertortured clay, 
To him appears renewal of his breath. 
And freedom the mere numbness of his 

chain; — 
And then he talks of Life, and how 

again 
He feels his spirit soaring — albeit weak, 
And of the fresher air, which he would 

seek; 
And as he whispers knows not that he 

gasps. 
That his thin finger feels not what it 

clasps, 
And so the film comes o'er him — and 
the dizzy ro 

Chamber swims round and round — 

and shadows busy. 
At which he vainly catches, flit and 

gleam. 
Till the last rattle chokes the strangled 

scream. 
And all is ice and blackness, — and the 

earth 
That which it was the moment ere our 
birth. 



There is no hope for nations ! — Search 

the page 
Of many thousand years — the daily 

scene. 
The flow and ebb of each recurring age, 



524 



ODE ON VENICE 



The everlasting to he which hath been, 
Hath taught us nought or Httle: still 

we lean 60 

On things that rot beneath our weight, 

and wear 
Our strength away in wrestling with the 

air; 
For 'tis our nature strikes us down: the 

beasts 
Slaughtered in hourly hecatombs for 

feasts 
Are of as high an order — they must go 
Even where their driver goads them, 

though to slaughter. 
Ye men, who pour your blood for kings 

as water, 
What have they given your children in 

return ? 
A heritage of servitude and woes, 
A blindfold bondage, where your hire 

is blows. 70 

•What! do not yet the red-hot plough- 
shares burn, 
O'er which you stumble in a false 

ordeal, 
And deem this proof of loyalty the 

real; 
Kissing the hand that guides you to your 

scars. 
And glorying as you tread the glowing 

bars? 
All that your Sires have left you, all that 

Time 
Bequeaths of free, and History of sub- 
lime. 
Spring from a different theme ! — Ye 

see and read, 
Admire and sigh, and then succumb and 

bleed ! 
Save the few spirits who, despite of all, 
And worse than all, the sudden crimes 

engendered 81 

By the down-thundering of the prison- 
wall. 
And thirst to swallow the sweet waters 

tendered. 
Gushing from Freedom's fountains — 

when the crowd. 
Maddened with centuries of drought, 

are loud. 
And trample on each other to obtain 
The cup which brings oblivion of a 

chain 



Heavy and sore, — in which long yoked 

they ploughed 
The sand, — or if there sprung the yel- 
low grain, 
'Twas not for them, their necks were 

too much bowed, 90 

And their dead palates chevv^ed the cud 

of pain: — 
Yes ! the few spirits — who, despite of 

deeds 
Which they abhor, confound not with | 

the cause I 

Those momentary starts from Nature's j 

laws, i 

Which, like the pestilence and earth- \ 

quake, smite 
But for a term, then pass, and leave the | 

earth , 

With all her seasons to repair the blight 
With a few summers, and again put 

forth 
Cities and generations — fair, when 

free — 
For, Tyranny, there blooms no bud for 

thee ! 100 



Glory and Empire ! once upon these 

towers 
With Freedom — godlike Triad ! how 

you sate ! 
The league of mightiest nations, in those 

hours 
When Venice was an envy, might 

abate, 
But did not quench, her spirit — in 

her fate 
All were enwrapped: the feasted,mon- 

archs knew 
And loved their hostess, nor could 

learn to hate. 
Although they humbled — with the 

kingly few 
The many felt, for from all days and 

climes 
She was the voyager's worship; — even 

her crimes no 

Were of the softer order, born of 

Love — 
She drank no blood, nor fattened on the 

dead, 
But gladdened where her harmless con- 
quests spread; 



ODE ON VENICE 



S^S 



For these restored the Cross, that from 

above 
Hallowed her sheltering banners, which 

incessant 
Flew between earth and the unholy 

Crescent, 
Which, if it waned and dwindled, Earth 

may thank 
The city it has clothed in chains, which 

clank 
Now, creaking in the ears of those who 

owe 
The name of Freedom to her glorious 

struggles; 120 

Yet she but shares with them a common 

woe, 
And called the "kingdom" ^ of a con- 
quering foe, — 
But knows what all — and, most of all, 

%ve know — 
With what set gilded terms a tyrant 

juggles ! 



The name of Commonwealth is past and 
gone 
O'er the three fractions of the groan- 
ing globe; 

Venice is crushed, and Holland deigns 
to own 
A sceptre, and endures the purple 
robe ; ^ 

If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone 

His chainless mountains, 'tis but for a 
time, 130 

For Tyranny of late is cunning grown. 

And in its own good season tramples 
down 

The sparkles of our ashes. One great 
clime. 

Whose vigorous offspring by dividing 
ocean 

Are kept apart and nursed in the devo- 
tion 

Of Freedom, which their fathers fought 
for, and 

» [In 1814 the Italian possessions of the 
Emperor of Austria were constituted into sepa- 
rate states, under the title of the kingdom of 
Venetian Lombardy.] 

' [The Prince of Orange . . . was proclaimed 
Sovereign Prince of the Low Countries, Decem- 
ber I, 1813; and, August 13, 1814, he received 
the title of King of the Netherlands.] 



Beciueathed — a heritage of heart and 

hand. 
And proud distinction from each other 

land, 
Whose sons must bow them at a Mon- 
arch's motion. 
As if his senseless sceptre were a 

wand 140 

Full of the magic of exploded 

science — 
Still one great cHme, in full and free 

defiance. 
Yet rears her crest, unconquered and 

sublime, 
Above the far Atlantic ! — She has 

taught 
Her Esau-brethren that the haughty 

flag, 
The floating fence of Albion's feebler 

crag,i 
May strike to those whose red right 

hands have bought 
Rights cheaply earned with blood. — 

Still, still, for ever 
Better, though each man's life-blood 

were a river. 
That it should flow, and overflow, than 

creep 150 

Through thousand lazy channels in our 

veins, 
Dammed like the dull canal with locks 

and chains. 
And moving, as a sick man in his 

sleep. 
Three paces, and then faltering: — 

better be 
Where the extinguished Spartans still 

are free. 
In their proud charnel of Thermopylae, 
Than stagnate in our marsh, — or o'er 

the deep 
Fly, and one current to the ocean add, 
One spirit to the souls our fathers had, 
One freeman more, America, to 

thee 1 160 



'["In October, 1812, the American sloop 
Wasp captured the English brig Frolic; and 
December 29, 1812, the Constitution compelled 
the frigate Java to surrender. . . . On June 28, 
1814, the sloop-of-war Wasp captured and 
burned the sloop Reindeer, and on September 11, 
1814, the Conjiance, and other vessels surren- 
dered." — History of America, by Justin Winsor, 
1888, vii. 380, seq.\ 



526 



MAZEPPA 



mazeppa; 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

" Celui qui remplissait alors cette place 
etait un gentilhomme Polonais, nomme 
Mazeppa, ne dans le palatinat de 
Podolie: il avait ete eleve page de Jean 
Casimir, et avait pris a sa cour quelque 
teinture des belles-lettres. Une intrigue 
qu'il eut dans sa jeunesse avec la femme 
d'un gentilhomme polonais ayant ete 
decouverte, le mari le fit lier tout nu sur 
un cheval farouche, et le laissa aller 
en cet etat. Le cheval, qui etait du 
pays de 1' Ukraine, y retourna, et y 
porta Mazeppa, demi-mort de fatigue 
et de faim. Quelques paysans le 
secoururent: il resta longtems parmi 
eux, et se signala dans plusieurs courses 
contre les Tartares. La superiorite de 
ses lumieres lui donna une grande con- 
sideration parmi les Cosaques: sa 
reputation s'augmentant de jour en 
jour, obligea le Czar a le faire Prince de 
I'Ukraine." — Voltaire, Hist. de 
Charles XII., 1772, p. 205. 

"Le roi, fuyant et poursuivi, eut son 
cheval tue sous lui; le Colonel Gieta, 
blesse, et perdant tout son sang, lui 
donna le sien. Ainsi on remit deux fois 
a cheval, dans la fuite, ce conquerant 
qui n'avait pu y monter pendant la 
bataille." — P. 222. 

"Le roi alia par un autre chemin avec 
quelques cavaliers. Le carrosse, oti il 
etait, rompit dans la marche; on le 
remit a cheval. Pour comble de dis- 
grace, il s'egara pendant la nuit dans 
un bois; la, son courage ne pouvant 
plus suppleer, a ses forces epuissees, les 
douleurs de sa blessure devenues plus 
insupportables par la fatigue, son cheval 
etant tombe de lassitude, il se coucha 
quelques heures au pied d'unarbre, en 

' [Of the composition of Mazeppa we know 
nothing, except that on September 24, 181 8, it 
was "still to imish." It was published together 
with An Ode (Venice: An Ode) and A Frag- 
ment, June 28, 1819.] 



danger d'etre surpris a tout moment par 
les vainqueurs, qui le cherchaient de 
tous cotes." — P. 223. 



'TwAS after dread Pultowa's day,^ 

When Fortune left the royal Swede — 
Around a slaughtered army lay, 

No more to combat and to bleed. 
The pov^er and glory of the war,^ 

Faithless as their vain votaries, men, 
Had passed to the triumphant Czar, 

And Moscow's walls were safe again — 
Until a day more dark and drear ^ 
And a more memorable year, 10 

Should give to slaughter and to shame 
A mightier host and haughtier name; 
A greater wreck, a deeper fall, 
A shock to one — a thunderbolt to all. 



Such was the hazard of the die; 
The wounded Charles was taught to fly ^ 
By day and night through field and flood, 
Stained with his own and subjects' 

blood; 
For thousands fell that flight to aid: 
And not a voice was heard to upbraid 20 j 
Ambition in his humbled hour, 
When Truth had nought to dread from I 

Power. 
His horse was slain, and Gieta gave 
His own — and died the Russians' slave, j 
This, too, sinks after many a league . 
Of well-sustained, but vain fatigue; i 
And in the depth of forests darkling, 
The watch-fires in the distance spar- 
kling — 
The beacons of surrounding foes — 

' [The Battle of Poltava on the Vorskla to k 
place July 8, 1700.] 

2 [Napoleon began his retreat from Mosc^. 
October 15, 1812.] 

3 ["It happened . . . that during the opera- 
tions of June 27-28, Charles was severely 
wounded in the foot. On the morning of June 
28 he was riding close to the river . . . when a 
ball struck him on the left heel, passed through 
his foot, and lodged close to the great toe. . . . 
On the night of July 7, 170Q . . . Charles had 
the foot carefully dressed, while he wore a spurred 
boot on his sound foot, put on his uniform, and 
placed himself on a kind of litter, in which he 
was drawn before the lines of the army."] 



MAZEPPA 



527 



A King must lay his limbs at length. 30 

Are these the laurels and repose 
For which the nations strain their 

strength ? 
They laid him by a savage tree, 
In outworn Nature's agony; 
His wounds were stiff, his limbs were 

stark ; 
The heavy hour was chill and dark; 
The fever in his blood forbade 
A transient slumber's fitful aid: 
And thus it was; but yet through all, 
Kinglike the Monarch bore his fall, 40 
And made, in this extreme of ill, 
His pangs the vassals of his will: 
All silent and subdued were they, 
As once the nations round him lay. 

III. 

A band of chiefs ! — alas ! how few. 

Since but the fleeting of a day 
Had thinned it ; but this wreck was true 

And chivalrous: upon the clay 
Each sate him down, all sad and mute. 

Beside his monarch and his steed; 50 
For danger levels mian and brute. 

And all are fellows in their need. 
Among the rest, Mazeppa made ^ 
His pillow in an old oak's shade — 
Himself as rough, and scarce less old. 
The Ukraine's Hetman, calm and bold; 
But first, outspent with this long course. 
The Cossack prince rubbed down his 

horse. 
And made for him a leafy bed. 

And smoothed his fetlocks and his 
mane, 60 

And slacked his girth, and stripped his 



' [Ivan Stepanovitch Mazeppa (circ. 1645- 
17 10) was of Cossack origin. He began life as 
page of honour in the Court of John Casimir V., 
King of Poland, 1660, was banished on account 
of his intrigue with the wife of the pane [Lord] 
Falbowski, was appointed Hetman or viceroy of 
the Ukraine ("a fertile no-man's land" watered 
by the Dnieper and its tributaries) in 1687, and 
after more than twenty years' service to his 
suzerain, Peter the Great, turned traitor, and 
threw in his lot with Charles XII. of Sweden, 
then meditating the invasion of Russia. "Pul- 
tov.a's Day" was the last of Mazeppa's power 
and influence, and, in the following year (March 
31, 1 710), "he died of old age, perhaps of a 
broken heart," at Varnitza, a village near Berfder 
on the Dneister.] 



And joyed to see how well he fed; 
For until now he had the dread 
His wearied courser might refuse 
To browse beneath the midnight dews: 
But he was hardy as his lord. 
And little cared for bed and board; 
But spirited and docile too, 
Whate'er was to be done, would do. 
Shaggy and swift, and strong of limb, 70 
All Tartar-like he carried him; 
Obeyed his voice, and came to call, 
And knew him in the midst of all: 
Though thousands were around, — and 

Night, 
Without a star, pursued her flight, — 
That steed from sunset until dawn 
His chief would follow like a fawn. 



This done, Mazeppa spread his cloak, 
And laid his lance beneath his oak. 
Felt if his arms in order good 80 

The long day's march had well with- 
stood — 
If still the powder filled the pan, 

And flints unloosened kept their 
lock — 
His sabre's hilt and scabbard felt. 
And whether they had chafed his belt; 
And next the venerable man, 
From out his haversack and can. 

Prepared and spread his slender 
stock ; 
And to the Monarch and his men 
The whole or portion offered then 90 
With far less of inquietude 
Than courtiers at a banquet would. 
And Charles of this his slender share 
With smiles partook a moment there, 
To force of cheer a greater show. 
And seem above both wounds and 

woe; — 
And then he said — "Of all our band, 
Though firm of heart and strong of 

hand, 
In skirmish, march, or forage, none 
Can less have said or more have 
done 100 

Than thee, Mazeppa ! On the earth 
So fit a pair had never birth. 
Since Alexander's days till now, 
As thy Bucephalus and thou: 
All Scythia's fame to thine should yield 



528 



MAZEPPA 



For pricking on o'er flood and field." 
Mazeppa answered — "III betide 
The school wherein I learned to ride!" 
Quoth Charles — " Old Hetman, where- 
fore so, 
Since thou hast learned the art so 
well?" no 

Mazeppa said — '"Twere long to tell; 
And we have many a league to go, 
With every now and then a blow, 
And ten to one at least the foe, 
Before our steeds may graze at ease. 
Beyond the swift Borysthenes: ^ 
And, Sire, your limbs have need of rest. 
And I will be the sentinel 
Of this your troop." — "But I request," 
Said Sweden's monarch, "thou wilt tell 
This tale of thine, and I may reap, 121 
Perchance, from this the boon of sleep; 
For at this moment from my eyes 
The hope of present slumber flies." 

"Well, Sire, with such a hope, I'll track 
My seventy years of memory back: 
I think 'twas in my twentieth spring, — 
Aye 'twas, — when Casimir was king ^ — 
John Casimir, — I was his page 
Six summers, in my earlier age: 130 
A learned monarch, faith ! was he, 
And most unlike your Majesty; 
He made no wars, and did not gain 
New realms to lose them back again; 
And (save debates in Warsaw's diet) 
He reigned in most unseemly quiet; 
Not that he had no cares to vex; 
He loved the muses and the Sex; ^ 
And sometimes these so froward are, 
They made him wish himself at war; 140 
But soon his wrath being o'er, he took 
Another mistress — or new book: 
And then he gave prodigious fetes — 
All Warsaw gathered round his gates 
To gaze upon his splendid court, 
And dames, and chiefs, of princely port. 
He was the Polish Solomon, 

' [The Dnieper.] 

» [John Casimir (1609-1672), Jesuit, cardinal, 
and king. He " made wars," and was victorious, 
but he strove to do justice to and by hjs enemies. 
Hence his unpopularity.] 

3 [There was a report that Casimir, after his 
retirement to Paris in 1670, secretly married 
"Marie Mignot, fille d'une blanchisseusc" \ and 
there are other tales of other loves, e.g. Ninon 
de Lenclos.] 



So sung his poets, all but one. 
Who, being unpensioned, made a satire, 
And boasted that he could not flatter. 
It was a court of jousts and mimes, 151 
Where every courtier tried at rhymes; 
Even I for once produced some verses. 
And signed my odes '.Despairing 

Thyrsis.' 
There was a certain Palatine,^ 

A Count of far and high descent, 
Rich as a salt or silver mine; ^ 
And h§ was proud, ye may divine. 

As if from Heaven he had been sent; 
He had such wealth in bk)od and ore 160 

As few could match beneath the 
throne; 
And he would gaze upon his store, 
And o'er his pedigree would pore. 
Until by some confusion led. 
Which almost looked like want of head, 

He thought their merits were his own. 
His wife was not of this opinion; 

His junior she by thirty years. 
Grew daily tired of his dominion; 

And, after wishes, hopes, and fears, 

To Virtue a few farewell tears, 171 
A restless dream or two — some glances 
At Warsaw's youth — some songs, and 

dances. 
Awaited but the usual chances. 
Those happy accidents which render 
The coldest dames so very tender, 1 

To deck her Count with titles given, 
'Tis said, as passports into Heaven; 
But, strange to say, they rarely boast 
Of these, who have deserved them most. 



"I was a goodly stripling then; 181 
At seventy years I so may say, 

That there were few, or boys or men. 
Who, in my dawning time of day, 

Of vassal or of knight's degree. 

Could vie in vanities with me; 



1 [According to the biographers, Mazeppa's 
intrigue took place after he had been banished 
from the court of Warsaw, and had retired to his 
estate in Volhynia. The pane [Lord] Falbow- 
sky, the old husband of the young wife, was a 
neighbouring magnate. It was a case of "love 
in idlenesse."] 

2 This comparison of a "salt mine" may, 
perhaps, be permitted to a Pole, as the wealth of 
the country consists greatly in the salt mines. 



MAZEPPA 



529 



For I had strength — youth — gaiety, 
A port, not like to this ye see, 
But smooth, as all is rugged now; 

For Time, and Care, and War, have 
ploughed 190 

My very soul from out my brow; 

And thus I should be disavowed 
By all my^.'nd and kin, could they 
Compare my day and yesterday; 
This change was wrought, too, long ere 

age 
Had ta'en my features for his page: 
With years, ye know, have not declined 
My strength — my courage — or my 

mind, 
Or at this hour I should not be 
Telling old tales beneath a tree, 200 
With starless skies my canopy. 

But let me on: Theresa's form — 
Methinks it ghdes before me now. 
Between me and yon chestnut's bough, 

The memory is so quick and warm; 
And yet I find no words to tell 
The shape of her I loved so well: 
She had the Asiatic eye. 

Such as our Turkish neighbourhood 

Hath mingled with our Polish blood, 
Dark as above us is the sky; 211 

But through it stole a tender light, 
Like the first moonrise of midnight; 
Large, dark, and swimming in the stream. 
Which seemed to melt to its own beam; 
All love, half languor, and half fire. 
Like saints that at the stake expire. 
And lift their raptured looks on high. 
As though it were a joy to die. 
A brow like a midsummer lake, 220 

Transparent with the sun therein, 
When waves no murmur dare to make. 

And Heaven beholds her face within. 
A cheek and Up — but why -proceed ? 

I loved her then, I love her still; 
And such as I am, love indeed 

In fierce extremes — in good and ill. 
But still we love even in our rage. 
And haunted to our very age 
With the vain shadow of the past, — 230 
As is Mazeppa to the last. 



"We met — we gazed — I saw, 

sighed ; 
She did not speak, and yet replied; 



and 



There are ten thousand tones and signs 
We hear and see, but none defines — 
Involuntary sparks of thought. 
Which strike from out the heart o'er- 

wrought. 
And form a strange intelligence, 
Alike mysterious and intense. 
Which link the burning chain that binds, 
Without their will, young hearts and 
minds; 241 

Conveying, as the electric wire. 
We know not how, the absorbing fire. 
I saw, and sighed — in silence wept, 
And still reluctant distance kept. 
Until I was made known to her. 
And we might then and there confer 
Without suspicion — then, even then, 

I longed, and was resolved to speak; 
But on my Hps they died again, 250 

The accents tremulous and weak, 
Until one hour. — There is a game, 

A frivolous and foolish play. 

Wherewith we while away the day; 
It is — I have forgot the name — 
And we to this, it seems, were set, 
By some strange chance, which I forget: 
I recked not if I won or lost, 

It was enough for me to be 

So near to hear, and oh ! to see 260 
The being whom I loved the most. 
I watched her as a sentinel, 
(May ours this dark night watch as 
well !) 

Until I saw, and thus it was. 
That she was pensive, nor perceived 
Her occupation, nor was grieved 
Nor glad to lose or gain; but still 
Played on for hours, as if her will 
Yet bound her to the place, though not 
That hers might be the winning lot. 270 

Then through my brain the thought 
did pass, 
Even as a flash of lightning there. 
That there was something in her air 
Which would not doom me to despair; 
And on the thought my words broke 
forth, 

All incoherent as they were; 
Their eloquence was little worth. 
But yet she listened — 'tis enough — 

Who listens once will listen twice; 

Her heart, be sure, is not of ice — 280 
And one refusal no rebuff. 



53° 



MAZEPPA 



" I loved, and was beloved again — 
They tell me, Sire, you never knew 
Those gentle frailties; if 'tis true, 
I shorten all my joy or pain; 
To you 'twould seem absurd as vain; 
But all men are not born to reign, 
Or o'er their passions, or as you 
Thus o'er themselves and nations too. 
I am — or rather was — a Prince, 290 
A chief of thousands, and could lead 
Them on where each would foremost 
bleed; 
But could not o'er myself evince 
The like control — But to resume: 
I loved, and was beloved again; 
In sooth, it is a happy doom, 

But yet where happiest ends in pain. — 
We met in secret, and the hour 
Which led me to that lady's bower 
Was fiery Expectation's dower. 300 
My days and nights were nothing — all 
Except that hour which doth recall. 
In the long lapse from youth to age, 
No other like itself: I'd give 
The Ukraine back again to live 
It o'er once more, and be a page. 
The happy page, who was the lord 
Of one soft heart, and his own sword. 
And had no other gem nor wealth. 
Save Nature's gift of Youth and Health. 
We met in secret — doubly sweet, 311 
Some say, they find it so to meet; 
I know not that — I would have given 
My life but to have called her mine 
In the full view of Earth and Heaven; 

For I did oft and long repine 
That we could only meet by stealth. 



"For lovers there are many eyes. 

And such there were on us; the Devil 
On such occasions should be civil — 

The Devil ! — I'm loth to do him 
wrong, 321 

It might be some untoward saint, 

Who would not be at rest too long. 
But to his pious bile gave vent — 

But one fair night, some lurking spies 

Surprised and seized us both. 

The Count was something more than 
wroth — 



I was unarmed; but if in steel. 
All cap-a-pie from head to heel. 
What 'gainst their numbers could I do ? 
'Twas near his castle, far away 331 

From city or from succour near, 
And almost on the break of day; 
I did not think to see another. 

My moments seemed reduced to few; 
And with one prayer to Mary Mother, 

And, it may be, a saint or two, 
As I resigned me to my fate. 
They led me to the castle gate: 

Theresa's doom I never knew, 340 
Our lot was henceforth separate. — 
An angry man, ye may opine. 
Was he, the proud Count Palatine; 
And he had reason good to be. 

But he was most enraged lest such 

An accident should chance to touch 
Upon his future pedigree; 
Nor less amazed, that such a blot 
His noble 'scutcheon should have got, 
While he was highest of his line; 350 

Because unto himself he seemed 

The first of men, nor less he deemed 
In others' eyes, and most in mine. 
'Sdeath ! with a page — perchance a 

king 
Had reconciled him to the thing; 
But with a stripling of a page — 
I felt — but cannot paint his rage. 



" ' Bring forth the horse ! ' — the horse 

was brought ! 
In truth, he was a noble steed, 

A Tartar of the Ukraine breed, 360 
Who looked as though the speed of 

thought 
Were in his limbs; but he was wild. 

Wild as the wild deer, and untaught, 
With spur and bridle undefiled — 

'Twas but a day he had been caught; 
And snorting, with erected mane. 
And struggling fiercely, but in vain, 
In the full foam of wrath and dread 
To me the desert-born was led: 
They bound me on, that menial 

throng, _ 370 

Upon his back with many a thong; 
They loosed him with a sudden lash — ■ 
Away ! — away ! — and on we dash ! — 
Torrents less rapid and less rash. 



MAZEPPA 



531 



"Away ! — away ! — My breath was 

gone, 
I saw not where he hurried on: 
'Twas scarcely yet the break of day, 
And on he foamed — away ! — away ! 
The last of human sounds which rose. 
As I was darted from my foes, 380 

Was the wild shout of savage laughter. 
Which on the wind came roaring after 
A moment from that rabble rout: 
With sudden wrath I wrenched my 

head. 
And snapped the cord, which to the 

mane 
Had bound my neck in lieu of rein. 
And, writhing half my form about. 
Howled back my curse; but 'midst the 

tread, 
The thunder of my courser's speed. 
Perchance they did not hear nor heed: 
It vexes me • — for I would fain 391 
Have paid their insult back again. 
I paid it well in after days: 
There is not of that castle gate. 
Its drawbridge and portcullis' weight, 
Stone — bar — moat — bridge — or 

barrier left; 
Nor of its fields a blade of grass. 
Save what grows on a ridge of wall. 
Where stood the hearth-stone of the 

hall; 
And many a time ye there might pass, 
Nor dream that e'er the fortress was. 401 
I saw its turrets in a blaze. 
Their crackling battlements all cleft, 

And the hot lead pour down like rain 
From off the scorched and blackening 

roof 
Whose thickness was not vengeance- 
proof. 
They little thought that day of pain. 
When launched, as on the lightning's 

flash, 
They bade me to destruction dash. 

That one day I should come again, 
With twice five thousand horse, to 

thank 411 

The Count for his uncourteous ride. 
They played me then a bitter prank. 
When, with the wild horse for my 

guide, 



They bound me to his foaming flank: 
At lenf'th I played them one as frank — 
For Time at last sets all things even — 
And if we do but watch the hour, 
There never yet was human power 
Which could evade, if unforgiven, 420 
The patient search and vigil long 
Of him who treasures up a wrong. 



"Away ! — away ! — my steed and I, 

Upon the pinions of the wind ! 

All human dwellings left behind. 
We sped like meteors through the sky, 
When with its crackling sound the 

night 
Is chequered with the Northern light. 
Town — village — none were on our 
track. 

But a wild plain of far extent, 430 
And bounded by a forest black; 

And, save the scarce seen battlement 
On distant heights of some strong hold, 
Against the Tartars built of old. 
No trace of man. The year before 
A Turkish army had marched o'er; 
And where the Spahi's hoof hath' trod, 
The verdure flies the bloody sod: 
The sky was dull, and dim, and grey, 

And a low breeze crept moaning 
by — 440 

I could have answered with a sigh — 
But fast we fled, — away ! — away ! — 
And I could neither sigh nor pray; 
And my cold sweat-drops fell like rain 
Upon the courser's bristling mane; 
But, snorting still with rage and fear. 
He flew upon his far career: 
At times I almost thought, indeed. 
He must have slackened in his speed; 
But no — my bound and slender frame 

Was nothing to his angry might, 451 
■And merely like a spur became: 
Each motion which I made to free 
My swoln limbs from their agony 

Increased his fury and affright: 
I tried my voice, — 'twas faint and 

low — 
But yet he swerved as from a blow; 
And, starting to each accent, sprang 
As from a sudden trumpet's clang: 
Meantime my cords were wet with 
gore, 460 



532 



MAZEPPA 



Which, oozing through my limbs, ran 

o'er; 
And in my tongue the thirst became 
A something fierier far than flame. 

XII. 

"We neared the wild wood — 'twas so 

wide, 
I saw no bounds on either side: 
'Twas studded with old sturdy trees, 
That bent not to the roughest breeze 
Which howls down from Siberia's waste, 
And strips the forest in its haste, — 
But these were few and far between, 470 
Set thick with shrubs more young and 

green, 
Luxuriant with their annual leaves. 
Ere strown by those autumnal eves 
That nip the forest's foliage dead, 
Discoloured with a lifeless red, 
Which stands thereon like stiffened gore 
Upon the slain when battle's o'er; 
And some long winter's night hath shed 
Its frost o'er every tombless head — 
So cold and stark — the raven's 

beak 480 

May peck unpierced each frozen cheek: 
'Twas a wild waste of underwood, 
And here and there a chestnut stood, 
The strong oak, and the hardy pine; 
But far apart — and well it were, 
Or else a different lot were mine — 
The boughs gave way, and did not 

tear 
My limbs; and I found strength to bear 
My wounds, already scarred with cold; 
My bonds forbade to loose my hold. 490 
We rustled through the leaves like 

wind, — 
Left shrubs, and trees, and wolves 

behind ; 
By night I heard them on the track, 
Thsir troop came hard upon our back,- 
With their long gallop, which can tire 
The hound's deep hate, and hunter's 

fire: 
Where'er we flew they followed on, 
Nor left us with the morning sun; 
Behind I saw them, scarce a rood. 
At day-break winding through the 

wood, 500 

And through the night had heard their 

feet 



Their stealing, rustling step repeat. 
Oh ! how I wished for spear or sword, 
At least to die amidst the horde, 
And perish — if it must be so — 
At bay, destroying many a foe ! 
When first my courser's race begun, 
I wished the goal already won ; 
But now I doubted strength and speed: 
Vain doubt ! his swift and savage breed 
Had nerved him like the mountain- 
roe — _ 511 
Nor faster falls the blinding snow 
Which whelms the peasant near the door 
Whose threshold he shall. cross no more, 
Bewildered with the dazzling blast. 
Than through the forest-paths he 

passed — 
Untired, untamed, and worse than 

wild — ■ 
All furious as a favoured child 
Balked of its wish; or — fiercer still — 
A woman piqued — who has her will ! 



"The wood was passed; 'twas more 

than noon, 521 

But chill the air, although in June; 
Or it might be my veins ran cold — 
Prolonged endurance tames the bold; 
And I was then not what I seem, 
But headlong as a wintry stream. 
And wore my feelings out before 
I well could count their causes o'er: 
And what with fury, fear, and wrath. 
The tortures which beset my path — 
Cold — hunger — sorrow — shame — 

distress — 531 

Thus bound in Nature's nakedness; 
Sprung from a race whose rising blood 
When stirred beyond its calmer mood, 
And trodden hard upon, is like 
The rattle-snake's, in act to strike — 
What marvel if this worn-out trunk 
Beneath its woes a moment sunk? 
The earth gave way, the skies rolled 

round, 
I seemed to sink upon the ground; 540 
But erred — for I was fastly bound. 
My heart turned sick, my brain grew 

sore. 
And throbbed awhile, then beat no 

more: 
The skies spun like a mighty wheel; 



MAZE? PA 



533 



I saw the trees like drunkards reel, 
And a slight flash sprang o'er my eyes, 
Which saw no farther. He who dies 
Can die no more than then I died, 
O'ertortured by that ghastly ride. 
I felt the blackness come and go, 550 
And strove to wake; but could not 
make 
My senses climb up from below : 
I felt as on a plank at sea. 
When ail the waves that dash o'er 

thee, 
At the same time upheave and whelm. 
And hurl thee towards a desert realm. 
My undulating life was as 
The fancied lights that flitting pass 
Our shut eyes in deep midnight, when 
Fever begins upon the brain; 560 

But soon it passed, with little pain. 
But a confusion worse than such: 
I own that I should deem it much. 
Dying, to feel the same again; 
And yet I do suppose we must 
Feel far more e'er we turn to dust ! 
No matter ! I have bared my brow 
Full in Death's face — before — and 



XIV. 

"My thoughts came back. Where was 
"I? Cold, 

And numb, and giddy: pulse by 
pulse ' 570 

Life reassumed its lingering hold. 
And throb by throb, — till grown a pang 

Which for a moment would convulse, 

My blood reflowed, though thick and 
chill; 
My ear with uncouth noises rang, 

My heart began once more to thrill; 
My sight returned, though dim; alas! 
And thickened, as it were, with glass. 
Methought the dash of waves was nigh; 
There was a gleam too of the sky, 580 
Studded with stars; — it is no dream; 
Thewild horse swims the wilder stream ! 
The bright broad river's gushing tide 
Sweeps, winding onward, far and wide. 
And we are half-way, struggling o'er 
To yon unknown and silent shore. 
The waters broke my hollow trance, 
And with a temporary strength 

My stiffened hmbs were rebaptized. 



My courser's broad breast proudly 
braves, 590 

And dashes off the ascending waves, 
And onward we advance ! 
We reach the slippery shore at length, 

A haven I but little prized, 
For all behind was dark and drear, 
And all before was night and fear. 
How many hours of night or day 
In those suspended pangs I lay, 
I could not tell; I scarcely knew 
If this were human breath I drew. 600 



"With glossy skin, and dripping mane, 

And reeling limbs, and reeking flank, 
The wild steed's sinewy nerves«till strain 

Up the repelling bank. 
We gain the top: a boundless plain 
Spreads through the shadow of the 
night. 

And onward, onward, onward — 
seems. 

Like precipices in our dreams, 
To stretch beyond the sight; 
And here and there a speck of white, 610 

Or scattered spot of dusky green, 
In masses broke into the light. 
As rose the moon upon my right: 

But nought distinctly seen 
In the dim waste would indicate 
The omen of a cottage gate; 
No twinkling taper from afar 
Stood Hke a hospitable star; 
Not even an ignis-fatuus rose 
To make him merry with my woes: 620 

That very cheat had cheered me then ! 
Although detected, welcome still, 
Reminding me, through every ill, 

Of the abodes of men. 



"Onward " we went — but slack and 
slow ; 

His savage force at length o'erspent, 
The drooping courser, faint and low. 

All feebly foaming went: 
A sickly infant had had power 
To guide him forward in that hour ! 630 

But, useless all to me. 
His new-born tameness nought availed — 
My limbs were bound; my force had 
failed, 



534 



MAZEPPA 



Perchance, had they been free. 
With feeble effort still I tried 
To rend the bonds so starkly tied, 

But still it was in vain; 
My limbs were only wrung the more. 
And soon the idle strife gave o'er, 

Which but prolonged their pain. 640 
The dizzy race seemed almost done, 
Although no goal was nearly won: 
Some streaks announced the coming 
sun — 

How slow, alas ! he came ! 
Methought that mist of dawning grey 
Would never dapple into day. 
How heavily it rolled away ! 

Before the eastern flame 
Rose crinjson, and deposed the stars. 
And called the radiance from their 
cars, 650 

And filled the earth, from his deep 

throne, 
With lonely lustre, all his own. 



"Uprose the sun; the mists were curled 
Back from the solitary world 
Which lay around — behind — before. 
What booted it to traverse o'er 
Plain — forest — river? Man nor brute, 
Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot. 
Lay in the wild luxuriant soil — ■ 
No sign of travel, none of toil — 660 
The very air was mute: 
And not an insect's shrill small horn. 
Nor matin bird's new voice was borne 
From herb nor thicket. Many a werst, 
Panting as if his heart would burst. 
The weary brute still staggered on; 
And still we were — or seemed — alone: 
At length, while reeling on our way, 
Methought I heard a courser neigh. 
From out yon tuft of blackening firs. 670 
Is it the wind those branches stirs ? 
No, no ! From out the forest prance 

A trampling troop; I see them come ! 
In one vast squadron they advance ! 

I strove to cry — my lips were dumb ! 
The steeds rush on in plunging pride; 
But where are they the reins to guide? 
A thousand horse, and none to ride! 
With flowing tail, and flying mane. 
Wide nostrils never stretched by pain. 
Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein, 681 



And feet that iron never shod. 
And flanks unscarred by spur or rod, 
A thousand horse, the wild, the free, 
Like waves that follow o'er the sea, 

Came thickly thundering on, 
As if our faint approach to meet ! 
The sight re-nerved my courser's feet, 
A moment staggering, feebly fleet, 
A moment, with a faint low neigh, 690 

He answered, and then fell ! 
With gasps and glazing eyes he lay, 

And reeking limbs immoveable. 

His first and last career is done ! 
On came the troop — they saw him 
stoop. 

They saw me strangely bound along 

His back with many a bloody thong. 
They stop — they start — they snuff the 

air, 
Gallop a. moment here and there, 
Approach, retire, wheel round and 
round, 700 

Then plunging back with sudden 

bound. 
Headed by one black mighty steed. 
Who seemed the Patriarch of his breed, 

Without a single speck or hair 
Of white upon his shaggy hide; 
They snort — they foam — neigh — 

swerve aside. 
And backward to the forest fly, 
By instinct, from a human eye. 

They left me there to my despair. 
Linked to the dead and stiffening 
wretch, 710 

Whose lifeless limbs beneath me 

stretch. 
Relieved from that unwonted weight, 
From whence L could not extricate 
Nor him nor me — and there we lay, 

The dying on the dead ! 
I little deemed another day 

Would see my houseless, helpless 
head. 

"And there from morn to twilight 

bound, 
I felt the heavy hours toil round, 
With just enough of life to see 720 

My last of suns go down on me. 
In hopeless certainty of mind, 
That makes us feel at length resigned 
To that which our foreboding years 



MAZEPPA 



535 



Present the worst and last of fears: 
Inevitable — even a boon, 
Nor more unkind for coming soon, 
Yet shunned and dreaded with such 

care, 
As if it only were a snare 

That Prudence might escape: 730 
At times both wished for and implored, 
At times sought with self-pointed sword. 
Yet still a dark and hideous close 
To even intolerable woes, 

And welcome in no shape. 
And, strange to say, the sons of pleasure. 
They who have revelled beyond measure 
In beauty, wassail, wine, and treasure. 
Die calm, or calmer, oft than he 
Whose heritage was Misery: 740 

For he who hath in turn run through 
All that was beautiful and new, 

Hath nought to hope, and nought to 

leave; 
And, save the future, (which is viewed 
Not quite as men are base or good. 
But as their nerves may be endued,) 

With nought perhaps to grieve: 
The wretch still hopes his woes must 

end. 
And Death, whom he should deem his 

friend. 
Appears, to his distempered eyes, 750 
Arrived to rob him of his prize, 
The tree of his new Paradise. 
To-morrow would have given him all, 
Repaid his pangs, repaired his fall; 
To-morrow would have been the first 
Of days no more deplored or curst, 
But bright, and long, and beckoning 

years. 
Seen dazzling through the mist of tears. 
Guerdon of many a painful hour; 
To-morrow would have given him 

power 760 

To rule — to shine — to smite — to 

save — 
And must it dawn upon his grave ? 



"The sun was sinking — still I lay 
Chained to the chill and stiffening 
steed ! 

I thought to mingle there our clay; 
And my dim eyes of death had need, 
No hope arose of being freed. 



I cast my last looks up the sky. 

And there between me and the sun 
I saw the expecting raven fly, 770 

Who scarce would wait till both should 
die. 

Ere his repast begun; 
He flew, and perched, then flew once 

more. 
And each time nearer than before; 
I saw his wing through twilight flit, 
And once so near me he alit 

I could have smote, but lacked the 
strength; 
But the slight motion of my hand, 
And feeble scratching of the sand, 
The exerted throat's faint struggling 
noise, 780 

Which scarcely could be called a voice, 

Together scared him off at length. 
I know no more — my latest dream 

Is something of a lovely star 

Which fixed my dull eyes from^far. 
And went and came with wandering 

beam. 
And of the cold — dull — swimming — 

dense 
Sensation of recurring sense, 
And then subsiding back to death. 
And then again a little breath, 790 

A little thrill — a short suspense. 

An icy sickness curdling o'er 
My heart, and sparks that crossed my 

brain — 
A gasp — a throb — a start of pain, 

A sigh — and nothing more. 



" I woke — where was I ? — Do I see 
A human face look down on me? 
And doth a roof above me close ? 
Do these Umbs on a couch repose ? 
Is this a chamber where I lie? 800 

And is it mortal yon bright eye, 
That watches me with gentle glance ? 

I closed my own again once more, 
As doubtful that my former trance 

Could not as yet be o'er. 
A slender girl, long-haired, and tall, 
Sate watching by the cottage wall: 
The sparkle of her eye I caught, 
Even wnth my first return of thought; 
For ever and anon she threw 810 

A prying, pitying glance on me 



536 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE 



With her black eyes so wild and free : 
I gazed, and gazed, until I knew 

No vision it could be, — 
But that I lived, and was released 
From adding to the vulture's feast: 
And when the Cossack maid beheld 
My heavy eyes at length unsealed, 
She smiled — and I essayed to speak, 

But failed — and she approached, 
and made 820 

With lip and finger signs that said, 
I must not strive as yet to break 
The silence, till my strength should be 
Enough to leave my accents free; 
And then her hand on mine she laid. 
And smoothed the pillow for my head. 
And stole along on tiptoe tread. 

And gently oped the door, and spake 

In whispers — ne'er was voice so sweet ! 

Even music followed her Hght 

feet ; — 830 

But those she called were not awake. 
And she went forth; but, ere she passed, 
Another look on me she cast. 

Another sign she made, to say, 
That I had nought to fear, that all 
Were near, at my command or call, 

And she would not delay 
Her due return : — while she was gone, 
Methought I felt too much alone. 



"She came with mother and with 
sire — 840 

What need of more ? — I will not tire 
With long recital of the rest. 
Since I became the Cossack's guest. 
They found me senseless on the plain. 

They bore me to the nearest hut, 
They brought me into life again — 
Me — • one day o'er their realm to reign ! 

Thus the vain fool who strove to glut 
His rage, refining on my pain. 

Sent me forth to the wilderness, 850 
Bound — naked — bleeding — and 

alone. 
To pass the desert to a throne, — 

What mortal his own doom may 
guess ? 

Let none despond, let none despair ! 
To-morrow the Borysthenes 
May see our coursers graze at ease 
Upon his Turkish bank, — and never 



Had I such welcome for a river 

As I shall yield when safely there. 
Comrades, good night!" — The Het- 
man threw 860 

His length beneath the oak-tree shade, 
With leafy couch already made — 
A bed nor comfortless nor new 
To him, who took his rest whene'er 
The hour arrived, no matter where: 
His eyes the hastening slumbers 
steep. — 
And if ye marvel Charles forgot 
To thank his tale, he wondered not, — ■ 
The King had been an hour asleep ! 



THE 



PROPHECY 
DANTE.i 



OF 



'"Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
And coming events cast their shadows before." 
— Campbell [Lochiel's Warning]. 



DEDICATION. 

Lady ! ^ if for the cold and cloudy chme 
Where I was born, but where I would 

not die. 
Of the great Poet-Sire of Italy 
I dare to build the imitative rhyme, 
Harsh Runic copy of the South's sub- 
lime, 
Thou art the cause ; and howsoever I 
Fall short of his immortal harmony. 
Thy gentle heart will pardon me the 

crime. 
Thou, in the pride of Beauty and of 
Youth, 
Spakest; and for thee to speak and 
be obeyed 
Are one; but only in the sunny South 
Such sounds are uttered, and such 
charms displayed, 
So sweet a language from so fair a 
mouth — 
Ah ! to what effort would it not 
persuade ? 

Ravenna, June 21, 181 9. 

' [The Prophecy of Dante was wTitten during 
the month of June, 1819. "to gratify the Countess 
Guiccioli." It was published together with 
Marino Faliero, April 21, 1821.] 

2 [The Countess Guiccioli.] 



Canto i.] 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE 



S?>1 



PREFACE. 

In the course of a visit to the city of 
Ravenna in the summer of 1819, it was 
suggested to the author that having com- 
posed something on the subject of Tasso's 
confinement, he should do the same on 
Dante's exile, — the tomb of the poet 
forming one of the principal objects of 
interest in that city, both to the native 
and to the stranger. 

"On this hint I spake," and the result 
has been the following four cantos, in 
terza rima, now offered to the reader. 
If they are understood and approved, it 
is my purpose to continue the poem in 
various other cantos to its natural con- 
clusion in the present age. The reader 
is requested to suppose that Dante 
addresses him in the interval between 
the conclusion of the Divina Commedia 
and his death, and shortly before the 
latter event, foretelling the fortunes of 
Italy in general in the ensuing centuries. 
In adopting this plan I have had in my 
mind the Cassandra of Lycophron, and 
the Prophecy of Nereus by Horace, as 
well as the Prophecies of Holy Writ. 
The measure adopted is the terza rima 
of Dante, which I am not aware 
to have seen hitherto tried in our lan- 
guage, except it may be hy Mr Hay- 
ley, of whose translation I never sav,- 
but one extract, quoted in the notes to 
Caliph Vathek ; so that — if I do not 
err — this poem may be considered as a 
metrical experiment. The cantos are 
short, and about the same length of 
those of the poet, whose name I have 
borrowed, and, most Hkely, taken in 
vain. 

Amongst the inconveniences of au- 
thors in the present day, it is difficult for 
any who have a name, good or bad, to 
escape translation. I have- had the 
fortune to see the fourth canto of Childe 
Harold translated into Italian versi 
sciolti, — that is, a poem written in the 
Spenserean stanza into blank verse, with- 
out regard to the natural divisions of the 
stanza or the sense. If the present 
poem, being on a national topic, should 



chance to undergo the same fate, I 
would request the ItaHan reader to 
remember that when I have failed in the 
imitation of his great "Padre Alighier," 
I have failed in imitating that which all 
study and few understand, since to this 
very day it is not yet settled what was 
the meaning of the allegory in the first 
canto of the htferno, unless Count 
Marchetti's ingenious and probable 
conjecture may be considered as having 
decided the question. 

He may also pardon my failure the 
more, as I am not quite sure that he 
would be pleased with my success, since 
the Italians, with a pardonable nation- 
ality, are particularly jealous of all that 
is left them as a nation — their Utera- 
ture; and in the present bitterness of 
the classic and romantic war, are but ill 
disposed to permit a foreigner even to 
approve or imitate them, without finding 
some fault with his ultramontane pre- 
sumption. I can easily enter into all 
this, knowing what would be thought 
in England of an Italian imitator of 
Milton, or if a translation of Monti, 
Pindemonte, or Arici, should be held up 
to the rising generation as a model for 
their future poetical essays. But I per- 
ceive that I am deviating into an ad- 
dress to the Italian reader, where my 
business is with the English one; and 
be they few or many, I must take my 
leave of both. 



CANTO THE FIRST. 

Once more in Man's frail world ! which 
I had left 
So long that 'twas forgotten; and I 

feel 
The weight of clay again, — too soon 
bereft 
Of the Immortal Vision which could 
heal 
My earthly sorrows, and to God's 

ow^n skies 
Lift me from that deep Gulf without 
repeal. 
Where late my ears rung with the 
damned cries 



538 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE 



[Canto i. 



Of Souls in hopeless bale; and from 

that place 
Of lesser torment, whence men may 

arise 
Pure from the fire to join the AngeUc 

race; lo 

'Midst whom my own bright Beatrice ^ 

blessed 
My spirit with her light; and to the 

base 
Of the Eternal Triad ! first, last, best, 
Mysterious, three, sole, infinite, great 

God! 
Soul universal ! led the mortal guest, 
Unblasted by the Glory, though he 

trod 
From star to star to reach the almighty 

throne. 
Oh Beatrice ! whose sweet limbs the 

sod 
So long hath pressed, and the cold 

marble stpne, 
Thou sole pure Seraph of my earliest 

love, 20 

Love so ineffable, and so alone. 
That nought on earth could more my 

bosom move. 
And meeting thee in Heaven was but 

to meet 
That without which my Soul, like the 

arkless dove, 
Had wandered still in search of, nor her 

feet 
ReUeved her wing till found; without 

thy light 
My Paradise had still been incom- 
plete.^ 
Since my tenth sun gave summer to my 

sight 

' The reader is requested to adopt the Italian 
pronunciation of Beatrice, sounding all the 
syllables. 

= " Che sol per le belle' opre 

Che sono in cielo, il sole e I'altre stelle, 

Dentro da lor si crede il Paradiso: 

Cosi se guardi fiso 

Pensar ben dei, che ogni terren piacere. 

[Si trova in lei, ma tu nol puoi vedere."] 
Canzone, in which Dante describes the person of 
Beatrice, Strophe third. 

[Byron was mistaken in attributing these lines 
to Dante. Neither external nor internal evidence 
supports such an ascription. The Canzone is 
attributed in the MSS. either to Fazio degli 
Uberti, or to Bindo Borrichi da Siena, but was 
not assigned to Dante before 15 18.] 



Thou wert my Life, the Essence of 

my thought. 
Loved ere I knew the name of Love, 

and bright 30 

Still in these dim old eyes, now over- 
wrought 
With the World's war, and years, and 

banishment. 
And tears for thee, by other woes un- 
taught ; 
For mine is not a nature to be bent 
By tyrannous faction, and the brawl- 
ing crowd. 
And though the long, long conflict 

hath been spent 
In vain, — and never more, save when 

the cloud 
Which overhangs the Apennine my 

mind's eye 
Pierces to fancy Florence, once so 

proud 
Of me, can I return, though but to die, 
Unto my native soil, — they have not 

yet 41 

Quenched the old exile's spirit, stern 

and high. 
But the Sun, though not overcast, must 

set, 
And the night cometh; I am old in 

days, 
And deeds, and contemplation, and 

have met 
Destruction face to face in all his ways. 
The World hath left me, what it found 

me, pure. 
And if I have not gathered yet its 

praise, 
I sought it not by any baser lure; 
Man wrongs, and Time avenges, and 

my name 50 

May form a monument not all 

obscure. 
Though such was not my AmMtion's 

end or aim. 
To add to the vain-glorious list of 

those • 
Who dabble in the pettiness of fame, 
And make men's fickle breath the wind 

that blows 
Their sail, and deem it glory to be 

classed 
With conquerors, and Virtue's other 

foes. 



Canto i.] 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE 



539 



In bloody chronicles of ages past. 
I would have had my Florence great 

and free; ^ 
Oh Florence ! Florence ! unto me 

thou wast 60 

Like that Jerusalem which the Almighty 

He 
Wept over, "but thou wouldst not"; 

as the bird 
Gathers its young, I would have 

gathered thee 
Beneath a parent pinion, hadst thou 

heard 
My voice; but as the adder, deaf and 

fierce, 
Against the breast that cherished 

thee was stirred 
Thy venom, and my state thou didst 

amerce. 
And doom this body forfeit to the fire.^ 
Alas ! how bitter is his country's 

curse 
To him who for that country would 

expire, 70 

But did not merit to expire hy her, 
And loves her, loves her even in her 

ire. 
The day may come when she will cease 

to err. 
The day may come she would be 

proud to have 
The dust she dooms to scatter, and 

transfer 
Of him, whom she denied a home, the 

grave. 
But this shall not be granted; let my 

dust 

» "L'Esilio che m' e dato onor mi tegno 
***** 

Cader tra' buoni e pur di lode degno." 
— Sonnet of Dank [Canzone xx. lines 76-80, 
Opere di Dante, iSq7, p. 171] 
in which he represents Right, Generosity, and 
Temperance as banished from among men, and 
seeking refuge from Love, who inhabits his 
bosom. 

'"Ut si quis predictorum ullo tempore in 
fortiarn dicti communis pervenerit, talis per- 
veniens igne combnratnr, sic quod nwriatur." 
Second sentence of Florence against Dante, 
and the fourteen accused with him. The Latin 
is worthy of the sentence. [The decree (March 
II, 1302) that Dante and his associates in exile 
should be burned, if they fell into 'the hands of 
their enemies, was first discovered, in 1772, by 
the Conte Ludovico Savioli.] 



Lie where it falls; nor shall the soil 

which gave 
Me breath, but in her sudden fury 

thrust 
Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so 

reassume 80 

My indignant bones, because her 

angry gust 
Forsooth is over, and repealed her 

doom; 
No, — she denied me what was 

mine — my roof. 
And shall not have what is not hers — 

my tomb. 
Too long her armed wrath hath kept 

aloof 
The breast which would have bled 

for her, the heart 
That beat, the mind that was tempta- 
tion proof. 
The man who fought, toiled, travelled, 

and each part 
Of a true citizen fulfilled, and saw 
For his reward the Guelf's ascendant 

art 90 

Pass his destruction even into a law. 
These things are not made for for- 

getfulness, 
Florence shall be forgotten first; too 

raw 
The wound, too deep the wrong, and 

the distress 
Of such endurance too prolonged to 

make 
My pardon greater, her injustice less. 
Though late repented; yet — yet for 

her sake 
I feel some fonder yearnings, and for 

thine. 
My own Beatrice, I would hardly 

take 
Vengeance upon the land which once 

was mine, too 

And still is hallowed by thy dust's 

return, 
Which would protect the murderess 

like a shrine. 
And save ten thousand foes by thy sole 

urn. 

houg' 

turn as' s marsh 
And Carthage ruins, my lone breast 

may burn 



540 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE 



[Canto i. 



At times with evil feelings hot and 
harsh, 
And sometimes the last pangs of a 

vile foe 
Writhe in a dream before me, and 
o'erarch 
My brovi^ with hopes of triumph, — let 
them go ! 
Such are the last infirmities of 
those no 

Who long have suffered more than 
mortal woe, 
And yet being mortal still, have no re- 
pose 
But on the pillow of Revenge — Re- 
venge, 
Who sleeps to dream of blood, and 
waking glows 
With the oft-baffled, slakeless thirst of 
change. 
When we shall mount again, and they 

that trod 
Be trampled on, while Death and 
Ate range 
O'er humbled heads and severed 
necks — Great God ! 
Take these thoughts from me — to 

thy hands I yield 

My many wrongs, and thine Almighty 

rod 1 20 

Will fall on those who smote me, — be 

my Shield ! 

As thou hast been in peril, and in 

pain, 
In turbulent cities, and the tented 
field — 
In toil, and many troubles borne in 
vain 
For Florence, — I appeal from her to 

Thee ! 
Thee, whom I late saw in thy loftiest 
reign. 
Even in that glorious Vision, which to 
see 
And live was never granted until now. 
And yet thou hast permitted this to 
me. 
Alas! with what a weight upon my 
brow 130 

The sense of earth and earthly things 

come back. 
Corrosive passions, feelings dull and 
low, 



The heart's quick throb upon the mental 
rack, 
Long day, and dreary night; the 

retrospect 
Of half a century bloody and black. 
And the frail few years I may yet expect 
Hoary and hopeless, but less hard to 

bear. 
For I have been too long and deeply 
wrecked 
On the lone rock of desolate Despair, 
To lift my eyes more to the passing 
sail 140 

Which shuns that reef so horrible and 
bare; 
Nor raise my voice — for who would 
heed my wail? 
I am not of this people, nor this age, 
And yet my harpings will unfold a tale 
Which shall preserve these times when 
not a page 
Of their perturbed annals could at- 
tract 
An eye to gaze upon their civil rage. 
Did not my verse embalm full many an 
act 
Worthless as they who wrought it: 

'tis the doom 
Of spirits of my order to be racked 
In life, to wear their hearts out, and 
consume 151 

Their days in endless strife, and die 

alone ; 
Then future thousands crowd around 
their tomb, 
And pilgrims come from climes where 
they have known 
The name of him — who now is but 

a name, 
And wasting homage o'er the sullen 
stone. 
Spread his — by him unheard, un- 
heeded — fame ; 
And mine at least hath cost me dear: 

to die 
Is nothing; but to wither thus — to 
tame 
My mind down from its own infinity — 
To live in narrow ways with little 
men, 161 

A commpn sight to every common eye, 
A wanderer, while even wolves can find 
a den, 



Canto ii.] 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE 



541 



Ripped from all kindred, from all 

home, all things 
That make communion sweet, and 

soften pain — 
To feel me in the solitude of kings 
Without the power that makes them 

bear a crown — 
To envy every dove his nest and 

wings 
Which waft him where the Apennine 

looks dow^n 
On Arno, till he perches, it may be. 
Within my all inexorable town, 171 
Where yet my bovs are, and that fatal 

She,^ 
Their mother, the cold partner who 

hath brought 
Destruction for a dowry — this to 

see 
And feel, and know without repair, hath 

taught 
A bitter lesson ; but it leaves me free : 

' This lady, whose name was Gemma, sprung 
from one of the most powerful Guelph families, 
named Donati. Corso Donati was the principal 
adversary of the Ghibellines. She is described 
as being '' Admodiim morosa, tit de Xantippe 
Socratis philosophi conjiige scriptum esse legi- 
mus," according to Giannozzo Manetti. But 
Lionardo Aretino is scandalised with Boccace, 
in his life of Dante, for saying that literary men 
should not marry. "Qui il Boccaccio non ha 
pazienza, e dice, le mogli esser contrarie agli 
studj; e non si ricorda che Socrate, il piii nobile 
filosofo che mai fusse, ebbe moglie e figliuoli e 
uffici nella Repubblica nella sua Citta; e Aris- 
totile che, etc., etc., ebbe due moglie in varj 
tempi, ed ebbe figliuoli, e ricchezze assai. — E 
Marco TuUio — e Catone — e Varrone — e 
Seneca — ebbero moglie," etc., etc. It is odd 
that honest Lionardo's examples, with the ex- 
ception of Seneca, and, for anything I know, of 
Aristotle, are not the most felicitous. Tully's 
Terentia, and Socrates' Xantippe, by no means 
contributed to their husbands' happiness, what- 
ever they might do to their philosophy — 
Cato gave away his wife — of Varro's we know 
nothing — and of Seneca's, only that she was 
disposed to die with him, but recovered and 
lived several years afterwards. But, says 
Lionardo, "L'uomo e animate civile, secondo 
piace a tutti i filosofi." And thence concludes 
that the greatest proof of the animal's civism is 
"la prima congiunzione, dalla quale multiplicata 
nasce la Citta." 

[There is nothing in the Divina Commedia, or 
elsewhere in his writings, to justify the common 
belief that Dante was unhappilv married, unless 
silence may be taken to imply dislike and aliena- 
tion. But with Byron, as with Boccaccio, "the 
wish was father to the thought," and both were 
glad to quote Dante as a victim to matrimony.] 



I have not vilely found, nor basely 
sought, 
They made an Exile — not a Slave of 
me. 



CANTO THE SECOND. 

The Spirit of the fervent days of Old, 
When words were things that came 

to pass, and Thought 
Flashed o'er the future, bidding men 

behold 
Their children's children's doom already 

brought 
Forth from the abyss of Time which 

is to be, 
The Chaos of events, where lie half- 
wrought 
Shapes that must undergo mortality; 
What the great Seers of Israel wore 

within. 
That Spirit was on them, and is on 

me. 
And if, Cassandra-like, amidst the din 
Of conflict none will hear, or hearing 

heed n 

This voice from out the Wilderness, 

the sin 
Be theirs, and my own feelings be my 

meed. 
The only guerdon I have ever known. 
Hast thou not bled? and hast thou 

still to bleed, 
Italia? Ah! to me such things, fore- 
shown 
With dim sepulchral light, bid me 

forget 
In thine irreparable wrongs my own; 
We can have but one Country, and even 

yet 
Thou'rt mine — my bones shall be 

within thy breast, 20 

My Soul within thy language, which 

once set 
With our old Rornan sway in the wide 

West; 
But I will make another tongue arise 
As lofty and more sweet, in which 

expressed 
The hero's ardour, or the lover's sighs, 
Shall find alike such sounds for every 

theme 



542 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE 



[Canto ii. 



That every word, as brilliant as thy 

skies, 
Shall realise a Poet's proudest dream. 
And make thee Europe's Nightingale 

of Song; 
So that all present speech to thine 

shall seem 30 

The note of meaner birds, and every 

tongue 
Confess its barbarism when compared 

with thine. 
This shalt thou owe to him thou didst 

so wrong. 
Thy Tuscan bard, the banished Ghibel- 

Hne. 
Woe ! woe ! the veil of coming 

centuries 
Is rent, — a thousand years which 

yet supine 
Lie like the ocean waves ere winds 

arise. 
Heaving in dark and sullen undula- 
tion, 
Float from Eternity into these eyes; 
The storms yet sleep, the clouds still 

keep their station, 40 

The unborn Earthquake yet is in the 

womb, 
The bloody Chaos yet expects Crea- 
tion, 
But all things are disposing for thy 

doom; 
The Elements await but for the 

Word, 
"Let there be darkness!" and thou 

grow'st a tomb ! 
Yes ! thou, so beautiful, shalt feel the 

sword. 
Thou, Italy ! so fair that Paradise, 
Revived in thee, blooms forth to man 

restored : 
Ah ! must the sons of Adam lose it 

twice ? 
Thou, Italy ! whose ever golden 

fields, 50 

Ploughed by the sunbeams solely, 

would suffice 
For the world's granary; thou, whose 

sky Heaven gilds 
With brighter stars, and robes with 

deeper blue; 
Thou, in whose pleasant places Sum- 
mer builds 



Her palace, in whose cradle Empire 

grew. 
And formed the Eternal City's orna- 
ments 
From spoils of Kings whom freemen 

overthrew; 
Birthplace of heroes, sanctuary of 

Saints, 
Where earthly first, then heavenly 

glory made 
Her home; thou, all which fondest 

Fancy paints, 60 

And finds her prior vision but por- 
trayed 
In feeble colours, when the eye — 

from the Alp 
Of horrid snow, and rock, and shaggy 

shade 
Of desert-loving pine, whose emerald 

scalp 
Nods to the storm — dilates and 

dotes o'er thee. 
And wistfully implores, as 'twere, for 

help 
To see thy sunny fields, my Italy, 
Nearer and nearer yet, and dearer 

still 
The more approached, and dearest 

were they free. 
Thou — Thou must wither to each 

tyrant's will: 70 

The Goth hath been, — the German, 

Frank, and Hun 
Are yet to come, — and on the im- 
perial hill 
Ruin, already proud of the deeds done 
By the old barbarians, there awaits 

the new. 
Throned on the Palatine, while lost 

and won 
Rome at her feet lies bleeding; and the 

hue 
Of human sacrifice and Roman 

slaughter 
Troubles the clotted air, of late so 

blue, 
And deepens into red the saffron water 
Of Tiber, thick with dead; the help- 
less priest, 80 
And still more helpless nor less holy 

daughter. 
Vowed to their God, have shrieking fled, 

and ceased 



Canto ii.] 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE 



543 



Their ministry: the nations take their 

prey, 
Iberian, Almain, Lombard, and the 

beast 
And bird, wolf, vulture, more humane 

than they 
Are; these but gorge the flesh, and 

lap the gore 
Of the departed, and then go their 

way; 
But those, the human savages, explore 
All paths of torture, and insatiate 

yet, 
With Ugolino hunger prowl for more. 
Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like 

this and set; ^ 91 

The chiefless army of the dead, which 

late 
Beneath the traitor Prince's banner 

met, 
Hath left its leader's ashes at the gate; 
Had but the royal Rebel lived, per- 
chance 
Thou hadst been spared, but his in- 
volved thy fate. 
Oh ! Rome, the Spoiler or the spoil of 

France, 
From Brennus to the Bourbon, never, 

never 
Shall foreign standard to thy walls 

advance. 
But Tiber shall become a mournful 

river. 100 

Oh ! when the strangers pass the Alps 

and Po, 
Crush them, ye Rocks ! Floods whelm 

them, and for ever ! 
Why sleep the idle Avalanches so. 
To topple on the lonely pilgrim's 

head ? 
Why doth Eridanus but overflow 
The peasant's harvest from his turbid 

bed? 
Were not each barbarous horde a 

nobler prey? 
Over Cambyses' host the desert 

spread 

'See "Sacco di Roma," generally attributed 
to Guicciardini [Francesco (1482-1540).] There 
is another wTitten by a Jacopo Buonaparte. 

[The "traitor Prince" was Charles IV., 
Connetable de Bourbon, Comte de Montpensier, 
born 1490, who was killed at the capture of 
Rome, May 6, 1527.] 



Her sandy ocean, and the Sea-waves' 

sway 
Rolled over Pharaoh and his thou- 
sands, — why, no 
Mountains and waters, do ye not as 

they? 
And you, ye Men ! Romans, who dare 

not die. 
Sons of the conquerors who over- 
threw 
Those who overthrew proud Xerxes, 

where yet lie 
The dead whose tomb Oblivion never 

knew. 
Are the Alps weaker than Ther- 
mopylae ? 
Their passes more alluring to the view 
Of an invader? is it they, or ye. 

That to each host the mountain-gate 

unbar. 
And leave the march in peace, the 

passage free? 120 

Why, Nature's self detains the Victor's 

car, 
And makes your land impregnable, 

if earth 
Could be so; but alone she will not 

war. 
Yet aids the warrior worthy of his birth 
In a soil where the mothers bring 

forth men: 
Not so with those whose souls are 

little worth; 
For them no fortress can avail, — the 

den 
Of the poor reptile which preserves 

its sting 
Is more secure than walls of adamant, 

when 
The hearts of those within are quiver- 
ing. 130 
Are ye not brave? Yes, yet the 

Ausonian soil 
Hath hearts, and hands, and arms, 

and hosts to bring 
Against Oppression; but how vain the 

toil. 
While still Division sow^s the seeds of 

woe 
And weakness, till the Stranger reaps 

the spoil. 
Oh ! my own beauteous land ! so long 

laid low, 



544 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE 

. » 



[Canto hi. 



So long the grave of thy own children's 

hopes, 
When there is but required a single 

blow 
To break the chain, yet — yet the 

Avenger stops. 
And Doubt and Discord step 'twixt 

thine and thee, 140 

And join their strength to that which 

with thee copes; 
What is there wanting then to set thee 

free. 
And show thv beauty in its fullest 

light? 
To make the Alps impassable ; and we. 
Her Sons, may do this with one deed — 

Unite. 



CANTO THE THIRD. 

From out the mass of never-dying ill. 
The Plague, the Prince, the Stranger, 

and the Sword, 
Vials of Wrath but emptied to refill 
And flow again, I cannot all record 
That crowds on my prophetic eye: 

the Earth 
And Ocean written o'er would not 
afford 
Space for the annal, yet it shall go forth; 
Yes, all, though not by human pen, is 

graven. 

There where the farthest suns and 

stars have birth. 

Spread like a banner at the gate of 

Heaven, 10 

The bloody scroll of our millennial 

wrongs 
Waves, and the echo of our groans is 
driven 
Athwart the sound of archangelic songs. 
And Italy, the martyred nation's gore, 
Will not in vain arise to where belongs 
Omnipotence and Mercy evermore: 
Like to a harpstring stricken by the 

wind, 
The sound of her lament shall, rising 
o'er 
The Seraph voices, touch the Almighty 
Mind. 
Meantime I, humblest of thy sons, 
and of 20 



Earth's dust by immortality refined 
To Sense and Suffering, though the 
vain may scoff. 
And tyrants threat, and meeker vic- 
tims bow 
Before the storm because its breath is 
rough. 
To thee, my Country ! whom before, as 
now, 
I loved and love, devote the mournful 

lyre 
And melancholy gift high Powers 
allow 
To read the future: and if now my fire 
Is not as once it shone o'er thee, for- 
give ! 
I but foretell thy fortunes — then 
expire; 30 

Think not that I would look on them and 
live. 
A Spirit forces me to see and speak. 
And for my guerdon grants not to 
survive; 
My Heart shall be poured over thee and 
break: 
Yet for a moment, ere I must resume 
Thy sable web of Sorrow, let me take 
Over the gleams that flash athwart thy 
gloom 
A softer glimpse; some stars shine 

through thy night. 

And many meteors, and above thy 

tomb 

Leans sculptured Beauty, which Death 

cannot blight; 40 

And from thine ashes boundless 

Spirits rise 
To give thee honour, and the earth 
delight; 
Thy soil shall still be pregnant with the 
wise, 
The gay, the learned, the generous, 

and the brave. 
Native to thee as Summer to thy 
skies, 
Conquerors on foreign shores, and the 
far wave,^ 
Discoverers of new worlds, which 
take their name; ^ 



' Alexander of Parma, Spinola, Pescara, 
Eugene of Savoy, Montecuccoli. 

" Columbus, Americus Vespusius, Sebastian 
Cabot. 



Canto hi.] 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE 



545 



For thee alone they have no arm to 

save, 

And all thy recompense is in their 

fame, 

A noble one to them, but not to thee — 

Shall they be glorious, and thou still 



the same! 



51 



Oh ! more than these illustrious far shall 

be 
The Being — and even yet he may be 

born — 
The mortal Saviour who shall set 

thee free. 
And see thy diadem, so changed and 

worn 
By fresh barbarians, on thy brow re- 
placed; 
And the sweet Sun replenishing thy 

morn. 
Thy moral morn, too long with clouds 

defaced. 
And noxious vapours from Avernus 

risen, 
Such as all they must breathe who are 

debased 60 

By Servitude, and have the mind in 

prison. 
Yet through this centuried eclipse of 

woe 
Some voices shall be heard, and Earth 

shall listen; 
Poets shall follow in the path I show, 
And make it broader: the same bril- 
liant sky 
Which cheers the birds to song shall 

bid them glow, 
And raise their notes as natural and 

high: 
Tuneful shall be their numbers; they 

shall sing. 
Many of Love, and some of Liberty, 
But few shall soar upon that Eagle's 

wing, 70 

And look in the Sun's face, with 

Eagle's gaze. 
All free and fearless as the feathered 

King, 
But fly more near the earth ; how many 

a phrase 
Sublime shall lavished be on some 

small prince 
In all the prodigality of Praise ! 
And language, eloquently false, evince 

2 N 



The harlotry of Genius, which, like 
Beauty, 

Too oft forgets its own self-reverence, 
And looks on prostitution as a duty. 

He who once enters in a Tvrant's 
hall ^ ' 80 

As guest is slave — his thoughts be- 
come a booty, 
And the first day which sees the chain 
enthral 

A captive, sees his half of Manhood 
gone ^ — 

The Soul's emasculation saddens all 
His spirit; thus the Bard too near the 
throne 

Quails from his inspiration, bound to 
please, — 

How servile is the task to please alone ! 
To smooth the verse to suit his Sover- 
eign's ease 

And royal leisure, nor too much pro- 
long 

Aught save his eulogy, and find, and 

seize, 90 

Or force, or forge fit argument of Song ! 

Thus trammelled, thus condemned to 
Flattery's trebles. 

He toils through all, still trembling 
to be wrong: 
For fear some noble thoughts, like 
heavenly rebels. 

Should rise up in high treason to his 
brain, 

He sings, as the Athenian spoke, with 
pebbles 
In's mouth, lest Truth should stammer 
through his strain. 

But out of the long file of sonneteers 

There shall be some who will not 
sing in vain, 
And he, their Prince, shall rank among 
my peers,^ 100 

' A verse from the Greek tragedians, with 
which Pompey took leave of Cornelia [daughter 
of ]\Iete!!us Scipio, and widow of P. Crassusj 
on entering the boat in which he was slain. [The 
verse, or verses, are said to be by Sophocles, and 
are quoted by Plutarch, in his Life of Pompey. 
They run thus — 

"Seek'st thou a tyrant's door? then farewell, 
freedom 1 
Though free as air before."] 

' The verse and sentiment are taken from 
Homer {Odyssey, xvii. 322, 323)- 

3 Petrarch. 



546 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE 



[Canto hi. 



And Love shall be his torment; but 

his grief 
Shall make an immortality of tears, 
And Italy shall hail him as the Chief 
Of Poet-lovers, and his higher song 
Of Freedom v^^reathe him v^dth as 
green a leaf. 
But in a farther age shall rise along 
The banks of Po two greater still 

than he; ^ 
The World which smiled on him shall 
do them wrong 
Till they are ashes, and repose with me. 
The first wall make an epoch with his 
lyre, no 

And fill the earth with feats of Chiv- 
alry: 
His Fancy like a rainbow, and his Fire, 
Like that of Heaven, immortal, and 

his Thought 
Borne onward with a wing that can- 
not tire; 
Pleasure shall, like a butterfly new 
caught. 
Flutter her lovely pinions o'er his 

theme, 
And Art itself seem into Nature 
wrought 
By the transparency of his bright 
dream. — 
The second, of a tenderer, sadder 

mood. 
Shall pour his soul out o'er Jerusalem ; 
He, too, shall sing of Arms, and Chris- 
tian blood 121 
Shed where Christ bled for man ; and 

his high harp 
Shall, by the willow over Jordan's 
flood, 
Revive a song of Sion, and the sharp 
Conflict, and final triumph of the 

brave 
And pious, and the strife of Hell to 
warp 
Their hearts from their great purpose, 
until wave 
The red-cross banners where the first 

red Cross 
Was crimsoned from His veins who 
died to save. 
Shall be his sacred argument; the 
loss 130 

' [Ariosto and Tasso.] 



Of years, of favour, freedom, even of 

fame 
Contested for a time, while the smooth 

gloss 
Of Courts would slide o'er his forgotten 

name 
And call Captivity a kindness — 

meant 
To shield him from insanity or 

shame — 
Such shall be his meek guerdon ! who 

was sent 
To be Christ's Laureate — they re- 
ward him well ! 
Florence dooms me but death or 

banishment, 
Ferrara him a pittance and a cell. 
Harder to bear and less deserved, for 

I 140 

Had stung the factions w^hich I strove 

to quell ; 
But this meek man who with a lover's 

eye 
Will look on Earth and Heaven, and 

who will deign 
To embalm with his celestial flattery, 
As poor a thing as e'er was spavv^ned to 

reign, ^ 
What will he do to merit such a doom ? 
Perhaps he'll love, — and is not Love 

in vain 
Torture enough without a living tomb ? 
Yet it will be so — he and his com- 
peer, 
The Bard of Chivalry, will both con- 
sume 150 
In penury and pain too many a year. 
And, dying in despondency, bequeath 
To the kind World, which scarce will 

yield a tear, 
A heritage enriching all who breathe 
With the wealth of a genuine Poet's 

soul. 
And to their country a redoubled 

wreath. 
Unmatched by time ; not Hellas can 

unroll 
Through her Olympiads two such 

names, though one 
Of hers be mighty ; — and is this the 

whole 

' [Alfonso d'Este (II.), Duke of Ferrara, died 
1597.] 



Canto iv.] 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE 



547 



Of such men's destiny beneath the Sun ? 
Must all the finer thoughts, the thrill- 
ing sense, i6i 
The electric blood with which their 
arteries run, 
Their body's self turned soul with the 
intense 
Feeling of that which is, and fancy of 
That which should be, to such a 
recompense 
Conduct ? shall their bright plumage on 
the rough 
Storm be still scattered ? Yes, and it 

must be; 
For, formed of far too penetrable 
stuff, 
These birds of Paradise but long to flee 
Back to their native mansion, soon 
they find 170 

Earth's mist with their pure pinions 
not agree, 
And die or are degraded ; for the mind 
Succumbs to. long infection, and 

despair, 
And vulture Passions flying close 
behind. 
Await the moment to assail and tear; 
And when, at length, the winged 

wanderers stoop, 
Then is the Prey-birds' triumph, then 
they share 
rhe spoil, o'erpowered at length by one 
fell swoop. 
Yet some have been untouched who 

learned to bear, 
Some whom no Power could ever 
force to droop, 180 

Who could resist themselves even, hard- 
est care ! 
And task most hopeless; but some 

such have been, 
And if my name amongst the number 
were. 
That Destiny austere, and yet serene. 
Were prouder than more dazzling 

fame unblessed; 
The Alp's snow summit nearer heaven 
is seen 
Than the Volcano's fierce eruptive crest. 
Whose splendour from the black abyss 

is flung, 
While the scorched mountain, from 
whose burning breast 



A temporary torturing flame is wrung, 
Shines for a night of terror, then 
repels 191 

Its fire back to the Hell from whence 
it sprung. 
The Hell which in its entrails ever 
dwells. 



CANTO THE FOURTH. 

Many are Poets who have never 

penned 
Their inspiration, and perchance the 

best : 
They felt, and loved, and died, but 

would not lend 
Their thoughts to meaner beings; they 

compressed 
The God within them, and rejoined 

the stars, 
Unlaurelled upon earth, but far more 

blessed 
Than those who are degraded by the 

jars 
Of Passion, and their frailties linked 

to fame, 
Conquerors of high renown, but full 

of scars. 
Many are Poets but without the name; 
For what is Poesy but to create, 11 
From overfeeling. Good or 111, and 

aim 
At an external life beyond our fate, 
And be the new Prometheus of new 

men, 
Bestowing fire from Heaven, and then, 

too late. 
Finding the pleasure given repaid with 

pain. 
And vultures to the heart of the 

bestower, 
Who, having lavished his high gift 

in vain. 
Lies chained to his lone rock by the sea- 
shore ? 
So be it : we can bear. — But thus 

all they 20 

Whose Intellect is an o'ermastering 

Power 
Which still recoils from its encumbering 

clay 
Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe'er 



548 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE 



[Canto iv. 



The form which their creations may 
essay, 
Are bards; the kindled Marble's bust 
may wear 
More poesy upon its speaking brow 
Than aught less than the Homeric 
page may bear; 
One noble stroke with a whole life may 
glow, 
Or deify the canvas till it shine 29 
With beauty so surpassing all below, 
That they who kneel to Idols so divine 
Break no commandment, for high 

Heaven is there 
Transfused, transfigurated : and the 
line 
Of Poesy, which peoples but the air 
With Thought and Beings of our 

thought reflected. 
Can do no more : then let the artist 
share 
The palm, he shares the peril, and 
dejected 
Faints o'er the labour unapproved — 

Alas! 
Despair and Genius are too oft con- 
nected. 
Within the ages which before me pass 40 
Art shall resume and equal even the 

sway 
Which with Apelles and old Phidias 
She held in Hellas' unforgotten day. 
Ye shall be taught by Ruin to revive 
The Grecian forms at least from their 
decay, 
And Roman souls at last again shall live 
In Roman works wrought by Italian 

hands. 
And temples, loftier than the old 
temples, give 
New wonders to the World; and while 
still stands 
The austere Pantheon, into heaven 
shall soar 50 

A Dome,^ its image, while the base 
expands 
Into a fane surpassing all before, 

' The Cupola of St Peter's. 

[Michael Angelo, then in his seventy-second 
year, received the appointment of architect of 
St Peter's from Pope Paul III. He began the 
dome on a different plan from that of the first 
architect, Bramante, "declaring that he w^ould 
raise the Pantheon in the air."] 



Such as all fliesh shall flock to kneel in: 

ne'er 
Such sight hath been unfolded by a 

door 
As this, to which all nations shall repair, 
And lay their sins at this huge gate of 

Heaven. 
And the bold Architect unto whose 

care 
The daring charge to raise it shall be 

given. 
Whom all Arts shall acknowledge as 

their Lord, 
Whether into the marble chaos driven 
His chisel bid the Hebrew,^ at whose 

word 61 

Israel left Egypt, stop the waves in 

stone. 
Or hues of Hell be by his pencil poured 
Over the damned before the Judgment- 
throne,^ 
Such as I saw them, such as all shall 

see. 
Or fanes be built of grandeur yet un- 
known — 
The Stream of his great thoughts shall 

spring from me ^ 
The Ghibelline, who traversed the 

three realms 

' The statue of Moses on the monument of 
Julius II. 

"SONNET 
"By Giovanni Battista Zappi. 

"And who is he that, shaped in sculptured stone 

Sits giant-like? stern monument of art 

Unparalleled, while language seems to start 

From his prompt lips, and we his precepts own? 

— 'Tis Moses ; by his beard's thick honours 

known. 

And the twin beams that from his temples 

dart; 
'Tis Moses; seated on the mount apart, 
Whilst yet the Godhead o'er his features shone. 
Such once he looked, when Ocean's sounding 
wave 
Suspended hung, and such amidst the storm. 
When o'er his foes the refluent waters roared. 
An idol calf his followers did engrave: 

But had they raised this awe-commanding 

form, 
Then had they with less guilt their v.'ork 
adored." [Samuel Rogers.] 

^ The Last Judgment, in the Sistine Chapel. 
3 I have read somewhere (if I do not err, for I 
cannot recollect where), that Dante was so great 
a favourite of Michael Angelo's, that he had 
designed the whole of the Divina Commedia: 
but that the volume containing these studies was 
lost by sea. 



Canto iv.] 



THE PROPHECY OF DANTE 



549 



Which form the Empire of Eternity. 
Amidst the clash of swords, and clang of 

helms, 70 

The age which I anticipate, no less 
Shall be the Age of Beauty, and while 

whelms 
Calamity the nations with distress. 
The Genius of my Country shall arise, 
A Cedar towering o'er the Wilderness, 
Lovely in all its branches to all eyes. 
Fragrant as fair, and recognised afar. 
Wafting its native incense through the 

skies. 
Sovereigns shall pause amidst their sport 

of war, 
Weaned for an hour from blood, to 

turn and gaze 80 

On canvas or on stone; and they who 

mar 
All beauty upon earth, compelled to 

praise. 
Shall feel the power of that which they 

destroy ; 
And Art's mistaken gratitude shall 

raise 
To tyrants, who but take her for a toy, 
Emblems and monuments, and pros- 
titute 
Her charms to Pontiffs proud, ^ who 

but employ 
The man of Genius as the meanest 

brute 
To bear a burthen, and to serve a 

need. 
To sell his labours, and his soul to 

boot. 90 

Who toils for nations may be poor in- 
deed, 
But free ; who sweats for Monarchs is 

no more 
Than the gilt Chamberlain, who, 

clothed and feed, 
Stands sleek and slavish, bowing at his 

door. 
Oh, Power that rulest and inspirest ! 

how 
Is it that they on earth, whose earthly 

power 
Is likest thine in heaven in outward 

show, 
Least like to thee in attributes divine, 

' See the treatment of Michael Angelo by 
Julius II., and his neglect by Leo X. 



Tread on the universal necks that 

bow. 
And then assure us that their rights are 

thine? 100 

And how is it that they, the Sons of 

Fame, 
Whose inspiration seems to them to 

shine 
From high, they whom the nations oftest 

name. 
Must pass their days in penury or 

pain. 
Or step to grandeur through the paths 

of shame, 
And wear a deeper brand and gaudier 

chain? 
Or if their Destiny be born aloof 
From lowliness, or tempted thence in 

vain. 
In their own souls sustain a harder 

proof. 
The inner war of Passions deep and 

fierce? no 

Florence ! when thy harsh sentence 

razed my roof, 
I loved thee; but the vengeance of my 

verse. 
The hate of injuries which every year 
Makes greater, and accumulates my 

curse. 
Shall live, outliving all thou boldest 

dear — 
Thy pride, thy wealth, thy freedom, 

and even that, 
The most infernal of all evils here. 
The sway of petty tyrants in a state; 
For such sway is not limited to 

Kings, 
And Demagogues yield to them but in 

date, 120 

As swept off sooner; in all deadly 

things. 
Which make men hate themselves, 

and one another, 
In discord, cowardice, cruelty, all that 

springs 
From Death the Sin-born's incest with 

his mother, 
In rank oppression in its rudest shape. 
The faction Chief is but the Sultan's 

brother. 
And the worst Despot's far less human 

ape. 



550 



THE M ORG ANTE MAGGIORE 



Florence ! when this lone spirit, which 

so long 
Yearned, as the captive toiling at 

escape. 
To fly back to thee in despite of wrong, 
An exile, saddest of all prisoners, 131 
Who has made the whole world for a 

dungeon strong, 
Seas, mountains, and the horizon's verge 

for bars. 
Which shut him from the sole small 

spot of earth 
Where — whatsoe'er his fate — he still 

were hers. 
His Country's, and might die where he 

had birth — 
Florence ! when this lone Spirit shall 

return 
To kindred Spirits, thou wilt feel my 

worth. 
And seek to honour with an empty urn ^ 
The ashes thou shalt ne'er obtain — 

Alas! 140 

"What have I done to thee, my 

People?"^ Stern 
Are all thy dealings, but in this they pass 
The limits of Man's common malice, 

for 
All that a citizen could be I was — 
Raised by thy will, all thine in peace or 

war — 
And for this thou hast warred with 

me. — 'Tis done : 
I may not overleap the eternal bar 
Built up between us, and will die alone, 
Beholding with the dark eye of a Seer 
The evil days to gifted souls fore- 
shown, 150 
Foretelling them to those who wall not 

hear; 

' ["Between the second and third chapels [in 
the nave of Santa Croce at Florence] is the 
colossal monument to Dante, by Ricci . . . 
raised by subscription in 1829. The inscription, 
'A majoribus ter fnistra decretum,' refers to the 
successive efforts of the Florentines to recover his 
remains, and raise a monument to their great 
countrvman." — Handbook, Central Italy, p. 32.] 

* "E scrisse piii volte non solamente a' parti- 
colari Cittadini del Reggimento, ma ancora ai 
Popolo; e intra 1' altre un' Epistola assai lunga 
che incomincia: 'Papule mee (sic), quid feci 
tibi?'" — Lc Vite di Dante, etc., scritte da 
Lionardo Aretino, 1672, p. 47. The Vulgate 
reads, "O my people, what have I done to thee?" 
Micah, vi. 3. "Popule meus quid fed tibi?" 



As in the old time, till the hour be come 
When Truth shall strike their eyes 
through many a tear. 
And make them own the Prophet in his 
tomb. 

Ravenna, 1819. 



THE MORGANTE MAG- 
GIOREi OF PULCI. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The Morgante Maggiore, of the first 
canto of which this translation is offered, 
divides with the Orlando Innamorato 
the honour of having formed and sug- 
gested the style and story of Ariosto.^ 
The great defects of Boiardo were his 
treating too seriously the narratives of 
chivalry, and his harsh style. Ariosto, 
in his continuation, by a judicious mix- 
ture of the gaiety of Pulci, has avoided 
the one; and Berni, in his reformation 
of Boiardo' s poem, has corrected the ^ 
other. Pulci may be considered as the 
precursor and model of Berni altogether, j 
as he has partly been to Ariosto, how- 
ever inferior to both his copyists. He is 
no less the founder of a new style of 
poetry very lately sprung up in England. 
I allude to that of the ingenious W^histle- 
craft. The serious poems on Ronces- 
valles in the same language, and more 
particularly the excellent one of Mr 
Merivale, are to be traced to the same , 
source.^ It has never yet been decided I 

■ [The translation of the first canto of Mor- 1 
gante Maggiore was finished; at Ravenna, in j 
February, 1820, and first published in the fourth | 
Number of the Liberal, July 30, 1823.] I 

' [Matteo Maria Bt jardo (1434-1404) pub- ' 
lished his Orlando Innamorato in i486; Lodo- 
vico Ariosto (1474-1533) published the Orlando 
Furioso in 1516. A first edition of Cantos L- 
XXV. of Luigi Pulci's (1431-1487) II Morgante 
Maggiore was printed surreptitiously by Luca 
Veneziano in 1481. Francesco Berni, who 
recast the Orlando Innamorato, was born circ. 
1490, and died in 1536.] 

3 [John Herman Merivale (1779-1844), the 
father of Charles Merivale, the historian (Dean 
of Ely, i860), and of Herman, Under-Secretary 
for India, published his Orlando in Roncesvalles 
in 1814.] 



Caxto I.] 



THE M ORG ANTE MAGGIORE 



551 



entirely whether Pulci's intention was or 
was not to deride the religion which is 
one of his favourite topics. It appears 
to me, that such an intention would have 
been no less hazardous to the poet than 
to the priest, particularly in that age and 
country ; and the pernriission to publish 
the poem, and its reception among the 
classics of Italy, prove that it neither was 
nor is so interpreted. That he intended 
to ridicule the monastic life, and suf- 
fered his imagination to play with the 
simple dulness of his converted giant, 
seems evident enough; but surely it 
were as unjust to accuse him of irre- 
ligion on this account, as to denounce 
Fielding for his Parson Adams, Barna- 
bas, Thwackum, Supple, and the Ordi- 
nary in Jonathan Wild, — or Scott, for 
the exquisite use of his Covenanters in 
the "Tales of my Landlord." 

In the following translation I have 
used the liberty of the original with the 
proper names, as Pulci uses Gan, Ganel- 
lon, or Ganellone ; Carlo, Carlomagno, 
or Carlomano ; Rondel, or Rondello, 
etc., as it suits his convenience; so has 
the translator. In other respects the 
version is faithful to the best of the trans- 
lator's ability in combining his interpre- 
tation of the one language with the not 
very easy task of reducing it to the same 
versification in the other. The reader, 
on comparing it with the original, is 
requested to remember that the anti- 
quated language of Pulci, however pure, 
is not easy to the generality of Italians 
themselves, from its great mixture of 
Tuscan proverbs ; and he may therefore 
be more indulgent to the present attempt. 
How far the translator has succeeded, 
and whether or no he shall continue the 
v/ork, are questions which the public will 
decide. He was induced to make 
the experiment partly by his love for, 
and partial intercourse with, the Italian 
language, of which it is so easy to ac- 
quire a slight knowledge, and with which 
it is so nearly impossible for a foreigner 
to become accurately conversant. The 
Italian language is like a capricious 
beauty, who accords her smiles to all, 
her favours to few, and sometimes least 



to those who have courted her longest. 
The translator wished also to present 
in an English dress a part at least of a 
poem never yet rendered into a northern 
language ; at the same time that it has 
been the original of some of the most 
celebrated productions on this side of the 
Alps, as well of those recent experiments 
in poetry in England which have been 
already mentioned. 



CANTO THE FIRST. 



In the beginning was the Word next 
God; 
God was the Word, the Word no less 
was He: 
This was in the beginning, to my mode 
Of thinking, and without Him nought 
could be: 
Therefore, just Lord ! from out thy 
high abode. 
Benign and pious, bid an angel flee, 
One only, to be my companion, who 
Shall help my famous, worthy, old song 
through. 

II. 
And thou, oh Virgin ! daughter, mother, 
bride, 
Of the same Lord, who gave to you 
each key 
Of Heaven, and Hell, and every thing 
beside. 
The day thy Gabriel said "All hail !" 
to thee, 
Since to thy servants Pity's ne'er denied. 
With flowing rhymes, a pleasant style 
and free. 
Be to my verses then benignly kind. 
And to the end illuminate my mind. 

III. 
'Twas in the season when sad Philomel 
Weeps with her sister, who remembers 
and 
Deplores the ancient woes which both 
befel. 
And makes the nymphs enamoured, 
to the hand 
Of Phaeton, by Phoebus loved so well, 
His car (but tempered by his sire's 
command) 



55^ 



THE M ORG ANTE MAGGIORE 



[Canto i. 



Was given, and on the horizon's verge 

just now 
Appeared, so that Tithonus scratched 

his brow : 

IV. 

When I prepared my bark first to obey, 
As it should still obey, the helm, my 
mind, 
And carry prose or rhyme, and this my 
lay 
Of Charles the Emperor, whom you 
will find 
By several pens already praised; but 
they 
Who to diffuse his glory were inclined, 
For all that I can see in prose or verse, 
Have understood Charles badly, and 
wrote worse. 



Leonardo Aretino said already, 

That if, like Pepin, Charles had had a 
writer 
Of genius quick, and diligently steady, 
No hero would in history look 
brighter ; 
He in the cabinet being always ready, 
And in the field a most victorious 
fighter. 
Who for the church and Christian faith 

had wrought, 
Certes, far more than yet is said or 
thought. 

VI. 

You still may see at Saint Liberatore,^ 
The abbey, no great way from Mano- 
pell. 
Erected in the Abruzzi to his glory. 

Because of the great battle in which fell 
A pagan king, according to the story, 
And felon people whom Charles sent 
to Hell : 
And there are bones so many, and so 

many. 
Near them Giusaffa's ^ would seem few, 
if any. 

' [The Benedictine Monastery of San Libera- 
tore alia Majella lies to the south of Manoppello, 
eight miles south-west of Chieto, in the Abruzzi. 
The abbey is in a ruinous condition, but on the 
walls there is still to be seen a fresco of Charle- 
magne, holding in his hands the deed of gift of 
the Abbey lands.] 

^ [That is, the valley of Jehoshaphat, the 



But the world, blind and ignorant, don't 
prize 
His virtues as I wish to see them : thou, 
Florence, by his great bounty don't arise/ 
And hast, and may have, if thou wilt 
allow. 
All proper customs and true courtesies : 
Whate'er thou hast acquired from 
then till now, 
With knightly courage, treasure, or the 

lance. 
Is sprung from out the noble blood of 
France. 



Twelve Paladins had Charles in court, 
of whom 
The wisest and most famous was Or- 
lando ; 
Him traitor Gan conducted to the tomb 
In Roncesvalles, as the villain planned 
too, 
While the horn rang so loud, and knelled 
the doom 
Of their sad rout, though he did all 
knight can do : 
And Dante in his comedy has given 
To him a happy seat with Charles in 
Heaven. 

IX. 

'Twas Christmas-day; in Paris all his 
court 
Charles held; the Chief, I say, Or- 
lando was. 
The Dane ; Astolfo there too did resort. 

Also Ansuigi, the gay time to pass 
In festival and in triumphal sport 
The much-renowned St Dennis being 
the cause ; 
Angiolin of Bayonne, and Oliver, 
And gentle Belinghieri too came there: 

X. 

Avolio, and Arino, and Othone 

Of Normandy, and Richard Paladin, 

"valley where Jehovah judges" (see Joel iii. 
2-12); and, hence, a favourite burial-ground 
of Jews and Moslems.] 

' [The text as it stands is meaningless. Prob- 
ably Bvron wrote "dost arise." The reference 
is no doubt to the supposed restoration of Flor- 
ence by Charlemagne.] 



Canto i.] 



THE MORGANTE MAGGIORE 



553 



Wise Hamo, and the ancient Salamone, 
Waiter of Lion's Mount, and Baldovin, 
Who was the son of tlie sad Ganellone, 
Were there, exciting too much glad- 
ness in 
The son of Pepin : — when his knights 

came hither. 
He groaned with joy to see them alto- 
gether. 

XI. 

But watchful Fortune, lurking, takes 
good heed 
Ever some bar 'gainst our intents to 
bring. 
While Charles reposed him thus, in word 
and deed, 
Orlando ruled court, Charles, and 
every thing; 
Curst Gan, with envy bursting, had such 
need 
To vent his spite, that thus with 
Charles the king 
One day he openly began to say, 
" Orlando must we always then obey ? 



"A thousand times I've been about to 
say, 
Orlando too presumptuously goes on ; 
Here are we, counts, kings, dukes, to 
own thy sway, 
Hamo, and Otho, Ogier, Solomon, 
Each have to honour thee and to obey; 
But he has too much credit near the 
throne, 
Which we won't suffer, but are quite 

decided 
By such a boy to be no longer guided. 



"And even at Aspramont thou didst be- 
gin 
To let him know he was a gallant 
knight, 
And by the fount did much the day to 
win; 
But I know who that day had won the 
fight 
If it had not for good Gherardo 
been; 
The victory was Almonte's else; his 
sight 



He kept upon the standard — and the 

laurels, 
In fact and fairness, are his earning, 

Charles ! 



" If thou rememberest being in Gascony, 
When there advanced the nations out 
of Spain, 
The Christian cause had suffered shame- 
fully. 
Had not his valour driven them back 
again. 
Best speak the truth when there's a rea- 
son why, — 
Know then, oh Emperor ! that all 
complain : 
As for myself, I shall repass the mounts 
O'er which I crossed with two and sixty 
counts. 



"'Tis fit thy grandeur should dispense 

relief. 
So that each here may have his proper 

part, 
For the whole court is more or less in 

grief : 
Perhaps thou deem'st this lad a Mars 

in heart?" 
Orlando one day heard this speech in 

brief. 
As by himself it chanced he sate apart : 
Displeased he was with Gan because he 

said it. 
But much more still that Charles should 

give him credit. 

XVI, 

And with the sword he would have mur- 
dered Gan, 
But Oliver thrust in between the 
pair. 
And from his hand extracted Durlindan, 
And thus at length they separated 
were. 
Orlando angry too with Carloman, 
Wanted but little to have slain him 
there ; 
Then forth alone from Paris went the 

Chief, 
And burst and maddened with disdain 
and grief. 



554 



THE M ORG ANTE MAGGIORE 



[Canto i. 



From Ermellina, consort of the Dane, 
He took Cortana, and then took 

Rondell, 
And on towards Brara pricked him o'er 

the plain ; 
And when she saw him coming, 

Aldabelle 
Stretched forth her arms to clasp her 

lord again : 
Orlando, in whose brain all was not 

well, 
As "Welcome, my Orlando, home," 

she said, 
Raised up his sword to smite her on the 

head. 

XVIII. 

Like him a Fury counsels, his revenge 
On Gan in that rash act he seemed to 

take, 
Which Aldabella thought extremely 

strange ; 
But soon Orlando found himself 

awake ; 
And his spouse took his bridle on this 

change. 
And he dismounted from his horse, 

and spake 
Of every thing which passed without 

demur. 
And then reposed himself some days 

with her. 

XIX. 

Then full of wrath departed from the 
place, 
As far as pagan countries roamed 
astray, 
And while he rode, yet still at every pace 
The traitor Gan remembered by the 
way; 
And wandering on in error a long space. 
An abbey which in a lone desert lay, 
'Midst glens obscure, and distant lands, 

he found, 
Which formed the Christian's and the 
Pagan's bound. 



The Abbot was called Clermont, and by 
blood 
Descended from Angrante : under 



Of a great mountain's brow the abbey 

stood. 
But certain savage giants looked him 

over; 
One Passamont was foremost of the 

brood. 
And Alabaster and Morgante hover 
Second and third, with certain slings, 

and throw 
In daily jeopardy the place below. 

XXI. 

The monks could pass the convent gate 
no more. 
Nor leave their cells for water or for 
wood ; 
Orlando knocked, but none would ope, 
before 
Unto the Prior at length seemed good ; 
Entered, he said that he was taught to 
adore 
Him who was born of Mary's holiest 
blood, 
And was baptized a Christian ; and then 

showed 
How to the abbey he had found his road. 



Said the Abbot, "You are welcome; 
what is mine 
We give you freely, since that you 
believe 
With us in Mary Mother's Son divine; 
And that you may not, Cavalier, con- 
ceive 
The cause of our delay to let you in 

To be rusticity, you shall receive 
The reason why our gate was barred to 

you: 
Thus those who in suspicion live must 
do. 

XXIII. 

"When hither to inhabit first we came 
These mountains, albeit that they are 
obscure. 
As you perceive, yet without fear or 
blame 
They seemed to promise an asylum 
sure: 
From savage brutes alone, too fierce to 
tame, 
'Twas fit our quiet dwelling to secure ; 



Canto i.] 



THE M ORG ANTE MAGGIORE 



555 



But now, if here we'd stay, we needs 

must guard 
Against domestic beasts with watch and 

ward. 

XXIV. 

"These make us stand, in fact, upon the 

watch ; 
For late there have appeared three 

giants rough, 
What nation or what kingdom bore the 

batch 
I know not, but they are all of savage 

stutT; 
When Force and Malice with some 

genius match, 
You know, they can do all — ive are 

not enough : 
And these so much our orisons derange, 
I know not what to do, till matters 

change. 

XXV. 

"Our ancient fathers, living the desert 

in, 
For just and holy works were duly 

fed; 
Think not they lived on locusts sole, 

'tis certain 
That manna was rained down from 

heaven instead; 
But here 'tis fit we keep on the alert 

in 
Our bounds, or taste the stones 

showered down for bread. 
From ofT yon mountain daily raining 

faster. 
And flung by Passamont and Alabaster. 



"The third, Morgante, 's savagest by 
far; he 
Plucks up pines, beeches, poplar- 
trees, and oaks, 
And flings them, our community to bury ; 
And all that I can do but more pro- 
vokes." 
While thus they parley in the cemetery, 
A stone from one of their gigantic 
strokes, 
Which nearly crushed Rondell, came 

tumbling over. 
So that he took a long leap under 



XXVII. 

" For God-sake, Cavalier, come in with 

speed ; 
The manna's falling now," the Abbot 

cried. 
"This fellow does not wish my horse 

should feed. 
Dear Abbot," Roland unto him re- 
plied, 
" Of restiveness he'd cure him had he 

need; 
That stone seems with good will and 

aim applied." 
The holy father said, "I don't deceive; 
They'll one day fling the mountain, I 

believe." 

XXVIII. 

Orlando bade them take care of Ron- 
dello. 
And also made a breakfast of his own ; 
"Abbot," he said, "I want to find that 
fellow 
Who flung at my good horse yon 
corner-stone." 
Said the Abbot, " Let not my advice seem 
shallow ; 
As to a brother dear I speak alone ; 
I would dissuade you. Baron, from this 

strife. 
As knowing sure that you will lose your 
life. 

XXIX. 

" That Passamont has in his hand three 
darts — 
Such slings, clubs, ballast-stones, that 
yield you must : 
You know that giants have much 
stouter hearts 
Than us, with reason, in proportion 
just : 
If go you will, guard well against their 
arts, 
For these are very barbarous and 
robust." 
Orlando answered," This I'll see, be sure. 
And walk the wild on foot to be secure." 



The Abbot signed the great cross on his 
front, 
"Then go you with God's benison 
and mine." 



556 



THE M ORG ANTE MAGGIORE 



[Canto i. 



Orlando, after he had scaled the mount, 

As the Abbot had directed, kept the 

line 

Right to the usual haunt of Passamont ; 

Who, seeing him alone in this design, 

Surveyed him fore and aft with eyes 

observant, 
Then asked him, "If he wished to stay 
as servant?" 

XXXI. 

And promised him an office of great 
ease. 
But, said Orlando, "Saracen insane! 
I come to kill you, if it shall so please 
God, not to serve as footboy in your 
train ; 
You with his monks so oft have broke 
the peace — 
Vile dog ! 'tis past his patience to sus- 
tain." 
The Giant ran to fetch his arms, quite 

furious. 
When he received an answer so injurious. 

XXXII. 

And being returned to where Orlando 

stood. 
Who had not moved him from the 

spot, and swinging 
The cord, he hurled a stone with strength 

so rude, 
As showed a sample of his skill in 

slinging ; 
It rolled on Count Orlando's helmet 

good 
And head, and set both head and 

helmet ringing. 
So that he swooned with pain as if he 

died. 
But more than dead, he seemed so 

stupefied. 

XXXIII. 

Then Passamont, who thought him 
slain outright. 
Said, "I will go, and while he lies 
along, 
Disarm me : why such craven did I 
fight?" 
But Christ his servants ne'er abandons 
long. 
Especially Orlando, such a knight, 
As to desert would almost be a wrong. 



While the giant goes to put off his 

defences, 
Orlando has recalled his force and senses: 



And loud he shouted, "Giant, where 

dost go ? 
Thou thought' St me doubtless for the 

bier outlaid; 
To the right about — without wings 

thou'rt too slow 
To fly my vengeance — currish rene- 
gade ! 
'Twas but by treachery thou laid'st me 

low." 
The giant his astonishment betrayed. 
And turned about, and stopped his 

journey on, 
And then he stooped to pick up a great 

stone. 

XXXV. 

Orlando had Cortana bare in "hand ; 
To split the head in twain was what 

he schemed: 
Cortana clave the skull like a true 

brand. 
And pagan Passamont died unre- 
deemed ; 
Yet harsh and haughty, as he lay he 

banned, 
And most devoutly Macon still 

blasphemed ; ^ 
But while his crude, rude blasphemies. 

he heard, 
Orlando thanked the Father and the 

Word, — 

XXXVI. 

Saying, "What grace to me thou'st this 
day given ! 
And I to thee, O Lord ! am ever 
bound ; 
I know my life was saved by thee from 
Heaven, 
Since by the Giant I was fairly 
downed. 
All things by thee are measured just 
and even; 
Our power without thine aid would 
nought be found: 
I pray thee take heed of me, till I can 
At least return once more to Carloman." 
' ["Macon" is another form of "Mahomet."] 



Canto t.] 



THE M ORG ANTE MAGGIORE 



557 



XXXVII. 

And having said thus much, he went his 
way; 
And Alabaster he found out below, 
Doing the very best that in him lay 

To root from out a bank a rock or two. 

Orlando, when he reached him, loud 

'gan say, 

"How think'st thou, glutton, such a 

stone to throw?" 

When Alabaster heard his deep voice 

ring, 
He suddenly betook him to his sling, 

XXXVIII. 

And hurled a fragment of a size so 
large, 
That if it had in fact fulfilled its mis- 
sion. 
And Roland not availed him of his targe, 
There would have been no need of a 
physician. 
Orlando set himself in turn to charge. 

And in his bulky bosom made incision 
With all his sword. The lout fell ; but 

o'erthrown, he 
However by no means forgot Macone. 

XXXIX. 

Morgante had a palace in his mode. 
Composed of branches, logs of wood, 
and earth, 
And stretched himself at ease in this 
abode. 
And shut himself at night within his 
berth. 
Orlando knocked, and knocked again, 
to goad 
The giant from his sleep; and he 
came forth. 
The door to open, like a crazy thing. 
For a rough dream had shook him 
slumbering. 



He thought that a fierce serpent had 
attacked him. 
And Mahomet he called; but Ma- 
homet 
Is nothing worth, and, not an instant 
backed him ; 
But praying blessed Jesu, he was set 



At liberty from all the fears which 

racked him ; 
And to the gate he came with great 

regret — 
"Who knocks here?" grumbling all the 

while, said he. 
"That," said Orlando, "you will 

quickly see: 

XLI. 

"I come to preach to you, as to your 

brothers, — 
Sent by the miserable monks — re- 
pentance ; 
For Providence divine, in you and 

others. 
Condemns the evil done, my new 

acquaintance ! 
'Tis writ on high — your wrong must 

pay another's: 
From Heaven itself is issued out this 

sentence. 
Know then, that colder now than a 

pilaster 
I left your Passamont and Alabaster." 



Morgante said, " Oh gentle Cavalier ! 

Now by thy God say me no villany; 
The favour of your name I fain would 
hear. 
And if a Christian, speak for cour- 
tesy." 
Replied Orlando, " So much to your ear 

I by my faith disclose contentedly ; 
Christ I adore, who is the genuine Lord, 
And, if you please, by you may be 
adored." 

XLIII. 

The Saracen rejoined in humble tone, 
"I have had an extraordinary vision; 

A savage serpent fell on me alone, 

And Macon would not pity my con- 
dition ; 

Hence to thy God, who for ye did atone 
Upon the cross, preferred I my peti- 
tion ; 

His timely succour set me safe and free, 

And I a Christian am disposed to be." 

XLIV. 

Orlando answered, "Baron just and 
pious, 



558 



THE M ORG ANTE MAGGIORE 



[Canto i. 



If this good wish your heart can really 
move 
To the true God, who will not then deny 
us 
Eternal honour, you will go above. 
And, if you please, as friends we will 
ally us. 
And I will love you with a perfect 
love. 
Your idols are vain liars, full of fraud : 
The only true God is the Christian's 
God. 

XLV. 

"The Lord descended to the virgin 
breast 
Of Mary Mother, sinless and divine ; 
If you acknowledge the Redeemer blest, 
Without whom neither sun nor star 
can shine, 
Abjure bad Macon's false and felon 
test, 
Your renegado god, and worship 
mine. 
Baptize yourself with zeal, since you 

repent." 
To which Morgante answered, "I'm 
content." 

XL VI. 

And then Orlando to embrace him flew. 
And made much of his convert, as he 
cried, 
"To the abbey I will gladly marshal 
you." 
To whom Morgante, "Let us go," 
replied ; 
"I to the friars have for peace to sue." 
Which thing Orlando heard with in- 
ward pride,. 
Saying, "My brother, so devout and 

good, 
Ask the Abbot pardon, as I wish you 
would : 



"Since God has grant-ed your illumina- 
tion. 
Accepting you in mercy for his own, 
Humility should be your first oblation." 
Morgante said, " For goodness' sake, 
make known, — 
Since that your God is to be mine — 
your station, 



And let your name in verity be 
shown ; 

Then will I everything at your com- 
mand do." 

On which the other said, he was Or- 
lando. 

XL VIII. 

"Then," quoth the Giant, "blessed be 
Jesu 
A thousand times with gratitude and 



praise 



Oft, perfect Baron ! have I heard of you 
Through all the different periods of 
my days: 
And, as I said, to be your vassal too 
I wish, for your great gallantry 
always." 
Thus reasoning, they continued much 

to say. 
And onwards to the abbey went their way. 

XLIX. 

And by the way about the giants dead 
Orlando with Morgante reasoned : 
"Be, 
For their decease, I pray you, comforted. 
And, since it is God's pleasure, par- 
don me; 
A thousand wrongs unto the monks they 
bred; 
And our true Scripture soundeth 
openly. 
Good is rewarded, and chastised the ill. 
Which the Lord never faileth to fulfil: 



" Because His love of justice unto all 
Is£uch, He wills His judgment should 
devour 
All who have sin, however great or small ; 
But good He well remembers to re- 
store. 
Nor without justice holy could we call 

Him, whom I now require you to adore. 
All men must make His will their wishes 

sway. 
And quickly and spontaneously obey. 



And here our doctors are of one accord. 
Coming on this point to the same con- 
clusion, — 



Canto i.] 



THE M ORG ANTE MAGGIORE 



559 



That in their thoughts, who praise in 
. Heaven the Lord, 
If Pity e'er was guilty of intrusion 
For their unfortunate relations stored 
In Hell below, and damned in great 
confusion, 
Their happiness would be reduced to 

nought, — 
And thus unjust the Almighty's self be 
thought. 

LII. 

"But they in Christ have firmest hope, 
and all 
Which seems to Him, to them too 
must appear 
Well done; nor could it otherwise be- 
fall; 
He never can in any purpose err. 
If sire or mother suffer endless thrall, 
They don't disturb themselves for 
him or her : 
What pleases God to them must joy 

inspire ; — 
Such is the observance of the eternal 
choir." 

LIII. 

"A word unto the wise," Morgante said, 
" Is wont to be enough, and you shall 
see 
How much I grieve about my brethren 
dead; 
And if the will of God seem good to 
me, 
Just, as you tell me, 'tis in Heaven 
obeyed — 
Ashes to ashes, — merry let us be ! 
I will cut off the hands from both their 

trunks. 
And carry them unto the holy monks. 



"So that all persons may be sure and 
certain 
That they are dead, and have no 
further fear 
To wander solitary this desert in. 

And that they may perceive my spirit 
clear 
By the Lord's grace, who hath with- 
drawn the curtain 
Of darkness, making His bright realm 
appear." 



He cut his brethren's hands off at these 

words. 
And left them to the savage beasts and 

birds. 

LV. 

Then to the abbey they went on to- 
gether. 
Where waited them the Abbot in great 
doubt. 

The monks, who knew not yet the fact, 
ran thither 
To their superior, all in breathless rout, 

Saying with tremor, " Please to tell us 
whether 
You wish to have this person in or 
out?" 

The Abbot, looking through upon the 
Giant, 

Too greatly feared, at first, to be com- 
pliant. 

LVI. 

Orlando seeing him thus agitated. 
Said quickly, "Abbot, be thou of good 
cheer ; 
He Christ believes, as Christian must be 
rated. 
And hath renounced his Macon 
false;" which here 
Morgante with the hands corroborated, 
A proof of both the giants' fate quite 
clear : 
Thence, with due thanks, the Abbot 

God adored. 
Saying, "Thou hast contented me, O 
Lord!" 

LVII. 

He gazed; Morgante' s height he cal- 
culated, 
And more than once contemplated his 
size; 

And then he said, "O Giant cele- 
brated ! 
Know, that no more my wonder will 
arise. 

How you could tear and fling the trees 
you late did, 
When I behold your form with my 
own eyes. 

You now a true and perfect friend will 
show 

Yourself to Christ, as once you were a 
foe. 



560 



THE MORGANTE MAGGIORR 



[Canto i. 



"And one of our apostles, Saul once 
named, 
Long persecuted sore the faith of 
Christ, 

Till, one day, by the Spirit being in- 
flamed, 
'Why dost thou persecute me thus?' 
said Christ ; 

And then from his offence he was re- 
claimed, 
And went for ever after preaching 
Christ, 

And of the faith became a trump, whose 
sounding 

O'er the whole earth is echoing and 
rebounding. 

LIX. 

"So, my Morgante, you may do like- 
wise : 
He who repents — thus writes the 
Evangelist — 
Occasions more rejoicing in the skies 

Than ninety-nine of the celestial list. 
You may be sure, should each desire 
arise 
With just zeal for the Lord, that you'll 
exist 
Among the happy saints for evermore ; 
But you were lost and damned to Hell 
before !" 

LX. 

And thus great honour to Morgante paid 
The Abbot: many days they did 

repose. 
One day, as with Orlando they both 

strayed. 
And sauntered here and there, 

where'er they chose. 
The Abbot showed a chamber, where 

arrayed 
Much armour was, and hung up cer- 
tain bows; 
And one of these Morgante for a 

whim 
Girt on, though useless, he believed, to 

him. 

LXI. 

There being a want of water in the 
place, 
Orlando, like a worthy brother, said, 



"Morgante, I could wish you in this 
case 
To go for water." "You shall be 
obeyed 

In all commands," was the reply, 
"straight ways." 
Upon his shoulder a great tub he laid, 

And went out on his way unto a foun- 
tain. 

Where he was wont to drink, below the 
mountain. 

LXII. 

Arrived there, a prodigious noise he 
hears, 
Which suddenly along the forest 
spread ; 

Whereat from out his quiver he pre- 
pares 
An arrow for his bow, and lifts his 
head; 

And lo ! a monstrous herd of swine 
appears, 
And onward rushes with tempestu- 
ous tread. 

And to the fountain's brink precisely 
pours ; 

So that the Giant's joined by all the 
boars. 

LXIII. 

Morgante at a venture shot an arrow, 
Which pierced a pig precisely in the 
ear, j 

And passed unto the other side quite | 
through ; 
So that the boar, defunct, lay tripped 
up near. 
Another, to revenge his fellow farrow. 
Against the Giant rushed in fierce 
career, 
And reached the passage with so swift 

a foot, 
Morgante was not now in time to shoot. 



Perceiving that the pig was on him close, 
He gave him such a punch upon the 
head,^ 

' "Gli dette in su la testa un gran punzone." 
It is strange that Pulci should have literally 
anticipated the technical terms of mvold friend 
and master, Jackson, and the art which he has 
carried to its highest pitch. ".1 punch on the 
head," or "a punch in the head," — "un pxin- 



Caxto I.] 



THE M ORG ANTE MAGGIORE 



561 



As floored him so that he no more arose, 
Smashing the very bone; and he fell 
dead 
Next to the other. Having seen such 
blows, 
The other pigs along the valley fled; 
Morgante on his neck the bucket took, 
Full from the spring, which neither 
swerved nor shook. 

LXV. 

The tub was on one shoulder, and there 
were 
The hogs on t'other, and he brushed 
apace 
On to the abbey, though by no means 
near, 
Nor spilt one drop of water in his race. 
Orlando, seeing him so soon appear 
With the dead boars, and with that 
brimful vase, 
Marvelled to see his strength so very 

great ; 
So did the Abbot, and set wide the gate. 



The monks, who saw the water fresh 
and good. 
Rejoiced, but much more to perceive 
the pork; 
All animals are glad at sight of food: 
They lay their breviaries to sleep, and 
work 
With greedy pleasure, and in such a 
mood. 
That the flesh needs no salt beneath 
their fork. 
Of rankness and of rot there is no fear, 
For all the fasts are now left in arrear. 



As though they wished to burst at once, 
they ate; 
And gorged so that, as if the bones 
had been 

[n water, sorely grieved the dog and cat. 
Perceiving that they all were picked 
too clean. 

The Abbot, who to all did honour great, 
A few days after this convivial scene, 

jcoe in su la testa," — is the exact and frequent 
ibrase of our best pugilists, who little dream 
hat they are talking the purest Tuscan. 

2 O 



Gave to Morgante a fine norse, well 

trained, 
Which he long time had for himself 

maintained. 

LXVIII. 

The horse Morgante to a meadow led 

To gallop, and to put him to the proof, 
Thinking that he a back of iron had. 
Or to skim eggs unbroke was light 
enough ; 
But the horse, sinking with the pain, 
fell dead, 
And burst, while cold on earth lay 
head and hoof. 
Morgante said,"Get up, thou sulky curl" 
And still continued pricking with the spur. 



But finally he thought fit to dismount, 
And said, "I am as light as any 
feather. 
And he has burst ; — to this what say 
you. Count?" 
Orlando answered, "Like a ship's 
mast rather 
You seem to me, and with the truck for 
front : 
Let him go ! Fortune wills that we 
together 
Should march, but you on foot Mor- 
gante still." 
To which the Giant answered, " So I will. 

LXX. 

"When there shall be occasion, you will 
see 
How I approve my courage in the 
fight." 
Orlando said, "I really think you'll be, 
If it should prove God's will, a goodly, 
knight; 
Nor will you napping there discover me. 
But never mind your horse, though 
out of sight 
'Twere best to carry him into some 

wood. 
If but the means or way I understood," 

Lxxr. 

The Giant said, "Then carry him I will. 
Since that to carry me he was so 
slack — 



562 



THE M ORG ANTE MAGGIORE 



[Canto i. 



To render, as the gods do, good for ill; 
But lend a hand to place him on my 
back." 
Orlando answered, "If my counsel still 
May weigh, Morgante, do not under- 
take 
To lift or carry this dead courser, who, 
As you have done to him, will do to you. 



"Take care he don't revenge himself, 

though dead. 
As Nessus did of old beyond all cure. 
I don't know if the fact you've heard or 

read; 
But he will make you burst, you may 

be sure." 
"But help him on my back," Morgante 

said, 
"And you shall see what weight I can 

endure. 
In place, my gentle Roland, of this 

palfrey. 
With all the bells, I'd carry yonder 

belfry." 

LXXIII. 

The Abbot said, "The steeple may do 

well. 
But for the bells, you've broken them, 

I wot." 
Morgante answered, "Let them pay in 

Hell 
The penalty who lie dead in yon 

grot;" 
And hoisting up the horse from where 

he fell. 
He said, "Now look if I the gout 

have got, 
Orlando, in the legs, — or if I have 

force;" — 
And then he made two gambols with the 

horse. 

LXXIV. 

Morgante was like any mountain 
framed ; 
So if he did this 'tis no prodigy; 
But secretly himself Orlando blamed. 
Because he was one of his family; 
And fearing that he might be hurt or 
maimed. 
Once more he bade him lay his bur- 
den by: 



"Put down, nor bear him further the 
desert in." 

Morgante said, "I'll carry him for cer- 
tain." 

LXXV. 

He did; and stowed him in some nook 
away. 
And to the abbey then returned wit 
speed. 

Orlando said, "Why longer do wi 
stay ? 
Morgante, here is nought to do in- 
deed." 

The Abbot by the hand he took one day, 
And said, with great respect, he had 
agreed 

To leave his reverence; but for this 
decision 

He wished to have his pardon and per- 
mission. 

LXXVI. 

The honours they continued to receive 
Perhaps exceeded what his merits 
claimed: 
He said, "I mean, and quickly, to re- 
trieve 
The lost days of time past, which may 
be blamed; 
Some days ago I should have asked your 
leave, 
Kind father, but I really was ashamed, 
And know not how to show my senti- 
ment. 
So much I see you with our stay content. 

LXXVII. 

"But in my heart I bear through every 

clime 
The Abbot, abbey, and this soli- 
tude — 
So much I love you in so short a 

time; 
For me, from Heaven reward you with 

all good 
The God so true, the eternal Lord 

sublime ! 
Whose kingdom at the last hath open 

stood. 
Meantime we stand expectant of your 

blessing. 
And recommend us to your prayers with 

pressing." 



Canto i.] 



THE MORGAN TE MAGGIORE 



563 



LXXVIII. 

Now when the Abbot Count Orlando 

heard, 
His heart grew soft with inner tender- 
ness, 
Such fervour in his bosom bred each 

word ; 
And, "Cavalier," he said, "if I have 

less 
Courteous and kind to your great worth 

appeared. 
Than fits me for such gentle blood to 

express, 
I know I have done too little in this case ; 
But blame our ignorance, and this poor 

place. 

LXXIX. 

"We can indeed but honour you with 
masses. 
And sermons, thanksgivings, and 
paternosters, 
Hot suppers, dinners (fitting other places 
In verity much rather than the 
cloisters) ; 
But such a love for you my heart em- 
braces, 
For thousand virtues which your 
bosom fosters, 
That wheresoe'er you go I too shall be. 
And, on the other part, you rest with me. 

LXXX. 

"This may involve a seeming contra- 
diction; 
But you I know are sage, and feel, and 
taste, 

And understand my speech with full 
conviction. 
For your just pious deeds may you be 
graced 

With the Lord's great reward and bene- 
diction. 
By whom you were directed to this 
waste : 

To His high mercy is our freedom due, 

For which we render thanks to Him and 
you. 

LXXXI. 

"You saved at once our life and soul: 
such fear 
The Giants caused us, that the way 
was lost 



By which we could pursue a fit career 
In search of Jesus and the saintly 

Host; 
And your departure breeds such sorrow 

here. 
That comfortless we all are to our 

cost; 
But months and years you would not 

stay in sloth. 
Nor are you formed to wear our sober 

cloth; 

LXXXII. 

"But to bear arms, and wield the lance; 

indeed, 
With these as much is done as with 

this cowl; 
In proof of which the Scripture you may 

read. 
This Giant up to Heaven may bear 

his soul 
By your compassion: now in peace pro- 
ceed. 
Your state and name I seek not to 

unroll; 
But, if I'm asked, this answer shall be 

given, 
That here an angel was sent down from 

Heaven. 

LXXXIII. 

"If you want armour or aught else, go 
in, 
Look o'er the wardrobe, and take what 
you choose. 
And cover with it o'er this Giant's 
skin." 
Orlando answered, "If there should 
lie loose 
Some armour, ere our journey we begin. 
Which might be turned to my com- 
panion's use. 
The gift would be acceptable to me." 
The Abbot said to him, "Come in and 
see." 

LXXXIV. 

And in a certain closet, where the wall 
Was covered with old armour like a 
crust. 
The Abbot said to them, "I give you 
all." 
Morgante rummaged piecemeal from 
the dust 



564 



FRANC ESC A OF RIMINI 



[Canto v. 



The whole, which, save one cuirass, was 
too small, 
And that too had the mail inlaid with 
rust. 

They wondered how it fitted him ex- 
actly, 

Which ne'er had suited others so com- 
pactly. 

LXXXV. 

'Twas an immeasurable Giant's, who 

By the great Milo of Agrante fell 
Before the abbey many years ago. 

The story on the wall was figured well ; 
In the last moment of the abbey's foe. 
Who long had waged a war impla- 
cable: 
Precisely as the war occurred they drew 

him. 
And there was Milo as he overthrew 
him. 

LXXXVI. 

Seeing this history. Count Orlando said 
In his own heart, " O God who in the 
sky 
Know'st all things! how was Milo 
hither led? 
Who caused the Giant in this place 
to die?" 
And certain letters, weeping, then he 
read. 
So that he could not keep his visage 
dry, — 
As I will tell in the ensuing story: 
From evil keep you the high King of 
Glory ! 



FRANCESCA OF RIMINI.i 

FROM THE INFERNO OF 
DANTE. 



CANTO THE FIFTH. 

"The Land where I was born sits by 
the Seas 
Upon that shore to which the Po 
descends, 

» [The MS. of the translation of the episode 
of Francesca da Rimini was sent to Murray 



With all his followers, in search of 
peace. 
Love, which the gentle heart soon 
apprehends. 
Seized him for the fair person which 

was ta'en 
From me, and me even yet the mode 
offends. 1 

Love, who to none beloved to love again \ 
Remits, seized me with wish to please, 

so strong, | 

That, as thou see'st, yet, yet it doth J 
remain. 
Love to one death conducted us . 
along, 10 I 

But Caina ^ waits for him our life who I 
ended:" I 

These were the accents uttered by her [ 
tongue. — 
Since I first listened to these Souls 
offended, 
I bowed my visage, and so kept it till — 
'What think'st thou?' said the bard; ^ 

when I unbended. 
And recommenced: 'Alas! unto such 
ill 
How many sweet thoughts, what 

strong ecstacies. 
Led these their evil fortune to fulfil !' 
And then I turned unto their side my 
eyes, 
And said, 'Francesca, thy sad des- 
tinies 2b 

from Ravenna, March 20, 1820. It was first 
published in 1830, in the Letters and Journals of 
Lord Byron, ii. 309-311. 

Dante, in his Inferno (Canto V. lines 97-142), 
places Francesca and her. lover Paolo among the 
lustful in the second circle of Hell. Francesca, 
daughter of Guido Vecchio da Polenta, Lord of 
Ravenna, married (circ. 1275) Gianciotto, second 
son of Malatesta da Verrucchio, Lord of Rimini. 
According to Boccaccio, Gianciotto was "hide- 
ously deformed in countenance and figure," and 
determined to woo and marry Francesca by 
proxy. He accordingly "sent, as his repre- 
sentative, his younger brother Paolo, the hand- 
somest and most accomplished man in all Italy. 
Francesca saw Paolo arrive, and imagined she 
beheld her future husband. That mistake was 
the commencement of her passion." A day 
came when the lovers were surprised together, 
and Gianciotto slew both his brother and his 
wife.] 

' [Caina is the first belt of Cocytus, that is, 
circle ix. of the Inferno, in which fratricides and 1 
betrayers of their kindred are immersed up to the 1 
neck.i 

^ [Virgil.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



565 



Have made me sorrow till the tears 
arise. 
But tell me, in the Season of sweet sighs, 
By what and how thy Love to Passion 

rose. 
So as his dim desires to recognise?' 
Then she to me : ' The greatest of all woes 
Is to remind us of our happy days ^ 
In misery, and that thy teacher 
knows. 
But if to learn -our Passion's first root 
preys 
Upon thy spirit with such Sympathy, 
I will do even as he who weeps and 
says. 30 

We read one day for pastime, seated nigh. 
Of I^ancilot, how Love enchained him 

too. 
We were alone, quite unsuspiciously. 
But oft our eyes met, and our cheeks in 
hue 
All o'er discoloured by that reading 

were ; 
But one point only wholly us o'er- 
threw ; 
When we read the long-sighed-for smile 
of her. 
To be thus kissed by such devoted 

lover, 

He, who from me can be divided ne'er. 

Kissed my mouth, trembling in the act 

all over: 40 

Accursed was the book and he who 

wrote ! ^ 



' [The sentiment is derived from Boethius. 
The earlier commentators assume that the 
"teacher" (line 27) is the author of the sentence, 
but later authorities point out that "mio dottore" 
can only apply to Virgil (v. 70), who, then and 
there, in the world of shades was suffering the 
bitter experience of having "known better days." 

Compare — 
"A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering 
happier things." 

— Tennyson's Locksley Hall.] 

2 [" A Gallehault was the book and he who 
wrote it " (A. J. Butler). The book which the 
lovers were reading is entitled L'lllustre et 
Famosa Historia di Lancilotto del Lago. The 
"one point" (1. 36) of the original runs thus: 
" Et la reina . . . lo piglia per il mento, et lo 
bacia davanti a Gallehault, assai lungamente. 
[" And the Queen took him by the chin, and 
before the eves of Gallehault kissed him over 
and over again."] — Lib. Prim. cap. Ixvi. The 
Gallehault of the Lancilotto, the shameless 
" purveyor," must not be confounded with the 
stainless Galahad of the Marie d' Arthur.'] 



That day no further leaf we did un- 
cover.' 
While thus one Spirit told us of their lot, 
The other wept, so that with Pity's 

thralls, 
I swooned, as if by Death I had been 
smote. 
And fell down even as a dead body 
falls." 

March 20, 1820. 



MARINO FALIERO,! 

DOGE OF VENICE; 

AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY, IN 
FIVE ACTS. 



"Dux inquieti turbidus Adrias." 

— Horace [Od. III. c. iii. line 5], 



PREFACE. 

The conspiracy of the Doge Marino 
Faliero is one of the most remarkable 
events in the annals of the most singular 
government, city, and people of modern 
history. It occurred in the year 1355. 
Everything about Venice is, or was, 
extraordinary — her aspect is like a 
dream, and her history is like a romance. 
The story of this Doge is to be found in 
all her Chronicles, and particularly de- 
tailed in the "Lives of the Doges," by 
Marin Sanuto, which is given in the 
Appendix. It is simply and clearly 
related, and is perhaps more dramatic in 
itself than any scenes which can be 
founded upon the subject. 

Marino Faliero appears to have been 
a man of talents and of courage. I find 
him commander-in-chief of the land 
forces at the siege of Zara,^ where he 

I [Marino Faliero was written at Ravenna, 
April — July, 1820. It was published with The 
Prophecy of Dante, April 21, 1821.] 

^ [Marin Faliero was not in command of the 
land forces at the siege of Zara in 1346. Ac- 
cording to contemporary documents, he held 
a naval command under Civran, who was in 
charge of the fleet.] 



566 



MARINO FALIERO 



beat the King of Hungary and his army 
of eighty thousand men, killing eight 
thousand men, and keeping the be- 
sieged at the same time in check;, an 
exploit to which I know none similar in 
history, except that of Cassar at Alesia, 
and of Prince Eugene at Belgrade. He 
was afterwards commander of the fleet 
in the same war. He took Capo d'Istria. 
He was ambassador at Genoa and 
Rome, — at which last he received the 
news of his election to the dukedom ; his 
absence being a proof that he sought 
it by no intrigue, since he was apprised 
of his predecessor's death and his 
own succession at the same moment. 
But he appears to have been of an 
ungovernable temper. A story is told 
by Sanuto, of his having, many years 
before, when podesta and captain at 
Treviso, boxed the ears of the bishop, 
who was somewhat tardy in bringing the 
Host. For this, honest Sanuto "saddles 
him with a judgment," as Thwackum 
did Square; but he does not tell us 
whether he was punished or rebuked by 
the Senate for this outrage at the time 
of its commission. He seems, indeed, 
to have been afterwards at peace with 
the church, for we find him ambassador 
at Rome, and invested with the fief of 
Val di Marino, in the march of Treviso, 
and with the title of count, by Lorenzo, 
Count-bishop of Ceneda. For these 
facts my authorities are Sanuto, Vettor, 
Sandi, Andrea Navagero, and the 
account of the siege of Zara, first pub- 
lished by the indefatigable Abate 
Morelli, in his Monumcnti Veneziani di 
varia Letteratura, printed in 1796, all of 
which I have looked over in the original 
language. The moderns, Darii, Sis- 
mondi, and Laugier, nearly agree with 
the ancient chroniclers. Sismondi attrib- 
utes the conspiracy to his jealousy ; but 
I find this nowhere asserted by the 
national historians. Vettor Sandi, in- 
deed, says that "Altri scrissero che 

dalla gelosa suspizion di 

esso Doge siasi fatto (Michel Steno) 
staccar con violenza," etc. etc. ; but 
this appears to have been by no means 
the general opinion, nor is it alluded to 



by Sanuto, or by Navagero ; and Sandi 
himself adds, a moment after, that " per 
altre Veneziane memorie traspiri, che 
non il solo desiderio di vendetta lo dis- 
pose alia congiura ma anche la innata 
abituale ambizion sua, per cui anelava 
a farsi principe independente." The 
first motive appears to have been ex- 
cited by the gross affront of the words 
written by Michel Steno on the ducal 
chair, and by the light and inadequate 
sentence of the Forty on the offender, 
who was one of their " tre Capi." ^ The 
attentions of Steno himself appear to 
have been directed towards one of her 
damsels, and not to the " Dogaressa ", ^ 
herself, against whose fame not the 
slightest insinuation appears, while she 
is praised for her beauty, and remarked 
for her youth. Neither do I find it 
asserted (unless the hint of Sandi be an 
assertion), that the Doge was actuated 
by jealousy of his wife ; but rather by 
respect for her, and for his own honour, 
warranted by his past services and 
present dignity. 

I know not that the historical facts are 
alluded to in English, unless by Dr 
Moore in his View of Italy. His ac- 
count is false and flippant, full of stale 
jests about old men and young wives, 
and wondering at so great an effect from 
so slight a cause. How so acute and 
severe an observer of mankind as the 
author of Zeluco could wonder at this is 
inconceivable. He knew that a basin of 
water spilt on Mrs Masham's gown 
deprived the Duke of Marlborough of his 
command, and led to the inglorious 
peace of Utrecht — that Louis XIV. 
was plunged into the most desolating 
wars, because his minister was nettled 
at his finding fault with a window, and 
wished to give him another occupation 
— that Helen lost Troy — that Lucretia 
expelled the Tarquins from Rome — 

' [Michele Steiio was not, as Sanudo and 
others state, one of the Capi of the Quarantia in 
1 35 Si but twenty years later, in I375-] . 

^ [History does not bear out the tradition of 
her youth. Aluica Gradenigo was born in the 
first decade of the fourteenth century, and be- 
came Dogaressa when she was more than forty- 
five years of age.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



567 



and that Cava brought the Moors to 
Spain — that an insulted husband led 
the Gauls to Clusium, and thence to 
Rome — that a single verse of Frederick 
11.^ of Prussia on the Abbe de Bernis, 
and a jest on Madame de Pompadour,^ 
led to the battle of Rosbach — that the 
elopement of Dearbhorgil with Mac 
Murchad conducted the English to the 
slavery of Ireland, that a personal pique 
betvveen Maria Antoinette and the 
Duke of Orleans precipitated the first 
expulsion of the Bourbons — and, not 
to multiply instances of the teterrima 
causa, that Commodus, Domitian, and 
Caligula fell victims not to their public 
tyranny, but to private vengeance — and 
that an order to make Cromwell disem- 
bark from the ship in which he would 
have sailed to America destroyed both 
King and Commonwealth. After these 
instances, on the least reflection, it is 
indeed extraordinary in Dr Moore to 
seem surprised that a man used to 
command, who had served and swayed 
in the most important offices, should 
fiercely resent, in a fierce age, an un- 
punished affront, the grossest that can 
be offered to a man, be he prince or 
peasant. The age of Faliero is little to 
the purpose, unless to favour it — 

"The young man's wrath is like [light] straw on 
fire. 
But like red hot steel is the old man's ire." 
[Davie Gellatley's song in Waverley, chap, xiv.] 

"Young men soon give and soon forget affronts, 
Old age is slow at both." 

Laugier's reflections are more philo- 
sophical: — "Tale fu il fine ignomi- 
nioso di un' uomo, che la sua nascita, la 
sua eta, il suo carattere dovevano tener 
lontano dalle passioni produttricidi 
grandi delitti. I suoi talcnti per lungo 
tempo esercitati ne' maggiori impieghi, 
la sua capacita sperimentata ne' 
governi e nelle ambasciate, gli avevano 
acquistato la stima e la fiducia de' cit- 
tadini, ed avevano uniti i suffragj per 
coUocarlo alia testa della repubblica. 
Innalzato ad un grado che terminava 

'["Evitez de Bernis la sterile abondance."] 
»["Je ne la connais pas."] 



gloriosamente la sua vita, il risentimento 
di un' ingiuria leggiera insinuo nel suo 
cuore tal veleno che basto a corrompere 
le antiche sue qualita, e a condurlo al 
termine dei scellerati; serio esempio, 
che prova non esservi eta, in ciii la 
prudenza umana sia sicura, e che nell' 
uomo restano sempre passioni capaci a 
disonorarlo, quando non invigili sopra 
se stesso." 

Where did Dr Moore find that 
Marino Faliero begged his life ? I have 
searched the chroniclers, and find noth- 
ing of the kind: it is true that he 
avowed all. He was conducted to the 
place of torture, but there is no mention 
made of any application for mercy on 
his part ; and the very circumstance of 
their having taken him to the rack 
seems to argue any thing but his having 
shown a want of firmness, which would 
doubtless have been also mentioned by 
those minute historians, who by no 
means favour him : such, indeed, would 
be contrary to his character as a soldier, 
to the age in which he lived, and at 
which he died, as it is to the truth of 
history. I know no justification, at any 
distance of time, for calumniating an 
historical character: surely truth be- 
longs to the dead, and to the unfortu- 
nate : and they who have died upon 
a scaffold have generally had faults 
enough of their own, without attributing 
to them that which the very incurring of 
the perils which conducted them to their 
violent death renders, of all others, the 
most improbable. The black veil which 
is painted over the place of Marino 
Faliero amongst the Doges, and the 
Giants' Staircase, where he was crowned, 
and discrowned, and decapitated, struck 
forcibly upon my imagination; as did 
his fiery character and strange story. 
I went, in 1819, in search of his tomb 
more than once to the church San 
Giovanni e San Paolo; and, as I was 
standing before the monument of 
another family, a priest came up to me 
and said, " I can show you finer monu- 
ments than that." I told him that I was 
in search of that of the Faliero family, 
and particularly of the Doge Marino's. 



S68 



MARINO FALIERO 



" Oh," said he, " I will show it you; " 
and, conducting me to the outside, 
pointed out a sarcophagus in the wall 
with an illegible inscription. He said 
that it had been in a convent ad- 
joining, but was removed after the 
French came, and placed in its present 
situation; that he had seen the tomb 
opened at its removal; there were still 
some bones remaining, but no positive 
vestige of the decapitation. The eques- 
trian statue ^ of which I have made men- 
tion in the third act as before that church 
is not, however, of a Faliero, but of some 
other now obsolete warrior, although of 
a later date. There were two other 
Doges of this family prior to Marino; 
Ordelafo, who fell in battle at Zara, in 
1117 (where his descendant afterwards 
conquered the Huns), and Vital Faliero, 
who reigned in 1082. The family, 
originally from Fano, was of the most 
illustrious in blood and wealth in the city 
of once the most wealthy and still the 
most ancient families in Europe. The 
length I have gone into on this subject 
will show the interest I have taken in it. 
Whether I have succeeded or not in the 
tragedy, I have at least transferred into 
our language an historical fact worthy 
of commemoration. 

It is now four years that I have 
meditated this work ; and before I had 
sufi&ciently examined the records, I was 
rather disposed to have made it turn on 
a jealousy in Faliero. But, perceiving 
no foundation for this in historical truth, 
and aware that jealousy is an exhausted 
passion in the drama, I have given it a 
more historical form. I was, besides, 
well advised by the late Matthew Lewis 
on that point, in talking with him of my 
intention at Venice in 181 7. "If you 
make him jealous," said he, "recollect 
that you have to contend with estab- 
lished writers, to say nothing of Shake- 
speare, and an exhausted subject : — 
stick to the old fiery Doge's natural 



' [In the Campo in front of the church is the 
equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleorti, 
designed by Andrea Veroccio, and cast in 1496 
by Alessandro Leopardi. — Handbook : North- 
ern Italy, p. 374.] 



character, which will bear you out, if 
properly drawn; and make your plot 
as regular as you can." Sir William 
Drummond gave me nearly the same 
counsel. How far I have followed these '' 
instructions, or whether they have 
availed me, is not for me to decide. I 
have had no view to the stage ; in its 
present state it is, perhaps, not a very 
exalted object of ambition; besides, I 
have been too much behind the scenes 
to have thought it so at any time. And 
I cannot conceive any man of irritable 
feeling putting himself at the mercies 
of an audience. The sneering reader, 
and the loud critic, and the tart review, 
are scattered and distant calamities; 
but the trampling of an intelligent or of 
an ignorant audience on a production 
which, be it good or bad, has been a 
mental labour to the writer, is a palpable 
and immediate grievance, heightened 
by a man's doubt of their competency 
to judge, and his certainty of his own 
imprudence in electing them his judges. 
Were I capable of writing a play which 
could be deemed stage-worthy, success 
would give me no pleasure, and failure 
great pain. It is for this reason that, 
even during the time of being one of the 
committee of one of the theatres, I never 
made the attempt, and never will.^ But 

' While I was in the sub-committee of Drury 
Lane Theatre, I can vouch for my colleagues,- 
and I hope for myself, that we did our best to 
bring back the legitimate drama. I tried what 
I could to get De Montfort revived, but in vain, 
and equally in vain in favour of Sotheby's Ivan, 
which was thought an acting play; and I en- 
deavoured also to wake Mr Coleridge to \vrite 
us a tragedy. Those who are not in the secret 
will hardly believe that the School for Scandal 
is the play which has brought the least money, 
averaging the number of times it has been acted 
since its production; so Manager Dibdin as- 
sured me. Of what has occurred since Maturin's 
Bertram I am not aware ; so that I may be tra- 
ducing, through ignorance, some excellent new 
writers; if so, I beg their pardon. I have been 
absent from England nearly five years, and, till 
last year, I never read an English newspaper since 
my departure, and am now only aware of theatri- 
cal matters through the medium of the Parisian 
Gazette of Galignani, and only for the last twelve 
months. Let me, then, deprecate all offence 
to tragic or comic ^vriters, to whom I wish well, 
and of whom I know nothing. The long com- 
plaints of the actual state of the drama arise, 
however, from no fault of the performers. I can 



MARINO FALIERO 



569 



I wish that others would, for surely there 
is dramatic power somewhere, where 
Joanna Baillie, and Milman, and John 
Wilson exist. The City of the Plague 
[1816] and the Fall of Jerusalem [1820] 
are full of the best "material" for 
tragedy that has been seen since Horace 
Walpole, except passages of Ethwald 
[1802] and Z)eMo»^/or/ [1798]. It is the 
fashion to underrate Horace Walpole ; 
firstly, because he was a nobleman, and 
secondly, because he was a gentleman ; 
but, to say nothing of the composition 
of his incomparable letters, and of the 
Castle of Otranto [1765], he is the 
"Ultimus Romanorum," the author of 
the Mysterious Mother [1768], a tragedy 
of the highest order, and not a puling 
love-play. He is the father of the first 
romance and of the last tragedy in our 
language, and surely worthy of a higher 
place than any living writer, be he who 
he may. 

In speaking of the drama of Marino 
Faliero, I forgot to mention that the 
desire of preserving, though still too 
remote, a nearer approach to unity than 
the irregularity, which is the reproach of 
the EngUsh theatrical compositions, 
permits, has induced me to represent 
the conspiracy as already formed, and 
the Doge acceding to it; whereas, in 
fact, it was of his own preparation and 
that of Israel Bertuccio. The other 
characters (except that of the Duchess), 
incidents, and almost the time, which 



conceive nothing better than Kemble, Cooke, 
and Kean, in their very different manners, or 
than Eliiston in Gentleman's comedy, and in 
some parts of tragedy. Miss O'Neill I never 
sav^^, having made and kept a determination to 
see nothing which should divide or disturb my 
recollection of Siddons. Siddons and Kernble 
were the ideal of tragic action; I never saw 
anything at all resembling them, even in person: 
for this reason, we shall never see again Corio- 
lanus or Macbeth. When Kean is blamed for 
want of dignity, we should remember that it is 
a grace not an art, and not to be attained by 
study. In all, tiot suPER-natural parts, he is 
perfect; even his very defects belong, or seem 
to belong, to the parts themselves, and appear 
truer to nature. But of Kemble we may say, 
with reference to his acting, what the Cardinal 
de Retz said of the Marquis of Montrose, "that 
he was the only man he ever saw who reminded 
him of the heroes of Plutarch." 



was wonderfully short for such a design 
in real life, are strictly historical, excei>t 
that all the consultations took place in 
the palace. Had I followed this, the 
unity would have been better preserved ; 
but I wished to produce the Doge in the 
full assembly of the conspirators, in- 
stead of monotonously placing him 
always in dialogue with the same indi- 
viduals. For the real facts, I refer to 
the Appendix. 



[Marino Faliero was produced for the 
first time at the Theatre Royal, Drury 
Lane, April 25, 182 1. Mr Cooper 
played "The Doge"; Mrs W. West, 
"Angiolina, wife of the Doge." The 
piece was repeated on April 30, May i, 
2, 3, 4, and 14, 1821. 

A revival was attempted at Drury 
Lane, May 20, 21, 1842, when Macready 
appeared as "The Doge," and Helen 
Faucit as "Angiolina" (see Life and 
Remains of E. L. Blanchard, 1891, 
i- 346-348). 

An adaptation of Byron's play, by 
W. Bayle Bernard, was produced at 
Drury Lane, November 2, 1867. It 
was played till December 17, 1867. 
Phelps took the part of "The Doge," 
and Mrs. Hermann of "Angiolina." 
In Germany an adaptation by Arthur 
Fitger was performed nineteen times 
by the "Meiningers," circ. 1887 (see 
Englische Studien, 1899, xxvii. 146).] 



DRAMATIS PERSONvE. 

MEN. 

Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice. 
Bertuccio Faliero, Nephew of the 

Doge. 
LiONi, a Patrician and Senator. 
Benintende, Chief of the Council of Ten. 
Michel Steno, One of the three Capi 

of the Forty. 
Israel Bertuccio, Chief of 

the Arsenal, 
Philip Calendaro, \ Conspir- 

Dagolino, ators. 

Bertram, 



570 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act I. 



Signor of the Night, 



S ignore di 
Notte" one of 
the Officers be- 
longing to the 
Republic. 



the 



First Citizen. 
Second Citizen. 
Third Citizen. 
ViNCENZO, ] 

PiETRO, f Officers belonging to 
Battista, J Ducal Palace. 
Secretary of the Council of Ten. 
Guards, Conspirators, Citizens, The 
Council of Ten, the Giunta, etc., etc. 

WOMEN. 

Angiolina, Wife to the Doge. 
Marianna, her Friend. 

Female Attendants, etc. 
Scene Venice — in the year 1355. 



ACT I. 

Scene I. — An Antechamber in the 
Ducal Palace. 

PiETRO speaks, in entering, to Battista. 

Pie. Is not the messenger returned? 
Bat. Not yet; 

I have sent frequently, as you com- 
manded, 
But still the Signory is deep in council, 
And long debate on Steno's accusation. 
Pie. Too long — at least so thinks 

the Doge. 
Bat. How bears he 

These moments of suspense? 

Pie. With struggling patience. 

Placed at the Ducal table, covered o'er 
With all the apparel of the state — peti- 
tions, 
Despatches, judgments, acts, reprieves, 

reports, — 
He sits as rapt in duty"; but whene'er 10 
He hears the jarring of a distant door. 
Or aught that intimates a coming step. 
Or murmur of a voice, his quick eye 

wanders, 
And he will start up from his chair, then 

pause 
And seat himself again, and fix his gaze 
Upon some edict; but I have observed 



For the last hour he has not turned a 
leaf. 
Bat. 'Tis said he is much moved, — 
and doubtless 'twas 
Foul scorn in Steno to offend so grossly. 
Pie. Aye, if a poor man: Steno's a 
patrician, 20 

Young, galliard, gay, and haughty. 

Bat. Then you think 

He will not be judged hardly? 

Pie. 'Twere enough 

He be judged justly ; but 'tis not for us 

To anticipate the sentence of the Forty. 

Bat. And here it comes. — What 

news, Vincenzo ? 

Enter Vincenzo. 
Vin. 'Tis 

Decided; but as yet his doom's un- 
known : 
I saw the President in act to seal 
The parchment which will bear the 

Forty's judgment 
Unto the Doge, and hasten to inform 
him. [Exeunt. 

Scene II. — The Ducal Chamber. 

Marino Faliero, Doge; and his 
Nephew, Bertuccio Faliero. 

Ber. F. It cannot be but they will do 

you justice. 
Doge. Aye, such as the Avogadori * 
did. 
Who sent up my appeal unto the 

Forty 
To try him by his peers, his own tribunal. 
Ber. F. His peers will scarce protect 
him; such an act 
Would bring contempt on all authority. 
Doge. Know you not Venice ? Know 
you not the Forty? 
But we shall see anon. 

Ber. F. {addressing Vincenzo, then 
entering.) How now — what tid- 
ings? 

' [The Avogadori, three in number, were the 
conductors of criminal prosecutions on the part 
of the State; and no act of the councils was 
valid, unless sanctioned by the presence of one 
of them; but they were not, as Byron seems to 
imply, a court of first instance. The implied 
reproach that they preferred to send the case to 
appeal because Steno was a member of the 
"Quarantia," is based on an error of Sanudo's,] 



Scene ii.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



ST^ 



Vin. I am charged to tell his High- 
ness that the court 

Has passed its resolution, and that, 
soon, lo 

As the due forms of judgment are gone 
through. 

The sentence will be sent up to the 
Doge; 

In the mean time the Forty doth salute 

The Prince of the Republic, and entreat 

His acceptation of their duty. 

Doge. Yes — 

They are wond'rous dutiful, and ever 
humble. 

Sentence is passed, you say? 

Vin. It is, your Highness: 

The President was seaHng it, when I 

Was called in, that no moment might be 
lost 

In forwarding the intimation due 20 

Not only to the Chief of the Republic, 

But the complainant, both in one united. 
Ser. F. Are you aware, from aught 
you have perceived, 

Of their decision? 

Vin. No, my Lord; you know 

The secret custom of the courts in 
Venice. 
Ber. F. True ; but there still is some- 
thing given to guess. 

Which a shrewd gleaner and quick eye 
v.'ould catch at; 

A whisper, or a murmur, or an air 

More or less solemn spread o'er the 
tribunal. 

The Forty are but men — most worthy 
men, 30 

And wise, and just, and cautious — this 
I grant — 

And secret as the grave to which they 
doom 

The guilty: but with all this, in their 
aspects — 

At least in some, the juniors of the num- 
ber — 

A searching eye, an eye like yours, 
Vincenzo, 

Would read the sentence ere it was pro- 
nounced. 
Vin. My Lord, I came away upon 
the moment, 

And had no leisure to take note of 
that 



Which passed among the judges, even 
in seeming; 

My station near the accused too, Michel 
Steno, 40 

Made me — 

Doge (abruptly). And how looked 

he? deliver that. 
Vin. Calm, but not overcast, he 
stood resigned 

To the decree, whate'er it were ; — but 
lo! 

It comes, for the perusal of his High- 
ness. 

Enter the Secretary oJ the Forty. 

Sec. The high tribunal of the Forty 
sends 
Health and respect to the Doge Faliero, 
Chief Magistrate of Venice, and requests 
His Highness to peruse and to approve 
The sentence passed on Michel Steno, 

born 
Patrician, and arraigned upon the 
charge 50 

Contained, together with its penalty, 
Within the rescript which I now present. 
Doge. Retire, and wait without. 
[Exeunt Secretary and Vincenzo. 
Take thou this paper: 
The misty letters vanish from my eyes; 
I cannot fix them. 

Ber. F. Patience, my dear Uncle: 
Why do you tremble thus ? — nay, 

doubt not, all 
Will be as could be wished. 

Doge. Say on. 

Ber. F. (reading). "Decreed 

In council, without one dissenting voice, 
That Michel Steno, by his own con- 
fession. 
Guilty on the last night of Carnival 60 
Of having graven on the ducal throne 
The following words — -" ^ 

Doge. Would' St thou repeat them? 
Would' St thou repeat them — thou, a 

Faliero, 
Harp on the deep dishonour of our 
house, 

I [" Marin Faliero, dalla bella moglie — altri 
la gode. ed egli la mantien." ("Marino Faliero 
the husband of the fair wife — others enjoy her, 
but he supports her.") — Marino Sanuto, Vitce 
Ducum Venetorum, apud Muratori, Rerum 
lialicarum Scriptores, i733> xxii. 628-635.] 



572 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act I. 



Dishonoured in its Chief — that Chief 

the Prince 
Of Venice, first of cities ? — To the 
sentence. 
Ber. F. Forgive me, my good Lord; 

I will obey — 
{Reads) "That Michel Steno be de- 
tained a month 
In close arrest." 

Doge. Proceed. 

Ber. F. My Lord, 'tis finished. 

Doge. How say you ? — finished ! 
Do I dream ? — 'tis false — 70 
Give me the paper — (snatches the 
paper and reads) — " 'Tis decreed in 
council 
That Michel Steno" — Nephew, thine 
arm ! 
Ber. F. Nay, 

Cheer up, be calm; this transport is 

uncalled for — 
Let me seek some assistance. 

Doge. Stop, sir — Stir not — 

'Tis past. 

Ber. F. I cannot but agree with you 
The sentence is too slight for the 

offence ; 
It is not honourable in the Forty 
To affix so slight a penalty to that 
Which was a foul affront to you, and 

even 
To them, as being your subjects; but 
'tis not 80 

Yet without remedy : you can appeal 
To them once more, or to the Avoga- 

dori. 
Who, seeing that true justice is withheld, 
Will now take up the cause they once 

declined, 
And do you right upon the bold delin- 
quent. 
Think you not thus, good Uncle? why 

do you stand 
So fixed ? You heed me not : — I pray 

you, hear me ! 
Oh! that the Saracen were in St 
Mark's ! 
Doge (dashing down the ducal bon- 
net, and offering to trample upon 
it, exclaims, as he is withheld by 
his nephew) 
Thus would I do him homage. 

Ber. F. For the sake 



Of Heaven and all its saints, my Lord 



Doge. 



Away ! 90 



Oh, that the Genoese were in the port ! 
Oh, that the Huns whom I o'erthrew at 

Zara 
Were ranged around the palace ! 

Ber. F. 'Tis not well 

In Venice' Duke to say so. 

Doge. Venice' Duke ! 

Who now is Duke in Venice ? let me see 

him. 
That he may do me right. 

Ber. F. If you forget 

Your office, and its dignity and duty, 
Remember that of man, and curb this 

passion. 
The Duke of Venice — 

Doge (interrupting him). There is no 

such thing — 
It is a word — nay, worse — a worthless 

by-word: 100 

The most despised, wronged, outraged, 

helpless wretch. 
Who begs his bread, if 'tis refused by 

one. 
May win it from another kinder heart; 
But he, who is denied his right by those 
Whose place it is to do no wrong, is 

poorer 
Than the rejected beggar — he's a 

slave — 
And that am I — and thou — and all 

our house, 
Even from this hour; the meanest 

artisan 
Will point the finger, and the haughty 

noble 
May spit upon us : — where is our re- 
dress? no 
Ber. F. The law, my Prince — 
Doge (interrupting him). You see 

what it has done ; 
I asked no remedy but from the law — 
I sought no vengeance but redress by 

law — 
I called no judges but those named by 

law — 
As Sovereign, I appealed unto my sub- 
jects. 
The very subjects who had made me 

Sovereign, 
And gave me thus a double right to 

be so. 



Scene ii.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



573 



The rights of place and choice, of birth 

and service, 
Honours and years, these scars, these 

hoary hairs, 
The travel — toil — the perils — the 

fatigues — 1 20 

The blood and sweat of almost eighty 

years, 
Were weighed i' the balance, 'gainst the 

foulest stain. 
The grossest insult, most contemptuous 

crime 
Of a rank, rash patrician — and found 

wanting ! 
And this is to be borne ! 

Ber. F. I say not that : — 

In case your fresh appeal should be re- 
jected 
We will find other means to make all 

even. 
Doge. Appeal again ! art thou my 

brother's son? 
A scion of the house of Faliero? 
The nephew of a Doge? and of that 

blood 130 

Which hath already given three dukes 

to Venice? 
But thou say'st well — we must be 

humble now. 
Ber. F. My princely Uncle ! you are 

too much moved; — 
I grant it was a gross offence, and grossly 
Left without fitting punishment: but 

still 
This fury doth exceed the provocation. 
Or any provocation : if we are wronged, 
We will ask justice ; if it be denied. 
We'll take it; but may do all this in 

calmness — 
Deep Vengeance is the daughter of deep 

Silence. 140 

I have yet scarce a third part of your 

years, 
I love our house, I honour you, its Chief, 
The guardian of my youth, and its 

instructor — 
But though I understand your grief, and 

enter 
In part of your disdain, it doth appal me 
To see your anger, like our Adrian 

waves, 
O'ersweep all bounds, and foam itself 

to air. 



Doge. I tell thee — must I tell thee — 
• what thy father 
Would have required no words to com- 
prehend ? 
Hast thou no feeling save the external 

sense 150 

Of torture from the touch? hast thou 

no soul — 
No pride — no passion — no deep sense 

of honour? 
Ber. F. 'Tis the first time that hon- 
our has been doubted, 
And were the last, from any other 

sceptic. 
Doge. You know the full offence of 

this born villain. 
This creeping, coward, rank, acquitted 

felon. 
Who threw his sting into a poisonous 

hbel. 
And on the honour of — Oh God ! my 

wife. 
The nearest, dearest part of all men's 

honour. 
Left a base slur to pass from mouth to 

mouth 160 

Of loose mechanics, with all coarse foul 

comments. 
And villainous jests, and blasphemies 

obscene ; 
While sneering nobles, in more polished 

guise. 
Whispered the tale, and smiled upon the 

lie 
Which made me look like them — a 

courteous wittol. 
Patient — aye, proud, it may be, of dis- 
honour. 
Ber. F. But still it was a lie — you 

knew it false, 
And so did all men. 

Doge. Nephew, the high Roman 

Said, "Caesar's wife must not even be 

suspected," 
And put her from him. 

Ber. F. True — but in those 

days — 170 

Doge. What is it that a Roman 

would not suffer. 
That a Venetian Prince must bear ? old 

Dandolo 
Refused the diadem of all the Caesars, 
And wore the ducal cap / trample on — • 



574 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act I. 



Because 'tis now degraded. 

Ber. F. 'Tis even so. 

Doge. It is — it is; — I did not visit 

on 
The innocent creature thus most vilely 

slandered 
Because she took an old man for her 

lord, 
For that he had been long her father's 

friend 
And patron of her house, as if there were 
No love in woman's heart but lust of 

youth i8i 

And beardless faces ; — I did not for this 
Visit the villain's infamy on her, 
But craved my country's justice on his 

head. 
The justice due unto the humblest 

being 
Who hath a wife whose faith is sweet to 

him, 
Who hath a home whose hearth is dear 

to him — 
Who hath a name whose honour's all to 

him, 
When these are tainted by the accursing 

breath 
Of Calumny and Scorn. 

Ber. F. And what redress 190 

Did you expect as his fit punishment ? 
Doge. Death ! Was I not the Sove- 
reign of the state — 
Insulted on his very throne, and made 
A mockery to the men who should obey 

me? 
Was I not injured as a husband? 

scorned 
As man ? reviled, degraded, as a Prince ? 
Was not offence like his a complication 
Of insult and of treason ? — and he 

lives ! 
Had he instead of on the Doge's throne 
Stamped the same brand upon a peas- 
ant's stool, 200 
His blood had gilt the threshold; for 

the carle 
Had stabbed him on the instant. 

Ber. F. Do not doubt it. 

He shall not live till sunset — leave to me 
The means, and calm yourself. 

Doge. Hold, Nephew: this 

Would have sufficed but yesterday; at 

present 



I have no further wrath against this man. 
Ber. F What mean you ? is not the 
offence redoubled 

By this most rank — I will not say — 
acquittal ; 

For it is worse, being full acknowledg- 
ment 

Of the offence, and leaving it unpun- 
ished? 210 
Doge. It is redoubled, but not now 
by him: 

The Forty hath decreed a month's 
arrest — 

We must obey the Forty. 

Ber. F. Obey them! 

Who have forgot their duty to the Sove- 
reign ? 
Doge. Why, yes; — boy, you per- 
ceive it then at last : 

Whether as fellow citizen who sues 

For Justice, or as Sovereign who com- 
mands it, 

They have defrauded me of both my 
rights 

(For here the Sovereign is a citizen); 

But, notwithstanding, harm not thou a 
hair 220 

Of Steno's head — he shall not wear it 
long. 
Ber F. Not twelve hours longer, had 
you left to me 

The mode and means; if you had ;; 
calmly heard me, 

I never meant this miscreant should 
escape. 

But wished you to suppress such gusts 
of passion. 

That we more surely might devise 
together 

His taking off. 

Doge. No, Nephew, he must live; 

At least, just now — a life so vile as his 

Were nothing at this hour; in th' olden 
time 

Some sacrifices asked a single victim, 

Great expiations had a hecatomb. 231 
Ber. F. Your wishes are my law : and 
yet I fain 

Would prove to you how near unto my 
heart 

The honour of our house must ever be. 
Doge. Fear not; you shall have time 
and place of proof: 






Scene ii.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



'5 



But be not thou too rash, as I have been. 
I am ashamed of my own anger now ; 
I prav vou, pardon me. 

Ber. 'F. Why, that's my uncle ! 

The leader, and the statesman, and the 

chief 
Of commonwealths, and sovereign of 

himself ! 240 

I wondered to perceive you so forget 
All prudence in your fury, at these 

years, 
Although the cause — 

Doge. Aye — think upon the cause — 
Forget it not : — When you lie down to 

rest, 
Let it be black among your dreams; and 

when 
The morn returns, so let it stand between 
The Sun and you, as an ill-omened 

cloud 
Upon a summer-day of festival : 
So will it stand to me ; — but speak not, 

stir not, — 
Leave all to me ; — we shall have much 

to do, 250 

And you shall have a part. — But now 

retire, 
'Tis fit I were alone. 

Ber. F. (taking up and placing the 

ducal bonnet on the table). 

Ere I depart, 
I pray you to resume what you have 

spurned. 
Till you can change it — haply, for a 

crown ! 
And now I take my leave, imploring you 
In all things to rely upon my duty. 
As doth become your near and faithful 

kinsm.an. 
And not less loyal citizen and subject. 
[Exit Bertuccio Faliero. 
Doge (solus). Adieu, my worthy 

nephew. — Hollow bauble ! 

[Taking up the ducal cap. 
Beset with all the thorns that line a 

crown, 260 

Without investing the insulted brow 
With the all-swaying majesty of Kings; 
Thou idle, gilded, and degraded toy. 
Let me resume thee as I would a vizor. 
[Puts -it on. 
How my brain aches beneath thee ! and 
my temples 



Throb feverish under thy dishonest 
weight. 

Could I not turn thee to a diadem ? 

Could I not shatter the Briarean sceptre 

Which in this hundred-handed Senate 
rules. 

Making the people nothing, and the 
Prince 270 

A pageant ? In my life I have achieved 

Tasks not less difficult — achieved for 
them. 

Who thus repay me ! Can I not requite 
them? 

Oh for one year ! Oh ! but for even a 
day 

Of my full youth, while yet my body 
served 

Mv soul as serves the generous steed his 
lord, 

I would have dashed amongst them, ask- 
ing few 

In aid to overthrow these swoln patri- 
cians; 

But now I must look round for other 
hands 

To serve this hoary head; — but it shall 
plan 280 

In such a sort as will not leave the task 

Herculean, though as yet 'tis but a chaos 

Of darkly brooding thoughts : my fancy 
is 

In her first work, more nearly to the 
light 

Holding the sleeping images of thmgs 

For the selection of the pausing judg- 
ment — 

The troops are few in — 

Enter Vincenzo. 
Vin. There is one without 

Craves audience of your Highness. 

Doge. I'm unwell — 

I can see no one, not even a patrician — 
Let him refer his business to the Council. 
Vin. My Lord, I will deliver your 
reply; '291 

It cannot much import — he's a ple- 
beian. 
The master of a galley, I believe. 

Doge. How ! did you say the patron 
of a galley? 
That is — I mean — a servant of the 
state : 



576 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act I. 



Admit him, he may be on public ser- 
vice. [Exit ViNCENZO. 
Doge (solus). This patron may be 

sounded; I will try him. 
I know the people to be discontented: 
They have cause, since Sapienza's ^ 

adverse day, 
When Genoa conquered: they have 

further cause, 300 

Since they are nothing in the state, and 

in 
The city worse than nothing — mere 

machines, 
To serve the nobles' most patrician 

pleasure. 
The troops have long arrears of pay, oft 

promised. 
And murmur deeply — any hope of 

change 
Will draw them forward : they shall pay 

themselves 
With plunder : — but the priests — I 

doubt the priesthood 
Will not be with us ; they have hated me 
Since that rash hour, when, maddened 

with the drone, 
I smote the tardy Bishop at Treviso,^ 
Quickening his holy march; yet, 

ne'ertheless, 311 

They may be won, at least their Chief 

at Rome, 
By some well-timed concessions; but, 

above 
All things, I must be speedy: at my 

hour 
Of twilight little light of life remains. 
Could I free Venice, and avenge my 

wrongs, 
I had lived too long, and willingly would 

sleep 
Next moment with my sires ; and, want- 
ing this. 
Better that sixty of my fourscore years 
Had been already where — how soon, 

I care not — 320 

The whole must be extinguished ; — 
' better that 

' [The island of Sapienza lies about nine miles 
to the north-west of Capo Gallo, in the Morea. 
The battle in which the Venetians under Nicolo 
Pisani were defeated by the Genoese under 
Paganino Doria was fought November 4, 1354.] 
_ » An historical fact. See Marin Sanuto's 
Lives of the Doges. 



They ne'er had been, than drag me on 

to be 
The thing these arch-oppressors fain 

would make me. 
Let me consider — of efficient troops 
There are three thousand posted at — 

Enter Vincenzo and Israel Bertuccio. 

Vin. May it please 

Your Highness, the same patron whom 

I spake of 
Is here to crave your patience. 

Doge. Leave the chamber, 

Vincenzo. — [Exit Vincenzo. 

Sir, you may advance — what would 

you? 
I. Ber. Redress. 
Doge. Of whom? 

/. Ber. Of God and of the Doge. 
Doge. Alas ! my friend, you seek it 
of the twain 330 

Of least respect and interest in Venice. 
You must address the Council. 

/. Ber. 'Twere in vain; 

For he who injured me is one of them. 
Doge. There's blood upon thy face — 

how came it there ? 
I. Ber. 'Tis mine, and not the first 
I've shed for Venice, 
But the first shed by a Venetian hand: 
A noble smote me. 

Doge. Doth he live? 

/. Ber. Not long — 

But for the hope I had and have, that 

you. 
My Prince, yourself a soldier, will re- 
dress 
Him, whom the laws of discipline and 
Venice 340 

Permit not to protect himself : — if not — 
I say no more. 

Doge. But something you would do — 
Is it not so? 

I. Ber. I am a man, my Lord. 

Doge. Why so is he who smote you. 

/. Ber. He is called so; 

Nay, more, a noble one — at least, in 

Venice : 
But since he hath forgotten that I am 

one, 
And treats me like a brute, the brute 

may turn — 
'Tis said the worm will. 



Scene ii.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



577 



Doge. Say — his name and lineage ? 

I. Ber. Barbaro. 

Doge. What was the cause? or the 

pretext ? 
I. Ber. I am the chief of the arsenal, 
employed 350 

At present in repairing certain galleys 
But roughly used by the Genoese last 

year. 
This morning comes the noble Barbaro 
Full of reproof, because our artisans 
Had left some frivolous order of his 

house, 
To execute the state's decree : I dared 
To justify the men — he raised his 

hand ; — 
Behold my blood ! the first time it e'er 

flowed 
Dishonourably. 

Doge. Have you long time served? 

/. Ber. So long as to remember 

Zara's siege,' 360 

And fight beneath the Chief who beat 

the Huns there. 
Sometime my general, now the Doge 
Faliero. — 
Doge. How ! are we comrades ? — 
the state's ducal robes 
Sit newly on me, and you were ap- 
pointed 
Chief of the arsenal ere I came from 

Rome; 
So that I recognised you not. Who 
placed you? 
I. Ber. The late Doge; keeping still 
my old command 
As patron of a galley : my new office 
Was given as the reward of certain scars 
(So was your predecessor pleased to 
say) : 370 

I little thought his bounty would con- 
duct me 
To his successor as a helpless plaintiff; 
At least, in such a cause. 

Doge. Are you much hurt? 

/. Ber. Irreparably in my self-es- 
teem. 
Doge: Speak out; fear nothing: 
being stung at heart. 
What would you do to be revenged on 
this man ? 
I. Ber. That which I dare not name, 
and yet will do. 
2 P 



Doge. Then wherefore came you 

here? 
/. Ber. I come for justice. 

Because my general is Doge, and will 

not 
See his old soldier trampled on. Had 
any, 380 

Save Faliero, filled the ducal throne, 
This blood had been washed out in 
other blood. 
Doge. You come to me for justice — 
unto me! 
The Doge of Venice, and I cannot give 

it; 
I cannot even obtain it — 'twas denied 
To me most solemnly an hour ago ! 
/. Ber. How says your Highness? 
Doge. Steno is condemned 

To a month's confinement. 

I. Ber. What ! the same who dared 
To stain the ducal throne with those 

foul words, 

That have cried shame to every ear in 

Venice ? 390 

Doge. Aye, doubtless they have 

echoed o'er the arsenal. 

Keeping due time with every hammer's 

clink, 
As a good jest to jolly artisans; 
Or making chorus to the creaking oar, 
In the vile tune of every galley-slave. 
Who, as he sung the merry stave, 

exulted 
He was not a shamed dotard like the 
Doge. 
I. Ber. Is't possible? a month's im- 
prisonment ! 
No more for Steno? 

Doge. You have heard the ofi^ence, 

And now you know his punishment; 

and then 400 

You ask redress of me! Go to the 

Forty, 
Who passed the sentence upon Michel 

Steno; 
They'll do as much by Barbaro, no 
doubt. 
I. Ber. Ah ! dared I speak my feel- 
ings ! 
Doge. Give them breath. 

Mine have no further outrage to endure. 
I. Ber. Then, in a word, it rests but 
on your word 



578 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act I. 



To punish and avenge — I will not 

say 
My petty wrong, for what is a mere 

blow, 
However vile, to such a thing as I 

am? — 
But the base insult done your state and 

person. 410 

Doge. You overrate my power, which 

is a pageant. 
This Cap is not the Monarch's crown; 

these robes 
Might move compassion, like a beggar's 

rags; 
Nay, more, a beggar's are his own, and 

these 
But lent to the poor puppet, who must 

play _ _ 

Its part with all its empire m this 

ermine. 
I. Ber. Wouldst thou be King? 
Doge. Yes — of a happy people. 

I. Ber. Wouldst thou be sovereign 

lord of Venice? 
Doge. Aye, 

If that the people shared that sove- 
reignty. 
So that nor they nor I were further 

slaves 420 

To this o'ergrown aristocratic Hydra, 
The poisonous heads of whose enven- 
omed body 
Have breathed a pestilence upon us all. 
/. Ber. Yet, thou wast born, and 

still hast hved, patrician. 
Doge. In evil hour was I so born ; my 

birth 
Hath made me Doge to be insulted : but 
I lived and toiled a soldier and a servant 
Of Venice and her people, not the 

Senate ; 
Their good and my own honour were 

my guerdon. 
I have fought and bled; commanded, 

aye, and conquered; 430 

Have made and marred peace oft in 

embassies. 
As it might chance to be our country's 

'vantage; 
Have traversed land and sea in constant 

duty, 
Through almost sixty years, and still 

for Venice, 



My father's and my birthplace, whose 

dear spires. 
Rising at distance o'er the blue Lagoon, 
It was reward enough for me to view 
Once more; but not for any knot of 

men. 
Nor sect, nor faction, did I bleed or 

sweat ! 
But would you know why I have done 

all this? 440 

Ask of the bleeding pelican why she 
Hath ripped her bosom ? Had the bird 

a voice. 
She'd tell thee 'twas for all her little 

ones. 
I. Ber. And yet they made thee 

Duke. 
Doge. They made me so; 

I sought it not, the flattering fetters met 

me 
Returning from my Roman embassy, 
And never having hitherto refused 
Toil, charge, or duty for the state, I did 

not. 
At these late years, decline what was 

the highest 
Of all in seeming, but of all most base 
In what we have to do and to endure : 
Bear witness for me thou, my injured 

subject, 451 

When I can neither right myself nor 

thee. 
I. Ber. You shall do both, if you 

possess the will; 
And many thousands more not less 

oppressed 
Who wait but for a signal — will you 

give it? 
Doge. You speak in riddles. 
I. Ber. Which shall soon be read 
At peril of my life — if you disdain 

not 
To lend a patient ear. 

Doge. Say on. 

/. Ber. Not thou, 

Nor I alone, are injured and abused. 
Contemned and trampled on; but the 

whole people 461 

Groan with the strong conception of 

their wrongs: 
The foreign soldiers in the Senate's pay 
Are discontented for their long arrears; 
The native mariners, and civic troops, 



Scene ii.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



579 



Feel with their friends; for who is he 

amongst them 
Whose brethren, parents, children, 

wives, or sisters, 
Have not partook oppression, or pollu- 
tion, 
From the patricians ? And the hopeless 

war 
Against the Genoese, which is still main- 
tained 470 
With the plebeian blood, and treasure 

wrung 
From their hard earnings, has inflamed 

them further: 
Even now — but, I forget that speaking 

thus. 
Perhaps I pass the sentence of my 

death ! 
Doge. And suff"ering what thou hast 

done — fear'st thou death ? 
Be silent then, and live on, to be 

beaten 
By those for whom thou hast bled. 

/. Ber. No, I will speak 

At every hazard; and if Venice' Doge 
Should turn delator, be the shame on 

him, 
And sorrow too; for he will lose far 

more 480 

Than I. 

Doge. From me fear nothing; out 

with it ! 
I. Ber. Know then, that there are 

met and sworn in secret 
A band of brethren, valiant hearts and 

true; 
Men who have proved all fortunes, and 

have long 
Grieved over that of Venice, and have 

right 
To do so; having served her in all 

climes. 
And having rescued her from foreign 

foes, 
Would do the same from those within 

her walls. 
They are not numerous, nor yet too few 
For their great purpose; they have 

arms, and means, 490 

And hearts, and hopes, and faith, and 

patient courage. 
Doge. For what then do they pause ? 
/. Ber. An hour to strike. 



Doge {aside). Saint Mark's shall 

strike that hour ! ^ 
/. Ber. I now have placed 

My life, my honour, all my earthly 

hopes 
Within thy power, but in the firm belief 
That injuries like ours, sprung from one 

cause. 
Will generate one vengeance: should it 

be so, 
Be our Chief now — our Sovereign 

hereafter. 
Doge. How many are ye? 
/. Ber. I'll not answer that 

Till I am answered. • 

Doge. How, sir ! do you menace ? 500 
I. Ber. No; I afl&rm. I have be- 
trayed myself; 
But there's no torture in the mystic 

wells 
Which undermine your palace, nor in 

those 
Not less appalling cells, the "leaden 

roofs," 
To force a single name from me of 

others. 
The Pozzi ^ and the Piombi were in 

vain; 
They might wring blood from me, but 

treachery never. 
And I would pass the fearful " Bridge of 

Sighs," 
Joyous that mine must be the last that 

e'er 
Would echo o'er the Stygian wave which 

flows 510 

Between the murderers and the mur- 
dered, washing 
The prison and the palace walls: there 

are 
Those who would live to think on't, and 

avenge me. 
Doge. If such your power and pur- 
pose, why come here 
To sue for justice, being in the course 
To do yourself due right? 

' [The bells of San Marco were never nrng but 
by order of the Doge.] 

' [The pozzi or wells were underground cells 
in the prisons at the foot of the Bridge of Sighs. 
The Sotti Piombi or "Under the leads" were 
strongly -barred cells immediately below the roof 
of the prison. The prisons are connected with 
the Doge's Palace by the Bridge of Sighs.] 



58o 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act 



7. Ber. Because the man, 

Who claims protection from authority, 
Showing his confidence and his sub- 
mission 
To that authority, can hardly be 
Suspected of combining to destroy it. 
Had I sate down too humbly with this 
blow, 521 

A moody brow and muttered threats 

had made me 
A marked man to the Forty's inquisi- 
tion; 
But loud complaint, however angrily 
It shapes its phrase, is little to be 

feared, 
And less distrusted. But, besides all 

this, 
I had another reason. 

Doge. What was that? 

I. Ber. Some rumours that the Doge 
was greatly moved 
By the reference of the Avogadori 
Of Michel Steno's sentence to the Forty 
Had reached me. I had served you, 
honoured you, 531 

And felt that you were dangerously in- 
sulted, 
Being of an order of such spirits, as 
Requite tenfold both good and evil: 

'twas 
My wish to prove and urge you to re- 
dress. 
Now you know all; and that I speak 

the truth, 
My peril be the proof. 

Doge. You have deeply ventured; 
But all must do so who would greatly 

win: 
Thus far I'll answer you — your secret's 
safe. 
7. Ber. And is this all ? 
Doge. Unless with all intrusted, 540 
What would you have me answer? 

I. Ber. I would have you 

Trust him who leaves his life in trust 

with you. 

Doge. But I must know your plan, 

your names, and numbers; 

The last may then be doubled, and the 

former 
Matured and strengthened. 

/. Ber. We're enough already; 

You are the sole ally we covet now. 



Doge. But bring me to the knowledge 

of your chiefs. 
I. Ber. That shall be done upon your 
formal pledge 
To keep the faith that we will pledge 
to you. 
Doge. When? where? 
/. Ber. This night I'll bring to your 
apartment 550 

Two of the principals: a greater num- 
ber 
Were hazardous. 

Doge. Stay, I must think of this. — 
What if I were to trust myself amongst 

you. 
And leave the palace? 

/. Ber. You must come alone. 

Doge. With but my nephew. 
/. Ber. Not were he your son ! 

Doge. Wretch ! darest thou name my 
son? He died in arms 
At Sapienza for this faithless state. 
Oh ! that he were alive, and I in ashes ! 
Or that he were alive ere I be ashes ! 
I should not need the dubious aid of 
strangers. 560 

I. Ber. Not one of all those strangers 
whom thou doubtest, 
But will regard thee with a filial feeling, 
So that thou keep'st a father's faith with 
them. 
Doge. The die is cast. Where is the 

place of meeting? 
I. Ber. At midnight I will be alone 
and masked 
Where'er your Highness pleases to 

direct me. 
To wait your coming, and conduct you 

where 
You shall receive our homage, and pro- 
nounce 
Upon our project. 

Doge. At what hour arises 

The moon? 

/. Ber. Late, but the atmosphere is 
thick and dusky, 570 

'Tis a sirocco. 

Doge. At the midnight hour, then, 
Near to the church where sleep my 
sires; ^ the same, 

I ["The Doges were all buried in St Mark's 
before Faliero: it is singular that when his 
predecessor, Andrea Dandolo, died, the Ten 



Scene i.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



581 



Twin-named from the apostles John 

and Paul; 
A gondola/ with one oar only, will 
Lurk in the narrow channel which glides 

by. 
Be there. 

/. Ber. I will not fail. 
Doge. And now retire — 

7. Ber. In the full hope your High- 
ness will not falter 
In your great purpose. Prince, I take 

my leave. 

[Exit Israel Bertuccio. 
Doge (solus). At midnight, by the 

church Saints John and Paul, 
Where sleep my noble fathers, I re- 
pair — 580 
To what ? to hold a council in the dark 
With common ruffians leagued to ruin 

states ! 
And will not my great sires leap from 

the vault, 
Where lie two Doges who preceded 

me, 
And pluck me down amongst them? 

Would they could ! 
For I should rest in honour with the 

honoured. 
Alas! I must not think of them, but 

those 
Who have made me thus unworthy of a 

name 
Noble and brave as aught of consular 
On Roman marbles; but I will redeem 

it 590 

Back to its antique lustre in our annals. 
By sweet revenge on all that's base in 

Venice, 

made a law that all the future Doges should be 
buried with their families in their own churches, 

— one would think by a kind of presentiment. 
So that all that is said of his Aficestral Doges, as 
buried at St John's and Paul's, is altered from 
the fact, they being in St Mark's. Make a note 
of this and put Editor as the subscription to it. 
As I make such pretensions to accuracy, I should 
not like to be twitted even with such trifles on 
that score. Of the play they may say what they 
please, but not so of my costume and dram. pers. 

— they having been real existences." — Letter 
to Murray, October 12, 1820, Letters, igoi, v. Q5. 
Byron's injunction was not carried out till 18,^2.] 

' A gondola is not like a common boat, but is 
as easily rowed with one oar as with two (though, 
of course, not so swiftly), and often is so from 
motives of privacy; and, since the decay of 
Venice, of economy. 



And freedom to the rest, or leave it 

black 
To all the growing calumnies of Time, 
Which never spare the fame of him who 

fails, 
But try the Caesar, or the Catiline, 
By the true touchstone of desert — Suc- 



ACT II. 

Scene I. — An Apartment in the Ducal 
Palace. 

Angiolina {wife of the Doge) and 
Marianna. 

Ang. What was the Doge's answer? 
Mar. That he was 

That moment summoned to a confer- 
ence; 

But 'tis by this time ended. I perceived 

Not long ago the Senators embarking; 

And the last gondola may now be seen 

Gliding into the throng of barks which 
stud 

The glittering waters. 

Ang. Would he were returned! 

He has been much disquieted of late; 

And Time, which has not tamed his fiery 
spirit, 

Nor yet enfeebled even his mortal 
frame, 10 

Which seems to be more nourished by a 
soul 

So quick and restless that it would con- 
sume 

Less hardy clay — Time has but Httle 
power 

On his resentments or his griefs. Un- 
like 

To other spirits of his order, who. 

In the first burst of passion, pour away 

Their wrath or sorrow, all things wear 
in him 

As aspect of Eternity: his thoughts. 

His feelings, passions, good or evil, all 

Have nothing of old age; ^ and his bold 
brow 20 

' [The exact date of Marin Falier's birth is a 
matter of conjecture, but there is reason to be- 
lieve that he was under seventy-five years of age 
at the time of the conspiracy. The date as- 
signed is 1280-1285 A.D.] 



582 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act n. 



Bears but the scars of mind, the thoughts 

of years, 
Not their decrepitude: and he of late 
Has been more agitated than his wont. 
Would he were come ! for I alone have 

power 
Upon his troubled spirit. 

Mar. It is true, 

His Highness has of late been greatly 

moved 
By the affront of Steno, and with 

cause : 
But the offender doubtless even now 
Is doomed to expiate his rash insult with 
Such chastisement as will enforce 

respect 30 

To female virtue, and to noble blood. 
Ang. 'Twas a gross insult; but I 

heed it not 
For the rash scorner's falsehood in 

itself, 
But for the effect, the deadly deep im- 
pression 
Which it has made upon Faliero's soul, 
The proud, the fiery, the austere — 

austere 
To all save me: I tremble when I think 
To what it may conduct. 

Mar. Assuredly 

The Doge cannot suspect you? 

Ang. Suspect me! 

Why Steno dared not: when he scrawled 

his lie, 40 

Grovelling by stealth in the moon's 

glimmering light. 
His own still conscience smote him for 

the act. 
And every shadow on the walls frowned 

shame 
Upon his coward calumny. 

Mar. 'Twere fit 

He should be punished grievously. 
Ang. He is so. 

Mar. What ! is the sentence passed ? 

is he condemned? 
Ang. I know not that, but he has 

been detected. 
Mar. And deem you this enough for 

such foul scorn? 
Ang. I would not be a judge in my 

own cause, 
Nor do I know what sense of punish- 
ment 50 



May reach the soul of ribalds such as 
Steno; 

But if his insults sink no deeper in 

The minds of the inquisitors than they 

Have ruffled mine, he will, for all 
acquittance, 

Be left to his own shamelessness or 
shame. 
Mar. Some sacrifice is due to slan- 
dered virtue. 
Ang. Why, what is virtue if it needs 
a victim? 

Or if it must depend upon men's words? 

The dying Roman ^ said, " 'twas but a 
name: " 

It were indeed no more, if human breath 

Could make or mar it. 

Mar. Yet full many a dame, 61 

Stainless and faithful, would feel all the 
wrong 

Of such a slander; and less rigid ladies. 

Such as abound in Venice, would be loud 

And all-inexorable in their cry 

For justice. 

Ang. This but proves it is the name 

And not the quality they prize: the first 

Have found it a hard task to hold their 
honour. 

If they require it to be blazoned forth; 

And those who have not kept it, seek its 
seeming 70 

As they would look out for an orna- 
ment 

Of which they feel the want, but not 
because 

They think it so; they live in others' 
thoughts, 

And would seem honest as they must 
seem fair. 
Mar. You have strange thoughts for 

a patrician dame. 
Ang. And yet they were my father's; 
with his name, 

The sole inheritance he left. 

Mar. You want none; 

Wife to a Prince, the Chief of the Re- 
public. 
Ang. I should have sought none 
though a peasant's bride. 

But feel not less the love and gratitude 

Due to my father, who bestowed my 
hand 81 

» [Brutus.] 



Scene i.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



583 



Upon his early, tried, and trusted friend. 
The Count Val di Marino, now our 

Doge. 
Mar. And with that hand did he 

bestow your heart? 
*A7ig. He did so, or it had not been 

bestowed. 
Mar. Yet this strange disproportion 

in your years. 
And, let me add, disparity of tempers. 
Might make the world doubt whether 

such an union 
Could make you wisely, permanently 

happy. 
Ang. The world will think with 

worldlings: but my heart 90 

Has still been in my duties, which are 

many. 
But never difficult. 

Mar. And do you love him ? 

Ang. I love all noble qualities which 

merit 
Love, and I loved my father, who first 

taught me 
To single out what we should love in 

others, 
And to subdue all tendency to lend 
The best and purest feelings of our 

nature 
To baser passions. He bestowed my 

hand 
Upon Faliero: he had known him noble. 
Brave, generous; rich in all the quali- 
ties 100 
Of soldier, citizen, and friend; in all 
Such have I found him as my father 

said. 
His faults are those that dwell in the 

high bosoms 
Of men who have commanded; too 

much pride, 
And the deep passions fiercely fostered 

by 
The uses of patricians, and a life 
Spent in the storms of state and war; 

and also 
From the quick sense of honour, which 

becomes 
A duty to a certain sign, a vice 
When overstrained, and this I fear in 

him. no 

And then he has been rash from his 

youth upwards, 



Yet tempered by redeeming nobleness 
In such sort, that the wariest of republics 
Has lavished all its chief employs upon 

him. 
From his first fight to his last embassy, 
From which on his return the Dukedom 
met him. 
Mar. But previous to this marriage, 
had your heart 
Ne'er beat for any of the noble youth. 
Such as in years had been more meet to 

match 
Beauty like yours? or, since, have you 
ne'er seen 120 

One, who, if your fair hand were still 

to give, 
]\Iight now pretend to Loredano's 
daughter ? 
Ang. I answered your first question 
when I said 
I married. 

Mar. And the second? 

Ang. Needs no answer. 

Mar. I pray you pardon, if I have 

offended. 
Ang. I feel no wrath, but some sur- 
prise: I knew not 
That wedded bosoms could permit 

themselves 
To ponder upon what they now might 

choose. 
Or aught save their past choice. 

Mar. 'Tis their past choice 

That far too often makes them deem 

they would 130 

Now choose more wisely, could they 

cancel it. 

Ang. It may be so. I knew not of 

such thoughts. 
Mar. Here comes the Doge — shall 

I retire? 
Ang. It may 

Be better you should quit me; he seems 

rapt 
In thought. — How pensively he takes 
his way ! [Exit Marianna. 

Enter the Doge and Pietro. 

Doge (musing). There is a certain 
Philip Calendaro 

Now in the Asrenal, who holds com- 
mand 

Of eighty men, and has great influence 



5^4 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act II. 



Besides on all the spirits of his com- 
rades: 

This man, I hear, is bold and popular. 

Sudden and daring, and yet secret; 
'twould 141 

Be well that he were won: I needs must 
hope 

That Israel Bertuccio has secured him. 

But fain would be — 

Pie. My Lord, pray pardon me 

For breaking in upon your meditation; 

The Senator Bertuccio, your kinsman. 

Charged me to follow and enquire your 
pleasure 

To fix an hour when he may speak with 
you. 
Doge. At sunset. — Stay a moment 
— let me see — 

Say in the second hour of night. 

[Exit PlETRO. 



Ang. 



My Lord! 150 



Doge. My dearest child, forgive me 
— why delay 
So long approaching me ? — I saw you 
not. 
Ang. You were absorbed in thought, 
and he who now 
Has parted from you might have words 

of weight 
To bear you from the Senate. 

Doge. From the Senate? 

Ang. I would not interrupt him in his 
duty 
And theirs. 



Doge. 



The Senate's duty ! you 



mistake ; 
'Tis we who owe all service to the 

Senate. 
Ang. I thought the Duke had held 

command in Venice. 
Doge. He shall. — But let that pass. 

— We will be jocund. 160 

How fares it with you? have you been 

abroad ? 
The day is overcast, but the calm 

wave 
Favours the gondolier's light skimming 

oar; 
Or have you held a levee of your 

friends ? 
Or has your music made you solitary? 
Say — is there aught that you would 

will within 



The little sway now left the Duke? or 

aught 
Of fitting splendour, or of honest 

pleasure, 
Social or lonely, that would glad your 

heart. 
To compensate for many a dull hour, 

wasted 1 70 

On an old man oft moved with many 

cares ? 
Speak, and 'tis done. 

Ang. You're ever kind to me. 

I have nothing to desire, or to request. 
Except to see you oftener and calmer. 
Doge. Calmer ? 
Ang. Aye, calmer, my good Lord. — 

Ah, why 
Do you still keep apart, and walk alone, 
And let such strong emotions stamp 

your brow. 
As not betraying their full import, yet 
Disclose too much? 

Doge. Disclose too much ! — of what ? 
What is there to disclose. 

Ang. A heart so ill 180 

At ease. 

Doge. 'Tis nothing, child. — But in 

the state 
You know what daily cares oppress all 

those 
Who govern this precarious common- 
wealth, 
Now suffering from the Genoese without. 
And malcontents within — 'tis this 

which makes me 
More pensive and less tranquil than my 

wont. 
Ang. Yet this existed long before, 

and never 
Till in these late days did I see you thus. 
Forgive me; there is something at your 

heart 
More than the mere discharge of public 

duties, 190 

Which long use and a talent Uke to 

yours 
Have rendered light, nay, a necessity, 
To keep your mind from stagnating. 

'Tis not 
In hostile states, nor perils, thus to 

shake you, — 
You, who have stood all storms and 

never sunk, 



Scene i.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



S^S 



And climbed up to the pinnacle of 

power 
And never fainted by the way, and 

stand 
Upon it, and can look down steadily 
Along the depth beneath, and ne'er feel 

dizzy. 
Were Genoa's galleys riding in the 

port, 200 

Were civil fury raging in Saint Mark's, 
You are not to be wrought on, but 

would fall, 
As you have risen, with an unaltered 

brow : 
Your feelings now are of a different 

kind; 
Something has stung your pride, not 

patriotism. 
Doge. Pride ! Angiolina ? Alas ! 

none is left me. 
Ang. Yes — the same sin that over- 
threw the angels. 
And of all sins most easily besets 
Mortals the nearest to the angelic 

nature : 
The vile are only vain; the great are 

proud. 210 

Doge. I had the pride of honour, of 

your honour, 
Deep at my heart — But let us change 

the theme. 
A ng. Ah no ! — As I have ever shared 

your kindness 
In all things else, let me not be shut out 
From your distress: were it of public 

import. 
You know I never sought, would never 

seek 
To win a word from you; but feeling 

now 
Your grief is private, it belongs to me 
To lighten or divide it. Since the day 
When foolish Steno's ribaldry de- 
tected 220 
Unfixed your quiet, you are greatly 

changed, 
And I would soothe you back to what 

you were. 
Doge. To w^hat I was ! — have you 

heard Steno's sentence? 
Ang. No. 

Doge. A month's arrest. 
Ang. Is it not enough? 



Doge. Enough ! — yes, for a drunken 

galley slave. 
Who, stung by stripes, may murmur at 

his master; 
But not for a deliberate, false, cool 

villain. 
Who stains a Lady's and a Prince's 

honour 
Even on the throne of his authority. 
Ang. There seems to be enough in 

the conviction 230 

Of a patrician guilty of a falsehood : 
All other puni hment were light unto 
His loss of honour. 

Doge. Such men have no honour; 

They have but their vile lives — and 

these are spared. 
Ang. You would not have him die 

for this offence? 
Doge. Not now : — being still alive, 

I'd have him live 
Long as he can; he has ceased to merit 

death; 
The guilty saved hath damned his hun- 
dred judges. 
And he is pure, for now his crime is 

theirs. 
Ang. Oh! had this false and flippant 

libeller 240 

Shed his young blood for his absurd 

lampoon. 
Ne'er from that moment could this 

breast have known 
A joyous hour, or dreamless slumber 

more. 
Doge. Does not the law of Heaven 

say blood for blood? 
And he who taints kills more than he 

who sheds it. 
Is it the pain of blows, or shame of 

blows, 
That makes such deadly to the sense of 

man? 
Do not the laws of man say blood for 

honour, — 
And, less than honour, for a little 

gold? 
Say not the laws of nations blood for 

treason ? 250 

Is't nothing to have filled these veins 

with poison 
For their once healthful current ! — is it 

nothing 



586 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act II. 



To have stained your name and mine — 

the noblest names? 
Is't nothing to have brought into con- 
tempt 
A Prince before his people? to have 

failed 
In the respect accorded by Mankind 
To youth in woman, and old age in man ? 
To virtue in your sex, and dignity 
In ours ? — But let them look to it who 

have saved him. 
Ang. Heaven bids us to forgive our 

enemies. 260 

Doge. Doth Heaven forgive her own ? 

Is there not Hell 
For wrath eternal? 

Ang. Do not speak thus wildly — 
Heaven will alike forgive you and your 

foes. 
Doge. Amen ! May Heaven forgive 

them 1 
Ang. And will you ? 

Doge. Yes, when they are in Heaven ! 
Ang. And not till then? 

Doge. What matters my forgiveness ? 

an old man's, 
Worn out, scorned, spurned, abused; 

what matters then 
My pardon more than my resentment, 

both 
Being weak and worthless? I have 

lived too long. 
But let us change the argument. — My 

child ! 270 

My injured wife, the child of Loredano, 
The brave, the chivalrous, how little 

deemed 
Thy father, wedding thee unto his friend. 
That he was linking thee to shame ! — 

Alas! 
Shame without sin, for thou art fault- 
less. Hadst thou 
But had a different husband, any hus- 
band 
In Venice save the Doge, this blight, 

this brand. 
This blasphemy had never fallen upon 

thee. 
So voung, so beautiful, so good, so 

pure, 
To suffer this, and yet be unavenged ! 280 
Ang. I am too well avenged, for you 

still love me. 



And trust, and honour me; and all men 

know 
That you are just, and I am true : what 

more 
Could I require, or you command ? 

Doge. 'Tis well, 

And may be better; but whate'er be- 
tide, 
Be thou at least kind to my memory. 
Ang. Why speak you thus? 
Doge. It is no matter why; 

But I would still, whatever others think, 
Have your respect both now and in my 

grave. 
Ang. Why should you doubt it ? has 

it ever failed? 290 

Doge. Come hither, child ! I would 

a word with you. 
Your father was my friend; unequal 

Fortune 
Made him my debtor for some cour- 
tesies 
Which bind the good more firmly: 

when, oppressed 
With his last malady, he willed our 

union. 
It was not to repay me, long repaid 
Before by his great loyalty in friendship; 
His object was to place your orphan 

beauty 
In honourable safety from the perils. 
Which, in this scorpion nest of vice, 

assail 300 

A lonely and undowered maid. I did 

not 
Think with him, but would not oppose 

the thought 
Which soothed his death-bed. 

Ang. I have not forgotten 

The nobleness with which you bade me 

speak 
If my young heart held any preference 
Which would have made me happier; 

nor your offer 
To make my dowry equal to the rank 
Of aught in Venice, and forego all 

claim 
My father's last injunction gave you. 

Doge. Thus, 

'Twas not a foolish dotard's vile caprice. 
Nor the false edge of aged appetite, 311 
Which made me covetous of girlish 

beauty. 



Scene i.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



587 



And a young bride: for in my fieriest 

youth 
I swayed such passions; nor was this 

my age 
Infected with that leprosy of lust 
Which taints the hoariest years of 

vicious men, 
Making them ransack to the very last 
The dregs of pleasure for their vanished 

joys; 
Or buy in selfish marriage some young 

victim, 
Too helpless to refuse a state that's 

honest, 320 

Too feeling not to know herself a wretch. 
Our wedlock was not of this sort; you 

had 
Freedom from me to choose, and urged 

in answer 
Your father's choice. 

Ang. I did so; I would do so 

In face of earth and Heaven ; for I have 

never 
Repented for my sake; sometimes for 

yours, 
In pondering o'er your late disquietudes. 
Doge. I knew my heart would never 

treat you harshly; 
I knew my days could not disturb you 

long; 
And then the daughter of my earliest 

friend, 330 

His worthy daughter, free to choose 

again, 

Wealthier and wiser, in the ripest bloom 
Of womanhood, more skilful to select 
By passing these probationary years, 
Inheriting a Prince's name and riches, 
Secured, by the short penance of endur- 
ing 
An old man for some summers, against 

all 
That law's chicane or envious kinsmen 

might 
Have urged against her right; my best 

friend's child 
Would choose more fitly in respect of 

years, 340 

And not less truly in a faithful heart. 
Ang. My Lord, I looked but to my 

father's wishes, 
Hallowed by his last words, and to my 

heart 



For doing all its duties, and replying 
With faith to him with whom I was 

affianced. 
Ambitious hopes ne'er crossed my 

dreams; and should 
The hour you speak of come, it will be 

seen so. 
Doge. I do believe you; and I know 

you true: 
For Love — romantic Love — which in 

my youth 
I knew to be illusion, and ne'er saw 350 
Lasting, but often fatal, it had been 
No lure for me, in my most passionate 

days. 
And could not be so now, did such 

exist. 
But such respect, and mildly paid re- 
gard 
As a true feeling for your welfare, and 
A free compliance with all honest 

wishes, — 
A kindness to your virtues, watchfulness 
Not shown, but shadowing o'er such 

little failings 
As Youth is apt in, so as. not to check 
Rashly, but win you from them ere you 

knew 360 

You had been won, but thought the 

change your choice; 
A pride not in your beauty, but your 

conduct; 
A trust in you ; a patriarchal love, 
And not a doting homage; friendship 

faith, — 
Such estimation in your eyes as these 
Might claim, I hoped for. 

Ang. And have ever had. 

Doge. I think so. For the difference 

in our years 
You knew it choosing me, and chose; I 

trusted 
Not to my qualities, nor would have faith 
In such, nor outward ornaments of 

nature, 370 

Were I still in my five and twentieth 

spring; 
I trusted to the blood of Loredano 
Pure in your veins; I trusted to the soul 
God gave you — to the truths your 

father taught you — 
To your belief in Heaven — to your 

mild virtues — 



588 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act II. 



To your own faith and honour, for my 

own. 
Ang. You have done well. — I thank 

you for that trust, 
Which I have never for one moment 

ceased 
To honour you the more for. 

Doge. Where is Honour, 

Innate and precept-strengthened, 'tis 

the rock 380 

Of faith connubial : where it is not — 

where 
Light thoughts are lurking, or the 

vanities 
Of worldly pleasure rankle in the heart, 
Or sensual throbs convulse it, well I 

know 
'Twere hopeless for humanity to dream 
Of honesty in such infected blood. 
Although 'twere wed to him it covets 

most: 
An incarnation of the poet's God 
In all his marble-chiselled beauty, or 
The demi-deity, Alcides, in 390 

His majesty of superhuman Manhood, 
Would not suffice to bind where virtue 

is not; 
It is consistency which forms and 

proves it: 
Vice cannot fix, and Virtue cannot 

change. 
The once fall'n woman must for ever 

fall; 
For Vice must have variety, while 

Virtue 
Stands like the Sun, and all which rolls 

around 
Drinks life, and light, and glory from 

her aspect. 
Ang. And seeing, feeling thus this 

truth in others, 
(I pray you pardon me;) but wherefore 

yield you 400 

To the most fierce of fatal passions, and 
Disquiet your great thoughts with rest- 
less hate 
Of such a thing as Steno? 

Doge. You mistake me. 

It is not Steno who could move me thus ; 
Had it been so, he should — but let that 

pass. 
Ang. What is't you feel so deeply, 

then, even now? 



Doge. The violated majesty of Ven- 
ice, 

At once insulted in her Lord and laws. 
Ang. Alas ! why will you thus con- 
sider it? 
Doge. I have thought on't till — but 
let me lead you back 410 

To what I urged; all these things 
being noted, 

I wedded you; the world then did me 
justice 

Upon the motive, and my conduct 
proved 

They did me right, while yours was all 
to praise: 

You had all freedom — all respect — 
all trust 

From me and mine ; and, born of those 
who made 

Princes at home, and swept Kings from 
their thrones 

On foreign shores, in all things you 
appeared 

Worthy to be our first of native dames. 
Ang. To what does this conduct? 
Doge. To thus much — that 

A miscreant's angry breath may blast it 
all — 421 

A villain, whom for his unbridled bear- 
ing, 

Even in the midst of our great festival, 

I caused to be conducted forth, and 
taught 

How to demean himself in ducal cham- 
bers; 

A wretch like this may leave upon the 
wall 

The blighting venom of his sweltering 
heart. 

And this shall spread itself in general 
poison ; 

And woman's innocence, man's hon- 
our, pass 

Into a by- word; and the doubly felon 

(Who first insulted virgin modesty 431 

By a gross affront to your attendant 
damsels 

Amidst the noblest of our dames in 
public) 

Requite himself for his most just ex- 
pulsion 

By blackening publicly his Sovereign's 
consort, 



Scene i. 



MARINO FALIERO 



589 



And be absolved by his upright com- 
peers. 
Ang. But he has been condemned 

into captivity. 
Doge. For such as him a dungeon 

were acquittal; 
And his brief term of mock-arrest will 

pass 
Within a palace. But I've done with 

him ; 440 

The rest must be with you. 

Ang. With me, my Lord? 

Doge. Yes, Angiolina. Do not mar- 
vel; I 
Have let this prey upon me till I feel 
My life cannot be long; and fain would 

have you 
Regard the injunctions you will find 

within 
This scroll {giving her a paper) — Fear 

not ; they are for your advantage : 
Read them hereafter at the fitting hour. 
Ang. My Lord, in life, and after life, 

you shall 
Be honoured still by me : but may your 

days 
Be many yet — and happier than the 

present ! 450 

This passion will give way, and you will 

be 
Serene, and what you should be — what 

you were. 
Doge. I will be what I should be, or 

be nothing; 
But never more — oh ! never, never 

more, 
O'er the few days or hours which yet 

await 
The blighted old age of Faliero, shall 
Sweet Quiet shed her sunset ! Never 

more 
Those summer shadows rising from the 

past 
Of a not ill-spent nor inglorious life. 
Mellowing the last hours as the night 

approaches, 460 

Shall soothe me to my moment of long 

rest. 
I had but little more to ask, or hope. 
Save the regards due to the blood and 

sweat. 
And the soul's labour through which I 

had toiled 



To make my country honoured. As her 

servant — 
Her servant, though her chief — I would 

have gone 
Down to my fathers with a name serene 
And pure as theirs; but this has been 

• denied me. 
Would I had died at Zara ! 

Ang. There you saved 

The state; then live to save her still. 

A day, 470 

Another day like that would be the best 
Reproof to them, and sole revenge for 

you. 
Doge. But one such day occurs 

within an age; 
My life is little less than one, and 'tis 
Enough for Fortune to have granted 

once, 
That which scarce one more favoured 

citizen 
May win in many states and years. 

But why 
Thus speak I ? Venice has forgot that 

day — 
Then why should I remember it ? — 

Farewell, 
Sweet Angiolina ! I must to my 

cabinet; 480 

There's much for me to do — and the 

hour hastens. 
Ang. Remember what you were. 
Doge. It were in vain ! 

Joy's recollection is no longer joy. 
While Sorrow's memory is a sorrow 

still. 
Ang. At least, whate'er may urge, let 

me implore 
That you will take some little pause of 

rest: 
Your sleep for many nights has been so 

turbid. 
That it had been relief to have awaked 

you, 
Had I not hoped that Nature would 

o'erpower 
At length the thoughts which shook 

your slumbers thus. 4Q0 

An hour of rest will give you to your 

toils 
With fitter thoughts and freshened 

strength. 
Doge. I cannot — • 



59° 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act II. 



I must not, if I could; for never was 
Such reason to be watchful : yet a few — 
Yet a few days and dream-perturbed 

nights, 
And I shall slumber well — but where ? 

— no matter. 
Adieu, my Angiolina. 

Ang. Let me be 

An instant — yet an instant your com- 
panion ! 
I cannot bear to leave you thus. 

Doge. Come then, 

My gentle child — forgive me : thou 

wert made 500 

For better fortunes than to share in 

mine, 
Now darkling in their close toward the 

deep vale 
Where Death sits robed in his all- 
sweeping shadow. 
When I am gone — it may be sooner than 
Even these years warrant, for there is 

that stirring 
Within — above — around, that in this 

city 
Will make the cemeteries populous 
As e'er they were by pestilence or war, — 
When I am nothing, let that which I was 
Be still sometimes a name on thy sweet 
lips, 510 

A shadow in thy fancy, of a thing 
Which would not have thee mourn it, 

but remember. 
Let us begone, my child — the time is 
pressing. {Exeunt. 

Scene II. — A retired spot near the 
Arsenal. Israel Bertuccio and 
Philip Calendaro. 

Col. How sped you, Israel, in your 
late complaint? 

I. Ber. Why, well. 

Cal. Is'f possible ! will he be pun- 
ished ? 

I. Ber. Yes. 

Cal. With what? a mulct or an 
arrest ? 

I. Ber. With death ! 

Cal. Now you rave, or must intend 
revenge, 
Such as I counselled you, with your own 
hand. 



I. Ber. Yes; and for one sole draught 

of hate, forego 
The great redress we meditate for 

Venice, 
And change a life of hope for one of 

exile ; 
Leaving one scorpion crushed, and 

thousands stinging 
My friends, my family, my country- 
men ! 10 
No, Calendaro; these same drops of 

blood. 
Shed shamefully, shall have the whole 

of his 
For their requital — But not only his; 
We will not strike for private wrongs 

alone : 
Such are for selfish passions and rash 

men. 
But are unworthy a Tyrannicide. 

Cal. You have more patience than I 

care to boast. 
Had I been present when you bore this 

insult, 
I must have slain him, or expired myself 
In the vain effort to repress my wrath. 
I. Ber. Thank Heaven you were not 

— all had else been marred: 21 
As 'tis, our cause looks prosperous still. 
Cal. You saw 

The Doge — what answer gave he ? 

I. Ber. That there was 

No punishment for such as Barbaro. 
Cal. I told you so before, and that 

'twas idle 
To think of justice from such hands. 

I. Ber. At least, 

It lulled suspicion, showing confidence. 
Had I been silent, not a Sbirro ^ but 
Had kept me in his eye, as meditating 
A silent, solitary deep revenge. 30 

Cal. But wherefore not address you 

to the Council? 
The Doge is a mere puppet, who can 

scarce 
Obtain right for himself. Why speak 

to him? 
I. Ber. You shall know that here- 
after. 

' [The shirri were constables, officers of the 
police magistrates, the signori di nolle. The 
Italians have a saying, Dir le sue ragioni agli 
sbirri, that is, to argue with a policeman.] 



Scene ii.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



591 



Cal. Why not now? 

/. Ber. Be patient but till midnight. 
Get your musters, 

And bid our friends prepare their com- 
panies : 

Set all in readiness to strike the blow, 

Perhaps in a few hours : we have long 
waited 

For a fit time — that hour is on the dial, 

It may be, of to-morrow's sun : delay 

Beyond may breed us double danger. 
See 41 

That all be punctual at our place of 
meeting, 

And armed, excepting those of the Six- 
teen, 

Who will remain among the troops to 
wait 

The signal. 

Cal. These brave words have 

breathed new life 

Into my veins ; I am sick of these pro- 
tracted 

And hesitating councils: day on day 

Crawled on, and added but another 
link 

To our long fetters, and some fresher 
wrong 

Inflicted on our brethren or ourselves 

Helping to swell our tyrants' bloated 
strength. 5 1 

Let us but deal upon them, and I care 
not 

For the result, which must be Death or 
Freedom ! 

I'm weary to the heart of finding 
neither. 
I. Ber. We will be free in Life or 
Death ! the grave 

Is chainless. Have you all the musters 
ready ? 

And are the sixteen companies com- 
pleted 

To sixty? 

Cal. All save two, in which there are 

Twenty-five wanting to make up the 
number. 
I. Ber. No matter; we can do with- 
out. Whose are they? 60 
Cal. Bertram's and old Soranzo's, 
both of whom 

Appear less forward in the cause than 
we are. 



I. Ber. Your fiery nature makes you 
deem all those 
Who are not restless cold; but there 

exists 
Oft in concentred spirits not less daring 
Than in more loud avengers. Do not 
doubt them. 
Cal. I do not doubt the elder ; but in 
Bertram 
There is a hesitating softness, fatal 
To enterprise like ours: I've seen that 

man 
W>ep like an infant o'er the misery 70 
Of others, heedless of his own, though 

greater ; 
And in a recent quarrel I beheld him 
Turn sick at sight of blood, although a 
villain's. 
/. Ber. The truly brave are soft of 
heart and eyes, 
And feel for what their duty bids them 

do. 
I have known Bertram long ; there doth 

not breathe 
A soul more full of honour. 

Cal. It may be so: 

I apprehend less treachery than weak- 
ness; 
Yet as he has no mistress, and no wife 
To work upon his milkiness of spirit, 80 
He may go through the ordeal; it is 

well 
He is an orphan, friendless save in us : 
A v.oman or a child had made him less 
Than either in resolve. 

/. Ber. Such ties are not 

For those who are called to the high 

destinies 
Which purify corrupted common- 
wealths ; 
We must forget all feelings save the one, 
We must resign all passions save our 

purpose, 
We must behold no object save our 

country — 
And only look on Death as beautiful, 90 
So that the sacrifice ascend to Heaven, 
And draw down Freedom on her ever- 
more. 
Gal. But if we fail — 
/. Ber. They never fail who die 

In a great cause: the block may soak 
their gore : 



592 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act ii. 



Their heads may sodden in the sun; 
their limbs 

Be strung to city gates and castle walls — 

But still their Spirit walks abroad. 
Though years 

Elapse, and others share as dark a 
doom, 

They but augment the deep and sweep- 
ing thoughts 

Which overpower all others, and con- 
duct I GO 

The world at last to Freedom. What 
were we, 

If Brutus had not lived? He died in 
giving 

Rome liberty, but left a deathless les- 
son — 

A name which is a virtue, and a Soul 

Which multiplies itself throughout all 
time. 

When wicked men wax mighty, and a 
state 

Turns servile. He and his high friend 
were styled 

"The last of Romans!" ^ Let us be 
the first 

Of true Venetians, sprung from Roman 
sires. 
Cal. Our fathers did not fly from 
Attila 2 no 

Into these isles, where palaces have 
sprung 

On banks redeemed from the rude 
ocean's ooze, 

To own a thousand despots in his place. 

Better bow down before the Hun, and 
call 

A Tartar lord, than these swoln silk- 
worms ^ masters ! 

The first at least was man, and used his 
sword 

As sceptre: these unmanly creeping 
things 

Command our swords, and rule us with 
a word 



' [At the battle of Philippi, B.C. 42, Brutus 
lamented over the body of Cassius, and called 
him the "Last of the Romans."] 

^ [The citizens of Aquileia and Padua fled 
before the invasion of Attila, and retired to the 
Isle of Gradus, and Rivus Altus, or Rialto.] 

3 [Mai bigatlo, "vile silkworm," is a term of 
contempt and reproach = "uomo de maligna 
intenzione," a knave.] 



As with a spell. 

/. Ber. It shall be broken soon. 

You ^ay that all things are in readi- 
ness; 120 
To-day I have not been the usual round. 
And why thou knowest; but thy vigil- 
ance 
Will better have supplied my care : 

these orders 
In recent council to redouble now 
Our efforts to repair the galleys, have 
Lent a fair colour to the introduction 
Of many of our cause into the arsenal, 
As new artificers for their equipment, 
Or fresh recruits obtained in haste to 

man 
The hoped-for fleet. — Are all supplied 
with arms? 130 

Cal. All who were deemed trust- 
worthy: there are some 
Whom it were well to keep in ignorance 
Till it be time to strike, and then supply 

them; 
When in the heat and hurry of the hour 
They have no opportunity to pause, 
But needs must on with those who will 
surround them. 
/. Ber. You have said well. Have 

you remarked all such? 
Cal. I've noted most ; and caused the 
other chiefs 
To use like caution in their com"panies. 
As far as I have seen, we are enough 140 
To make the enterprise secure, if 'tis 
Commenced to-morrow; but, till 'tis 

begun, 
Each hour is pregnant with a thousand 
perils. 
/. Ber. Let the Sixteen meet at the 
wonted hour, 
Except Soranzo, Nicoletto Blondo, 
And Marco Giuda, who will keep their 

watch 
Within the arsenal, and hold all ready. 
Expectant of the signal we will fix on. 
Cal. We will not fail. 
I. Ber. Let all the rest be there; 
I have a stranger to present to them. 150 
Cal. A stranger ! doth he know the 

secret ? 
/. Ber. Yes. 

Cal. And have you dared to peril 
your friends' lives 



Scene ii.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



593 



On a rash coniidence in one we know 

not? 
I. Ber. I have risked no man's life 

except my own — 
Of that be certain : he is one who may 
Make our assurance doubly sure, 

according 
His aid ; and if reluctant, he no less 
Is in our power: he comes alone with 

me, 
And cannot 'scape us; but he will not 

swerve. 
Cal. I cannot judge of this until I 

know him : i6o 

Is he one of our order? 

/. Bcr. Aye, in spirit. 

Although a child of Greatness; he is 

one 
Who would become a throne, or over- 
throw one — 
One who has done great deeds, and seen 

great changes; 
No tyrant, though bred up to tyranny; 
Valiant in war, and sage in council; 

noble 
In nature, although haughty ; quick, yet 

wary : 
Yet for all this, so full of certain pas- 
sions. 
That if once stirred and baffled, as he 

has been 
Upon the tenderest points, there is no 

Fury 170 

In Grecian story like to that which 

wrings 
His vitals with her burning hands, 

till he 
Grows capable of all things for revenge ; 
And add to, that his mind is liberal. 
He sees and feels the people are op- 
pressed, 
And shares their sufferings. Take him 

all in all. 
We have need of such, and such have 

need of us. 
Cal. And what part would you have 

him take with us? 
/. Ber. It may be, that of Chief. 
Cal. What ! and resign 

Your own command as leader? 

/. Ber. Even so. 180 

My object is to make your cause end 

well, 

2Q 



And not to push myself to power. Ex- 
perience, 
Some skill, and your own choice, had 

marked me out 
To act in trust as your commander, till 
Some worthier should appear : if I have 

found such 
As you yourselves shall own more 

worthy, think you 
That I would hesitate from selfishness. 
And, covetous of brief authority, 
Stake our deep interest on my single 

thoughts, 
Rather than yield to one above me 
in 190 

All leading qualities? No, Calendaro, 
Know your friend better; but you all 

shall judge. 
Away ! and let us meet at the fixed hour. 
Be vigilant, and all will yet go well. 
Cal. Worthy Bertuccio, I have known 
you ever 
Trusty and brave, with head and heart 

to plan 
What I have still been prompt to exe- 
cute. 
For my own part, I seek no other Chief ; 
What the rest will decide, I know not, 

but 
I am with you, as I have ever been, 200 
In all our undertakings. Now farewell, 
Until the hour of midnight sees us meet. 

[Exeunt. 

ACT III. 

Scene L — Scene, the Space between the 
Canal and the Church of San 
Giovanni e San Paolo. An eques- 
trian Statue before it. — A Gondola 
lies in the Canal at some distance. 

Enter the Doge alone, disguised. 

Doge {solus). I am before the hour, 
the hour whose voice. 

Pealing into the arch of night, might 
strike 

These palaces with ominous tottering. 

And rock their marbles to the corner- 
stone. 

Waking the sleepers from some hideous 
dream 

Of indistinct but aAvful augury 



594 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act III. 



Of that which will befall them. Yes, 

proud city ! 
Thou must be cleansed of the black 

blood which makes thee 
A lazar-house of tyranny: the task 
Is forced upon me, I have sought it not ; 
And therefore was I punished, seeing 

this 1 1 

Patrician pestilence spread on and 

on, 
Until at length it smote me in my 

slumbers, 
And I am tainted, and must wash away 
The plague spots in the healing wave. 

Tall fane ! 
Where sleep my fathers, whose dim 

statues shadow 
The floor which doth divide us from the 

dead. 
Where all the pregnant hearts of our 

bold blood, 
Mouldered into a mite of ashes, hold 
In one shrunk heap what once made 

many heroes, 20 

When what is now a handful shook the 

earth — 
Fane of the tutelar saints who guard our 

house ! 
Vault where two Doges rest — my sires ! 

who died 
The one of toil, the other in the field. 
With a long race of other lineal chiefs 
And sages, whose great labours, wounds, 

and state 
I have inherited, — let the graves gape, 
Till all thine aisles be peopled with the 

dead. 
And pour them from thy portals to gaze 

on me ! 
I call them up, and them and thee to 

witness 30 

What it hath been which put me to this 

task — 
Their pure high blood, their blazon-roll 

of glories. 
Their mighty name dishonoured all in 

me. 
Not by me, but by the ungrateful nobles 
We fought to make our equals, not our 

lords : 
And chiefly thou, Ordelafo the brave. 
Who perished in the field, where I since 

conquered, 



Battling at Zara, did the hecatombs 
Of thine and Venice' foes, there offered 

up 
By thy descendant, merit such acquaint- 
ance ? 40 
Spirits ! smile down upon me ! for my 

cause 
Is yours, in all life now can be of 

yours, — 
Your fame, your name, all mingled up 

in mine. 
And in the future fortunes of our race ! 
Let me but prosper, and I make this 

city 
Free and immortal, and our House's 

name 
Worthier of what you were — now and 

hereafter ! 

Enter Israel Bertuccio. 

/. Ber. Who goes there ? 
Doge. A friend to Venice. 

/. Ber. 'Tis he. 

Welcome, my Lord, — you are before 
the time. 
Doge. I am ready to proceed to your 
assembly. 50 

/. Ber. Have with you. — I am 
proud and pleased to see 
Such confident alacrity. Your doubts ' 
Since our last meeting, then, are all dis- 
pelled ? 
Doge. Not so — but I have set my 
little left 
Of life upon this cast : the die was 

thrown 
When I first listened to your treason. — 

Start not ! 
That is the word; I cannot shape my 

tongue 
To syllable black deeds into smooth 

names. 
Though I be wrought on to commit 

them. When 
I heard you tempt your Sovereign, and 
forbore 60 

To have you dragged to prison, I be- 
came 
Your guiltiest accomplice: now you 

may. 
If it so please you, do as much by me. 
I. Ber. Strange words, my Lord, and 
most unmerited: 



Scene i.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



59S 



I am no spy, and neither are we traitors. 
Doge. We — We! — no matter — 

you have earned the right 
To talk of us. — But to the point. — If 

this 
Attempt succeeds, and Venice, rendered 

free 
And flourishing, when we are in our 

graves, 
Conducts her generations to our tombs. 
And makes her children with their 

little hands 71 

Strew flowers o'er her deliverers' ashes, 

then 
The consequence will sanctify the deed, 
And we shall be like the two Bruti in 
The annals of hereafter ; but if not. 
If we should fail, employing bloody 

means 
And secret plot, although to a good end, 
Still we are traitors, honest Israel ; — 

thou 
No less than he who was thy Sovereign 
Six hours ago, and now thy brother 

rebel. 80 

I. Ber. 'Tis not the moment to con- 
sider thus, 
Else I could answer. — Let us to the 

meeting. 
Or we may be observed in lingering 

here. 
Doge. We are observed, and have 

been. 
/. Ber. We observed ! 
Let me discover — and this steel — 

Doge. Put up; 

Here are no human witnesses: look 

there — 
What see you? 

I. Ber. Only a tall warrior's statue ^ 
Bestriding a proud steed, in the dim 

light 
Qf the dull moon. 

Doge. That Warrior was the sire 
Of my sire's fathers, and that statue 

was 90 

Decreed to him by the twice rescued 

city : — 
Think you that he looks down on us or 

no? 

' [The equestrian statue in front of the Church 
facing the Rio dei Mendicanti does not com- 
memorate a Faliero.] 



I. Ber. My Lord, these are mere 

fantasies ; there are 
No eyes in marble. 

Doge. But there are in Death. 

I tell thee, man, there is a spirit in 
Such things that acts and sees, unseen, 

though felt; 
And, if there be a spell to stir the dead, 
'Tis in such deeds as we are now upon. 
Deem' St thou the souls of such a race as 

mine 
Can rest, when he, their last descendant 

Chief, 100 

Stands plotting on the brink of their 

pure graves 
With stung plebeians? 

/. Ber. It had been as well 

To have pondered this before, — ere 

you embarked 
In our great enterprise. — Do you 

repent ? 
Doge. No — but I feel, and shall do 

to the last. 
I cannot quench a glorious life at 

once. 
Nor dwindle to the thing I now 

must be. 
And take men's lives by stealth, without 

some pause : 
Yet doubt me not; it is this very 

feeling, 
And knowing what has wrung me to be 

thus, lie 

Which is your best security. There's 

not 
A roused mechanic in your busy plot 
So wronged as I, so fall'n, so loudly 

called 
To his redress : the very means I '^am 

forced 
By these fell tyrants to adopt is such, 
That I abhor them doubly for the deeds 
Which I must do to pay them back for 

theirs. 
I. Ber. Let us away — hark — the 

Hour strikes. 
Doge. On — on — 

It is our knell, or that of Venice. — On. 
/. Ber. Say rather, 'tis her Freedom's 

rising peal 120 

Of Triumph. This way — we are near 

the place. 

[Exemit. 



596 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act III. 



Scene II. — The House where the 
Conspirators meet. 

Dagolino, Doro, Bertram, Fedele 
Trevisano, Calendaro, Antonio 
delle Bende, etc., etc. 

Cal. {entering). Are all here? 
Dag. All with you; except 

the three 
On duty and our leader Israel, 
Who is expected momently. 

Cal. Where's Bertram? 

Ber. Here! 

Cal. Have you not been able to 

complete 
The number wanting in your company ? 
Ber. I had marked out some : but I 
have not dared 
To trust them with the secret, till assured 
That they were worthy faith. 

Cal. There is no need 

Of trusting to their faith ; who, save our- 
selves 
And our more chosen comrades, is 
aware lo 

Fully of our intent? they think them- 
selves 
Engaged in secret to the Signory,^ 
To punish some more dissolute young 

nobles 
Who have defied the law in their ex- 
cesses ; 
But once drawn up, and their new 

swords well fleshed 
In the rank hearts of the more odious 

Senators, 
They will not hesitate to follow up 
Their blow upon the others, when they 

see 
The example of their chiefs, and I for 

one 
Will set them such, that they for very 
shame 20 

And safety will not pause till all have 
perished. 
Ber, How say you? all! 
Cal. Whom would' st thou spare? 
Ber. I spare? 

I have no power to spare. I only ques- 
tioned. 
Thinking that even amongst these 
wicked men 

' An historical fact. 



There might be some, whose age and 

qualities 
Might mark them out for pity. 

Cal. Yes, such pity 

As when the viper hath been cut to 

pieces. 
The separate fragments quivering in the 

sun. 
In the last energy of venomous life. 
Deserve and have. Why, I should think 

as soon 30 

Of pitying some particular fang which 

made 
One in the jaw of the swoln serpent, as 
Of saving one of these : they form but 

links 
Of one long chain; one mass, one 

breath, one body; 
They eat, and drink, and live, and breed 

together, 
Revel, and lie, oppress, and kill in con- 
cert, — 
So let them die as one ! 

Dag. Should one survive. 

He would be dangerous as the whole; 

it is not 
Their number, be it tens or thousands, 

but 
The spirit of this Aristocracy 40 

Which must be rooted out ; and if there 

were 
A single shoot of the old tree in life, 
'Twould fasten in the soil, and spring 

again 
To gloomy verdure and to bitter fruit. 
Bertram, we must be firm ! 

Cal. Look to it well 

Bertram ! I have an eye upon thee. 

Ber. Who 

Distrusts me? 

Cal. Not I : for if I did so. 

Thou wouldst not now be there to talk 

of trust : 
It is thy softness, not thy want of faith, 
Which makes thee to be doubted. 

Ber. You should know 50 

Who hear me, who and what I am; a 

man 
Roused like yourselves to overthrow 

oppression ; 
A kind man, I am apt to think, as some 
Of you have found me; and if brave 

or no, 



Scene ii.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



597 



You, Calendaro, can pronounce, who 

have seen me 
Put to the proof ; or, if you should have 

doubts, 
I'll clear them on your person ! 

Cal. You are welcome, 

When once our enterprise is o'er, which 

must not 
Be interrupted by a private brawl. 
Ber. I am no brawler; but can bear 

myself 60 

As far among the foe as any he 
Who hears me; else why have I been 

selected 
To be of your chief comrades ? but no less 
I own my natural weakness ; I have not 
Yet learned to think of indiscriminate 

murder 
Without some sense of shuddering; and 

the sight 
Of blood which spouts through hoary 

scalps is not 
To me a thing of triumph, nor the death 
Of man surprised a glory. Well — too 

well 
I know that we must do such things on 

those 70 

Whose acts have raised up such avengers ; 

but 
If there were some of these who could 

be saved 
From out this sweeping fate, for our own 

sakes 
And for our honour, to take off some 

stain 
Of massacre, which else pollutes it 

wholly, 
I had been glad ; and see no cause in this 
For sneer, nor for suspicion ! 

Dag. Calm thee, Bertram, 

For we suspect thee not, and take good 

heart. 
It is the cause, and not our will, which 

asks 
Such actions from our hands : we'll wash 

away 80 

All stains in Freedom's fountain ! 

Enter Israel Bertuccio, and the Doge, 
disguised. 

Dag. Welcome, Israel. 

Consp. Most welcome. — Brave Ber- 
tuccio, thou art late — 



Who is this stranger? 

Cal. It is time to name him. 

Our comrades are even now prepared to 

greet him 
In brotherhood, as I have made it 

known 
That thou wouldst add a brother to our 

cause, 
Approved by thee, and thus approved 

by all. 
Such is our trust in all thine actions. 

Now 
Let him unfold himself. 

I. Ber. Stranger, step forth ! 

[The Doge discovers himself. 

Consp. To arms ! — we are betrayed 

— it is the Doge ! 90 

Down with them both ! our traitorous 

captain, and 
The tyrant he hath sold us to. 

Cal. {drawing his sword) . Hold ! 

hold! 
Who moves a step against them dies. 

Hold ! hear 
Bertuccio — What ! are you appalled to 

see 
A lone, unguarded, weaponless old man 
Amongst you ? — Israel, speak ! what 

means this mystery? 
/. Ber. Let them advance and strike 

at their own bosoms. 
Ungrateful suicides ! for on our lives 
Depend their own, their fortunes, and 

their hopes. 
Doge. Strike ! — If I dreaded death, 

a death more fearful 100 

Than any your rash weapons can inflict, 
I should not now be here: Oh, noble 

Courage ! 
The eldest born of Fear, which makes 

you brave 
Against this solitary hoary head ! 
^ee the bold chiefs, who would reform a 

state 
And shake down senates, mad with 

wrath and dread 
At sight of one patrician ! Butcher me ! 
You can, I care not. — Israel, are these 

men 
The mighty hearts you spoke of? look 

upon them ! 
Cal. Faith ! he hath shamed us, and 

deservedly. no 



598 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act hi. 



Was this your trust in your true Cliief 

Bertuccio, 
To turn your swords against him and 

his guest ? 
Sheathe them, ami hear him. 

/. Bcr. 1 disdain to speak. 

They might and must liave ktiown a 

heart Uke mine 
Incapable of treachery; and the power 
They gave me to adopt all fitting means 
To further their design was ne'er abused. 
They might be certain that whoe'er was 

brought 
By me into this Council had been led 
To take his choice — as brother, or as 
victim. 1 20 

Doge. .\nd which am I to be? your 
actions leave 
Some cause to doubt the freedom of the 
choice. 
I. Bcr. My Lord, we would have 
perished here together, 
Had these rash men proceeded; but, 

behold, 
They are ashamed of that mad mo- 
ment's impulse. 
And droop their heads; believe me, they 

are such 
As I described them. — Speak to them. 
Cal. Aye, speak; 

We are all listening in wonder. 

/. Bcr. {addressing the conspirators). 
You are safe. 
Nay, more, almost triumphant — listen 

then, 
And know my words for truth. 

Doge. You see me here, 130 

As one of you hath said, an old, unarmed, 
Defenceless man; and yesterday you 

saw me 
Presiding in the hall of ducal state, 
Apparent Sovereign of our hundred isles. 
Robed in official purple, dealing out 
The edicts of a power which is not mine. 
Nor yours, but of our masters — the 

patricians. 
Why I was there you know, or think 

you know; 
Why I am here, he who hath been most 

wronged, 
He who amiMig you hath been most in- 
sulted, T40 
Outraged and trodden on, until he doubt 



If he be worm or nt>, may answer for me. 
Asking of his owi\ heart what brtuight 

him here. 
You know mv recent storv, all n\en know 

it, 
And judge of it far dillerently from those 
Who sate in judgnient to heap scorn on 

scorn. 
But spare me the recital — it is here, 
Here at my heart the outrage — but my 

words, 
.\lready spent in unavailing plaints, 
W^ould only show my feebleness the 

more, 150 

And I come here to strengthen even the 

strong. 
And urge them on to deeds, and not to 

war 
With woman's weapons; but I need not 

urge you. 
Our private wrongs have sprung from 

public vices, 
In this — I cannot call it common- 
wealth. 
Nor kingdom, which hath neither prince 

nor people. 
But all the sins of the old Spartan state 
Without its virtues — temperance and 

valour. 
The Lords of Laceda^mon were true 

.soldiers. 
But ours are Sybarites, while we are 

Helots, 160 

Of whom I am the lowest, most en- 
slaved ; 
Although dressed out to head a pageant, 

as 
The Greeks of yore made drunk their 

slaves to form 
\ pastime for their children. You are 

met 
To overthrow this monster of a State, 
This mockery of a Government, this 

spectre, 
\\'hich must be exorcised with blood, — 

and then 
\\'e will renew the times of Truth and 

Justice, 
Ci)ndensing in a fair free common- 
wealth 
Not rash equality but equal rights, 170 
Proportioned like the columns to the 

temple 



Scene ii.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



599 



Oiving and taking strength reciprocal, 

And making firm the whole with grace 
and beauty, 

So that no part could be removed without 

Infringement of the general symmetry. 

Jn operating this great change, I claim 

To he one of you — if you trust in me; 

Jf not, strike home, — my life is com- 
promised, 

Anfl I would rather fall by freemen's 
hands 
'han live another day to act the ty- 
rant 1 80 

As delegate of tyrants: such I am not. 

And never have been — read it in our 
annals; 

I can appeal to my fjast government 

In many lands and cities; they can tell 
you 

If I were an oppressor, or a man 

P'eeling and thinking for my fellow-men. 

Haply had I b.een what the Senate 
sought, 

A thing of robes and trinkets, dizened 
out 

To sit in state as for a Sovereign's pic- 
ture; 

A popular scourge, — a ready sentence- 
signer, igo 

A stick ler for the Senate and " the Forty," 

A sceptic of all measures which had not 

The sanction of "the Ten," * a council- 
fawner, 

A tool — a fool — a puppet, — they had 
ne'er 

Fosterefl the wretch who stung me. 
What T suffer 

Has reached me through my pity for the 
people ; 

That many know, and they who know 
not yet 

' ["The members of the Ten (// Consiglio de' 
Died) were elected in the Great Council for one 
year only, anrl were not re-eligible for the year 
after they had held office. Every month the Ten 
elected three of their own number as chiefs, or 
Capi of the Council. . . . The court con- 
sisted, besides the Ten, of the Doge and his six 
councillors, seventeen members in all, of whom 
twelve were necessary to make a quorum. Dne 
of the Avogadori di Comun, or State advocates, 
was always present, without the fx)wer to vote, 
but to act as clerk to the court, informing it of 
the law, and correcting it where its procedure 
seemed informal." Venice, an Ifislar.ical Sketch, 
by Horatio I'". Brown, 1893, PP- ^77' ^l^-\ 



Will one day learn: meantime I do 

devote, 
Whate'er the issue, my last davs of 

life — 
My pre.sent prjwer such as it i.s, not that 
Of Doge, but of a man who has been 

great 201 

Before he was degraded to a Doge, 
And .still has individual means and 

mind; 
I stake my fame (and I had fame) — 

my breath — 
CThe lea.st of all, for its last hours are 

nigh) 
My heart — my hope — my soul — 

upon this ca.st ! 
Such as I am, I offer me to you 
And to your chiefs; accept me or reject 

me, — 
A Prince who fain would be a Citizen 
Or nothing, and who has left his throne 

to be .so. 210 

Cal. Long live Faliero ! — Venice 

shall be free ! 
Cons p. Long live Faliero ! 
/. Ber. Comrades! did I well? 

Is not this man a host in such a cause? 
Doge. This is no time for eulogies, 

nor place 
For exultation. Am I one of you? 
Cal. Aye, and the first among us, as 

thou hast been 
Of Venice — be our General and Chief. 
Doge. Chief ! — General ! — I was 

General at Zara, 
And Chief in Rhodes and Cyprus, Prince 

in Venice: 
I cannot stoop — that is, I am not fit 
To lead a band of — patriots : when I 

lay 221 

Aside the dignities which I have borne, 
'Tis not to put on others, but to be 
Mate to my fellows — but now to the 

point: 
Israel has stated to me your whole plan — 
'Tis bold, but feasible if I assist it, 
And mu.st be set in motion instantly. 
Cal. E'en when thou wilt. Is'it not 

so, my friends? 
I have dispo.sed all for a sudden blow; 
When shall it be then ? 
Doge. At sunrise. 

Ber. So soon ? 230 



6oo 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act III. 



Doge. So soon ? — so late — each 

hour accumulates 
Peril on peril, and the more so now 
Since I have mingled with you; — know 

you not 
The Council, and "the Ten"? the 

spies, the eyes 
Of the patricians dubious of their slaves, 
And now more dubious of the Prince 

they have made one? 
I tell you, you must strike, and suddenly, 
Full to the Hydra's heart — its heads 

will follow. 
Cal. With all my soul and sword, I 

yield assent; 
Our companies are ready, sixty each, 
And all now under arms by Israel's 

order; 241 

Each at their different place of rendez- 
vous. 
And vigilant, expectant of some blow; 
Let each repair for action to his post ! 
And now, my Lord, the signal ? 

Doge. When you hear 

The great bell of Saint Mark's, which 

may not be 
Struck without special order of the 

Doge 
(The last poor privilege they leave their 

Prince), 
March on Saint Mark's ! 

/. Ber. And there ? — 

Doge. By different routes 

Let your march be directed, every sixty 
Entering a separate avenue, and still 251 
Upon the way let your cry be of War 
And of the Genoese Fleet, by the first 

dawn 
Discerned before the port; form round 

the palace, 
Within whose court will be drawn out in 

arms 
My nephew and the cHents of our house. 
Many and martial; while the bell tolls 

on, 
Shout ye, "Saint Mark ! — the foe is on 

our waters!" 
Cai. I see it now — but on, my noble 

Lord. 
Doge. All the patricians flocking to 

the Council, 260 

(Which they dare not refuse, at the 

dread signal 



Pealing from out their Patron Saint's 

proud tower,) 
Will then be gathered in unto the 

harvest, 
And we will reap them with the sword 

for sickle. 
If some few should be tardy or absent 

them, 
'Twill be but to be take^ faint and 

single. 
When the majority are put to rest. 
Cal. Would that the hour were come ! 

we will not scotch, 
But kill. 

Ber. Once more, sir, with your par- 
don, I 
Would now repeat the question which I 

asked 270 

Before Bertuccio added to our cause 
This great ally who renders it more sure. 
And therefore safer, and as such admits 
Some dawn of mercy tp a portion of 
Our victims — • must all perish in this 

slaughter ? 
Cal. All who encounter me and 

mine — be sure, 
The mercy they have shown, I show. 

Consp. All! all! 

Is this a time to talk of pity ? when 
Have they e'er shown, or felt, or feigned 

it? 
I. Ber. Bertram, 

This false compassion is a folly, and 280 
Injustice to thy comrades and thy cause ! 
Dost thou not see, that if we single out 
Some for escape, they live but to avenge 
The fallen? and how distinguish now 

the innocent 
From out the guilty? all their acts are 

one — 
A single emanation from one body. 
Together knit for our oppression ! 'Tis 
Much that we let their children live; I 

doubt 
If all of these even should be set apart: 
The hunter may reserve some single cub 
From out the tiger's litter, but whoe'er 
Would seek to save the spotted sire or 

dam, 292 

Unless to perish by their fangs? how- 
ever, 
I will abide by Doge Faliero's counsel: 
Let him decide if any should be saved. 



Scene ii.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



60 ] 



Doge. Ask me not — tempt me not 
with such a question — 

Decide yourselves. 

/. Ber. You know their private virtues 

Far better than we can, to whom alone 

Their public vices, and most foul op- 
pression, 

Have made them deadly; if there be 
amongst them 300 

One who deserves to be repealed, pro- 
nounce. 
Doge. Dolfino's father was my friend, 
and Lando 

Fought by my side, and Marc Cornaro 
shared 

My Genoese embassy: I saved the life 

Of Veniero — shall I save it twice ? 

Would that I could save them and 
Venice also ! 

All these men, or their fathers, were my 
friends 

Till they became my subjects; then fell 
from me 

As faithless leaves drop from the o'er- 
blown flower. 

And left me a lone bHghted thorny 
stalk, 310 

Which, in its solitude, can shelter noth- 
ing; 

So, as they let me wither, let them 
perish ! 
Cal. They cannot co-exist with 

Venice' freedom ! 
Doge. Ye, though you know and feel 
our mutual mass 

Of many wrongs, even ye are ignorant 

V'/hat fatal poison to the springs of Life, 

To human ties, and all that's good and 
dear, 

Lurks in the present institutes of Venice: 

All these men were my friends; I loved 
them, they 

Requited honourably my regards; 320 

We served and fought; we smiled and 
wept in concert; 

We revelled or we sorrowed side by 
side; 

We made alliances of blood and mar- 
riage ; 

We grew in vears and honours fairlv, — 
till 

Their own desire, not my ambition, 
made 



Them choose me for their Prince, and 

then farewell ! 
Farewell all social memory ! all thoughts 
In common ! and sweet bonds which 

link old friendships, 
When the survivors of long years and 

actions. 
Which now belong to history, soothe the 

Which yet remain by treasuring each 

other. 
And never meet, but each beholds the 

mirror 
Of half a century on his brother's brow. 
And sees a hundred beings, now in 

earth, 
Flit round them whispering of the days 

gone by. 
And seeming not all dead, as long as tw^o 
Of the brave, joyous, reckless, glorious 

band. 
Which once were one and many, still 

retain 
A breath to sigh for them, a tongue to 

speak 
Of deeds that else were silent, save on 

marble — 340 

Oime I Oime ! — and must I do this 

deed? 
I. Ber. My Lord, you are much 

moved: it is not now 
That such things must be dwelt upon. 

Doge. Your patience 

A moment — I recede not : mark with 

me 
The gloomy vices of this government. 
From the hour they made me Doge, the 

Doge THEY made me — 
Farewell the past ! I died to all that had 

been, 
Or rather they to me: no friends, no 

kindness, 
No privacy of life — all were cut off: 
They came not near me — such ap- 
proach gave umbrage; 350 
They could not love me — such was not 

the law; 
They thwarted me — 'twas the state's 

policy; 
They baffled me — 'twas a patrician's 

duty; 
They wronged me, for such was to right 

the state; 



6o2 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act III. 



They could not right me — that would 

give suspicion, 
So that I was a slave to my own sub- 
jects; 
So that I was a foe to my own friends; 
Begirt with spies for guards, with robes 

for power, 
With pomp for freedom, gaolers for a 

council. 
Inquisitors for friends, and Hell for life ! 
I had only one fount of quiet left, 361 
And that they poisoned ! My pure 

household gods 
Were shivered on my hearth, and o'er 

their shrine 
Sate grinning Ribaldry, and sneering 

Scorn. 
I. Ber. You have been deeply 

wronged, and now shall be 
Nobly avenged before another night. 
Doge. I had borne all — it hurt me, 

but I bore it — 
Till this last running over of the cup 
Of bitterness — until this last loud 

insult, 
Not only unredressed, but sanctioned; 

then, 370 

And thus, I cast all further feelings from 

me — - 
The feelings which they crushed for 

me, long, long 
Before, even in their oath of false 

allegiance ! 
Even in that very hour and vow, they 

abjured 
Their friend and made a Sovereign, as 

boys make 
Playthings, to do their pleasure — and 

be broken ! 
I from that hour have seen but Senators 
In dark suspicious conflict with the Doge, 
Brooding with him in mutual hate and 

fear; 
They dreading he should snatch the 

tyranny 380 

From out their grasp, and he abhorring 

tyrants. 
To me, then, these men have no private 

life. 
Nor claim to ties they have cut off from 

others; 
As Senators for arbitrary acts 
Amenable, I look on them — as such 



Let them be dealt upon. 

Cal. And now to action ! 

Hence, brethren, to our posts, and may 

this be 
The last night of mere words: I'd fain 

be doing! 
Saint Mark's great bell at dawn shall 

find me wakeful ! 
/. Ber. Disperse then to your posts: 

be firm and vigilant; 390 

Think on the wrongs we bear, the rights 

we claim. 
This day and night shall be the last of 

peril ! 
Watch for the signal, and then march. 

I go 
To join my band; let each be prompt 

to marshal 
His separate charge: the Doge will now 

return 
To the palace to prepare all for the blow. 
We part to meet in Freedom and in 

Glory ! 
Cal. Doge, when I greet you next, 

my homage to you 
Shall be the head of Steno on this 

sword ! 
Doge. No; let him be reserved unto 

the last, 400 

Nor turn aside to strike at such a prey, 
Till nobler game is quarried: his offence 
Was a mere ebullition of the vice, 
The general corruption generated 
By the foul Aristocracy: he could not — • 
He dared not in more honourable days 
Have risked it. I have merged all 

private wrath 
Against him in the thought of our great 

purpose. 
A slave insults me — I require his pun- 
ishment 
From his proud master's hands; if he 

refuse it, 410 

The offence grows his, and let him 

answer it. 
Cal. Yet, as the immediate cause of 

the alliance 
Which consecrates our undertaking 

more, 
I owe him such deep gratitude, that fain 
I would repay him as he merits; may I ? 
Doge. You would but lop the hand, 

and I the head; 



Scene ii.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



603 



You would but smite the scholar, I the 

master; 
You would but punish Steno, I the 

Senate. 
I cannot pause on individual hate, 
In the absorbing, sweeping, whole 

revenge, 420 

Which, like the sheeted fire from 

Heaven, must blast 
Without distinction, as it fell of yore, 
Where the Dead Sea hath quenched two 

Cities' ashes. 
7. Ber. Away, then, to your posts ! 

I but remain 
A moment to accompany the Doge 
To our late place of tryst, to see no 

spies 
Have been upon the scout, and thence I 

hasten 
To where my allotted band is under 

arms. 
Cal. Farewell, then, — until dawn ! 
I. Ber. Success go with you ! 

Consp. We will not fail — Away ! 

My Lord, farewell! 4^0 

[The Conspirators salute the Doge 
and Israel Bertuccio, and retire, 
headed by Philip Calendaro. 
The Doge and Israel Bertuccio 
remain. 

I. Ber. We have them in the toil — 

it cannot fail ! 
Now thou'rt indeed a Sovereign, and 

wilt make 
A name immortal greater than the 

greatest : 
Free citizens have struck at Kings ere 

now; 
Caesars have fallen, and even patrician 

hands 
Have crushed dictators, as the popular 

steel 
Has reached patricians : but, until this 

hour, 
What Prince has plotted for his people's 

freedom ? 
Or risked a life to liberate his subjects ? 
For ever, and for ever, they conspire 440 
Against the people, to abuse their hands 
To chains, but laid aside to carry 

weapons 
Against the fellow-nations, so that yoke 



On yoke, and slavery and death may 
whet. 

Not glut, the never-gorged Leviathan ! 

Now, my Lord, to our enterprise; — 'tis 
great. 

And greater the reward ; why stand you 
rapt? 

A moment back, and you were all im- 
patience ! 
Doge. And is it then decided ! must 

thev die? 
I. Ber. Who? 

Doge. My own friends by blood and 
courtesy, 450 

And many deeds and days — the 
Senators ? 
/. Ber. You passed their sentence, 

and it is a just one. 
Doge. Aye, so it seems, and so it is 
to you; 

Your are a patriot, a plebeian Grac- 
chus — 

The rebel's oracle, the people's trib- 
une — ■ 

I blame you not — you act in your voca- 
tion; 

They smote you, and oppressed you, 
and despised you; 

So they have me: but you ne'er spake 
with them; 

You never broke their bread, nor shared 
their salt; 

You never had their wine-cup at your 
lips : 460 

You grew not up with them, nor laughed, 
nor wept, 

Nor held a revel in their company; 

Ne'er smiled to see them smile, nor 
claimed their smile 

In social interchange for yours, nor 
trusted 

Nor wore them in your heart of hearts, 
as I have: 

These hairs of mine are grey, and so are 
theirs. 

The elders of the Council : I remember 

When all our locks were like the raven's 
wing, 

As we went forth to take our prey around 

The isles wrung from the false Mahome- 
tan; 470 

And can I see them dabbled o'er with 
blood ? 



6o4 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act III. 



Each stab to them will seem my suicide. 
/. Ber. Doge ! Doge ! this vacilla- 
tion is unworthy 

A child; if you are not in second child- 
hood, 

Call back your nerves to your own pur- 
pose, nor 

Thus shame yourself and me. By 
Heavens ! I'd rather 

Forego even now, or fail in our intent, 

Than see the man I venerate subside 

From high resolves into such shallow 
weakness ! 

You have seen blood in battle, shed it, 
both 

Your own and that of others; can you 
shrink then 

From a few drops from veins of hoary 
vampires, 

Who but give back what they have 
drained from millions? 
Doge. Bear with me ! Step by step, 
and blow on blow, 

I will divide with you; think not I 
waver : 

Ah ! no; it is the certainty of all 

Which I must do doth make me tremble 
thus. 

But let these last and lingering thoughts 
have way, 

To which you only and the night are 
conscious. 

And both regardless; when the Hour 
arrives, 490 

'Tis time to sound the knell, and strike 
the blow, 

Which shall unpeople many palaces. 

And hew the highest genealogic trees 

Down to the earth, strewed with their 
bleeding fruit, 

And crush their blossoms into barren- 
ness: 

This will I — - must I — have I sworn 
to do, 

Nor aught can turn me from my des- 
tiny; 

But still I quiver to behold what I 

Must be, and think what I have been ! 
Bear with me. 
7. Ber. Re-man your breast; I feel 
no such remorse, 500 

I understand it not: why should you 
change ? 



You acted, and you act, on your free will. 
Doge. Aye, there it is — you feel not, 
nor do I, 

Else I should stab thee on the spot, to 
save 

A thousand lives — and, killing, do no 
murder; 

You jeel not — you go to this butcher- 
work 

As if these high-born men were steers 
for shambles: 

When all is over, you'll be free and 
merry. 

And calmly wash those hands incarna- 
dine; 509 

But I, outgoing thee and all thy fellows 

In this surpassing massacre, shall be. 

Shall see and feel ! — oh God ! oh God ! 
'tis true. 

And thou dost well to answer that it was 

" My own free will and act," and yet you 
err. 

For I will do this ! Doubt not — fear 
not; I 

Will be your most unmerciful accom- 
plice ! 

And yet I act no more on my free will, 

Nor my own feelings — both compel me 
back; 

But there is Hell within me and around. 

And like the Demon who believes and 
trembles 520 

Must I abhor and do. Away ! away ! 

Get thee unto thy fellows, I will hie me 

To gather the retainers of our house. 

Doubt not, St Mark's great bell shall 
wake all Venice, 

Except her slaughtered Senate: ere the 
Sun 

Be broad upon the Adriatic there 

Shall be a voice of weeping, which shall 
drown 

The roar of waters in the cry of blood ! 

I am resolved — come on. 

I. Ber. With all my soul ! 

Keep a firm rein upon these bursts of 
passion; 530 

Remember what these men have dealt 
to thee. 

And that this sacrifice will be succeeded. 

By ages of prosperity and freedom 

To this unshackled city : a true tyrant 

Would have depopulated empires, nor 



Scene i.J 



MARINO FALIERO 



605 



Have felt the strange compunction which 
hath wrung you 

To punish a few traitors to the people. 

Trust me, such were a pity more mis- 
placed 

Than the late mercy of the state to Steno. 

Doge. Man, thou hast struck upon 

the chord which jars 540 

All nature from my heart. Hence to 
our task ! 

{Exeunt. 

ACT IV. 

Scene I. — Palazzo of the Patrician 
LiONi. LiONi laying aside the 
mask and cloak which the Venetian 
Nobles wore in public, attended by 
a Domestic. 

Lioni. I will to rest, right weary of 

this revel. 
The gayest we have held for many 

moons. 
And yet — I know not why — it cheered 

me not; 
There came a heaviness across my heart, 
Which, in the lightest movement of the 

dance, 
Though eye to eye, and hand in hand 

united 
Even with the Lady of my Love, op- 
pressed me, 
And through my spirit chilled my blood, 

until 
A damp like Death rose o'er my brow; 

I strove 
To laugh the thought away, but 'twould 

not be; 10 

Through all the music ringing in my 

ears 
A knell was sounding as distinct and 

clear, 
Though low and far, as e'er the Adrian 

wave 
Rose o'er the City's murmur in the 

night. 
Dashing against the outward Lido's 

bulwark : 
So that I left the festival before 
It reached its zenith, and will woo my 

pillow 
For thoughts more tranquil, or forgetful- 



Antonio, take my mask and cloak, and 

light 
The lamp within my chamber. 

Ant. Yes, my Lord: 20 

Command you no refreshment? 

Lioni. Nought, save 

sleep. 
Which will not be commanded. Let me 

hope it, [Exit Antonio. 

Though my breast feels too anxious; 

I will try 
Whether the air will calm my spirits: 

'tis 
A goodly night; the cloudy wind which 

blew 
From the Levant hath crept into its 

cave. 
And the broad Moon hath brightened. 

What a stillness ! 

{Goes to an open lattice. 
And what a contrast with the scene I 

left. 
Where the tall torches' glare, and silver 

lamps' 
More pallid gleam along the tapestried 

walls, 30 

Spread over the reluctant gloom which 

haunts 
Those vast and dimly-latticed galleries 
A dazzling mass of artificial light. 
Which showed all things, but nothing as 

they were. 
There Age essaying to recall the past. 
After long striving for the hues of 

Youth 
At the sad labour of the toilet, and 
Full many a glance at the too faithful 

mirror. 
Pranked forth in all the pride of orna- 
ment. 
Forgot itself, and trusting to the false- 
hood 40 
Of the indulgent beams, which show, 

yet hide. 
Believed itself forgotten, and was fooled. 
There Youth, which needed not, nor 

thought of such 
Vain adjuncts, lavished its true bloom, 

and health, 
And bridal beauty, in the unwholesome 

press 
Of flushed and crowded wassailers, and 

wasted 



6o6 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act IV. 



Its hours of rest in dreaming this was 

pleasure, 
And so shall waste them till the sunrise 

streams 
On sallow cheeks and sunken eyes, which 

should not 
Have worn this aspect yet for many a 

year. 50 

The music, and the banquet, and the 

wine. 
The garlands, the rose odours, and the 

flowers, 
The sparkling eyes, and flashing orna- 
ments, 
The white arms and the raven hair, the 

braids 
And bracelets; swanlike bosoms, and 

the necklace. 
An India in itself, yet dazzling not 
The eye like what it circled; the thin 

robes, 
Floating like light clouds 'twixt our 

gaze and heaven; 
The many-twinkling feet so small and 

sylph-like. 
Suggesting the more secret symmetry 60 
Of the fair forms which terminate so 

well — 
All the delusion of the dizzy scene. 
Its false and true enchantments — Art 

and Nature, 
Which swam before my giddy eyes, that 

drank 
The sight of beauty as the parched pil- 
grims 
On Arab sands the false mirage, which 

offers 
A lucid lake to his eluded thirst, 
Are gone. Around me are the stars and 

waters — 
Worlds mirrored in the Ocean, goodlier 

sight 
Than torches glared back by a gaudy 

glass; 70 

And the great Element, which is to space 
What Ocean is to Earth, spreads its blue 

depths. 
Softened with the first breathings of the 

spring; 
The high Moon sails upon her beauteous 

way. 
Serenely smoothing o'er the lofty walls 
Of those tall piles and sea-girt palaces, 



Whose porphyry pillars, and whose 

costly fronts. 
Fraught with the Orient spoil of many 

marbles, 
Like altars ranged along the broad canal. 
Seem each a trophy of some mighty 

deed 80 

Reared up from out the waters, scarce 

less strangely 
Than those more massy and mysterious 

giants 
Of architecture, those Titanian fabrics, 
Which point in Egypt's plains to times 

that have 
No other record. All is gentle : nought 
Stirs rudely; but, congenial with the 

night. 
Whatever walks is gliding like a spirit. 
The tinklings of some vigilant guitars 
Of sleepless lovers to a wakeful mistress, 
And cautious opening of the casement, 

showing 90 

That he is not unheard ; while her young 

hand. 
Fair as the moonlight of which it seems 

part. 
So delicately white, it trembles in 
The act of opening the forbidden lattice, 
To let in love through music, makes his 

heart 
Thrill like his lyre-strings at the sight; 

the dash 
Phosphoric of the oar, or rapid twinkle 
Of the far lights of skimming gondolas. 
And the responsive voices of the choir 
Of boatmen answering back with verse 

for verse; 100 

Some dusky shadow checkering the 

Rialto; 
Some glimmering palace roof, or taper- 
ing spire. 
Are all the sights and sounds which 

here pervade 
The ocean-born and earth-commanding 

City — 
How sweet and soothing is this hour of 

calm ! 
I thank thee. Night ! for thou hast 

chased away 
Those horrid bodements which, amidst 

the throng, 
I could not dissipate : and with the bless- 
ing 



Scene i.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



607 



Of thy benign and quiet influence, 
Now will I to my couch, although to 

rest no 

Is almost wronging such a night as 

this. — 
{A knocking is heard jrom without. 
Hark ! what is that ? or who at such a 

moment ? 

Enter Antonio. 

Ant. My Lord, a man without, on 
urgent business, 
Implores to be admitted. 

Lioni. Is he a stranger? 

Ant. His face is mufSed in his cloak, 
but both 
His voice and gestures seem familiar to 

me; 
I craved his name, but this he seemed 

reluctant 
To trust, save to yourself; most ear- 
nestly 
He sues to be permitted to approach 
you. 
Lioni. 'Tis a strange hour, and a 
suspicious bearing ! 1 20 

And yet there is slight peril: 'tis not in 
Their houses noble men are struck at; 

still. 
Although I know not that I have a foe 
In Venice, 'twill be wise to use some 

caution. 
Admit him, and retire; but call up 

quickly 
Some of thy fellows, who may wait 

without. — 
Who can this man be ? — 

[Exit Antonio, and returns with 
Bertram muffled. 
Ber. My good Lord Lioni, 

I have no time to lose, nor thou, — dis- 
miss 
This menial hence; I would be private 
with you. 
Lioni. It seems the voice of Bertram 
— Go, Antonio. 130 

[Exit Antonio. 
Now, stranger, what would you at such 
an hour? 
Ber. (discovering himself). A boon, 
my noble patron ; you have granted 
Many to your poor chent, Bertram; add 
This one, and make him happy. 



Lioni. Thou hast known me 

From boyhood, ever ready to assist thee 

In all fair objects of advancement, 
which 

Beseem one of thy station; I would 
promise 

Ere thy request was heard, but that the 
hour, 

Thy bearing, and this strange and hur- 
ried mode 

Of suing, gives me to suspect this visit 

Hath some mysterious import — but 
say on — 141 

What has occurred, some rash and sud- 
den broil ? — • 

A cup too much, a scuffle, and a stab ? 

Mere things of every day; so that thou 
hast not 

Spilt noble blood, I guarantee thy 
safety ; 

But then thou must withdraw, for angry 
friends 

And relatives, in the first burst of ven- 
geance, 

Are things in Venice deadlier than the 
laws. 
Ber. My Lord, I thank you ; but — 
Lioni. But what? 

You have not 

Raised a rash hand against one of our 
order ? 

If so — withdraw and fly 
not; 

I would not slay — but then I must not 
save thee ! 

He who has shed patrician blood — ■ 
Ber. I come 

To save patrician blood, and not to 
shed it ! 

And thereunto I must be speedy, for 

Each minute lost may lose a life; since 
Time 

Has changed his slow scythe for the two- 
edged sword. 

And is about to take, instead of sand, 

The dust from sepulchres to fill his hour- 
glass ! — 

Go not thou forth to-morrow ! 

Lioni. Wherefore not? — 160 

What means this menace? 

Ber. Do not seek its meaning, 

But do as I implore thee; — stir not 
forth, 



150 
and own it 



6o8 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act IV, 



Whate'er be stirring; though the roar of 

crowds — 
The cry of women, and the shrieks of 

babes — 
The groans of men — the clash of arms 

— the sound 

Of rolHng drum, shrill trump, and hol- 
low bell. 

Peal in one wide alarum ! — Go not 
forth, 

Until the Tocsin's silent, nor even then 

Till I return ! 

Lioni. Again, what does this mean? 

Ber. Again, I tell thee, ask not; but 

by all 170 

Thou holdest dear on earth or Heaven 

— by all 

The Souls of thy great fathers, and thy 

hope 
To emulate them, and to leave behind 
Descendants worthy both of them and 

thee — 
By all thou hast of blessed in hope or 

memory — 
By all thou hast to fear here or here- 
after — 
By all the good deeds thou hast done to 

me, 
Good I would now repay with greater 

good, 
Remain within — trust to thy household 

gods. 
And to my word for safety, if thou dost, 
As I now counsel — but if not, thou art 

lost! 181 

Lioni. I am indeed already lost in 

wonder; 
Surely thou ravest ! what have / to 

dread ? 
Who are my foes ? or if there be such, 

why 
Art thou leagued with them? — thou! 

or, if so leagued. 
Why comest thou to tell me at this hour, 
And not before? 

Ber, I cannot answer this. 

Wilt thou go forth despite of this true 

warning? 
Lioni. I was not born to shrink from 

idle threats. 
The cause of which I know not : at the 

hour 190 

Of council, be it soon or late, I shall not 



Be found among the absent. 

Ber. Say not so! 

Once more, art thou determined to go 

forth? 
Lioni. I am. Nor is there aught 

which shall impede me ! 
Ber. Then, Heaven have mercy on 

thy soul ! — Farewell ! [Going. 

Lioni. Stay — there is more in this 

than my own safety 
Which makes me call thee back; we 

must not part thus: 
Bertram, I have known thee long. 

Ber. From childhood, Signor, 

You have been my protector: in the 

days 
Of reckless infancy, when rank forgets. 
Or, rather, is not yet taught to remem- 
ber 201 
Its cold prerogative, we played together; 
Our sports, our smiles, our tears, were 

mingled oft; 
My father was your father's client, I 
His son's scarce less than foster-brother; 

years 
Saw us together — happy, heart-full 

hours ! 
Oh God ! the difference 'twixt those 

hours and this ! 
Lioni. Bertram, 'tis thou who hast 

forgotten them. 
Ber. Nor now, nor ever; whatsoe'er 

betide, 
I would have saved you : when to Man- 
hood's growth 210 
We sprung, and you, devoted to the 

state. 
As suits your station, the more humble 

Bertram 
Was left unto the labours of the humble, 
Still you forsook me not; and if my 

fortunes 
Have not been towering, 'twas no fault 

of him 
Who ofttimes rescued and supported me, 
When struggling with the tides of Cir- 
cumstance, 
Which bear away the weaker: noble 

blood 
Ne'er mantled in a nobler heart than 

thine 
Has proved to me, the poor plebeian 

Bertram. 220 



Scene i.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



609 



Would that thy fellow Senators were like 

thee! 
Lioni. Why, what hast thou to say 

against the Senate? 
Ber. Nothing. 
Lioni. I know that there are angry 

spirits 
And turbulent mutterers of stifled 

treason, 
Who lurk in narrow places, and walk 

out 
Muffled to whisper curses to the night; 
Disbanded soldiers, discontented ruf- 
fians, 
And desperate libertines who brawl in 

taverns ; 
Thou herdest not with such : 'tis true, of 

late 
I have lost sight of thee, but thou wert 

wont 230 

To lead a temperate life, and break thy 

bread 
With honest mates, and bear a cheerful 

aspect. 
What hath come to thee ? in thy hollow 

eye 
And hueless cheek, and thine unquiet 

motions, 
Sorrow and Shame and Conscience seem 

at war 
To waste thee. 

Ber. Rather Shame and Sorrow light 
On the accursed tyranny which rides 
The very air in Venice, and makes 

men 
Madden as in the last hours of the plague 
Which sweeps the soul deliriously from 

life ! 240 

Lioni. Some villains have been tam- 
pering with thee, Bertram; 
This is not thy old language, nor own 

thoughts ; 
Some wretch has made thee drunk with 

disaffection : 
But thou must not be lost so ; thou wert 

good 
And kind, and art not fit for such base 

acts 
As Vice and Villany would put thee to : 
Confess — confide in me — thou know'st 

my nature. 
What is it thou and thine are bound to 

do, 

2 R 



Which should prevent thy friend, the 

only son 
Of him who was a friend unto thy 

father, 250 

So that our good-will is a heritage 
We should bequeath to our posterity 
Such as ourselves received it, or aug- 
mented ; 
I say, what is it thou must do, that I 
Should deem thee dangerous, and keep 

the house 
Like a sick girl ? 

Ber. Nay, question me no further: 
I must be gone. — 

Lioni. And I be murdered ! — say. 
Was it not thus thou said'st, my geiitle 

Bertram ? 
Ber. Who talks of murder? what 

said I of murder? 
'Tis false ! I did not utter such a 

word. 260 

Lioni. Thou didst not ; but from out 

thy wolfish eye. 
So changed from what I knew it, there 

glares forth 
The gladiator. If my life's thine object, 
Take it — I am unarmed, — and then 

away! 
I would not hold my breath on such a 

tenure 
As the capricious mercy of such things 
As thou and those who have set thee to 

thy task-work. 
Ber. Sooner than spill thy blood, I 

peril mine; 
Sooner than harm a hair of thine, I 

place 
In jeopardy a thousand heads, and 

some 270 

As noble, nay, even nobler than thine 

own. 
Lioni. Aye, is it even so ? Excuse 

me, Bertram; 
I am not worthy to be singled out 
From such exalted hecatombs — who 

are they 
Th^t are in danger, and that make the 

danger ? 
Ber. Venice, and all that she inherits, 

are 
Divided like a house against itself. 
And so wall perish ere to-jiiorrow's twi- 
light ! 



6io 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act IV. 



Lioni. More mysteries, and awful 

ones ! But now, 
Or thou, or I, or both, it may be, are 280 
Upon the verge of ruin ; speak once out, 
And thou art safe and glorious : for 'tis 

more 
Glorious to save than slay, and slay i' 

the dark too — 
Fie, Bertram ! that was not a craft for 

thee ! 
How would it look to see upon a spear 
The head of him whose heart was open 

to thee ! 
Borne by thy hand before the shudder- 
ing people? 
And such may be my doom ; for here I 

swear, 
Whate'er the peril or the penalty 
Of thy denunciation, I go forth, 290 
Unless thou dost detail the cause, and 

show 
The consequence of all which led thee 

here ! 
Ber. Is there no way to save thee? 

minutes fly, 
And thou art lost ! — thou ! my sole 

benefactor, 
The only being who was constant to me 
Through every change. Yet, make me 

not a traitor ! 
Let me save thee — but spare my 

honour ! 
Lioni. Where 

Can lie the honour in a league of mur- 
der? 
And who are traitors save unto the 

state ? 
Ber. A league is still a compact, and 

more binding 300 

In honest hearts when words must 

stand for law ; 
And in my mind, there is no traitor like 
He whose domestic treason plants the 

poniard 
Within the breast which trusted to his 

truth. 
Lioni. And who will strike the steel 

to mine ? 
Ber. Not I; 

I could have wound my soul up to all 

things 
Save this. Thou must not die ! and 

think how dear 



Thy life is, when I risk so many lives, 

Nay, more, the Life of lives, the liberty 

Of future generations, not to be 310 

The assassin thou miscall'st me: — 
once, once more 

I do adjure thee, pass not o'er thy 
threshold ! 
Lioni. It is in vain — this moment 

I go forth. 
Ber. Then perish Venice rather than 
my friend ! 

I will disclose — ensnare — betray — 
destroy — 

Oh, what a villain I become for thee ! 
Lioni. Say, rather thy friend's sav- 
iour and the State's ! — 

Speak — pause not — all rewards, all 
pledges for 

Thy safety and thy welfare; wealth 
such as 

The state accords her worthiest ser- 
vants; nay, 320 

Nobility itself I guarantee thee. 

So that thou art sincere and penitent. 
Ber. I have thought again: it must 
not be — I love thee — ■ 

Thou knowest it — that I stand here is 
the proof. 

Not least though last ; but having done 
my duty 

By thee, I now must do it by my coun- 
try ! 

Farewell — we meet no more in life ! — 
farewell ! 
Lioni. What, ho ! — Antonio — 
Pedro — to the door ! 

See that none pass — arrest this man ! — 

Enter Antonio and other armed Domes- 
tics, who seize Bertram. 

Lioni {continues). Take care 

He hath no harm ; bring me my sword 
and cloak, 330 

And man the gondola with four oars — 
quick — [Exit Antonio. 

We will unto Giovanni Gradenigo's, 
And send for Marc Cornaro : — fear 

not, Bertram ; 
This needful violence is for thy safety, 
No less than for the general weal. 

Ber. Where wouldst thou 

Bear me a prisoner? 



Scene ii.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



6ii 



Lioni. Firstly to "the Ten"; 

Next to the Doge. 

Ber. To the Doge ? 

Lioni. Assuredly : 

Is he not Chief of the State ? 

Ber. Perhaps at sunrise — 

Lioni. What mean you ? — but we'll 

know anon. 

Ber. Art sure? 

Lioni. Sure as all gentle means can 

make; and if 340 

They fail, you know "the Ten" and 

their tribunal, 
And that St Mark's has dungeons, and 

the dungeons 
A rack. 

Ber. Apply it then before the dawn 
Now hastening into heaven. — One 

more such word. 
And you shall perish piecemeal, by the 

death 
T t>u: think to doom to me. 

Re-enter Antonio. 

Ant. The bark is ready. 

My Lord, and all prepared. 

Lioni. Look to the prisoner. 

Bertram, I'll reason with thee as we go 
To the Magnifico's, sage Gradenigo. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene II. — The Ducal Palace — The 
Doge's Apartment. 

The Doge and his Nephew Bertuccio 
Faliero. 

Doge. Are all the people of our house 

in muster? 
Ber. F. They are arrayed, and eager 
for the signal, 
Within our palace precincts at San 

Polo : 1 
I come for your last orders. 

Doge. It had been 

As well had there been time to have got 

together. 
From my own fief, Val di Marino, more 
Of our retainers — but it is too late. 
Ber. F. Methinks, my Lord, 'tis bet- 
ter as it is: 
A sudden swelling of our retinue 

' The Doge's family palace. 



Had waked suspicion; and, though 
fierce and trusty, 10 

The vassals of that district are too rude 

And quick in quarrel to have long main- 
tained 

The secret discipline we need for such 

A service, till our foes are dealt upon. 
Doge. True; but when once the 
signal has been given 

These are the men for such an enter- 
prise ; 

These city slaves have all their private 
bias, 

Their prejudice against or for this 
noble, 

Which may induce them to o'erdo or 
spare 

Where mercy may be madness; the 
fierce peasants, 20 

Serfs of my county of Val di Marino, 

Would do the bidding of their lord with- 
out 

Distinguishing for love or hate his foes ; 

Alike to them Marcello or Cornaro, 

A Gradenigo or a Foscari ; 

They are not used to start at those vain 
names. 

Nor bow the knee before a civic Senate ; 

A chief in armour is their Suzerain, 

And not a thing in robes. 

Ber. F. We are enough; 

And for the dispositions of our clients 30 

Against the Senate I will answer. 
Doge. Well, 

The die is thrown; but for a warlike 
service, 

Done in the field, commend me to my 
peasants : 

They made the sun shine through the 
host of Huns 

When sallow burghers slunk back to 
their tents. 

And cowered to hear their own vic- 
torious trumpet. 

If there be small resistance, vou will 
find 

These Citizens all Lions, like their 
Standard ; 

But if there's much to do, you'll wish, 
with me, 

A band of iron rustics at our backs. 40 
Ber. F. Thus thinking, I must mar- 
vel you resolve 



6l2 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act IV. 



To strike the blow so suddenly. 

Doge. Such blows 

Must be struck suddenly or never. 

When 
I had o'ermastered the weak false 

remorse 
Which yearned about my heart, too 

fondly yielding 
A moment to the feelings of old days, 
I was most fain to strike; and, firstly, 

that 
I might not yield again to such emotions ; 
And, secondly, because of all these men. 
Save Israel and Philip Calendaro, 50 
I know not well the courage or the faith : 
To-day might find 'mongst them a trai- 
tor to us. 
As yesterday a thousand to the Senate; 
But once in, with their hilts hot in their 

hands. 
They must on for their own sakes ; one 

stroke struck. 
And the mere instinct of the first-born 

Cain, 
Which ever lurks somewhere in human 

hearts. 
Though Circumstance may keep it in 

abeyance. 
Will urge the rest on like to wolves ; the 

sight 
Of blood to crowds begets the thirst of 

more, 60 

As the first wine-cup leads to the long 

revel ; 
And you will find a harder task to quell 
Than urge them when they have com- 
menced, but till 
That moment, a mere voice, a straw, 

a shadow, 
Are capable of turning them aside. — 
How goes the night? 

Ber. F. Almost upon the dawn. 

Doge. Then it is time to strike upon 

the bell. 
Are the men posted? 

Ber. F. By this time they are ; 

But they have orders not to strike, until 
They have command from you through 

me in person. 70 

Doge. 'Tis well. — Will the morn 

never put to rest 
These stars which twinkle yet o'er all 

the heavens? 



I am settled and bound up, and being so, 
The very effort which it cost me to 
Resolve to cleanse this Commonwealth 

with fire, 
Now leaves my mind more steady. I 
have wept, 

And trembled at the thought of this 
dread duty; 

But now I have put down all idle pas- 
sion. 

And look the growing tempest in the 
face. 

As doth the pilot of an Admiral Galley : 

Yet (wouldst thou think it, kinsman?) 
it hath been 81 

A greater struggle to me, than when 
nations 

Beheld their fate merged in the ap- 
proaching fight. 

Where I was leader of a phalanx, where 

Thousands were sure to perish — Yes, 
to spill ^^ 

The rank polluted current from the 
veins 

Of a few bloated despots needed more 

To steel me to a purpose such as made 

Timoleon immortal ^ than to face 

The toils and dangers of alife of war. 90 
Ber. F. It gladdens me to see your 
former wisdom^ 

Subdue the furies which so wrung you 
ere 

You were decided. 

Doge. It was ever thus 

With me ; the hour of agitation came 

In the iirst glimmerings of a purpose, 
when 

Passion had too much room to sway; 
but in 

The hour of action I have stood as 
calm 

As were the dead who lay around me: 
this 

They knew who made me what I am, 
and trusted 

To the subduing power which I pre- 
served 100 

Over my mood, when its first burst was 
spent. 

' [For Timoleon, who first saved, and after- 
wards slew his brother Timophanes, for aiming 
at sovereignty, see The Siege of Corinth, Hne 59, 
note I.] 



Scene ii.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



613 



But they were not aware that there are 

things 

iVhich make revenge a virtue by reflec- 
tion, 
nd not an impulse of mere anger; 
I though 
The laws sleep, Justice wakes, and 

injured souls 
ft do a public right with private wrong, 
nd justify their deeds unto them- 
; selves. — 
Methinks the day breaks — is it not so ? 

look. 
Thine eyes are clear with youth ; — the 

air puts on 
A morning freshness, and, at least to 

me, no 

The sea looks greyer through the lattice. 
Ber. F. True, 

The morn is dappling in the sky. 

Doge. Away then ! 

See that they strike without delay, and 

with 
The first toll from St Mark's, march on 

the palace 
With all our House's strength; here I 

will meet you; 
The Sixteen and their companies will 

move 
In separate columns at the self-same 

moment : 
Be sure you post yourself at the great 

Gate: 
I would not trust ''the Ten" except to 

us — 
The rest, the rabble of patricians, may 
Glut the more careless swords of those 

leagued with us. 121 

Remember that the cry is still "Saint 

Mark ! 
The Genoese are come — ho ! to the 



Saint Mark and Liberty ! " — Now — 

now to action ! 
Ber. F. Farewell then, noble Uncle ! 

we will meet 
In freedom and true sovereignty, or 

never ! 
Doge. Come hither, my Bertuccio — 

one embrace; 
Speed, for the day grows broader — 

send me soon 
A messenger to tell me how all goes 



When you rejoin our troops, and then 

sound — sound 130 

The storm-bell from St Mark's ! 

[Exit Bertuccio Faliero. 

Doge (solus). He is gone, 

And on each footstep moves a life. 'Tis 

done. 
Now the destroying Angel hovers o'er 
Venice, and pauses ere he pours the vial. 
Even as the eagle overlooks his prey. 
And for a moment, poised in middle air. 
Suspends the motion of his mighty 

wings, 
Then swoops with his unerring beak. 

Thou Day ! 
That slowly walk'st the waters ! march 

— march on — 
I would not smite i' the dark, but rather 

see 140 

That no stroke errs. And you, ye blue 

sea waves ! 
I have seen you dyed ere now, and 

deeply too. 
With Genoese, Saracen, and Hunnish 

gore. 
While that of Venice flowed too, but 

victorious : 
Now thou must wear an unmixed 

crimson; no 
Barbaric blood can reconcile us now 
Unto that horrible incarnadine. 
But friend or foe will roll in civic 

slaughter. 
And have I lived to fourscore years for 

this? 
I, who was named Preserver of the City ? 
I, at whose name the million's caps were 

flung 151 

Into the air, and cries from tens of 

thousands 
Rose up, imploring Heaven to send me 

blessings. 
And fame, and length of days — to see 

this day? 
But this day, black within the calendar. 
Shall be succeeded by a bright millen- 
nium. 
Doge Dandolo survived to ninety sum- 
mers 
To vanquish empires, and refuse their 

crown ; 
I will resign a crown, and make the 

state 



6i4 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act IV. 



Renew its freedom — but oh ! by what 

means? i6o 

The noble end must justify them. 

What 
Are a few drops of human blood? 'tis 

false, 
The blood of tyrants is not human ; they, 
Like to incarnate Molochs, feed on ours, 
Until 'tis time to give them to the 

tombs 
Which they have made so populous. — 

Oh World ! 
Oh Men ! what are ye, and our best 

designs, 
That we must work by crime to punish 

crime ? 
And slay as if Death had but this one 

gate. 
When a few years would make the 

sword superfluous? 170 

And I, upon the verge of th' unknown 

realm. 
Yet send so many heralds on before 

me? — 
I must not ponder this. \A pause. 

Hark ! was there not 
A murmur as of distant voices, and 
The tramp of feet in martial unison ? 
What phantoms even of sound our 

wishes raise ! 
It cannot be — the signal hath not 

rung — 
Why pauses it? My nephew's mes- 
senger 
Should be upon his way to me, and he 
Himself perhaps even now draws grat- 
ing back 180 
Upon its ponderous hinge the steep 

tower portal, 
Where swings the sullen huge oracular 

bell, 
Which never knells but for a princely 

death. 
Or for a state in peril, pealing forth 
Tremendous bodements; let it do its 

office. 
And be this peal its awfullest and last 
Sound till the strong tower rock ! — 

What! silent still? 
I would go forth, but that my post is 

here. 
To be the centre of reunion to 
The oft discordant elements which form 



Leagues of this nature, and to keep 
compact 1 9.1 

The wavering of the weak, in case of | 
conflict ; I 

For if they should do battle, 'twill bei 
here, 

Within the palace, that the strife will 
thicken : 

Then here must be my station, as be- 
comes 

The master-mover. — Hark ! he comes 
— he comes. 

My nephew, brave Bertuccio's messen- 
ger. — 

What tidings? Is he marching? hath 
he sped? 

They here ! — all's lost — yet will 1 1 
make an effort. 

Enter a SiGNOR of the Night, ^ with 
Guards, etc., etc. 

Sig. Doge, I arrest thee of high 

treason ! 
Doge. Me ! 200 

Thy Prince, of treason ? — Who are 

they that dare 
Cloak their own treason under such an 
order ? 
Sig. {showing his order). Behold my 

order from the assembled Ten. 
Doge. And where are they, and why 
assembled? no 
Such Council can be lawful, till the 

Prince 
Preside there, and that duty's mine : ^ 

on thine 
I charge thee, give me way, or marshal 

me 
To the Council chamber. 

Sig. Duke! it may not be: 

'"I Signori di Notte" held an important 
charge in the old republic. [The surveillance of 
the "sestieri" was assigned to the "Collegio dei 
Signori di notte al criminal." Six in all, they 
were at once police magistrates and superin- 
tendents of police.] 

"^ [The Doge overstates his authority. He 
could not preside without his Council "in the 
Maggior Consiglio, or in the Senate, or in the 
College; but four ducal councillors had the 
power to preside without the Doge. The Doge 
might not open despatches except in the presence 
of his Council, but his Council might open 
despatches in the absence of the Doge." — - 
Venetian Studies, by H. F. Brown, 1887, p. 189.] 



Scene ii.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



615 



Nor are they in the wonted Hall of 

Council, 
But sitting in the convent of Saint 

Saviour's. 210 

Doge. You dare to disobey me, then ? 

Sig. I serve 

The state, and needs must serve it 

faithfully ; 
My warrant is the will of those who rule 

it. 
Doge. And till that warrant has my 

signature 
It is illegal, and, as now applied. 
Rebellious. Hast thou weighed well 

thy life's worth, 
That thus you dare assume a lawless 

function ? 
Sig. 'Tis not my office to reply, but 

act — 
I am placed here as guard upon thy 

person. 
And not as judge to hear or to decide. 
Doge (aside). I must gain time. So 

that the storm-bell sound, 221 

All may be well yet. Kinsman, speed 

— speed — speed ! — 
Our fate is trembling in the balance, 

and 
Woe to the vanquished ! be they Prince 

and people. 
Or slaves and Senate — 

• [The great bell of St Mark's tolls. 

Lo ! it sounds — it tolls ! 

Doge {aloud). Hark, Signor of the 

Night ! and you, ye hirelings. 
Who wield your mercenary staves in 

fear. 
It is your knell. — Swell on, thou lusty 

peal ! 
Now, knaves, what ransom for your 

lives ? 
Sig. Confusion ! 

Stand to your arms, and guard the 

door — all's lost 230 

Unless that fearful bell be silenced 

soon. 
The officer hath missed his path or pur- 
pose, 
Or met some unforeseen and hideous 

obstacle. 
Anselmo, with thy company proceed 
Straight to the tower; the rest remain 

with me. [Exit part of the Guard. 



Doge. Wretch ! if thou wouldst have 

thy vile life, implore it; 
It is not now a lease of sixty seconds. 
Aye, send thy miserable ruffians forth; 
They never shall return. 

Sig. So let it be ! 

They die then in their duty, as will I. 
Doge. Fool ! the high eagle flies at 

nobler game 241 

Than thou and thy base myrmidons, — 

live on. 
So thou provok'st not peril by resistance, 
And learn (if souls so much obscured 

can bear 
To gaze upon the sunbeams) to be 

free. 
Sig. And learn thou to be captive. 

It hath ceased, 

[The bell ceases to toll. 
The traitorous signal, which was to 

have set 
The bloodhound mob on their patrician 

prey — 
The knell hath rung, but it is not the 

Senate's! 
Doge {after a pause). All's silent, 

and all's lost ! 
Sig. Now, Doge, denounce me 250 
As rebel slave of a revolted Council ! 
Have I not done my duty? 

Doge. Peace, thou thing! 

Thou hast done a worthy deed, and 

earned the price 
Of blood, and they who use thee will 

reward thee. 
But thou wert sent to watch and not to 

prate. 
As thou said'st even now — then do thine 

office. 
But let it be in silence, as behoves 

thee, 
Since, though thy prisoner, I am thy 

Prince. 
Sig. I did not mean to fail in the 

respect 
Due to your rank: in this I shall obey 

you. 260 

Doge {aside). There now is nothing 

left me save to die; 
And yet how near success ! I would 

have fallen. 
And proudly, in the hour of triumph, but 
To miss it thus ! — 



6i6 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act IV. 



Enter other Signors of the Night, 
with Bertuccio Faliero prisoner. 

2nd Sig. We took him in the act 

Of issuing from the tower, where, at his 

order, 
As delegated from the Doge, the 

signal 
Had thus begun to sound. 

15^ Sig. Are all the passes 

Which lead up to the palace well 

secured ? 
2nd Sig. They are — besides, it mat- 
ters not; the Chiefs 
Are all in chains, and some even now on 

trial — 270 

Their followers are dispersed, and many 

taken. 
Ber. F. Uncle ! 
Doge. It is in vain to war 

with Fortune; 
The glory hath departed from our 

house. 
Ber. F. Who would have deemed 

it ? — Ah ! one moment sooner ! 
Doge. That moment would have 

changed the face of ages; 
This gives us to Eternity — We'll 

meet it 
As men whose triumph is not in 

success. 
But who can make their own minds, all 

in all. 
Equal to every fortune. Droop not, 

'tis 
But a brief passage — I would go 

alone, 280 

Yet if they send us, as 'tis like, to- 
gether, 
Let us go worthy of our sires and 

selves. 
Ber. F. I shall not shame you, Uncle. 
15^ Sig. Lords, our orders 

Are to keep guard on both in separate 

chambers, 
Until the Council call ye to your trial. 
Doge. Our trial ! will they keep their 

mockery up 
Even to the last? but let them deal 

upon us, 
As we had dealt on them, but with less 

pomp. 
'Tis but a game of mutual homicides, 



Who have cast lots for the first death, 

and they 290 

Have won with false dice. — Who hath 

been our Judas? 
1st Sig. I am not warranted to 

answer that. 
Ber. F. I'll answer for thee — 'tis 

a certain Bertram, 
Even iuow deposing to the secret 

Giunta. 
Doge. Bertram, the Bergamask! 

With what vile tools ^ 
We operate to slay or save! This 

creature, 
Black with a double treason, now will 

earn 
Rewards and honours, and be stamped 

in story 
With the geese in the Capitol, which 

gabbled 
Till Rome awoke, and had an annual 

triumph, 300 

While Manhus, who hurled down the 

Gauls, was cast 
From the Tarpeian. 

1st Sig. He aspired to treason. 

And sought to rule the state. 

Doge. He saved the state. 

And sought but to reform what he re- 
vived — 
But this is idle — Come, sirs, do your 

work. 
1st Sig. Noble Bertuccio, we must 

now remove you 
Into an inner chamber. 

Ber. F. Farewell, Uncle ! 

If we shall meet again in life I know 

not. 
But they perhaps will let our ashes 

mingle. 
Doge. Yes, and our spirits, which 

shall yet go forth, 310 

And do what our frail clay, thus clogged, 

hath failed in ! 
They cannot quench the memory of 

those 
Who would have hurled them from 

their guilty thrones. 
And such examples will find heirs, 

though distant. 

' [A translation of Beltramo Bergatnasco, i.e. 
a native of the town and province of Bergamo, 
in the north of Italy.] 



Scene i.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



617 



ACT V. 

Scene I. — The Hall of the Council of 
Ten assembled with the additional 
Senators, who, on the Trials of the 
Conspirators for the Treason of 
Marino Faliero, composed what 
was called the Giunta, — Guards, 
Oncers, etc., etc. Israel Ber- 
Tuccio and Philip Calendaro as 
Prisoners. Bertram, Lioni, and 
Witnesses, etc. 

The Chief of the Ten, Benintende.^ 

Ben. There now rest, after such 

conviction of 
Their manifold and manifest offences. 
But to pronounce on these obdurate 

men 
The sentence of the Law: — a grievous 

task 
To those who hear, and those who 

speak. Alas ! 
That it should fall to me ! and that my 

days 
Of office should be stigmatised through 

all 
The years of coming time, as bearing 

record 
To this most foul and complicated 

treason 
Against a just and free state, known to 

all 10 

The earth as being the Christian bul- 
wark 'gainst 
The Saracen and the schismatic Greek, 
The savage Hun, and not less bar- 
barous Frank; 
A City which has opened India's 

wealth 
To Europe; the last Roman refuge 

from 

' [" In the notes to Marino Faliero it may be 
as well to say that ' Benintende' was not really of 
the ten, but merely Grand Chancellor — a sepa- 
rate office, though an important one : it was an 
arbitrary alteration of mine." — Letter to 
Murray, October 12, 1820. 

Byron's correction was based on a chronicle 
cited by Sanudo, which is responsible for the 
statement that Beneintendi de Ravignani pre- 
sided as Grand Chancellor at the Doge's trial, 
and took down his examination. As a matter 
of fact, Beneintendi was at Milan, not at Venice, 
when the trial took place.] 



O'erwhelming Attila; the Ocean's 

Queen; 
Proud Genoa's prouder rival ! 'Tis to 

sap 
The throne of such a City, these lost 

men 
Have risked and forfeited their worth- 
less lives — 
So let them die the death. 

I. Ber. We are prepared; 20 

Your racks have done that for us. Let 

us die. 

Ben. If ye have that to say which 

would obtain 

Abatement of your punishment, the 

Giunta 
Will hear you; if you have aught to 

confess, 
Now is your time, — perhaps it may 
avail ye. 
/. Ber. We stand to hear, and not to 

speak. 
Ben. Your crimes 

Are fully proved by your accomplices, 
And all which Circumstance can add to 

aid them; 
Yet we would hear from your own lips 

complete 
Avowal of your treason: on the verge 
Of that dread gulf which none repass, 
the truth 31 

Alone can profit you on earth or 

Heaven — 
Say, then, what was yoilr motive? 
I. Ber. Justice ! 

Ben. What 

Your object? 

/. Ber. Freedom ! 
Ben. You are brief, sir. 

/. Ber. So my life grows: I 
Was bred a soldier, not a senator. 
Ben. Perhaps you think by this blunt 
brevity 
To brave your judges to postpone the 
sentence ? 
/. Ber. Do you be brief as I am, and 
believe me, 
I shall prefer that mercy to your par- 
don. 40 
Ben. Is this your aole reply to the 

Tribunal ? 
I. Ber. Go, ask your racks what they 
have wrung from us. 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act v. 



Or place us there again; we have still 

some blood left, 
And some slight sense of pain in these 

wrenched limbs: 
But this ye dare not do; for if we die 

there — 
And you have left us little Hfe to spend 
Upon your engines, gorged with pangs 

already — 
Ye lose the public spectacle, with which 
You would appal your slaves to further 

slavery ! 
Groans are not words, nor agony assent. 
Nor affirmation Truth, if Nature's 
sense 51 

Should overcome the soul into a lie, 
For a short respite — must we bear or 
die? 
Ben. Say, who were your accom- 
plices ? 
/. Ber. The Senate. 

Ben. What do you mean? 
I. Ber. Ask of the suffering people. 
Whom your patrician crimes have driven 
to crime. 
Ben. You know the Doge? 
I. Ber. I served with him at Zara 
In the field, when you were pleading here 

your way 
To present office; we exposed our lives. 
While you but hazarded the lives of 
others, 60 

Alike by accusation or defence; 
And for the rest, all Venice knows her 

Doge, 
Through his great actions, and the 
Senate's insults. 
Ben. You have held conference with 

him? 
I. Ber. I am weary — 
Even wearier of your questions than 

your tortures: 
I pray you pass to judgment. 

Ben. It is coming. 

And you, too, Philip Calendaro, what 
Have you to say why you should not be 
doomed ? 
Cal. I never was a man of many 
words. 
And now have few left worth the utter- 
ance. 70 
Ben. A further application of yon 
engine 



May change your tone. 

Cal. Most true, it will do so; 

A former application did so; but 
It will not change my words, or, if it 
did — 
Ben. What then ? 

Cal. Will my avowal on yon rack 
Stand good in law? 

Ben. Assuredly. 

Cal. Whoe'er 

The culprit be whom I accuse of 
treason ? 
Ben. Without doubt, he will be 

brought up to trial. 
Cal. And on this testimony would he 

perish ? 
Ben. So your confession be detailed 
and full, 80 

He will stand here in peril of his life. 
Cal. Then look well to thy proud 
self. President ! 
For by the Eternity which yawns before 

me, 
I swear that thou, and only thou, 

shalt be 
The traitor I denounce upon that rack, 
If I be stretched there for the second 
time. 
One of the Giunta. Lord President, 
'twere best proceed to judgment; 
There is no more to be drawn from these 
men. 
Ben. Unhappy men ! prepare for in- 
stant death. 
The nature of your crime — our law — 
and peril 90 

The State now stands in, leave not an 

hour's respite. 
Guards ! lead them forth, and upon the 

balcony 
Of the red columns, where, on festal 

Thursday,! 
The Doge stands to behold the chase of 

bulls. 
Let them be justified: and leave ex- 
posed 
Their wavering relics, in the place of 

judgment, 
To the full view of the assembled people ! 
And Heaven have mercy on their souls ! 

'"Giovedi grasso," — "fat or greasy Thurs- 
day," — which I cannot literally translate in 
the text, was the day. 



Scene i.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



619 



LThe Giunta. Amen ! 
I. Ber. Signers, farewell ! we shall 
not all again 
eet in one place. 

Ben. And lest they should essay 100 
To stir up the distracted multitude — 
uards 1 let their mouths be gagged ^ 
even in the act 
3)f execution. Lead them hence ! 

Cal. What ! must we 

*Jot even say farewell to some fond 

friend, 

sTor leave a last word with our con- 
fessor ? 

Ben. A priest is waiting in the ante- 
chamber; 
But, for your friends, such interviews 

would be 

Painful to them, and useless all to you. 

Cal. I knew that we w^ere gagged in 

life; at least 

All those who had not heart to risk their 

lives no 

Upon their open thoughts; but still I 

deemed 
That in the last fev/ moments, the same 

idle 
Freedom of speech accorded to the 

dying. 
Would not now be denied to us; but 
since — 
I. Ber. Even let them have their way, 
brave Calendaro ! 
What matter a few syllables? let's die 
Without the slightest show of favour 

from them; 
So shall our blood more readily arise 
To Heaven against them, and more 

testify 
To their atrocities, than could a vol- 
ume 120 
Spoken or written of our dying words ! 
They tremble at our voices — nay, they 

dread 
Our very silence — let them live in 

fear ! 
Leave them unto their thoughts, and let 

us now 
Address our own above ! — Lead on ; 
we are ready. 
Cal. Israel, hadst thou but heark- 
ened unto me 

» Historical fact. 



It had not now been thus; and yon pale 

villain. 
The coward Bertram, would — 

/. Ber. Peace, Calendaro ! 

What brooks it now to ponder upon 

this? 
Bert. Alas ! I fain you died in peace 

with me: 130 

I did not seek this task; 'twas forced 

upon me: 
Say, you forgive me, though I never can 
Retrieve my own forgiveness — frown 

not thus! 
I. Ber. I die and pardon thee ! 
Cal. (spitting at him). I die and 

scorn thee ! 
[Exeunt Israel Bertuccio and Philip 

Calendaro, Guards, etc. 
Ben. Now that these criminals have 

been disposed of, 
'Tis time that we proceed to pass our 

sentence 
L^pon the greatest traitor upon record 
In any annals, the Doge Faliero ! 
The proofs and- process are complete; 

the time 
And crime require a quick procedure: 

shall 140 

He now be called in to receive the 

award ? 
The Giunta. Aye, aye. 
Ben. Avogadori, order that the Doge 
Be brought before the Council. 

One of the Giunta. And the rest, 

When shall they be brought up? 

Ben. When all the Chiefs 

Have been disposed of. Some have 

fled to Chiozza; 
But there are thousands in pursuit of 

them, 
And such precaution ta'en on terra firma, 
As well as in the islands, that we hope 
None will escape to utter in strange ' 

lands 
His libellous tale of treasons 'gainst the 

Senate. 150 

Enter the Doge as Prisoner, with 
Guards, etc., etc. 

Ben. Doge — for such still you are, 
and by the law 
Must be considered, till the hour shall 
come 



62 o 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act 



When you must doff the Ducal Bonnet 

from 
That head, which could not wear a 

crown more noble 
Than Empires can confer, in quiet 

honour, 
But it must plot to overthrow your peers, 
Who made you what you are, and 

quench in blood 
A City's glory — we have laid already 
Before you in your chamber at full 

length, 
By the Avogadori, all the proofs i6o 
Which have appeared against you; and 

more ample 
Ne'er reared their sanguinary shadows 

to 
Confront a traitor. What have you to 

say 
In your defence? 

Doge. What shall I say to ye. 

Since my defence must be your con- 
demnation ? 
You are at once offenders and accusers, 
Judges and Executioners ! — Proceed 
Upon your power. 

Ben. Your chief accomplices 

Having confessed, there is no hope for 

you. 

Doge. And who be they? 

Ben. In number many; but 170 

The first now stands before you in the 

court, 
Bertram of Bergamo, — would you 
question him? 
Doge, (looking at him contemptu- 
ously). No. 
Ben. And two others, Israel Ber- 
tuccio, 
And Philip Calendar©, have admitted 
Their fellowship in treason with the 
Doge ! 
Doge. And where are they? 
Ben. Gone to their place, and now 
Answering to Heaven for what they did 
on earth. 
Doge. Ah ! the plebeian Brutus, is he 
gone? 
And the quick Cassius of the arsenal ? — 
How did they meet their doom ? 

Ben. Think of your own : 

It is approaching. You decline to 

plead, then? 181 



Doge. I cannot plead to my in- 
feriors, nor 
Can recognise your legal power to try me. 
Show me the law ! 

Ben. On great emergencies. 

The law must be remodelled or 

amended : 
Our fathers had not fixed the punish- 
ment 
Of such a crime, as on the old Roman , 

tables 
The sentence against parricide was left 
In pure forgetfulness; they could not j 

render 

That penal, which had neither name nor | 

thought 190 j 

In their great bosoms; who would have j 

foreseen [ 

That Nature could be filed to such a 

crime 
As sons 'gainst sires, and princes 'gainst 

their realms? 
Your sin hath made us make a law which 

will 
Become a precedent 'gainst such haught 

traitors. 
As would with treason mount to tyranny. 
Not even contented with a sceptre, till I 
They can convert it to a two-edged | 

sword ! 
Was not the place of Doge sufficient for 

ye? 

What's nobler than the signory of 

Venice ? 200 

Doge. The signory of Venice ! You 

betrayed me - — 

Yoii — w«, who sit there, traitors as ye 

are I 
From my equality with you in birth, 
And my superiority in action, 
You drew me from my honourable 

toils 
In distant lands — on flood, in field, in 

cities — 
You singled me out like a victim to 
Stand crowned, but bound and helpless, 

at the altar 
Where you alone could minister. I 

knew not, 
I sought not, wished not, dreamed not 
the election, 210 

Which reached me first at Rome, and I 
obeyed; 



Scene i.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



621 



But found on my arrival, that, besides 
The jealous vigilance which always led 

you 
?o mock and mar your Sovereign's best 

intents, 
'^ou had, even in the interregnum of 
; ly journey to the capital, curtailed 
I nd mutilated the few privileges 
Yet left the Duke: all this I bore, and 

would 
I[ave borne, until my very hearth was 

stained 
y the pollution of your ribaldry, 220 
nd he, the ribald, whom I see amongst 

you — 
Fit judge in such tribunal ! — 

Ben. {interrupting him). Michel 

Steno 

Is here in virtue of his office, as 
One of the Forty; "the Ten" having 

craved 
A Giunta of patricians from the 

Senate 

To aid our judgment in a trial arduous 
And novel as the present : he was set 
Free from the penalty pronounced upon 

him, 
Because the Doge, who should protect 

the law, 229 

Seeking to abrogate all law, can claim 
No punishment of others by the statutes 
Which he himself denies and violates ! 
Doge. His punishment! I rather 

see him there, 
Where he now sits, to glut him with my 

death. 

Than in the mockery of castigation, 
Which your foul, outward, juggling 

show of justice 
Decreed as sentence ! Base as was his 

crime, 
Twas purity compared with your pro- 
tection. 
Ben. And can it be, that the great 

Doge of Venice, 
With three parts of a century of years 
A.nd honours on his head, could thus 

allow 241 

His fury, like an angry boy's, to master 
^11 Feeling, Wisdom, Faith and Fear, 

on such 

\ provocation as a young man's petu- 
lance ? 



Doge. A spark creates the flame — 

'tis the last drop 
Which makes the cup run o'er, and mine 

was full 
Already : you oppressed the Prince and 

people; 
I would have freed both, and have failed 

in both : 
The price of. such success would have 

been glory, 
Vengeance, and victory, and such a 

name 250 

As would have made Venetian history 
Rival to that of Greece and Syracuse 
When they were freed, and flourished 

ages after, 
And mine to Gelon and to Thrasy- 

bulus; ^ 
Failing, I know the penalty of failure 
Is present infamy and death — the 

future 
Will judge, when Venice is no more, or 

free; — 
Till then, the truth is in abeyance. Pause 

not — 
I would have shown no mercy, and I 

seek none; 
My life was staked upon a mighty 

hazard, 260 

And being lost, take what I would have 

taken ! 
I would have stood alone amidst your 

tombs : 
Now you may flock round mine, and 

trample on it. 
As you have done upon my heart while 

living. 
Ben. You do confess then, and admit 

the justice 
Of our Tribunal? 

Doge. I confess to have failed; 

Fortune is female: from my youth her 

favours 
Were not withheld, the fault was mine 

to hope 
Her former smiles again at this late 

hour. 
Ben. You do not then in aught 

arraign our equity? 270 

' [Gelo is quoted as the type of a successful 
and beneficent tyrant held in honour by all 
posterity; Thrasybulus as a consistent advocate 
and successful champion of democracy.] 



622 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act v. 



Doge. Noble Venetians ! stir me not 

with questions. 
I am resigned to the worst; but in me 

still 
Have something of the blood of brighter 

days, 
And am not over-patient. Pray you, 

spare me 
Further interrogation, which boots 

nothing, 
Except to turn a trial to debate. 
I shall but answer that which will 

offend you. 
And please your enemies — a host 

already ; 
'Tis true, these sullen walls should yield 

no echo: 
But walls have ears — nay, more, they 

have tongues; and if 280 

There were no other way for Truth to 

o'erleap them, 
You who condemn me, you who fear 

and slay me. 
Yet could not bear in silence to your 

graves 
What you would hear from me of Good 

or Evil; 
The secret were too mighty for your 

souls : 
Then let it sleep in mine, unless you 

court 
A danger which would double that you 

escape. 
Such my defence would be, had I full 

scope 
To make it famous; for true words are 

things, 
And dying men's are things which long 

outlive, 290 

And oftentimes avenge them; bury 

mine. 
If ye would fain survive me: take this 

counsel, 
And though too oft ye make me live in 

wrath. 
Let me die calmly; you may grant me 

this; 
I deny nothing — defend nothing — 

nothing 
I ask of you, but silence for myself. 
And sentence from the Court ! 

Ben. This full admission 

Spares us the harsh necessity of ordering 



The torture to elicit the whole truth. 
Doge. The torture ! you have put me \ 

there already, 300 I 

Daily since I was Doge; but if you will 
Add the corporeal rack, you may : these 

limbs 
Will yield with age to crushing iron ; but 
There's that within my heart shall strain 

your engines. 

Enter an Officer. 

Officer. Noble Venetians! Duchess 
Faliero 
Requests admission to the Giunta's 
presence. 
Ben. Say, Conscript F.athers,^ shall 

she be admitted? 
One of the Giunta. She may have 
revelations of importance 
Unto the state, to justify compliance 
With her request. 

Ben. Is this the general will? 310 
All. It is. 

Doge. Oh, admirable laws of Venice ! 
Which would admit the wife, in the full 

hope 
That she might testify against the hus- 
band. 
What glory to the chaste Venetian 

dames ! 
But such blasphemers 'gainst all 

Honour, as 
Sit here, do well to act in their vocation. 
Now, villain Steno ! if this woman fail, 
I'll pardon thee thy lie, and thy 

escape, 
And my own violent death, and thy vile 
life. 

The Duchess enters. 

Ben. Lady ! this just Tribunal has 

resolved, 320 

Though the request be strange, to grant 

it, and 
Whatever be its purport, to accord 
A patient hearing with the due respect 
Which fits your ancestry, your rank, and 
virtues : 

I The Venetian senate took the same title as 
the Roman, of "conscript fathers." [It was not, 
however, the Senate, the Pregadi, but the Con- 
siglio dei Died, supplemented by the Zonta of 
Twenty, which tried and condemned the Doge.] 



SCENE I.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



623 



But you turn pale — ho ! there, look to 

the Lady ! 
; 'lace a chair instantly. 

Ang. A moment's faintness — 

' ris past ; I pray you pardon me, — I 

sit not 
]i presence of my Prince and of my 

husband, 
■\l/hile he is on his feet. 

Ben. Your pleasure, Lady? 

Ang. Strange rumours, but most 
' true, if all I hear 330 

And see be sooth, have reached me,' and 

I come 
To know the worst, even at the worst; 

forgive 
The abruptness of my entrance and my 

bearing. 
Is it — I cannot speak — I cannot shape 
The question — but you answer it ere 

spoken. 
With eyes averted, and with gloomy 

brows — 
Oh God ! this is the silence of the grave ! 
Ben. (after a pause). Spare us, and 
spare thyself the repetition 
Of our most awful, but inexorable 339 
Duty to Heaven and man ! 

Ang. Yet speak; I cannot — 

I cannot — no — even now believe 

these things. 
Is he condemned? 
Ben. Alas ! 

Attg. And was he guilty? 

Ben. Lady ! the natural distraction of 
Thy thoughts at such a moment makes 

the question 
Merit forgiveness; else a doubt like this 
Against a just and paramount tribunal 
Were deep offence. But question even 

the Doge, 
And if he can deny the proofs, believe 

him 
Guiltless as thy own bosom. 

Ang. Is it so? 

My Lord, my Sovereign, my poor 

father's friend, 350 

The mighty in the field, the sage in 

Council, 
Unsay the words of this man ! — thou 
art silent ! 
Ben. He hath already owned to his 
own guilt, 



Nor, as thou see'st, doth he deny it now. 
Ang. Aye, but he must not die! 
Spare his few years. 
Which Grief and Shame will soon cut 

down to days ! 
One day of baffled crime must not 

efface 
Near sixteen lustres crowded with brave 
acts. 
Ben. His doom must be fulfilled 
without remission 
Of time or penalty — 'tis a decree. 360 
Ang. He hath been guilty, but there 

may be mercy. 
Ben. Not in this case with justice. 
Ang. Alas! Signor, 

He who is only just is cruel; who 
Upon the earth would live were all 
judged justly ? 
Ben. His punishment is safety to the 

State. 
Ang. He was a subject, and hath 
served the State; 
He was your General, and hath saved 

the State; 
He is your Sovereign, and hath ruled 
the State. 
One of the Council. He is a traitor, 

and betrayed the State. 

Ang. And, but for him, there now 

had been no State 370 

To save or to destroy ; and you, who sit 

There to pronounce the death of your 

deliverer, 
Had now been groaning at a Moslem oar, 
Or digging in the Hunnish mines in 
fetters ! 
One of the Council. No, Lady, there 
are others who would die 
Rather than breathe in slavery ! 

Ang. If there are so 

Within these walls, thou art not of the 

number: 
The trulv brave are generous to the 

fallen ! — 
Is there no hope ? 

Ben. Lady, it cannot be. 

A ng. (turning to the Doge) . Then die, 

Faliero ! since it must be so; 380 

But with the spirit of my father's friend. 

Thou hast been guilty of a great offence, 

Half cancelled by the harshness of these 



624 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act 



I would have sued to them, have prayed 

to them, 
Have begged as famished mendicants 

for bread, 
Have wept as thev will cry unto their 

God 
For mercy, and be answered as they 

answer, 
Had it been fitting for thy name or 

mine, 
And if the cruelty in their cold eyes 
Had not announced the heartless wrath 

within. 390 

Then, as a Prince, address thee to thy 

doom ! 
Doge. I have lived too long not to 

know how to die ! 
Thy suing to these men were but the 

bleating 
Of the lamb to the butcher, or the cry 
Of seamen to the surge: I would not 

take 
A life eternal, granted at the hands 
Of wretches, from whose monstrous 

villanies 
I sought to free the groaning nations ! 

Michel Steno. Doge, 

A word with thee, and with this noble 

lady, 
Whom I have grievously offended. 

Would 400 

Sorrow, or shame, or penance on my 

part, 
Could cancel the inexorable past ! 
But since that cannot be, as Christians 

let us 
Say farewell, and in peace: with full 

contrition 
I crave, not pardon, but compassion from 

you. 
And give, however weak, my prayers for 

both. 
Ang. Sage Benintende, now chief 

Judge of Venice, 
I speak to thee in answer to yon Signer. 
Inform the ribald Steno, that his words 
Ne'er weighed in mind with Loredano's 

daughter, 410 

Further than to create a moment's pity 
For such as he is : would that others had 
Despised him as I pity ! I prefer 
My honour to a thousand lives, could 

such 



Be multiplied in mine, but would not 

have 
A single life of others lost for that 
Which nothing human can impugn — 

the sense 
Of Virtue, looking not to what is called 
A good name for reward, but to itself. 
To me the scorner's words were as the 

wind 420 

Unto the rock : but as there are — alas ! 
Spirits more sensitive, on which such 

things 
Light as the Whirlwind on the waters; 

souls 
To whom Dishonour's shadow is a 

substance 
More terrible than Death, here and 

hereafter; 
Men whose vice is to start at Vice's 

scoiifing. 
And who, though proof against all 

blandishments 
Of pleasure, and all pangs of Pain, are 

feeble 
When the proud name on which they 

pinnacled 
Their hopes is breathed on, jealous as 

the eagle 430 

Of her high aiery ; let what we now 
Behold, and feel, and suffer, be a 

lesson 
To wretches how they tamper in their 

spleen 
With beings of a higher order. Insects 
Have made the lion mad ere now; a 

shaft 
I' the heel o'erthrew the bravest of the 

brave ; 
A wife's Dishonour was the bane of 

Troy; 
A wife's Dishonour unkinged Rome for 

ever; 
An injured husband brought the Gauls 

to Clusium, 
And thence to Rome, which perished for 

a time; 440 

An obscene gesture cost Caligula ^ 
His life, while Earth yet bore his 

cruelties; 
A virgin's wrong made Spain a Moorish 

province; 

* [Vide Suetonius, De XII. CcBsaribus, lib. iv. 
cap. 56.] 



>CENE I.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



625 



nd Steno's lie, couched in two worth- 
less lines, 
[ath decimated Venice, put in peril 
Senate which hath stood eight hun- 
dred years, 

]>iscrowned a Prince, cut ofif his crown- 
less head, 

/nd forged new fetters for a groaning 
people ! 

I et the poor wretch, like to the courte- 
san 

"V^ho fired Persepolis, be proud of this, 

If it so please him — 'twere a pride fit 
for him ! 45 1 

But let him not insult the last hours of 

Him, who, whate'er he now is, was a 
Hero, 

By the intrusion of his very prayers; 

Nothing of good can come from such a 
source. 

Nor would we aught with him, nor now, 
nor ever: 

We leave him to himself, that lowest 
depth 

Of human baseness. Pardon is for 
men, 

And not for reptiles — we have none for 
Steno, 

And no resentment: things like him 
must sting, 460 

And higher beings sufifer; 'tis the 
charter 

Of Life. The man who dies by the 
adder's fang 

May have the crawler crushed, but feels 
no anger: 

'Twas the worm's nature; and some 
men are worms 

In soul, more than the living things of 
tombs. 

Doge {to Ben.). Signor ! complete 
that which you deem your duty. 
Ben. Before we can proceed upon 
that duty, 

We would request the Princess to with- 
draw; 

'Twill move her too much to be witness 
to it. 
Ang. I know it will, and yet I must 
endure it, 470 

For 'tis a part of mine — I will not quit. 

Except by force, my husband's side — 
Proceed ! 



Nay, fear not either shriek, or sigh, or 

tear; 
Though my heart burst, it shall be 

silent. — Speak ! 
I have that within which shall o'er- 
master all. 
Ben. Marino Faliero, Doge of Ven- 
ice, 
Count of Val di Marino, Senator, 
And some time General of the Fleet and 

Army, 
Noble Venetian, many times and oft 
Intrusted by the state with high employ- 
ments, 480 
Even to the highest, listen to the sen- 
tence. 
Convict by many witnesses and piroofs, 
And by thine own confession, of' the 

guilt 
Of Treachery and Treason, yet unheard 

of 
Until this trial — the decree is Death — 
Thy goods are confiscate unto the State, 
Thy name is razed from out her records, 

save 
Upon a public day of thanksgiving 
For this our most miraculous deliver- 
ance. 
When thou art noted in our calendars 
With earthquakes, pestilence, and for- 
eign foes, 491 
And the great Enemy of man, as sub- 
ject 
Of grateful masses for Heaven's grace in 

snatching 
Our lives and country from thy wicked- 
ness. 
The place wherein as Doge thou shouldst 

be painted 
With thine illustrious predecessors, is 
To be left vacant, with a death-black 

veil 
Flung over these dim words engraved 

beneath, — 
"This place is of Marino Faliero, 
Decapitated for his crimes." ^ 

'["Hie est locus Marini Falethri, decapitati 
pro criminibus." Even more impressive is the 
significant omission of the minutes of the trial 
from the pages of the State Register. "The 
fourth volume of the Misii Consiglio X. con- 
tains its decrees in the year 1355. On Friday, 
the 17th April in that year, Marin Falier was 
beheaded. In the usual course, the minutes of 



626 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act v. 



Doge. ^' His crimes ! " 500 

But let it be so : — it will be in vain. 

The veil vv^hich blackens o'er this 
blighted name, 

And hides, or seems to hide, these linea- 
ments, 

Shall draw more gazers than the thou- 
sand portraits 

Which glitter round it in their pictured 
trappings — • 

Your delegated slaves — the people's 
tyrants ! 

"Decapitated for his crimes!" — What 
crimes ? 

Were it not better to record the facts, 

So that the contemplator might approve, 

Or at the least learn whence the crimes 
arose? 510 

When the beholder knows a Doge con- 
spired. 

Let him be told the cause — it is your 
history. 
Ben. Time must reply to that; our 
sons will judge 

Their fathers' judgment, which I now 
pronounce. 

As Doge, clad in the ducal robes and 
Cap, 

Thou shalt be led hence to the Giants' 
Staircase, 

Where thou and all our Princes are in- 
vested ; 

And there, the Ducal Crown being first 
resumed 

Upon the spot where it was first assumed, 

Thy head shall be struck off; and 
Heaven have mercy 520 

Upon thy soul ! 

Doge. Is this the Giunta's sentence? 

Ben. It is. 

Doge. I can endure it. — And 

the time? 
Ben. Must be immediate. — Make 
thy peace with God: 

Within an hour thou must be in His 
presence. 
Doge. I am already; and my blood 
will rise 

the trial should have been entered on the thirty- 
third page of that volume; but in their stead 
we find a blank space, and the words 'n scba- 
tur:' 'Be it not written.'" — Calendar of Stale 
Papers ... in Venice, Preface by Rawdon 
Brown, 1864, i. xvii.] 



To Heaven before the souls of those whoi 

shed it. 
Are all my lands confiscated ? -■ , 

Ben. They are;^J^ 

And goods, and jewels, and all kind of' 

treasure. 
Except two thousand ducats — these 

dispose of. 
Doge. That's harsh. — I would have 

fain reserved the lands 530 

Near to Treviso, which I hold by in- 
vestment 
From Laurence the Count-bishop of 

Ceneda, 
In fief perpetual to myself and heirs, 
To portion them (leaving my city spoil. 
My palace and my treasures, to your 

forfeit) 
Between my consort and my kinsmen. 

Ben. These 

Lie under the state's ban — their Chief, 

thy nephew, 
In peril of his own life ; but the Council 
Postpones his trial for the present. If 
Thou will'st a state unto thy widowed 

Princess, 540 

Fear not, for we will do her justice. 

Ang. Signors, 

I share not in your spoil ! From hence- 
forth, know 
I am devoted unto God alone. 
And take my refuge in the cloister. 

Doge. Come ! 

The hour may be a hard one, but 'twill 

end. 
Have I aught else to undergo save 

Death ? 
Ben. You have nought to do, except 

confess and die. 
The priest is robed, the scimitar is bare, 
And both await without. — But, above 

all, 
Think not to speak unto the people; 

they _ 550 

Are now by thousands swarming at the 

gates, 
But these are closed: the Ten, the 

Avogadori, 
The Giunta, and the chief men of the 

Forty, 
Alone will be beholders of thy doom, 
And they are ready to attend the Doge 
Doge. The Doge? 



Scene ii. 



MARINO FALIERO 



627 



Ben. Yes, Doge, thou hast 

lived and thou shalt die 
A Sovereign; till the moment which 

precedes 

The separation of that head and trunk. 
That ducal crown and head shall be 

united. 
jThou hast forgot thy dignity in deign- 
ing 560 
o plot with petty traitors; not so we, 
'ho in the very punishment acknow- 
ledge 
he Prince. Thy vile accomplices 

have died 
The dog's death, and the wolf's; but 

thou shalt fall 
As falls the hon by the hunters, girt 
By those who feel a proud compassion 

for thee, 
And mourn even the inevitable death 
Provoked by thy wild wrath, and regal 

fierceness. 
Now we remit thee to thy preparation: 
Let it be brief, and we ourselves 

will be 570 

Thy guides unto the place where first we 

were 
United to thee as thy subjects, and 
Thy Senate; and must now be parted 

from thee 
As such for ever, on the self-same spot. 
Guards! form the Doge's escort to his 

chamber. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene II. — The Doge's Apartment. 

The D-^GE as Prisoner, and the Duchess 
attending him. 

Doge. Now, that the priest is gone, 
'twere useless all 

To linger out the miserable minutes; 

But one pang more, the pang of parting 
from thee. 

And I will leave the few last grains of 
sand. 

Which yet remain of the accorded hour. 

Still falling — I have done with Time. 
Ang. Alas! 

And I have been the cause, the uncon- 
scious cause; 

And for this funeral marriage, this black 
union. 



Which thou, compliant with my father's 

wish, 
Didst promise at his death, thou hast 

sealed thine own. 10 

Doge. Not so : there was that in my 

spirit ever 
Which shaped out for itself some great 

reverse ; 
The marvel is, it came not until now — 
And yet it was foretold me. 



How foretold 



you-f* 
long, 



Doge. Long years ago - 

they are a doubt 
In memory, and yet they live in annals: 
When I was in my youth, and served the 

Senate 
And Signory as Pedosta and Captain 
Of the town of Treviso, on a day 
Of festival, the sluggish Bishop who 20 
Conveyed the Host aroused my rash 

young anger. 
By strange delay, and arrogant reply 
To my reproof: I raised my hand and 

smote him, 
Until he reeled beneath his holy burthen; 
And as he rose from earth again, he 

raised 
His tremulous hands in pious wrath 

towards Heaven. 
Thence pointing to the Host, which had 

fallen from him, 
He turned to me, and said, "The Hour 

will come 
When he thou hast o'erthrown shall 

overthrow thee: 
The Glory shall depart from out thy 

house, 30 

The Wisdom shall be shaken from thy 

soul, 
And in thy best maturity of Mind 
A madness of the heart shall seize upon 

thee; 
Passion shall tear thee when all passions 

cease 
In other men, or mellow into virtues; 
And Majesty which decks all other 

heads, 
Shall crown to leave thee headless; 

honours shall 
But prove to thee the heralds of De- 
struction, 
And hoary hairs of Shame, and both of 

Death, 



628 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act v. 



But not such death as fits an aged man." 
Thus saying, he passed on. — That 
Hour is come. 41 

Ang. And with this warning couldst 
thou not have striven 
To avert the fatal moment, and atone, 
By penitence, for that which thou hast 
done? 
Doge. I own the words went to my 
heart, so much 
That I remembered them amid the maze 
Of Life, as if they formed a spectral 

voice. 
Which shook me in a supernatural 

dream ; 
And I repented; but 'twas not for me 
To pull in resolution : what must be 50 
I could not change, and would not 

fear. — Nay more. 
Thou can'st not have forgot, what all 

remember. 
That on my day of landing here as 

Doge, 
On my return from Rome, a mist of such 
Unwonted density went on before 
The Bucentaur, like the columnar cloud 
Which ushered Israel out of Egypt, till 
The pilot was misled, and disembarked 

us 
Between the Pillars of Saint Mark's, 

where 'tis 
The custom of the state to put to death 
Its criminals, instead of touching at 61 
The Riva della Paglia, as the wont is, — 
So that all Venice shuddered at the 
omen. 
Ang. Ah ! little boots it now to recol- 
lect 
Such things. 

Doge. And yet I find a comfort in 
The thought, that these things are the 

work of Fate; 
For I would rather yield to Gods than 

men. 
Or cling to any creed of destiny. 
Rather than deem these mortals, most 

of whom 
I know to be as worthless as the dust, 70 
And weak as worthless, more than in- 
struments 
Of an o'er- ruling Power; they in them- 
selves 
Were all incapable — they could not be 



Victors of him who oft had conquered 

for them. 
Ang. Employ the minutes left Six 

aspirations 
Of a more healing nature, and in peace 
Even with these wretches take thy flight 

to Heaven. 
Doge. I am at peace: the peace of 

certainty 
That a sure Hour will come, when their 

sons' sons. 
And this proud city, and these azure 

waters, 80 

And all which makes them eminent and 

bright. 
Shall be a desolation and a curse, 
A hissing and a scoff unto the nations, 
A Carthage, and a Tyre, an Ocean 

Babel. 
Ang. Speak not thus now : the surge 

of Passion still 
Sweeps o'er thee to the last; thou dost 

deceive 
Thyself, and canst not injure them — be 

calmer. 
Doge. I stand within Eternity, and 

see 
Into Eternity, and I behold — ■ 
Aye, palpable as I see thy sweet face 90 
For the last time — the days which I 

denounce 
Unto all time against these wave-girt 

walls. 
And they who are indwellers. 

Guard {coming forward). Doge of 

Venice, 
The Ten are in attendance on your 

Highness. 
Doge. Then farewell, Angiolina ! — 

one embrace — 
Forgive the old man who hath been to 

thee 
A fond but fatal husband — love my 

memory — 
I would not ask so much for me still 

living. 
But thou canst judge of me more kindly 

now. 
Seeing my evil feelings are at rest. 100 
Besides, of all the fruit of these long 

years, 
Glory, and Wealth, and Power, and 

Fame, and Name, 



Scene hi.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



629 



Which generally leave some flowers to 

bloom 
Ev'n o'er the grave, I have nothing left, 

not even 

A. little love, or friendship, or esteem, 
!^o, not enough to extract an epitaph 
"rom ostentatious kinsmen ; in one hour 
'. have uprooted all my former life, 
Vnd outlived everything, except thy 

heart. 
The pure, the good, the gentle, which 

will oft no 

"Vith unimpaired but not a clamorous 

grief 
Still keep — Thou turn'st so pale ! — 

Alas ! she faints. 
She has no breath, no pulse ! — Guards ! 

lend your aid — 
I cannot leave her thus, and yet 'tis 

better, 
Since every lifeless moment spares a pang. 
When she shakes off this temporary 

death, 
I shall be with the Eternal. — Call her 

women — 
One look ! — how cold her hand ! — as 

cold as mine 
Shall be ere she recovers. — Gently 

tend her. 
And take my last thanks — I am ready 

now. 120 

{The Attendants of Angiolina 
enter, and surround their Mis- 
tress, who has fainted. — Exeunt 
the Doge, Guards, etc., etc. 

Scene III. — The Court of the Ducal 
Palace; the outer gates are shut 
against the people. — The Doge 
enters in his ducal robes, in pro- 
cession with the Council of Ten 
and other Patricians, attended by 
the Guards, till they arrive at the 
top of the "Giant's Staircase'* 
(where the Doges took the oaths) ; 
the Executioner is stationed there 
with his szvord. — On arriving, 
a Chief of the Ten takes off the 
. ducal cap from the Doge's head. 

\ Doge. So now the Doge is nothing, 

and at last 
I am again Marino Faliero: 



'Tis well to be so, though but for a 
moment. 

Here was I crowned, and here, bear wit- 
ness Heaven ! 

With how much more contentment I 
resign 

That shining mockery, the ducal 
bauble. 

Than I received the fatal ornament. 
One of the Ten. Thou tremblest, 

Faliero ! 
Doge. 'Tis with age, then.^ 

Ben. Faliero ! hast thou aught fur- 
ther to commend, 

Compatible with justice, to the Senate ? 

Doge. I would commend my nephew 

to their mercy, n 

My consort to their justice; for me- 
thinks 

My death, and such a death, might 
settle all 

Between the State and me. 

Ben. They shall be cared for; 

Even notwithstanding thine unheard-of 
crime. 
Doge. Unheard-of ! aye, there's not 
a history 

But shows a thousand crowned con- 
spirators 

Against the people; but to set them 
free, 

» This was the actual reply of Bailli, maire of 
Paris, to a Frenchman who made him the same 
reproach on his way to execution, in the earliest 
part of their revolution. I find in reading over 
(since the completion of this tragedy), for the 
first time these six years, " Venice Preserved," 
a similar reply on a different occasion by Renault, 
and other coincidences arising from the subject. 
I need hardly remind the gentlest reader, that 
such coincidences must be accidental, from the 
very facility of their detection by reference to so 
popular a play on the stage and in the closet as 
Otway's chef-d'oeu\Te. 

["Still crueller was the fate of poor Bailly 
[Jean Sylvani, born September 17, 1736], First 
National President, First Mayor of Paris. . . . 
It is the loth of November, 1793, a cold bitter 
drizzling rain, as poor Bailly is led through the 
streets. . . . Silent, unpitied, sits the innocent 
old man. . . . The Guillotine is taken down 
... is carried to the riverside; is there set up 
again, with slow numbness; pulse after pulse 
still counting itself out in the old man's weary 
heart. For hours long; amid curses and bitter 
frost-rain! 'Bailly, thou tremblest,' said one. 
' Mon ami, it is for cold,' said Bailly, 'C'est de 
froid.' Crueller end had no mortal." — Carlyle's 
French Revolution, 1839, iii. 264.] 



630 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act v. 



One Sovereign only died, and one is 
dying. 
Ben. And who were they who fell in 
such a cause? 20 

Doge. The King of Sparta, and the 
Doge of Venice — 
Agis and Faliero! 

Ben. Hast thou more 

To utter or to do? 

Doge. May I speak? 

Ben. Thou may'st; 

But recollect the people are without, 
Beyond the compass of the human • 
voice. 
Doge. I speak to Time and to Eternity, 
Of which I grow a portion, not to man. 
Ye Elements ! in which to be resolved 
I hasten, let my voice be as a Spirit 
Upon you! Ye blue waves! which 
bore my banner, 3° 

Ye winds! which fluttered o'er as if 

you loved it, 
And filled my swelling sails as they were 

wafted 
To many a triumph! Thou, my 

native earth, 
Which I have bled for! and thou, 

foreign earth, 
Which drank this willing blood from 

many a wound ! 
Ye stones, in which my gore will not 

sink, but 
Reek up to Heaven! Ye skies, which 

will receive it ! 
Thou Sun! which shinest on these 

things, and Thou ! 
Who kindlest and who quenchest 

suns ! — Attest ! 
I am not innocent — but are these 
guiltless ? 40 

I perish, but not unavenged; far ages 
Float up from the abyss of Time to be. 
And show these eyes, before they close, 

the doom 
Of this proud City, and I leave my 

curse 
On her and hers for ever ! — Yes, the 

hours 
Are silently engendering of the day, 
When she, who built 'gainst Attila a 

bulwark, 
Shall yield, and bloodlessly and basely 
yield. 



Unto a bastard Attila,^ without 
Shedding so much blood in her last 

defence, 50 \ 

As these old veins, oft drained in shield- 
ing her, I 
Shall pour in sacrifice. — She shall be " 

bought 
And sold, and be an appanage to 

those 
Who shall despise her ! ^ — She shall . 

stoop to be 
A province for an Empire, a petty 

town 
In lieu of Capital, with slaves for 

senates, 
Beggars for nobles, panders for a 

people ! 
Then when the Hebrew's in thy pal- 
aces,^ 
The Hun in thy high places, and the | 

Greek ' 

Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it 

for his; 60 

When thy patricians beg their bitter 

bread 
In narrow streets, and in their shameful 

need 
Make their nobility a plea for pity; 
Then, when the few who still retain a 

wreck 
Of their great fathers' heritage shall 

fawn 

' [In his reply to the envoys of the Venetian 
Senate (April, 1707), Buonaparte threatened to 
"prove an Attila to Venice. If you cannot,'' 
he added, "disarm your population, I will do it 
in your stead — your government is antiquated 
— it must crumble to pieces." — Scott's Life of 
Napoleon Bonaparte, 1828, p. 230.] 

* Should the dramatic picture seem harsh, let 
the reader look to the historical of the period 
prophesied, or rather of the few years preceding 
that period. Voltaire calculated thdr "nostre 
bene merite Meretrici" at 12,000 of regulars, 
without including volunteers and local militia, 
on what authority I know not; but it is. perhaps, 
the only part of the population not decreased. 
Venice once contained two hundred thousand 
inhabitants: there are now about ninety thou- 
sand; and THESE ! ! few individuals can con- 
ceive, and none could describe, the actual state 
into which the more than infernal tyranny of 
Austria has plunged this unhappy city. 

3 The chief palaces on the Brenta now belong 
to the Jews; who in the earlier times of the 
republic were only allowed to inhabit Mestri, 
and not to enter the city of Venice. The whole 
commerce is in the hands of the Jews and Greeks, 
and the Huns form the garrison. 



Scene hi.] 



MARINO FALIERO 



631 



Round a barbarian Vice of Kings' 
Vicegerent/ 

Even in the Palace where they swayed 
as Sovereigns, 

Even in the Palace where they slew their 
Sovereign, 

Proud of some name they have dis- 
graced, or sprung 

From an adulteress boastful of her guilt 

With some large gondolier or foreign 
soldier, 7 1 

Shall bear about their bastardy in tri- 
umph 

To the third spurious generation; — 
when 

Thy sons are in the lowest scale of 
being. 

Slaves turned o'er to the vanquished by 
the victors. 

Despised by cowards for greater 
cowardice. 

And scorned even by the vicious for 
such vices 

As in the monstrous grasp of their con- 
ception 

Defy all codes to image or to name 
them; 

Then, when of Cyprus, now thy sub- 
ject kingdom, 80 

All thine inheritance shall be her shame 

Entailed on thy less virtuous daughters, 
grown 

A wider proverb for worse prostitu- 
tion; — 

When all the ills of' conquered states 
shall cling thee. 

Vice without splendour. Sin without 
relief 

Even from the gloss of Love to smooth 
it o'er. 

But in its stead, coarse lusts of habitude, 

Prurient yet passionless, cold studied 
lewdness, 

Depraving Nature's frailty to an art; — ■ 

When these and more are heavy on 
thee, when 90 

Smiles without mirth, and Pastimes 
without Pleasure, 



^ [Napoleon was crowned King of Italy, May 
3, 1805. Venice was ceded by Austria, Decem- 
ber 26, 1805, and shortly after, Eugene Beau- 
harnais was appointed Viceroy of Italy, with the 
title of Prince of Venice.] 



Youth without Honour, Age without 

respect, 
Meanness and Weakness, and a sense 

of woe 
'Gainst which thou wilt not strive, and 

dar'st not murmur,^ 
Have made thee last and worst of 

peopled deserts, 
Then, in the last gasp of thine agony. 
Amidst thy many murders, think of 

mine! 
Thou den of drunkards with the blood 

of Princes ! ^ 



' If the Doge's prophecy seem remarkable, 
look to the following, made by Alamanni two 
hundred and seventy years ago: — "There is one 
very singular prophecy concerning Venice: 'If 
thou dost not change,' it says to that proud 
republic, 'thy liberty, which is already on the 
wing, will not reckon a century more than the 
thousandth year.' If we carry back the epocha 
of Venetian freedom to the establishment of the 
government under which the republic flourished, 
we shall find that the date of the election of the 
first Doge is 697: and if we add one century to 
a thousand, that is, eleven hundred years, we 
shall find the sense of the prediction to be liter- 
ally this: 'Thy liberty will not last till 1797.' 
Recollect that Venice ceased to be free in the 
year 1796, the fifth year of the French republic; 
and you will perceive that there never was pre- 
diction more pointed, or more exactly followed 
by the event. You will, therefore, note as very 
remarkable the three lines of Alamanni ad- 
dressed to Venice; which, however, no one has 
pointed out : — 

'Se non cangi pensier, I'un secol solo 
Non contera sopra '1 millesimo anno 
Tua liberta, che va fuggendo a volo.' 
■ — Sal., xii. ed. 1531, p. 41.3. 
Many prophecies have passed for such, and many 
men have been called prophets for much less." — 
P. L. Gtnguene, Hisl. Lit. d'ltalie, ix. 144 
[Paris Edition, i8ro]. 

' Of the first fifty Doges, five abdicated — 
five were banished with their eyes put out — 
five were massacred — and nine deposed; so 
that nineteen out of fifty lost the throne by vio- 
lence, besides two who fell in battle: this oc- 
curred long previous to the reign of Marino 
Faliero. One of his more immediate predeces- 
sors, Andrea Dandolo, died of vexation. Marino 
Faliero himself perished as related. .Amongst 
his successors, Foscari, after seeing his son re- 
peatedly tortured and banished, was deposed, 
and died of breaking a blood-vessel, on hearing 
the bell of St Mark's toll for the election of his 
successor. Morosini was impeached for the 
loss of Candia; but this was previous to his 
dukedom, during which he conquered the Morea, 
and was styled the Peloponnesian. Faliero 
might truly sav, — 
" Thou den of drunkards with the blood of 

princes!" 



632 



MARINO FALIERO 



[Act V, 



Gehenna of the waters ! thou Sea- 



Sodom 



99 



Thus I devote thee to the Infernal Gods ! 
Thee and thy serpent seed ! 
{Here the Doge turns and addresses the 
Executioner. 

Slave, do thine office ! 
Strike as I struck the foe ! Strike as I 

would 
Have struck those tyrants! Strike 

deep as my curse ! 
Strike — and but once ! 

[The Doge throws himself upon 
his knees, and as the Executioner 
raises his sword the scene closes. 

Scene IV. — The Piazza and Piazzetta 

■ oj St Mark's. — The People in 

crowds gathered round the grated 

gates oj the Ducal Palace, which 

are shut. 

First Citizen. I have gained the 

Gate, and can discern the Ten, 
Robed in their gowns of state, ranged 

round the Doge. 
Second Cit. I cannot reach thee 

with mine utmost effort. 
How is it? let us hear at least, since 

sight 
Is thus prohibited unto the people. 
Except the occupiers of those bars. 
First Cit. One has approached the 

Doge and now they strip 
The ducal bonnet from his head — and 

now 
He raises his keen eyes to Heaven; I 

see 
Them glitter, and his lips move — 

Hush ! hush ! — no, 10 

'Twas but a murmur — Curse upon the 

distance ! 
His words are inarticulate, but the voice 
Swells up like muttered thunder; would 

we could 
But gather a sole sentence ! 

Second Cit. Hush ! we perhaps may 

catch the sound. 
First Cit. 'Tis vain. 

Ix cannot hear him. — How his hoary 

hair 
Streams on the wind like foam upon 

the wave ! 



Now — now — he kneels — and now 

they form a circle 
Round him, and all is hidden — but I 

see 

The lifted sword in air — Ah ! hark it 

falls ! 20 

[The people murmur. 

Third Cit. Then they have murdered 

him who would have freed us. 
Fourth Cit. He was a kind man to 

the commons ever. 
Fifth Cit. Wisely they did to keep 
their portals barred. 
Would we had known the work they 

were preparing 
Ere we were summoned here — we 

would have brought 
Weapons, and forced them ! 

Sixth Cit. Are you sure he's dead? 
First Cit. I saw the sword fall — 
Lo ! what have we here ? 

Enter on the Balcony of the Palace which 
fronts St Mark's Place a Chief of 
the Ten, with a bloody sword. He 
waves it thrice before the People, 
and exclaims, 

"Justice hath dealt upon the mighty 
Traitor!" 

\The gates are opened; the popu- 
lace rush in towards the" Giants^ 
Staircase," luhere the execution 
has taken place. The foremost 
of them exclaims to those be- 
hind, 
"The gory head rolls down the Giants' 
Steps!" \The curtain falls. 

APPENDIX. 

[The plot of Marino Faliero is based 
on a passage in Marin Sanudo's Vite 
dei Dogi, which is contained in Mura- 
tori's Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 1733, 
xxii. 628-635. Byron caused a trans- 
lation to be made by Mr Francis 
Cohen (afterwards known as Sir Francis 
Palgrave), and printed Muratori's 
Italian together with the translation as 
Appendix I., II. to the first editions of 
Marino Faliero, 1821. Sanudo's story 
may be briefly summarised : — " Marino 
Faliero, a Trevisan, was elected Doge, 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



633 



September 11, 1354. Early in the fol- 
lowing spring at a State banquet which 
followed an annual bull-hunt, a certain 
noble youth named Michele Steno, who 
was enamoured of one of the ladies of 
the Court, behaved himself unseemly, 
and, by the Duke's orders, was kicked 
off the solajo or dais. Incensed at this 
contumely he had his revenge by scrawl- 
ing on the Ducal chair a libellous jest, 
to the effect that the Doge, who was 
well-stricken in years, was a wittol, that 
his fair young duchess played him false. 
Inquisition was made, and the culprit 
discovered. But Steno was of noble 
birth, and the Forty, unwilling to exact 
the full penalty on one of their own 
order, inflicted a light punishment, 
namely imprisonment for two months, 
and banishment from Venice for a year. 
The Doge was furious, but nursed his 
wrath in silence. Ere long another 
young spark, a choleric gentleman 
named Barbaro, insulted and struck the 
Admiral of the Arsenal, Israel Bertuccio, 
a man of plebeian origin, but of a great 
spirit, who, without more ado, sought 
out the Doge and appealed for support 
and redress. 'What can I do,' said the 
Doge, 'I who cannot avenge my own 
ignominy on Michele Steno?' 'Much,' 
replied Bertuccio. ' You can throw in 
your lot with the people, put the arro- 
gant nobles to the sword, and proclaim 
yourself Lord of Venice ! ' 

"Faliero caught at the bait, and lent 
himself to a treacherous conspiracy 
against the republic. Sixteen or seven- 
teen ring-leaders were to place them- 
selves at the head of gangs of forty men, 
who without being let into the secret 
were to make affrays among themselves, 
and, so, afford the Doge a pretext for 
ringing the bell of San Marco. The 
sound of the bell would bring the nobles 
into the streets, and the conspirators 
would cut them in pieces. The Doge 
might have won the day, if a half- 
hearted conspirator, Beltramo, Ber- 
gamasco, had not relented towards his 
patron Ser Niccolo Lioni, and warned 
him of impending danger. The plot- 
ters were outplotted and met with a 



shameful end. On Friday, the i6th of 
April, the 'Ten' passed sentence on the 
Doge, 'that he should have his head 
cut off on the landing-place of the stone 
staircase, where the Dukes take their 
oath when they first enter the palace.' 
' On the following day, the 17th of April, 
1355, the doors of the palace being shut, 
the Duke had his head cut off about the 
hour of noon.' According to a chronicle 
he was buried in the Church of Santi 
Giovanni e Paolo, but his body now 
rests in a coffin of stone in the middle of 
the little Church of Santa Maria della 
Pace. . . . 'And they did not paint his 
portrait in the hall of the Great Council, 
but in the place where it ought to have 
been you see these words: — "Hie est 
locus Marini Faletro, decapitati pro 
criminibus."'"] 



THE VISION OF JUDG- 
MENT.i 

BY 

QUEVEDO REDIVIVUS. 

SUGGESTED BY THE COMPOSITION SO 
ENTITLED BY THE AUTHOR OF "WAT 
TYLER." 

"A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel! 
I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word." 
[Merchant of Venice, act iv. sc. i. lines 218, 336. 1 



PREFACE. 

It hath been wisely said, that "One fool 
makes many;" and it hath been poet- 
ically observed — 

" [That] fools rush in where angels fear to tread." 
[Pope's Essay on Criticism, line 625.] 

If Mr Southey ^ had not rushed in 
where he had no business, and where he 

' [The Vision of Judgment was begun at 
Ravenna, May 7, and finished October 4, 1821. 
It was published in the first number of the 
Liberal, October 15, 1822.] 

^ [Southey 's Vision of Judgment, a funeral ode 
(in hexameter verse) in honour of George III., 
was published, April 11, 1821.] 



634 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



never was before, and never will be 
again, the following poem would not 
have been written. It is not impossible 
that it may be as good as his own, seeing 
that it cannot, by any species of stu- 
pidity, natural or acquired, be worse. 
The gross flattery, the dull impudence, 
the renegado intolerance, and impious 
cant, of the poem by the author of "Wat 
Tyler," are something so stupendous as 
to form the sublime of himself — con- 
taining the quintessence of his own 
attributes. 

So much for his poem — a word on 
his preface. In this preface it has 
pleased the magnanimous Laureate to 
draw the picture of a supposed "Satanic 
School," the which he doth recommend 
to the notice of the legislature; thereby 
adding to his other laurels the ambition 
of those of an informer. If there exists 
anywhere, except in his imagination, 
such a School, is he not sufficiently 
armed against it by his own intense 
vanity? The truth is that there are 
certain writers whom Mr S. imagines, 
like Scrub, to have "talked of him; for 
they laughed consumedly." 

I think I know enough of most of the 
writers to whom he is supposed to allude, 
to assert, that they, in their individual 
capacities, have done more good, in the 
charities of life, to their fellow-creatures, 
in any one year, than Mr Southey has 
done harm to himself by his absurdities 
in his whole life; and this is saying a 
great deal. But I have a few questions 
to ask. 

istly. Is Mr Southey the author of 
Wat Tyler ? ^ 

2ndly, Was he not refused a remedy 
at law by the highest judge of his be- 
loved England, because it was a blas- 
phemous and seditious publication? 

3rdly, Was he not entitled by William 

• [Wat Tyler was written at the age of nineteen, 
when Southey was a republican, and was en- 
trusted to two booksellers, who agreed to publish 
it, but never put it to press. The MS. was not 
returned to the author, and in February, 1817, 
at the interval of twenty-two years, when his 
sentiments were widely different, it was printed, 
to his great annoyance, by W. Benbow and 
others. It was reported that 60,000 copies 
were sold.] 



Smith, in full parliament, "a rancorous 
renegado?" ^ 

4thly, Is he not poet laureate, with 
his own lines on Martin the regicide 
staring him in the face ? ^ 

And, 5thly, Putting the four preced- 
ing items together, with what conscience 
dare he call the attention of the laws to 
the publications of others, be they what 
they may? 

I say nothing of the cowardice of such 
a proceeding; its meanness speaks for 
itself; but I wish to touch upon the 
motive, which is neither more nor less 
than that Mr S. has been laughed at a 
little in some recent publications, as he 
was of yore in the Anti jacobin, by his 
present patrons. Hence all this "skim- 
ble scamble stuff" about "Satanic," 
and so forth. However, it is worthy of 
him — " qualis ah incepto." 

If there is anything obnoxious to the 
political opinions of a portion of the 
public in the following poem, they may 
thank Mr Southey. He might have 
written hexameters, as he has written 
everything else, for aught that the writer 
cared — had they been upon another 
subject. But to attempt to canonise a 
monarch, who, whatever were his house- 
hold virtues, was neither a successful 
nor a patriot king, — inasmuch as 
several years of his reign passed in war 
with America and Ireland, to say noth- 
ing of the aggression upon France — • 
like all other exaggeration, necessarily 
begets opposition. In whatever manner 
he may be spoken of in this new Vision, 
his public career will not be more fa- 
vourably transmitted by history. Of his 
private virtues (although a little ex- 
pensive to the nation) there can be no 
doubt. 

With regard to the supernatural per- 
sonages treated of, I can only say that I 
know as much about them, and (as an 

' [William Smith, M.P. for Norwich, attacked 
Southey in the House of Commons on the 14th 
of March, 1817. The exact words used were, 
"the determined malignity of a renegade."] 

= [One of Southey's juvenile poems is an 
"Inscription for the Apartment in Chepstow 
Castle, where Henry Martin, the Regicide, was 
imprisoned thirty years."] 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



635 



honest man) have a better right to talk 
of them than Robert Southey. I have 
also treated them more tolerantly. The 
vt'ay in which that poor insane creature, 
the Laureate, deals about his judgments 
in the next world, is hke his own judg- 
|ment in this. If it was not completely 
ludicrous, it would be something worse. 
I don't think that there is much more 
to say at present. 

QUEVEDO REDIVIVUS. 

P.S. — It is possible that some read- 
ers may object, in these objectionable 
times, to the freedom with which saints, 
angels, and spiritual persons discourse 
in this Vision. But, for precedents 
upon such points, I must refer him to 
Fielding's Journey from this World to 
the next, and to the Visions of myself, 
the said Quevedo, in Spanish or trans- 
lated.^ The reader is also requested to 
observe, that no doctrinal tenets are in- 
sisted upon or discussed; that the per- 
son of the Deity is carefully withheld 
from sight, which is more than can be 
said for the Laureate, who hath thought 
proper to make him talk, not "like a 
school-divine," but like the unscholar- 
like Mr Southey. The whole action 
passes on the outside of heaven; and 
Chaucer's Wife of Bath, Pulci's Mor- 
gante Maggiore, Swift's Tale of a Tub, 
and the other works above referred to, 
are cases in point of the freedom with 
which saints, etc., may be permitted to 
converse in works not intended to be 
serious. Q. R. 



*** Mr Southey being, as he says, a 
good Christian and vindictive, threatens, 
I understand, a reply to this our answer. 
It is to be hoped that his visionary facul- 
ties will in the meantime have acquired 
a little more judgment, properly so 
called: otherwise he will get himself into 
new dilemmas. These apostate jacobins 
furnish rich rejoinders. Let him take 

' [The Suenos or Visions of Francisco Gomez 
de Quevedo of Villegas are six in number. They 
were published separately in 1635. An English 
Translation appeared in 1745.] 



a specimen. Mr Southey laudeth 
grievously "one Mr Landor," ^ who 
cultivates much private renown in the 
shape of Latin verses; and not long ago, 
the poet laureate dedicated to him, it 
appeareth, one of his fugitive lyrics, 
upon the strength of a poem called 
"Gebir." Who could suppose, that in 
this same Gebir the aforesaid Savage 
Landor (for such is his grim cognomen) 
putteth into the infernal regions no less 
a person than the hero of his friend Mr 
Southey's heaven, — yea, even George 
the Third ! See also how personal 
Savage becometh, when he hath a mind. 
The following is his portrait of our late 
gracious sovereign: — 

(Prince Gebir having descended into the in- 
fernal regions, the shades of his royal an- 
cestors are, at his request, called up to his 
view; and he exclaims to his ghostly guide) — 

"'Aroar, what wTetch that nearest us? what 

wTetch 
Is that with eyebrows white and slanting brow? 
Listen ! him yonder who, bound down supine, 
Shrinks yelling from that sword there, engine- 
hung; 
He too amongst my ancestors ! [I hate 
The despot, but the dastard I despise. 
Was he our countryman?' 

'Alas,] O king! 
Iberia bore him, but the breed accurst 
Inclement winds blew blighting from north- 
east.' 
'He was a warrior then, nor feared the gods?' 
'Gebir, he feared the Demons, not the gods, 
Though them indeed his daily face adored; 
And was no warrior, yet the thousand lives 
Squandered, as stones to exercise a sling. 
And the tame cruelty and cold caprice — 
Oh madness of mankind ! addressed, adored !'" 
Gebir [Works, etc., 1876, vii. 17]. 

I omit noticing some edifying Ithy- 
phallics of Savagius, wishing to keep 
the proper veil over them, if his grave 
but somewhat indiscreet worshipper will 
suffer it; but certainly these teachers 
of "great moral lessons" are apt to be 
found in strange company. 

I [Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) had 
recently published a volume of Latin poems, 
together with a Latin essay on contemporary 
poets. In his Preface to the Vision of Judgment, 
Southey illustrates a denunciation of "Men of 
diseased hearts," etc., by a quotation from the 
essay to the effect that it is a gross error that 
great genius and great wickedness are insepa- 
rable. Byron scented an allusion to himself, 
and was, naturally, indignant.] 



636 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate: 
His keys were rusty, and the lock was 
dull, 
So little trouble had been given of late; 
Not that the place by any means was 
full, 
But since the Gallic era "eighty-eight" 
The Devils had ta'en a longer, 
stronger pull. 
And "a pull altogether," as they say 
At sea — which drew most souls another 
way. 

II. 

The Angels all were singing out of tune, 

And hoarse with having little else to 

do, 

Excepting to wind up the sun and moon, 

Or curb a runaway young star or two. 

Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon 

Broke out of bounds o'er the ethereal 

blue. 

Splitting some planet with its playful 

tail. 
As boats are sometimes by a wanton 
whale. 

III. 

The Guardian Seraphs had retired on 
high, 
Finding their charges past all care 
below; 
Terrestrial business filled nought in the 
sky 
Save the Recording Angel's black 
bureau ; 
Who found, indeed, the facts to multiply 

With such rapidity of vice and woe. 
That he had stripped off both his wings 

in quills. 
And yet was in arrear of human ills. 



His business so augmented of late years, 
That he was forced, against his will, 
no doubt, 
(Just Hke those cherubs, earthly minis- 
ters,) 
For some resource to turn himself 
about, 
And claim the help of his celestial peers. 
To aid him ere he should be quite 
worn out 



By the increased demand for his re- 
marks: 

Six Angels and twelve Saints were 
named his clerks. 

V. 

This was a handsome board — at least 

for Heaven; 
And yet they had even then enough 

to do. 
So many Conquerors' cars were daily 

driven. 
So many kingdoms fitted up anew; 
Each day, too, slew its thousands six or 

seven. 
Till at the crowning carnage, Water- 
loo, 
They threw their pens down in divine 

disgust — 
The page was so besmeared with blood 

and dust. 

VI. 

This by the way; 'tis not mine to record 
What Angels shrink from: even the 
very Devil 
On this occasion his own work abhorred. 

So surfeited with the infernal revel: 
Though he himself had sharpened every 
sword. 
It almost quenched his innate thirst 
of evil. 
(Here Satan's sole good work deserves 

insertion — 
'Tis, that he has both Generals in 
reversion.) ^ 

VII. 

Let's skip a few short years of hollow 
peace. 
Which peopled earth no better. Hell 
as wont. 
And Heaven none — they form the 
tyrant's lease. 
With nothing but new names sub- 
scribed upon 't; 
'Twill one day finish: meantime they 
increase, 
"With seven heads and ten horns," 
and all in front, 

' [Napoleon died May 5, 1821, two days before 
Byron began his Vision of Judgment, but, of 
course, the news did not reach Europe till long 
afterwards.] 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



637 



Like Saint John's foretold beast; but 

ours are born 
Less formidable in the head than horn. 

, ' VIII. 

[nthe first year of Freedom's second 
dawn ^ 
Died George the Third; although no 
tyrant, one 
Nho shielded tyrants, till each sense 
withdrawn 
Left him nor mental nor external sun : 

\ better farmer ne'er brushed dew from 

I lawn, 

! A worse king never left a realm un- 
done ! 

He died — but left his subjects still 
behind. 

One half as mad — and t'other no less 
bhnd. 

IX. 

He died ! his death made no great stir on 

earth : 
His burial made some pomp; there 

was profusion 
Of velvet — gilding — brass — and no 

great dearth 
Of aught but tears — save those shed 

by collusion: 
For these things may be bought at their 

true worth; 
Of elegy there was the due infusion — 
Bought also; and the torches, cloaks 

and banners. 
Heralds, and relics of old Gothic man- 
ners, 

I 

Formed a sepulchral melodrame. Of all 
The fools who flocked to swell or see 
the show, 
Who cared about the corpse? The 
funeral 
Made the attraction, and the black 
the woe. 
There throbbed not there a thought 
which pierced the pall; 
And when the gorgeous cofi&n was 
- laid low, 

' [George III. died the 20th of January, 1820. 
The year 1820 was siKnalised by an outbreak of 
the revolutionary spirit throughout the greater 
part of the South of Europe.] 



It seemed the mockery of hell to fold 
The rottenness of eighty years in gold. 



So mix his body with the dust ! It 
might 
Return to what it must far sooner, 
were 
The natural compound left alone to 
fight 
Its way back into earth, and fire, and 
air; 
But the unnatural balsams merely blight 
What Nature made him at his birth, 
as bare 
As the mere million's base unmummied 

clay — 
Yet all his spices but prolong decay. 



He's dead — and upper earth with him 
has done ; 
He's buried; save the undertaker's 
bill, 
Or lapidary scrawl, the world is gone 

For him, unless he left a German will : 

But Where's the proctor who will ask 

his son? 

In whom his qualities are reigning 

still. 

Except that household virtue, most 

uncommon, 
Of constancy to a bad, ugly woman. 



"God save the king!" It is a large 
economy 
In God to save the like ; but if he will 
Be saving, all the better; for not one 
am I 
Of those who think damnation better 
still : 
I hardly know too if not quite alone am I 
In this small hope of bettering future 
ill 
By circumscribing, with some slight 

restriction, 
The eternity of Hell's hot jurisdiction. 



I know this is unpopular ; I know 
'Tis blasphemous; I know one may 
be damned 



638 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



For hoping no one else may e'er be so ; 
I know my catechism; I know we're 

crammed 
With the best doctrines till we quite 

o'erflow ; 
I know that all save England^Church 

have shammed, ' """ "" " 

And that the other twice two hundred 

churches 
And synagogues have made a damned 

bad purchase. 

XV. 

God help us all ! God help me too ! I 
am, 
God knows, as helpless as the Devil 
can wish, 
And not a whit more difficult to damn, 
Than is to bring to land a late- 
hooked fish. 
Or to the butcher to purvey the lamb ; 
Not that I'm fit for such a noble dish, 
As one day will be that immortal fry 
Of almost every body born to die. 



Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate, 
And nodded o'er his keys : when, lo ! 

there came 
A wondrous noise he had not heard of 

late — 
A rushing sound of wind, and stream, 

and flame; 
In short, a roar of things extremely 

great, 
Which would have made aught save 

a Saint exclaim; 
But he, with first a start and then a 

wink. 
Said, "There's another star gone out, I 

think!" 

XVII. 

But ere he could return to his repose, 
A Cherub flapped his right wing o'er 
his eyes — 
At which Saint Peter yawned, and rubbed 
his nose : 
"Saint porter," said the angel, 
"prithee rise !" 
Waving a goodly wing, which glowed, 
as glows 
An earthly peacock's tail, with 
heavenly dyes: 



To which the Saint replied, "Well, 

what's the matter? 
Is Lucifer come back with all this 

clatter?" 

XVIII. 

"No," quoth the Cherub: "George the 

Third is dead." 
"And who is George the Third?" 

replied the apostle : 
''What George? What Third?'' "The 

King of England," said 
The angel. "Well! he won't find 

kings to jostle 
Him on his way; but does he wear his 

head? 
Because the last we saw here had a 

tussle. 
And ne'er would have got into Heaven's 

good graces. 
Had he not flung his head in all our 

faces. 

XIX. 

"He Avas — if I remember — King of 

France ; ^ 
That head of his, which could not 

keep a crown 
On earth, yet ventured in my face to 

advance 
A claim to those of martyrs — like my 

own: 
If I had had my sword, as I had once 
When I cut ears off, I had cut him 

down; 
But having but my keys, and not my 

brand, 
I only knocked his head from out his 

hand. 

XX. 

"And then he set up such a headless 
howl. 
That all the Saints came out and took 
him in ; 
And there he sits by Saint Paul, cheek 
by jowl; 
That fellow Paul — the parvenu .' 
The skin 
Of Saint Bartholomew, which makes 
his cowl 
In heaven, and upon earth redeemed 
his sin, 

' [Louis the Sixteenth was guillotined January 
21, I793-] 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



639 



So as to make a martyr, never sped 
Better than did this weak and wooden 
head. 

XXI. 

"But had it come up here upon its 
shoulders, 
There would have been a different 
tale to tell : 
The fellow-feeling in the Saint's be- 
holders 
Seems to have acted on them like a 
spell ; 

And so this very foolish head Heaven 
solders 

Back on its trunk : it may be very well, 
And seems the custom here to overthrow 
Whatever has been wisely done below." 

XXII. 

The Angel answered, " Peter ! do not 

pout: 
The King w^ho comes has head and 

all entire, 
And never knew much what it was 

about -^ 
He did as doth the puppet — by its 

wire, 
And will be judged like all the rest, no 

doubt : 
My business and your own is not to 

inquire 
Into such matters, but to mind our 

cue — 
Which is to act as we are bid to do." 

XXIII. 

While thus they spake, the angelic 
caravan. 
Arriving like a rush of mighty wnnd, 
Cleaving the fields of space, as doth the 
swan 
Some silver stream (say Ganges, Nile, 
or Inde, 
Or Thames, or Tweed), and 'midst them 
an old man 
With an old soul, and both extremely 
blind. 
Halted before the gate, and, in his 

shroud. 
Seated their fellow-traveller on a cloud. ^ 

» ["Then I beheld the King. From a cloud 
which covered the pavement 



But bringing up the rear of this bright 
host 
A Spirit of a different aspect waved 
His wings, like thunder-clouds above 
some coast 
Whose barren beach with frequent 
wTecks is paved; 
His brow was like the deep when tem- 
pest-tossed ; 
Fierce and unfathomable thoughts en- 
graved 
Eternal wrath on his immortal face, 
And where he gazed a gloom pervaded 
space. 

XXV. 

As he drew near, he gazed upon the gate 
Ne'er to be entered more by him or 
Sin, 
With such a glance of supernatural hate. 
As made Saint Peter wish himself 
within ; 
He pottered with his keys at a great rate, 
And sweated through his Apostolic 
skin : 
Of course his perspiration was but ichor. 
Or some such other spiritual liquor. 

XXVI. 

The very Cherubs huddled all together, 
Like birds when soars the falcon; 
and they felt 
A tingling to the tip of every feather. 

And formed a circle like Orion's belt 

Around their poor old charge; w^ho 

scarce knew whither 

His guards had led him, though they 

gently dealt 

With Royal Manes (for by many 

stories. 
And true, we learn the Angels all are 
Tories). 

XXVII, 

As things wxre in this posture, the gate 
flew 
Asunder, and the flashing of its hinges 

His reverend form uprose: heavenward his 

face was directed. 
Heavenward his eyes were raised, and heaven- 
ward his arms were directed." 
— The Vision, etc., by A. R. Southey, iii.] 



640 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



Flung over space an universal hue 
Of many-coloured flame, until its 

tinges 
Reached even our speck of earth, and 

made a new 
Aurora borealis spread its fringes 
O'er the North Pole; the same seen, 

when ice-bound. 
By Captain Parry's crew, in "Melville's 

Sound." 

XXVIII. 

And from the gate thrown open issued 

beaming 
A beautiful and mighty Thing of 

Light, 
Radiant with glory, like a banner 

streaming 
Victorious from some world-o'er- 

throwing fight : 
My poor comparisons must needs be 

teeming 
With earthly likenesses, for here the 

night 
Of clay obscures our best conceptions, 

saving 
Johanna Southcote, or Bob Southey 

raving.^ 

XXIX. 

'Twas the Archangel Michael: all men 
know 
The make of Angels and Archangels, 
since 
There's scarce a scribbler has not one 
to show, 
From the fiends' leader to the 
Angels' Prince. 
There also are some altar-pieces, 
though 
I really can't say that they much 
evince 

*[" Eminent on a hill, there stood the Celestial 

City; 
Beaming afar it shone; its towers and cupolas 

rising 
High in the air serene, with the brightness of 

gold in the furnace. 
Where on their breadth the splendour lay 

intense and quiescent. 
Part with a fierier glow, and a short thick 

tremulous motion 
Like the burning pyropus; and turrets and 

pinnacles sparkled. 
Playing in jets of light, with a diamond-like 

glory coruscant." 

— Th9 Viikn, etc,, iv.] 



One's inner notions of immortal 

spirits ; 
But let the connoisseurs explain their 

merits. 

XXX. 

Michael flew forth in glory and in good ; 
A goodly work of him from whom all 
Glory 
And Good arise ; the portal past — he 
stood ; 
Before him the young Cherubs and 
Saints hoary — 
(I say young, begging to be understood 
By looks, not years; and should be 
very sorry 
To state, they were not older than St 

Peter, 
But merely that they seemed a little 
sweeter). 

XXXI. 

The Cherubs and the Saints bowed down 
before 
That arch-angelic Hierarch, the first 
Of Essences angelical who wore 

The aspect of a god; but this ne'er 
nursed 
Pride in his heavenly bosom, in whose 
core 
No thought, save for his Maker's 
service, durst 
Intrude — however glorified and high. 
He knew him but the Viceroy of the sky. 



He and the sombre, silent Spirit met — 
They knew each other both for good 
and ill; 
Such was their power, that neither could 
forget 
His former friend and future foe; 
but still 
There was a high, immortal, proud 
regret 
In either's eye, as if 'twere less their 
will 
Than .destiny to make the eternal ears 
Their date of war, and their "Champ 
Clos" the spheres. 



But here they were in neutral space: 
we know 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



641 



From Job, that Satan hath the power 
to pay 
A heavenly visit thrice a-year or so; 
And that the "Sons of God," like 
those of clay, 
Must keep him company; and we 
might show 
From the same book, in how polite a 
way 
The dialogue is held between the 

Powers 
Of Good and Evil — but 'twould take 
up hours. 



And this is not a theologic tract. 

To prove with Hebrew and with 
Arabic, 
If Job be allegory or a fact. 

But a true narrative ; and thus I pick 
From' out the whole but such and such 
an act 
As sets aside the slightest thought of 
trick. 
'Tis every tittle true, beyond suspicion. 
And accurate as any other vision. 

XXXV. 

The spirits were in neutral space, 
before 
The gate of Heaven ; like eastern 
thresholds is 
The place where Death's grand cause is 
argued o'er, 
And souls despatched to that world 
or to this; 
And therefore Michael and the other 
wore 
A civil aspect: though they did not 
kiss, 
Yet still between his Darkness and his 

Brightness 
Where passed a mutual glance of great 
politeness. 

XXXVI. 

The Archangel bowed, not like a mod- 
ern beau. 
But with a graceful oriental bend, 
Pressing one radiant arm just where 
below 
The heart in good men is supposed to 
tend; 

9T 



He turned as to an equal, not too low. 
But kindly; Satan met his ancient 

friend 
With more hauteur, as might an old 

Castilian 
Poor Noble meet a mushroom rich 

civilian. 

XXXVII. 

He merely bent his diabolic brow 

An instant; and then raising it, he 
stood 
In act to assert his right or wrong, and 
show 
Cause why King George by no means 
could or should 
Make out a case to be exempt from woe 
Eternal, more than other kings, en- 
dued 
With better sense and hearts, whom His- 
tory mentions, 
Who long have "paved Hell with their 
good intentions." 



Michael began: "What wouldst thou 
with this man, 
Now dead, and brought before the 
Lord? What ill 
Hath he wrought since his mortal race 
began. 
That thou canst claim him ? Speak ! 
and do thy will, 
If it be just : if in this earthly span 

He hath been greatly failing to fulfil 
His duties as a king and mortal, say, 
And he is thine ; if not — let him have 
way." 

XXXIX. 

"Michael!" replied the Prince of Air, 
"even here 
Before the gate of Him thou servest, 
must 
I claim my subject: and will make 
appear 
That as he was my worshipper in dust, 
So shall he be in spirit, although dear 
To thee and thine, because nor wine 
nor lust 
Were of his weaknesses; yet on the 

throne 
He reigned o'er millions to serve me 
alone. 



642 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



"Look to our earth, or rather mine; it 

was, 
Once, more thy master's: but I tri- 
umph not 
In this poor planet's conquest; nor, 

alas! 
Need he thou servest envy me my lot : 
With all the myriads of bright worlds 

which pass 
In worship round him, he may have 

forgot 
Yon weak creation of such paltry 

things : 
I think few worth damnation save their 

kings, 

XLI. 

"And these but as a kind of quit-rent, to 
Assert my right as Lord: and even 
had 
I such an inclination, 'twere (as you 
Well know) superfluous; they are 
grown so bad, 
That Hell has nothing better left to do 
Than leave them to themselves: so 
much more mad 
And evil by their own internal curse, 
Heaven cannot make them better, nor 
I worse. 

XLII. 

"Look to the earth, I said, and say 

again : 
When this old, blind, mad, helpless, 

weak, poor worm 
Began in youth's first bloom and flush 

to reign. 
The world and he both w^ore a differ- 
ent form, 
And much of earth and all the watery 

plain 
Of Ocean called him king: through 

many a storm 
His isles had floated on the abyss of 

Time ; 
For the rough virtues chose them for 

their clime. 



"He came to his sceptre young; he 
leaves it old: 
Look to the state in which he found 
his realm. 



And left it ; and his annals too behold, 
How to a minion first he gave the 

helm ; ^ 
How grew upon his heart a thirst for 

gold. 
The beggar's vice, which can but 

overwhelm 
The meanest hearts; and for the rest, 

but glance 
Thine eye along America and France. 

XLIV. 

"'Tis true, he was a tool from first to 

last 
(I have the workmen safe) ; but as a 

tool 
So let him be consumed. From out the 

past 
Of ages, since mankind have known 

the rule 
Of monarchs — from the bloody rolls 

amassed 
Of Sin and Slaughter — from the 

Caesars' school. 
Take the worst pupil; and produce a 

reign 
More .drenched with gore, more cum- 
bered with the slain. 

j XLV. 

/^'He ever warred with freedom and the 
free: 
Nations as men, home subjects, 
foreign foes. 
So that they uttered the word ' Liberty ! ' 
Found George the Third their first 
opponent. Whose 
History was ever stained as his will be 

With national and individual woes? 
I grant his household abstinence; I 

grant 
His neutral virtues, which most mon- 
archs want; 



" I know he was a constant consort ; own 
He was a decent sire, and middling 
lord. 

All this is much, and most upon a throne ; 
As temperance, if at Apicius' board, 

' [John Stuart, Earl of Bute (1713-1792), was 
Secretary of State March 25, 1761, and Prime 
Minister May 29, 1762-April 1763.] 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



643 



Is more than at an anchorite's supper 
shown. 
I grant him all the kindest can accord ; 

And this was well for him, but not for 
those 

Millions who found him what Oppres- 
sion chose. 

XL VII. 

'The New World shook him off; the 
Old yet groans 
Beneath what he and his prepared, if 
not 

'Completed: he leaves heirs on many 
thrones 
To all his vices, without what begot 
Compassion for him — his tame virtues ; 
drones 
Who sleep, or despots who have now 
forgot 
A lesson which shall be retaught them, 

wake 
Upon the thrones of earth; but let 
them quake ! 



"Five 



XL VIII. 



e millions of the primitive, who 
hold 
The faith which makes ye great on 
earth, implored 
A part of that vast all they held of old, — 
Freedom to worship — not alone 
your Lord, 
Michael, but you, and you, Saint Peter ! 
Cold 
Must be your souls, if you have not 
abhorred 

The foe to <^j;h^1f^ ppirtjripatinn 

In all the license of a Christian nation. 

XLIX. 

"True! he allowed them to pray God; 
but as 
A consequence of prayer, refused the 
law 
Which would have placed them upon 
the same base 
With those who did not hold the 
Saints in awe." 
But here Saint Peter started from his 
place 
And cried, "You may the prisoner 
withdraw : 



Ere Heaven shall ope her portals to this 

Guelph, 
While I am guard, may I be damned 

myself ! 

L. 

"Sooner will I with Cerberus exchange 

My office (and his is no sinecure) 
Than see this royal Bedlam-bigot 
range 
The azure fields of Heaven, of that be 
sure !" 
"Saint!" replied Satan, "you do well 
to avenge 
The wrongs he made your satellites 
endure ; 
And if to this exchange you should be 

given, 
I'll try to coax our Cerberus up to 
Heaven !" 

LI. 

Here Michael interposed : " Good Saint ! 
and Devil ! 
Pray, not so fast; you both outrun 
discretion. 
Saint Peter ! you were wont to be more 
civil : 
Satan ! excuse this warmth of his 
expression. 
And condescension to the vulgar's level : 
Even Saints sometimes forget them- 
selves in session. 
Have you got more to say?" — "No." 

— "If you please, 
I'll trouble you to call your witnesses." 

LII. 

Then Satan turned and waved his 
swarthy hand. 
Which stirred with its electric quali- 
ties 

Clouds farther off than we can under- 
stand. 
Although we find him sometimes in 
our skies; 

Infernal thunder shook both sea and 
land 
In all the planets — and Hell's bat- 
teries 

Let off the artillery, which Milton men- 
tions 

As one of Satan's most sublime inven- 
tions 



644 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



LIII. 

This was a signal unto such damned 
souls 
As have the privilege of their damna- 
tion 
Extended far beyond the mere controls 
Of worlds past, present, or to come ; 
no station 
Is theirs particularly in the rolls 

Of Hell assigned; but where their 
inclination 
Or business carries them in search of 

game 
They may range freely — being damned 
the same. 

LIV. 

They are proud of this — as very well 
they may, 
It being a sort of knighthood, or gilt 
key 
Stuck in their loins ; ^ or like to an 
"entre" 
Up the back stairs, or such free- 
masonry. 
I borrow my comparisons from clay, 
Being clay myself. Let not those 
spirits be 
Offended with such base low likenesses ; 
We know their posts are nobler far than 
these. 

LV. 

When the great signal ran from Heaven 
to Hell — 
About ten million times the distance 
reckoned 
From our sun to its earth, as we can tell 
How much time it takes up, even to a 
second. 
For every ray that travels to dispel 
The fogs of London, through which, 
dimly beaconed. 
The weathercocks are gilt some thrice 

a year, 
If that the summer is not too severe : 

LVI. 

I say that I can tell — 'twas half a 
minute ; 
I know the solar beams take up more 
time 



the 



[A gold key is part of the insignia of office of 
Lord Chamberlain and other court officiftls.] 



Ere, packed up for their journey, they 
begin it ; 
But then their Telegraph is less sub- 
lime,^ 

And. if they ran a race, they would not 
win it 
'Gainst Satan's couriers bound for 
their own clime. 

The sun takes up some years for every 
ray 

To reach its goal — the Devil not half a 
day. 

LVII. 

Upon the verge of space, about the size 
Of half-a-crown, a little speck ap- 
peared 
(I've seen a something like it in the 

skies 
In the .(Egean, ere a squall) ; it 

neared, 
And, growing bigger, took another 

guise ; 
Like an aerial ship it tacked, and 

steered, 
Or was steered (I am doubtful of the 

grammar 
Of the last phrase, which makes the 

stanza stammer; 



But take your choice) : and then it grew 
a cloud; 
And so it was — a cloud of witnesses. 
But such a cloud ! No land ere saw a . 
crowd 
Of locusts numerous as the heavens 
saw these; 
They shadowed with their myriads 
Space; their loud 
And varied cries were like those of 
wild geese, 
(If nations may be likened to a goose). 
And realised the phrase of "Hell broke 
loose." 

LIX. 

Here crashed a sturdy oath of stout 
John Bull, 
Who damned away his eyes as hereto- 
fore: 

'[The "Telegraph" to which Byron refers 
was, probably, the semaphore from London to 
Portsmouth.] 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



645 



There Paddy brogued "By Jasus!" — 
"What's your wuU?" 
The temperate Scot exclaimed: the 
French ghost swore 
In certain terms I shan't translate in full, 
As the first coachman will ; and 'midst 
the war, 
The voice of Jonathan was heard to 

express, 
" Our President is going to war, I guess." 



Besides there were the Spaniard, Dutch, 
and Dane; 
In short, an universal shoal of shades 
From Otaheite's isle to Salisbury Plain, 
Of all climes and professions, years 
and trades, 
Ready to swear against the good king's 
reign, 
Bitter as clubs in cards are against 
spades : 
All summoned by this grand " subpoena," 

to 
Try if kings mayn't be damned like me 
or you. 

LXI. 

When Michael saw this host, he first 
grew pale, 
As Angels can ; next, like Italian twi- 
light, 
He turned all colours — as a peacock's 
tail. 
Or sunset streaming through a Gothic 
skylight 
In some old abbey, or a trout not stale. 
Or distant lightning on the horizon 
hy night, 
Or a fresh rainbow, or a grand review 
Of thirty regiments in red, green, and 
blue. 

LXII. 

Then he addressed himself to Satan: 
"Why — 
My good old friend, for such I deem 
you, though 
Our different parties make us fight so 
shy, 
I ne'er mistake you for a personal foe ; 
Our difference is political, and I 

Trust that, whatever may occur 
below, 



You know my great respect for you: 

and this 
Makes me regret whate'er you do 

amiss — 

LXIII. 

"Why, my dear Lucifer, would you 
abuse 
My call for witnesses? I did not 
mean 
That you should half of Earth and Hell 
produce ; 
'Tis even superfluous, since two 
honest, clean. 
True testimonies are enough: we lose 

Our Time, nay, our Eternity, between 
The accusation and defence : if we 
Hear both, 'twill stretch our immor- 
tality." 

LXIV. 

Satan replied, "To me the matter is 
Indifferent, in a personal point of 
xaew : 
I can have fifty better souls than this 
With far less trouble than we have 
gone through 
Already ; and I merely argued his 
Late Majesty of Britain's case with 
you _ 
Upon a point of form : you may dispose f 
Of him; I've kings enough below, God / 
knows !" 

LXV. 

Thus spoke the Demon (late called 

"multifaced" ^ 
By multo-scribbling Southey). 

"Then we'll call 
One or two persons of the myriads 

placed 
Around our congress, and dispense 

with all 
The rest," quoth Michael: "Who 

may be so graced 
As to speak first? there's choice • 

enough — who shall 
It be ? " Then Satan answered, " There 

are many; 
But you may choose Jack Wilkes as 

well as any." 

'["'Caitiffs, are ye dumb?' cried the multi- 
faced 
Demon in anger." 

— Vision of Judgments v.] 



646 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



tVS 



A merry, cock-eyed, curious-looking 

Sprite ^ 
Upon the instant started from the 

throng, 
Dressed in a fashion now forgotten 

quite ; 
For all the fashions of the flesh 

stick long 
By people in the next world; where 

unite 
All the costumes since Adam's, 

right or wrong. 
From Eve's fig-leaf down to the petti- 
coat, 
Almost as scanty, of days less remote. 



The Spirit looked around upon the 
crowds 
Assembled, and exclaimed, "My 
friends of all 
The spheres, we shall catch cold 
amongst these clouds; 
So let's to business: why this general 
call? 
If those are freeholders I see in shrouds. 
And 'tis for an election that they 
bawl. 
Behold a candidate with unturned coat ! 
Saint Peter, may I count upon your 
vote?" 

LXVIII. 

"Sir," replied Michael, "you mistake; 
these things 
Are of a former life, and what we do 
Above is more august; to judge of 
kings 
Is the tribunal met : so now you 
know." 

' ["Beholding the foremost, 

Him by the cast of his eye oblique, I knew as the 

firebrand 
Whom the unthinking populace held for their 

idol and hero. 
Lord of Misrule in his day." 

— Ibid. , V. 
In Hogarth's caricature Wilkes squints viore 
than "a gentleman should squint." Walpole 
{Letters, 1858, vii. 274) describes another portrait 
(by Zoffani) as "a delightful piece of Wilkes 
looking — no, squinting tenderly at his daughter. 
It is a caricature of the Devil acknowledging 
Miss Sin in Milton."] 



"Then I presume those gentlemen with 

wings," 
Said Wilkes, "are Cherubs; and 

that soul below 
Looks much like George the Third, but 

to my mind 
A good deal older — bless me ! is 

he blind?" 

LXIX, 

"He is what you behold him, and his 

doom 
Depends upon his deeds," the Angel 

said; 
" If you have aught to arraign in him, 

the tomb 
Gives licence to the humblest beggar's 

head 
To lift itself against the loftiest." — 

"Some," 
Said Wilkes, "don't wait to see them 

laid in lead. 
For such a liberty — and I, for one. 
Have told them what I thought beneath 

the sun." 

LXX. 

"Above the sun repeat, then, what thou 
hast 
To urge against n him," said the 
Archangel . ' ' Why, ' ' 
Replied the spirit, "since old scores 
are past. 
Must I turn evidence ? In faith, not I. 
Besides, I beat him hollow at the last,^ 
With all his Lords and Commons: 
in the sky 
I don't like ripping up old stories, 

since 
His conduct was but natural in a prince. 

LXXI. 

"Foolish, no doubt, and wicked, to 
oppress 
A poor unlucky devil without a 
shilling ; 
But then I blame the man himself 
much less 
Than Bute and Grafton,^ and shall 
be unwilling 

' [On his third return to Parliament for 
Middlesex, October 8, 1774, Wilkes took his 
seat (December 2) without opposition.] 

^ [Bute, as leader of the king's party, was an 
open enemy; the Duke of Grafton, a half- 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



647 



To see him punished here for their 

excess, 
Since they were both damned long 

ago, and still in 
Their place below : for me, I have 

forgiven, 
And vote his habeas corpus into Heaven." 

LXXII. 

"Wilkes," said the Devil, "I under- 
stand all this; 
You turned to half a courtier ^ ere 
you died. 
And seem to think it would not be 
amiss 
To grow a whole one on the other 
side 
Of Charon's ferry; you forget that his 
Reign is concluded ; whatsoe'er betide, 
He won't be sovereign more: you've 

lost your labour. 
For at the best he will but be your 
neighbour. 

LXXIII. 

"However, I knew what to think of it, 
When I beheld you in your jesting 
way. 
Flitting and whispering round about 
the spit 
Where Belial, upon duty for the day, 
With Fox's lard was basting William 
Pitt, 
His pupil; I knew what to think, I 
say: 
That fellow even in Hell breeds farther 

ills; 
I'll have him gagged — 'twas one of 
his own Bills.^ 

hearted friend. " Your gracious Master," wrote 
Junius, "understands your character; and 
makes you a persecutor because you have been 
a friend" {Letter xii.).] 

' [In 1774 Wilkes was elected Lord Mayor, 
and in the following spring it fell to his lot to 
present to the King a remonstrance from the 
Livery against the continuance of the war with 
America. Walpole says that "he used his 
triumph with moderation — in modern language 
with good breeding." The King is said to have 
been agreeably surprised at his demeanour. In 
his old age (1790) he voted against the Whigs.] 

»["In consequence of Kyd Wake's attack 
upon the King, two Acts were introduced, the 
'Treason' and 'Sedition Bills,' November 6, 
November 10, 1795, for better securing the 
King's person."] 



LXXIV. 

"Call Junius!" From the crowd a 

shadow stalked, 
And at the name there was a general 

squeeze, 
So that the very ghosts no longer 

walked 
In comfort, at their own aerial ease, 
But were all rammed, and jammed 

(but to be balked, 
As we shall see), and jostled hands 

and knees. 
Like wind compressed and pent within 

a bladder, 
Or like a human colic, which is 

sadder. 

LXXV. 

The shadow came — a tall, thin, grey- 
haired figure, 
That looked as it had been a shade 

on earth; 
Quick in its motions, with an air of 

vigour. 
But nought to mark its breeding or 

its birth; 
Now it waxed little, then again grew 

bigger, 
With now an air of gloom, or savage 

mirth ; 
But as you gazed upon its features, 

they 
Changed every instant — to what, 

none could say. 

LXXVI. 

The more intently the ghosts gazed, 

the less 
Could they distinguish whose the 

features were; 
The Devil himself seemed puzzled even 

to guess ; 
They varied like a dream — now 

here, now there ; 
And several people swore from out the 

press, 
They knew him perfectly; and one 

could swear 
He was his father; upon which an- 
other 
Was sure he was his mother's cousin's 

brother : 



648 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



Another, that he was a duke, or knight, 

An orator, a lawyer, or a priest, 
A nabob, a man-midwife; but the 
wight 
Mysterious changed his countenance 
at least 
As oft as they their minds: though in 
full sight 
He stood, the puzzle only was 
increased ; 
The man was a phantasmagoria in 
Himself — he was so volatile and thin. 



The moment that you had pronounced 

him one, 
Presto ! his face changed, and he was 

another ; 
And when that change was hardly well 

put on, 
It varied, till I don't think his own 

mother 
(If that he had a mother) would her 

son 
Have known, he shifted so from one 

to t'other ; 
Till guessing from a pleasure grew a 

task, 
At this epistolary "Iron Mask." ^ 

LXXIX. 

For sometimes he like Cerberus would 

seem — 
"Three gentlemen at once" (as 

sagely says 
Good Mrs. Malaprop) ; then you might 

deem 
That he was not even om; now 

many rays 
Were flashing round him; and now a 

thick steam 
Hid him from sight — like fogs on 

London days : 
Now Burke, now Tooke, he grew to 

people's fancies. 
And certes often like Sir Philip 

Francis. 

'[The "Man in the Iron Mask," or, more 
correctly, the "Man in the Black Velvet Mask," 
has been identified with Count Ercole Antonio 
Mattioli, Secretary of State at the Court of 
Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua.] 



LXXX. 

I've an hypothesis — 'tis quite my own; 

I never let it out till now, for fear 
Of doing people harm about the throne, 
And injuring some minister or peer. 
On whom the stigma might perhaps be 
blown ; 
It is — my gentle public, lend thine 
ear! 
'Tis, that what Junius we are wont to 

call. 
Was really — truly — nobody at all. 

LXXXI. 

I don't see wherefore letters should not 

be 
Written without hands, since we 

daily view 
Them written without heads; and 

books, we see, 
Are filled as well without the latter 

too: 
And really till we fix on somebody 
For certain sure to claim them as his 

due. 
Their author, like the Niger's mouth, ^ 

will bother 
The world to say if there be mouth or 

author. 

LXXXII. 

"And who and what art thou?" the 
Archangel said. 
"For that you may consult my title- 
page," 2 
Replied this mighty shadow of a shade : 
"If I have kept my secret half an age, 
I scarce shall tell it now." — "Canst 
thou upbraid," 
Continued Michael, "George Rex, 
or allege 
Aught further?" Junius answered, 

"You had better 
First ask him for his answer to my 
letter : 

LXXXIII. 

"My charges upon record will outlast 
The brass of both his epitaph and 
tomb." 

' [The Delta of the Niger is a vast alluvial 
morass, covered with dense forests of mangrove.] 

' [The title-page runs thus: "Letters of 
Junius, Stat Nominis Umbra."] 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



649 



Repent'st thou not," said Michael, 

"of some past 
Exaggeration ? something which may- 
doom 

Thyself if false, as him if true ? Thou 
wast 
Too bitter — is it not so ? — in thy 
gloom 
Of passion?" — "Passion!" cried the 

phantom dim, 
'I loved my country, and I hated him. 

^r ^'^ '" ' Lxxxiv. 

'What I have written, I have written: 

let 
j The rest be on his head or mine ! " 

So spoke 
Old "Nominis Umbra"; and while 

speaking yet, 
; Away he melted in celestial smoke. 
Then Satan said to Michael, "Don't 

forget 
To call George Washington, and 

John Home Tooke, 
And Franklin;" — but at this time 

there was heard 
A cry for room, though not a phantom 

stirred. 

LXXXV. 

At length with jostling^ elbowing, and 

the aid 
Of Cherubim appointed to that post, 
The devil Asmodeus ^ to the circle 

made 
His way, and looked as if his journey 

cost 
Some trouble. When his burden down 

he laid, 
"What's this ?" cried Michael ; "why, 

'tis not a ghost?" 
"I know it," quoth the Incubus; "but 

he 
Shall be one, if you leave the affair to 

me. 

LXXXVI. 

" Confound the renegado ! I have 

sprained 
My left wing, he's so heavy; one 

would think 
Some of his works about his neck were 

chained. 

^ [Vide ante, p. 18, note 2.] 



But to the point; while hovering o'et 

the brink 
Of Skiddaw (where as usual it still 

rained), 
I saw a taper, far below me, 

wink. 
And stooping, caught this fellow at a 

libel — 
No less on History — than the Holy 

Bible. 

LXXXVII. 

"The former is the Devil's scripture, 
and 
The latter yours, good Michael: 
so the affair 
Belongs to all of us, you understand. 
I snatched him up just as you see 
him there, 
And brought him off for sentence out of 
hand: 
I've scarcely been ten minutes in the 
air — 
At- least a quarter it can hardly be: 
I dare say that his wife is still at tea." 

LXXXVIII. 

Here Satan said, "I know this man of 
old. 
And have expected him for some 
time here ; 
A sillier fellow you will scarce behold, 
Or more conceited in his petty sphere : 
But surely it was not worth while to 
fold 
Such trash below your wing, Asmo- 
deus dear: 
We had the poor wretch safe (without 

being bored 
With carriage) coming of his own 
accord. 

LXXXIX. 

"But since he's here, let's see what he 
has done." 
"Done!" cried Asmodeus, "he an- 
ticipates 
The very business you are now upon. 
And scribbles as if head clerk to the 
Fates. 
Who knows to what his ribaldry may 
run, 
When such an ass as this, like 
Balaam's, prates?" 



650 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



"Let's hear," quoth Michael, "what he 

has to say: 
You know we're bound to that in every 

way." 

xc. 

Now the Bard, glad to get an audience, 
which 
By no means often was his case 
below. 
Began to cough, and hawk, and hem, 
and pitch 
His voice into that awful note of 
woe 
To all unhappy hearers within reach 
Of poets when the tide of rhyme's in 
flow; 
But stuck fast with his first hexam- 
eter. 
Not one of all whose gouty feet would 
stir. 

XCI. 

But ere the spavined dactyls could be 
spurred 
Into recitative, in great dismay 
Both Cherubim and Seraphim were 
heard 
To murmur loudly through their 
long array; 
And Michael rose ere he could get a 
word 
Of all his foundered verses under 
way. 
And cried, "For God's sake stop, my 

friend ! 'twere best — 
* Non Di, non homines ' — you know 
the rest." 

XCII. 
A general bustle spread throughout the 
throng. 
Which seemed to hold all verse in 
detestation ; 
The Angels had of course enough of 
song 
When upon service ; and the genera- 
tion 
Of ghosts had heard too much in life, 
not long 
Before, to profit by a new occasion : 
The Monarch, mute till then, ex- 
claimed, "What! what! 
Pye come again ? No more — no 
more of that !" 



XCIII. 

The tumult grew ; an universal cough 
Convulsed the skies, as during a 
debate. 
When Castlereagh has been up long 

eliCm-gh " 

(Before he was first minister of state, 
I mean — the slaves hear now) ; some 
cried "Off, off!" 
As at a farce; till, grown quite des- 
perate. 
The Bard Saint Peter prayed to inter- 
pose 
(Himself an author) only for his prose. 

XCIV, 

The varlet was not an ill-favoured 
knave ; 
A good deal like a vulture in the face, 
With a hook nose and a hawk's eye, 
which gave 
A smart and sharper-looking sort of 
grace 
To his whole aspect, which, though 
rather grave. 
Was by no means so ugly as his 
case; 
But that, indeed, was hopeless as can 

be. 
Quite a poetic felony "de se." 

xcv. 

Then Michael blew his trump, and 
stilled the noise 
With one still greater, as is yet the 
mode 
On earth besides; except some grum- 
bling voice. 
Which now and then will make a 
slight inroad 
Upon decorous silence, few will twice 
Lift up their lungs when fairly over- 
crowed ; 
And now the Bard could plead his own 

bad cause. 
With all the attitudes of self -applause, 

xcvi. 

He said — (I only give the heads) — 
he said. 
He meant no harm in scribbling; 
'twas his way 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 



651 



Upon all topics; 'twas, besides, his 

bread, 
I Of which he buttered both sides; 

'twould delay 
Too long the assembly (he was pleased 
to dread). 
And take up rather more time than 

a day, 
o name his works — he would but 

cite a few — 
Wat Tyler" — "Rhymes on Blen- 
heim" — "Waterloo." ^ 

XCVII. 

tie had written praises of a Regicide; 
He had written praises of all kings 
whatever ; 
He had written for republics far and 
wide, 
And then against them bitterer than 
ever; 
For pantisocracy he once had cried 
Aloud, a scheme less moral than 
'twas clever; 
Then grew a hearty anti-jacobin — 
Had turned his coat — and would 
have turned his skin. 



He had sung against all battles, and 

again 
In their high praise and glory; he 

had called 
Reviewing "the ungentle craft," ^ and 

then 
Became as base a critic as e'er 
I crawled — 
iFed, paid, and pampered by the very 

men 
By whom his muse and morals had 

been mauled : 
He had written much blank verse, and 

blanker prose. 
And more of both than any body 
I knows. 

' ' [Southey's "Battle of Blenheim" was 
published in the Annual Anthology of 1800, pp. 
34-37. The purport and motif oi these excellent 
rhymes is non-patriotic if not Jacobinical, but, 
for some reason, the poem has been considered 
improving for the young, and is included in many 
"Poetry Books" for schools. The Poet's Pil- 
grimage to Waterloo was published in 1816.] 
= [Remains of Henry Kirke While, 1808, i. 23.] 



XCIX. 

He had written Wesley's ^ life : — here 
turning round 
To Satan, "Sir, I'm ready to write 
yours. 
In two octavo volumes, nicely bound. 
With notes and preface, all that most 
allures 
The pious purchaser; and there's no 
ground 
For fear, for I can choose my own 
reviewers : 
So let me have the proper documents, 
That I may add you to my other 
saints." 

c. 

Satan bowed, and was silent. "Well, 
if you. 
With amiable modesty, decline 
My offer, what says Michael? There 
are few 
Whose memoirs could be rendered 
more divine. 
Mine is a pen of all work; not so new 
As it was once, but I would make you 
shine 
Like your own trumpet. By the way, 

my own 
Has more of brass in it, and is as well 
blown. 

CI. 

" But talking about trumpets, here's my 
' Vision ' ! 
Now you shall judge, all people — 
yes — you shall 
Judge with my judgment ! and by my 
decision 
Be guided who shall enter heaven or 
fall. 
I settle all these things by intuition. 
Times present, past, to come — 
Heaven — Hell — and all. 
Like King Alfonso.^ When I thus see 

double, 
I save the Deity some worlds of trouble." 

' [Sou they 's Life of Wesley, and Rise and 
Progress of Methodism, was published in 1820.] 

= King Alfonso, speaking of the Ptolomean 
system, said, that "had he been consulted at the 
creation of the world, he would have spared the 
Maker some absurdities." [Alfonso X., King 
of Castile (1221-1284), surnamed the Wise and 
the Astronomer. His strictures on creation are 



652 



POEMS 1816-1823 



He ceased, and drew forth an MS. ; and no 
Persuasion on the part of Devils, 
Saints, 
Or Angels, now could stop the torrent ; so 
He read the first three lines of the con- 
tents ; 
But at the fourth, the whole spiritual 
show 
Had vanished, with variety of scents. 
Ambrosial and sulphureous, as they 

sprang, 
Like lightning, off from his " melodious 
twang." ^ 

cm. 

Those grand heroics acted as a 
spell ; 
The Angels stopped their ears and 
plied their pinions; 
The Devils ran howling, deafened, 
down to Hell; 
The ghosts fled, gibbering, for their 
own dominions — 
(For 'tis not yet decided where they 
dwell, 
And I leave every man to his opin- 
ions) ; 
Michael took refuge in his trump — 

but, lo ! 
His teeth were set on edge, he could not 
blow ! 

CIV. 

Saint Peter, who has hitherto been 
known 
For an impetuous saint, upraised his 
keys. 
And at the fifth line knocked the poet 
down ; 
Who fell like Phaeton, but more at ease, 
Into his lake, for there he did not 
drown ; 
A different web being by the Destinies 
Woven for the Laureate's final wreath, 

whene'er 
Reform shall happen either here or 
there. 

recorded by Le Bovier de Fontenelle, in his 
Eniretiens sur la Pluralite des Mondes, 1686, d. 
38.]^ 

' [See Aubrey's account of the apparition 
which disappeared "with a curious perfume, and 
most melodious twang"; or see Scott's Anti- 
quary, The Novels, etc., 185 1, i. 375.] 



He first sank to the bottom — like his 
works. 
But soon rose to the surface — like 
himself ; 
For all corrupted things are buoyed 
like corks,' 
By their own rottenness, light as an 
elf, 
Or wisp that flits o'er a morass: he 
lurks, 
It may be, still, like dull books on a 
shelf. 
In his own den, to scrawl some "Life" 

or "Vision," 
As Welborn says — "the Devil turned 
precisian." 

cvi. 

As for the rest, to come to the con- 
clusion 
Of this true dream, the telescope is 

gone 
Which kept my optics free from all 

delusion. 
And showed me what I in my turn 

have shown ; 
All I saw farther, in the last confusion, 
Was, that King George slipped into 

Heaven for one ; 
And when the tumult dwindled to a 

calm, 
I left him practising the hundredth 

psalm. R* Oct. 4, 182 1. 



POEMS 1816-1823. 



A VERY MOURNFUL BALLAD 2 
ON THE SIEGE AND CON- 
QUEST OF ALHAMA.3 

Which, in the Arabic language, is to 
the following purport.* 



The Moorish King rides up and down, 
Through Granada's royal town: 

' A drowned body lies at the bottom till rotten; 
it then floats, as most people know. 

* [Bvron does not give his authority for the 
Spanish original of his Rojttatice Miiy Dolorosa. 
As it stands, the "Romance" is a cento of three 



A VERY MOURNFUL BALLAD 



653 



\ From Elvira's gates to those 
Of Bivarambla on he goes. 

Woe is me, Alhama 



Letters to the Monarch tell 
How Alhama' s city fell : 
In the fire the scroll he threw, 
And the messenger he slew. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 



He quits his mule and mounts his 

horse, 
And through the street directs his 

course ; 
Through the street of Zacatin 
To the Alhambra spurring in. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 



When the Alhambra walls he gained. 

On the moment he ordained 

That the trumpet straight should 

sound 
With the silver clarion round. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 



And when the hollow drums of war 
Beat the loud alarm afar. 
That the Moors of town and plain 
Might answer to the martial strain, 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 



Then the Moors, by this aware, 
j That bloody Mars recalled them there, 

or more ballads which are included in the Guerras 
Chiles de Granada of Gines Perez de Hita 
published at Saragossa in 1595. 

The ballad as a whole was not known to 
students of Spanish literature previous to the 
publication of Byron's translation; but it may 
be assumed that the Spanish text as printed in 
the first edition of Childe Harold, Canto IV. 
(1818), was copied from some printed work.] 

3 [In A.D. 886, during the reign of Muley .A-bul 
Hacen, King of Granada, Alhama was surprised 
and occupied by the Christians under Don 
Rodrigo Ponce de Leon.] 

*The effect of the original ballad — which 
existed both in Spanish and Arabic — was such, 
that it was forbidden to be sung bv the Moors, 
on pain of death, within Granada. 



One by one, and two by two, 
To a mighty squadron grew. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 



Out then spake an aged Moor 
In these words the king before, 
"Wherefore call on us, oh King? 
What may mean this gathering?" 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 



" Friends ! ye have, alas ! to know 
Of a most disastrous blow — 
That the Christians, stern and bold, 
Have obtained Alhama's hold." 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 



Out then spake old Alfaqui,^ 
With his beard so white to see, 
" Good King ! thou art justly served. 
Good King! this thou hast deserved. 
Woe is me, Alhama ! 



" By thee were slain, in evil hour. 
The Abencerrage, Granada's flower; 
And strangers were received by thee, 
Of Cordova the Chivalry. 

Woe is me, Alhama 



"And for this, oh King! is sent 
On thee a double chastisement ; 
Thee and thine, thy crown and realm, 
One last wreck shall overwhelm. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 



"He who holds no laws in awe, 
He must perish by the law; 
And Granada must be won. 
And thyself with her undone." 

Woe is me, Alhama I 

13- 
Fire flashed from out the old Moor's 

eyes, 
The Monarch's wrath began to rise, 

I ["Un vTejo Alfaqui" is "an old Alfaqui," 
i.e. a doctor of the Mussulman law, not a proper 
name.] 



654 



POEMS 1816-1823 



Because he answered, and because 
He spake exceeding well of laws.^ 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

14. 

"There is no law to say such things 
As may disgust the ear of kings:" — 
Thus, snorting with his choler, said 
The Moorish King, and doomed him 
dead. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

15- 
Moor Alfaqui ! Moor Alfaqui ! 
Though thy beard so hoary be, 
The King hath sent to have thee seized, 
For Alhama's loss displeased. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

16. 

And to fix thy head upon 
High Alhambra's loftiest stone; 
That this for thee should be the law. 
And others tremble when they saw. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

17- 
" Cavalier, and man of worth ! 
Let these words of mine go forth; 
Let the Moorish monarch know. 
That to him I nothing owe. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 



"But on my soul Alhama weighs. 
And on my inmost spirit preys; 
And if the King his land hath lost. 
Yet others may have lost the most. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

19. 

"Sires have lost their children, wives 
Their lords, and valiant men their lives ! 
One what best his love might claim 
Hath lost, another wealth, or fame. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 



"I lost a damsel in that hour. 

Of all the land the loveliest flower; 

'["De leyes tambien hablava should be 
rendered "He spake 'also' of the laws," not tan 
bien, "so well," or "exceeding well."] 



Doubloons a hundred I would pay, 
And think her ransom cheap that day." 
Woe is me, Alhama ! 



And as these things the old Moor said, 
They severed from the trunk his head; 
And to the Alhambra's wall with speed 
'Twas carried, as the King decreed. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 



And men and infants therein weep 
Their loss, so heavy and so deep; 
Granada's ladies, all she rears 
Within her walls, burst into tears. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 

23- 
And from the windows o'er the walls 
The sable web of mourning fajls; 
The King weeps as a woman o'er 
His loss, for it is much and sore. 

Woe is me, Alhama ! 
[First published, Childe Harold, 
Canto IV., 1818.] 



TRANSLATION FROM 
VITTORELLI.i 

ON A NUN 

Sonnet composed in the name of a father, whose 
daughter had recently died shortly after her 
marriage; and addressed to the father of her 
who had lately taken the veil. 

Of two fair virgins, modest, though 

admired, 
Heaven made us happy; and now, 

wretched sires, 
Heaven for a nobler doom their 

worth desires. 
And gazing upon either, both required. 

Mine, while the torch of Hymen newly 
fired 
Becomes extinguished, — soon — too 
soon expires ; 

I [Jacopo Vittorelli (i 749-1835) was born at 
Bassano in Venetian territory. His poetry, 
which is sweet and musical, but lacking in force 
and substance, recalls and embodies the style 
and spirit of the dying literature of the eighteenth 
century.] 



ON THE BUST OF HELEN — WE'LL GO NO MORE A-ROVING 655 



But thine within the closing grate 

retired, 
Eternal captive, to her God aspires. 

But thou at least from out the jealous 
door, 
Which shuts between your never- 
meeting eyes, 
May' St hear her sweet and pious 
I voice once more : 

j I to the marble, where my daughter lies, 
i Rush, — the swoln flood of bitterness 

I pour. 
And knock, and knock, and knock 

— but none replies. 
[First published, Childe Harold, 

Canto IV., 1818.] 

ON THE BUST OF HELEN BY 
CANOVA. 

In this beloved marble view 

Above the works and thoughts of 
Man, 
What Nature could but would not do. 

And Beauty and Canova can/ 
Beyond Imagination's power. 

Beyond the Bard's defeated art, 
With Immortality her dower. 
Behold the Helen of the heart. 

November 25, 181 6. 
[First published. Letters and Journals, 
1830, ii. 61.] 

VENICE. A FRAGMENT. 

'Tis midnight — but it is not dark 
Within thy spacious place, St Mark ! 
The Lights within, the Lamps without, 
Shine above the revel rout. 
The brazen Steeds are glittering o'er 
The holy building's massy door, 
Glittering with their collars of gold. 
The goodly work of the days of old — 
And the winged Lion stern and solemn 
Frowns from the height of his hoary 

column. 
Facing the palace in which doth lodge 
The ocean-city's dreaded Doge. 
The palace is proud — but near it lies, 
Divided by the "Bridge of Sighs," 



The dreary dwelling where the State 
Enchains the captives of their hate: 
These — they perish or they pine ; 
But which their doom may none 

divine : 
Many have passed that Arch of pain. 
But none retraced their steps again. 

It is a princely colonnade ! 

And wrought around a princely place, 

When that vast edifice displayed 

Looks with its venerable face 

Over the far and subject sea. 

Which makes the fearless isles so free ! 

And 'tis a strange and noble pile, 

Pillared into many an aisle: 

Every pillar fair to see, 

Marble — jasper — and porphyry — 

The Church of St Mark — which 

stands hard by 
With fretted pinnacles on high. 
And Cupola and minaret; 
More like the mosque of orient lands. 
Than the fanes wherein we pray. 
And Mary's blessed likeness stands. — 
Venice, December 6, 181 6. 
[First published, 1901.] 



SO WE'LL GO NO MORE 
A-ROVING. 



So we'll go no more a-roving 

So late into the night. 
Though the heart be still as loving, 

And the moon be still as bright. 



For the sword outwears its sheath, 
And the soul wears out the breast, 

And the heart must pause to breathe, 
And Love itself have rest. 



Though the night was made for loving, 

And the day returns too soon. 
Yet we'll go no more a-roving 
By the light of the moon. 

February 28, 181 7. 
[First published, Letters and Journals, 
1830, ii. 79.] 



656 



POEMS 1 816-1823 



[LORD BYRON'S VERSES ON 
SAM ROGERS.] 

QUESTION. 

Nose and Chin that make a knocker, 
Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker; 
Mouth that marks the en\dous Scorner, 
With a Scorpion in each corner 
Curling up his tail to sting you, 
In the place that most may wring you; 
Eyes of lead-like hue and gummy. 
Carcase stolen from some mummy, 
Bowels — (but they were forgotten, 
Save the Liver, and that's rotten), 10 
Skin all sallow, flesh all sodden, 
Form the Devil would frighten G — d 

in. 
Is't a Corpse stuck up for show, 
Galvanised at times to go ? 
With the Scripture has't connection. 
New proof of the Resurrection? 
Vampire, Ghost, or Goul {sic)., what 

is it? 
I would walk ten miles to miss it. 

ANSWER. 

Many passengers arrest one. 
To demand the same free question. 20 
Shorter's my reply and franker, — 
That's the Bard, and Beau, and 

Banker : 
Yet, if you could bring about 
Just to turn him inside out, 
Satan's self would seem less sooty, 
And his present aspect — Beauty. 
Mark that (as he masks the bilious) 
Air so softly supercilious. 
Chastened bow, and mock humility. 
Almost sickened to Servility : 30 

Hear his tone (which is to talking 
That which creeping is to walking — 
Now on all fours, now on tiptoe) : 
Hear the tales he lends his lip to — 
Little hints of heavy scandals — 
Every friend by turns he handles: 
All that women or that men do 
Glides forth in an innuendo {sic) — 
Clothed in odds and ends of humour. 
Herald of each paltry rumour — 40 
From divorces down to dresses, 
Woman's frailties, Man's excesses: 



All that life presents of evil 
Make for him a constant revel. 
You're his foe — for that he fears you, 
And in absence blasts and sears you; 
You're his friend — for thai he hates 

you. 
First obliges, and then baits you, 
Darting on the opportunity 
When to do it with impunity : 50 

You are neither — then he'll flatter. 
Till he finds some trait for satire; 
Hunts your weak point out, tJien shows 

it. 
Where it injures, to expose it 
In the mode that's most insidious, 
Adding every trait that's hideous — 
From the bile, whose blackening river 
Rushes through his Stygian liver. 

Then he thinks himself a lover — 
Why ? I really can't discover, 60 

In his mind, age, face, or figure; 
Viper broth might give him vigour: 
Let him keep the cauldron steady, 
He the venom has already. 

For his faults — he has but one ; 
'Tis but Envy, when all's done: 
He but pays the pain he suffers. 
Clipping, like a pair of Snuffers, 
Light that ought to burn the brighter 
For this temporary blighter. 70 

He's the Cancer of his Species, 
And will eat himself to pieces, — 
Plague personified and Famine, — 
Devil, whose delight is damning. 
For his merits — don't you know 'em? 
Once he wrote a pretty Poem. 

1818. 
[First published, Fraser's Magazine, 
January, 1833, vol. vii. pp. 82-84.] 

THE DUEL.i 



'Tis fifty years, and yet their fray 
To us might seem but yesterday. 

'["Addressed to Miss Chaworth, in allusion 
to ^ duel fought between two of their ancestors, 
D[ominus] B[yron] and Mr C, January 26, 
176s." 

Byron and Mary Anne Chaworth were fourth 
cousins, both being fifth in descent from George, 



THE DUEL — STANZAS TO THE PO 



657 



Tis fifty years, and three to boot, 
ince, hand to hand, and foot to foot, 
A^nd heart to heart, and sword to sword, 
Dne of our Ancestors was gored, 
've seen the sword that slew him; ^ he. 
The slain, stood in a like degree 
To thee, as he, the Slayer, stood 
I Oh had it been but other blood!) 
n kin and Chieftainship to me. 
Thus came the Heritage to thee. 



o me the Lands of him who slew 
Came through a line of yore re- 
nowned ; 
P'or I can boast a race as true 

To Monarchs crowned, and some dis- 
crowned. 
As ever Britain's Annals knew: 
For the first Conqueror gave us Ground,^ 
And the last Conquered owned the 

line 
Which was my mother's, and is mine. 



I loved thee — I will not say how, 
Since things like these are best forgot: 
Perhaps thou may'st imagine now 

Who loved thee, and who loved thee 
not. 
And thou wert wedded to another, 

And I at last another wedded: 
I am a father, thou a mother, 

To Strangers vowxd, with strangers 
bedded. 



Viscount Chaworth, whose daughter Elizabeth 
was married to William, third Lord Byron (d. 
i6q5), the poet's great-great-grandfather. The 
duel between their grand-uncles, William, fifth 
Lord BjTon, and William Chaworth, Esq., of 
Annesley, was fought between eight and nine 
o'clock in the evening of Saturday, January 26, 
1765, at the Star and Garter Tavern, Pall Mall. 
Mr Chaworth was killed, and Lord B\Ton, who 
v.-as tried by the House of Lords, was found "not 
guilty of murder, guilty of manslaughter." The 
result of this verdict was that Lord B>Ton claimed 
the benefit of the statute of Edward VI., and was 
discharged on paying the fees.] 

' [Byron says that his great-uncle, "so far from 
feeling any remorse for having killed Mr 
Chaworth, who was a fire-eater (spadassin), 
. . . he always kept the sword ... in his bed- 
chamber, where "it still was when he died."] 

' [Ralph de Burun held Horestan Castle and 
other manors from the Conqueror. Byron's 
mother was descended from James L of Scotland.J 

2U 



For land to land, even blood to blood — 

Since leagued of yore our fathers 
were — 
Our manors and our birthright stood; 
And not unequal had I wooed. 

If to have wooed thee I could dare. 
But this I never dared — even yet 
When nought is left but to forget, 

I feel that I could only love : 
To sue was never meant for me. 
And least of all to sue to thee ; 
For many a bar, and many a feud, 
Though never told, well understood 

Rolled like a river wide between — 
And then there was thg Curse of blood. 

Which even my Heart's cannot re- 
move. 

Alas ! how many things have been ! 
Since we were friends; for I alone 
Feel more for thee than can be shown. 



How many things ! I loved thee — 
thou 
Loved' st me not : another was 
The Idol of thy virgin vow. 

And I was, what I am, Alas ! 
And what he is, and what thou art, 
And what we were, is like the rest: 
We must endure it as a test. 
And old Ordeal of the Heart. 

Venice, December 29, 181 8. 
[First published, 1901.] 

STANZAS TO THE PO. 



River, that rollest by the ancient walls, 
Where dwells the Lady of my love, 
when she 
Walks by thy brink, and there, per- 
chance, recalls 
A faint and fleeting memory of me : 



What if thy deep and ample stream 
should be 
A mirror of my heart, where she may 
read 
The thousand thoughts I now betray 
to thee, 
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as 
thy speed ! 



658 



POEMS 1816-1823 



What do I say — a mirror of my 
heart ? 
Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, 
and strong? 
Such as my feelings were and are, thou 
art; 
'And such as thou art were my passions 
long. 

4. 
Time may have somewhat tamed 
them, — not for ever ; 
Thou overflow' st thy banks, and not 
for aye • 
Thy bosom overboils, congenial river ! 
Thy floods subside, and mine have 
sunk away: 

5- 
But left long wrecks behind, and now 
again. 
Borne in our old unchanged career, 
we move ; 
Thou tendest wildly onwards to the 
main. 
And I — to loving one I should not 
love. 

6. 

The current I behold will sweep be- 
neath 
Her native walls, and murmur at her 
feet; 
Her eyes will look on thee, when she 
shall breathe 
The twilight air, unharmed by sum- 
mer's heat. 



She will look on thee, — I have looked 
on thee. 
Full of that thought : and, from that 
moment, ne'er 
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or 
see, 
Without the inseparable sigh for 
her! 



Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy 
stream, — 
Yes ! they will meet the wave I gaze 
on now : 



Mine cannot witness, even in a 
dream, 
That happy wave repass me in its 
flow ! 



The wave that bears my tears returns 
no more : 
Will she return by whom that wave 
shall sweep ? — 
Both tread thy banks, both wander on 
thy shore, 
I by thy source, she by the dark- 
blue deep. 

ID. 

But that which keepeth us apart is 
not 
Distance, nor depth of wave, nor 
space of earth. 
But the distraction of a various lot, 
As various as the climates of our birth. 



A stranger loves the Lady of the 
land. 
Born far beyond the mountains, but 
his blood 
Is all meridian, as if never fanned 
By the black wind that chills the 
polar flood. 

12. 

My blood is all meridian; were it 
not, 
I had not left my clime, nor should I 
be. 
In spite of tortures, ne'er to be 
forgot, 
A slave again of love, — at least of 
thee. 

13- 
'Tis vain to struggle — let me perish 
young — 
Live as I lived, and love as I have 
loved ; 
To dust if I return, from dust I 
sprung, 
And then, at least, my heart can ne'er 
be moved. 

June, 1 8 19. 
[First published. Conversations of Lord 
Byron, 1824, 4°, pp. 24-26.] 



SONNETS — STANZAS 



6S9 



SONNET ON THE NUPTIALS 
I OF THE MARQUIS ANTONIO 
CAVALLI WITH THE COUN- 
TESS CLELIA RASPONI OF 
RAVENNA. 

A NOBLE Lady of the Italian shore 

Lovely and young, herself a happy 
I bride, 
I Commands a verse, and will not be 

denied, 
From me a wandering Englishman; I 

tore 
One sonnet, but invoke the muse once 
more 
To hail these gentle hearts which 

Love has tied, 
In Youth, Birth, Beauty, genially 
allied 
And blest with Virtue's soul, and 

Fortune's store. 
A swxeter language, and a luckier bard 
Were worthier of your hopes. Au- 
spicious Pair ! 
And of the sanctity of Hymen's shrine. 
But, — since I cannot but obey the 
Fair,^ 
To render your new state your true 
reward, 
May your Fate be like Hers, and 
unlike mine. 

Ravenna, July ^i, 1819. 
[First published, 1901.] 

SONNET TO THE PRINCE 
REGENT. 

ON THE REPEAL OF LORD EDWARD 
FITZGERALD'S FORFEITURE. 

To be the father of the fatherless, 
To stretch the hand from the throne's 

height, and raise 
His offspring, who expired in other 
days 
To make thy Sire's sway by a kingdom 

less, — 
This is to be a monarch, and repress 
Envy into unutterable praise. 

' [The Countess Guiccioli, at whose instance 
he wTote the sonnet.] 



Dismiss thy guard, and trust thee to 
such traits, 
For who would lift a hand, except to 
bless ? 
Were it not easy, Sir, and is't not 

sweet 
To make thyself beloved? and to be 
Omnipotent by Mercy's means? for 
thus 
Thy Sovereignty would grow but 
more complete, 
A despot thou, and yet thy people free; 
And by the heart — not hand — • 
enslaving us. 

Bologna, August 12, 1819. 
[First published. Letters and Journals. 
1890, ii. 234, 235.] 

STANZAS.^ 



Could Love for ever 

Run like a river. 

And Time's endeavour 

Be tried in vain — 
No other pleasure 
With this could measure; 
And like a treasure 

We'd hug the chain. 
But since our sighing 
Ends not in dying, 
And, formed for flying, 

Love plumes his wing; 
Then for this reason 
Let's love a season; 
But let that season be only Spring. 



When lovers parted 
Feel broken-hearted. 
And, all hopes thwarted. 

Expect to die; 
A few years older. 
Ah ! how much colder 
They might behold her 

For whom they sigh ! 
When linked together, 
In every weather, 

' [The royal assent was given to a bill for 
"restoring Edward Fox Fitzgerald and his 
sisters Pamela and Lucy to their blood," July 
13, 1819.I 



66o POEMS 


1816-1823 


They pluck Love's feather 


As through the past : 


From out his wing — 


And eyes, the mirrors 


He'll stay for ever, 


Of your sweet errors, 


But sadly shiver 


Reflect but rapture — not least though 


Without his plumage, when past the 


last. 


Spring. 


6. 


3- 


True, separations 


Like Chiefs of Faction, 


Ask more than patience; 


His life is action — 


What desperations 


A formal paction 


From such have risen ! 


That curbs his reign. 


But yet remaining, 


Obscures his glory, 


What is't but chaining 


Despot no more, he 


Hearts which, once waning, 


Such territory 


Beat 'gainst their prison? 


Quits with disdain. 


Time can but cloy love. 


Still, still advancing, 


And use destroy love : 


With banners glancing, 


The winged boy. Love, 


His power enhancing. 


Is but for boys — 


He must move on — 


You'll find it torture 


Repose but cloys him. 


Though sharper, shorter, 


Retreat destroys him. 


To wean, and not weat out your joys. 


Love brooks not a degraded throne. 


December i, 181 9. 


A. 


[First published, New Monthly Maga- 


■+• 


zine, 1832, vol. XXXV. pp. ^10-312.1 


Wait not, fond lover ! 


f \J 3 X XT yJ \J ■* 


Till years are over, 




And then recover 


ODE TO A LADY WHOSE 


As from a dream. 


LOVER WAS KILLED BY 


While each bewailing 
The other's failing, 


A BALL, WHICH AT THE 


With wrath and railing. 


SAME TIME SHIVERED A 


All hideous seem — 


PORTRAIT NEXT HIS 


While first decreasing. 


HEART. 


Yet not quite ceasing. 


Motto. 


Wait not till teasing. 


All passion blight: 


On pent frouver des femnies qui n'ont jamais eu 


If once diminished 


de galanterie, mais il est rare d'en trouver qui 




n'en aient jamais eu qu'une. — [Reflexions . . . 


Love's reign is finished — 


du Due de la Rochefoucauld, No. Ixxiii.] 


Then part in friendship, — and bid 




good-night. 


I. 




Lady! in whose heroic port 


5- 


And Beauty, Victor even of Time, 


So shall Affection 


And haughty lineaments, appear 


To recollection 


Much that is awful, more that's 


The dear connection 


dear — 


Bring back with joy: 


Wherever human hearts resort 


You had not waited 


There must have been for thee a 


Till, tired or hated. 


Court, 


Your passions sated 


And Thou by acclamation Queen, 


Began to cloy. 


Where never Sovereign yet had been. 


Your last embraces 


That eye so soft, and yet severe, 


Leave no cold traces — 


Perchance might look on Love as 


The same fond faces 


Crime ; 



ODE TO A LADY 



. 66i 



And yet — regarding thee more near — 
The traces of an unshed tear 

Compressed back to the heart, 
And mellowed Sadness in thine air, 
Which shows that Love hath once been 

there, 
To those who watch thee will dis- 
close 
More than ten thousand tomes of 

woes 
Wrung from the vain Romancer's 

art. 
With thee how proudly Love hath 

dwelt ! 

His full Divinity was felt, 
Maddening the heart he could not 

melt. 
Till Guilt became Sublime; 
But never yet did Beauty's Zone 
For him surround a lovelier throne. 
Than in that bosom once his own : 
And he the Sun and Thou the 

Clime 
Together must have made a Heaven, 
For which the Future would be given. 



And thou hast loved — Oh ! not in 
vain ! 
And not as common Mortals love. 
The Fruit of Fire is Ashes, 
The Ocean's tempest dashes 
Wrecks and the dead upon the rocky 

shore : 
True Passion must the all-searching 
changes prove. 
The Agony of Pleasure and of Pain, 
Till Nothing but the Bitterness re- 
main; 
And the Heart's Spectre flitting 
through the brain 
Scoffs at the Exorcism which would 
remove. 



And where is He thou lovedst? in the 
tomb, 
Where should the happy Lover be ! 
For him could Time unfold a brighter 
doom. 
Or offer aught like thee? 
He in the thickest battle died, 
Where Death is Pride; 



And Thou his widow — not his bride — 

Wert not more free 
Here, where all love, till Love is 
made 

A bondage or a trade; 
Here — thou so redolent of Beauty, 
In whom Caprice had seemed a duty, 
Thou, who could' St trample and despise 
The holiest chain of human ties 
For him, the dear One in thine eyes. 

Broke it no more. 
Thy heart was withered to its Core, 
Its hopes, its fears, its feelings o'er ; 
Thy Blood grew Ice when his was 

shed, 
And Thou the Vestal of the Dead. 



Thy Lover died, as All 

Who truly love should die ; 
For such are worthy in the fight to fall 

Triumphantly. 
No Cuirass o'er that glowing heart 
That deadly bullet turned apart : 
Love had bestowed a richer Mail, 

Like Thetis on her Son ; 
But hers at last was vain, and thine 
could fail — 
The hero's and the lover's race was 
run. 
Thy worshipped portrait, thy sweet 

face, 
Without that bosom kept its place 

As thou within. 
Oh ! enviously destined Ball ! 
Shivering thine imaged charms and all 

Those Charms would win : 
Together pierced, the fatal Stroke hath 

gored 
Votary and Shrine, the adoring and the 
adored. 
That Heart's last throb was thine, 

that blood 
Baptized thine Image in its flood. 
And gushing from the fount of Faith 
O'erflowed with Passion even in 
Death, 
Constant to thee as in its hour 
Of rapture in the secret bower. 
Thou too hast kept thy plight full 

well. 
As many a baflfled Heart can tell. 

[First published, 1901.] 



662 



POEMS 1816-1823 



THE IRISH AVATAR.i 

"And Ireland like a bastinadoed elephant, 
kneeling to receive the paltry rider." — {Life of 
Cur ran, ii. 336.] 



Ere the daughter of Brunswick is cold 
in her grave, 
And her ashes still float to their home 
o'er the tide, 
Lo ! George the triumphant speeds 
over the wave. 
To the long-cherished Isle which 
he loved like his — bride. 



True, the great of her bright and brief 
Era are gone, 
The rainbow-like Epoch where 
Freedom could pause 
For the few little years, out of centuries 
won, 
Which betrayed not, or crushed not, 
or wept not her cause. 



True, the chains of the Catholic clank 
o'er his rags, 
The Castle still stands, and the Sen- 
ate's no more. 
And the Famine which dwelt on her 
freedomless crags 
Is extending its steps to her desolate 
shore. 

4- 
To her desolate shore — where the 
emigrant stands 
For a moment to gaze ere he flies 
from his hearth; 
Tears fall on his chain, though it drops 
from his hands. 
For the dungeon he quits is the place 
of his birth. 

'[The "fury" which sent Byron into this 
"lawless conscription of rhythmus," was in- 
spired partly by an ungenerous attack on Moore, 
which appeared in the pages of John Bull, and, 
partly, by the servility of the Irish, who had 
welcomed George IV. with an outburst of en- 
thusiastic loyalty, when he entered Dublin in 
triumph within ten days of the death of Queen 
Caroline. The pages of the Morning Chronicle 
(August 8-18, 1821), supplied Byron with "copy" 
for his lyrical satire.] 



5- 
But he comes ! the Messiah of Royalty 
comes ! 
Like a goodly Leviathan rolled from 
the waves ; 
Then receive him as best such an advent 
becomes, 
With a legion of cooks, and an army 
of slaves ! 

6. 

He comes in the promise and bloom of 
threescore. 
To perform in the pageant the 
Sovereign's part — 
But long live the Shamrock, which 
shadows him o'er ! 
Could the Green in his hat be trans- 
ferred to his heart I 



Could that long-withered spot but be 
verdant again. 
And a new spring of noble affections 
arise — 
Then might Freedom forgive thee this 
dance in thy chain, 
And this shout of thy slavery which 
saddens the skies. 



Is it madness or meanness which clings 
to thee now ? 
Were he God — as he is but the 
commonest clay. 
With scarce fewer wrinkles than sins on 
his brow — ■ 
Such servile devotion might shame 
him away. 

9- 
Aye, roar in his train ! let thine orators 
lash 
Their fanciful spirits to pamper his 
pride — 
Not thus did thy Grattan indignantly 
flash 
His soul o'er the freedom implored 
and denied. 

10. 

Ever glorious Grattan ! the best of the 
good ! 
So simple in heart, so sublime in 
the rest ! 



THE IRISH AVATAR 



663 



With all which Demosthenes wanted 
endued, 
And his rival, or victor, in all he 
possessed. 



Ere Tully arose in the zenith of Rome, 
Though unequalled, preceded, the 
task was begun — 
But Grattan sprung up like a god from 
the tomb 
Of ages, the first, last, the saviour, 
the one! 

12. 

With the skill of an Orpheus to soften 
the brute; ^ 

With the fire of Prometheus to 
kindle mankind ; 
Even Tyranny, listening, sate melted 
or mute, 
And Corruption shrunk scorched 
from the glance of his mind. 

13- 
But back to our theme ! Back to 
despots and slaves ! 
Feasts furnished by Famine ! re- 
joicings by Pain ! 
True Freedom but welcomes, while 
Slavery still raves, 
When a week's Saturnalia hath 
loosened her chain. 

14. 

Let the poor squalid splendour thy 
wreck can afford, 
(As the bankrupt's profusion his 
ruin would hide,) 
Gild over the palace. Lo ! Erin thy 
Lord ! 
Kiss his foot with thy blessing — his 
blessings denied ! 

15- 
Or ij freedom past hope be extorted at 
last. 
If the idol of brass find his feet are of 
clay. 
Must what terror or policy wring forth 
be classed 
With what monarchs ne'er give, but 
as wolves yield their prey? 



16. 

Each brute hath its nature; a King's 
is to reign, — 
To reign! in that word see, ye ages, 
comprised 
The cause of the curses all annals con- 
tain. 
From Caesar the dreaded to George 
the despised ! 

17- 
Wear, Fingal, thy trapping!^ O'Con- 
nell, proclaim 
His accomplishments ! His ! ! ! and 
thy country convince 
Half an age's contempt was an error of 
fame. 
And that "Hal is the rascaliest.. 
sweetest young prince !" 

18. R- 

Will thy yard of blue riband, por 
Fingal, recall 1 

The fetters from millions of Catholic 
limbs ? 
Or, has it not bound thee the fastest 
of all 
The slaves, who now hail their be- 
trayer with hymns? 

19. 

Aye ! " Build him a dwelling ! " let each 
give his mite ! ^ 
Till, like Babel, the new royal dome 
hath arisen ! 
Let thy beggars and helots their pit- 
tance unite — 
And a palace bestow for a poor- 
house and prison ! 



Spread — spread for Vitellius, the 
royal repast, 
Till the gluttonous despot be stufifed 
to the gorge ! 

I ["The Earl of Fingall, the leading Catholic 
nobleman, is to be created a Knight of St 
Patrick." — Morning Chronicle, August 18.] 

^ [There was talk of a testimonial being pre- 
sented to the King. O'Connell suggested that 
if possible it should take the form of "a palace, 
to which not only the rank around him could 
contribute, but to the erection of which every 
peasant could from his cottage contribute his 
humble mite." — Morning Chronicle, August 18.] 



664 



POEMS 1 81 6-1823 



And the roar of his drunkards proclaim 
him at last 
The Fourth of the fools and oppressors 
called "George !" 



Let the tables be loaded with feasts till 
they groan ! 
Till they groan like thy people, 
through ages of woe ! 
Let the wine flow around the old 
Bacchanal's throne, 
Like their blood which has flowed, 
and which yet has to flow. 



But let not his name be thine idol 

alone — 
^ On his right hand behold a Sejanus 
r. appears ! 
hine own Castlereagh ! let him still be 



Fo' 



thine own ! 
A wretch never named but with 



and 



jeers 
23- 



Till now, when the Isle which should 
blush for his birth, 
Deep, deep as the gore which he shed 
on her soil. 
Seems proud of the reptile which 
crawled from her earth, 
And for murder repays him with 
shouts and a smile. 

24. 

Without one single ray of her genius, — 
without 
The fancy, the manhood, the fire of 
her race — 
The miscreant who well might plunge 
Erin in doubt 
If she ever gave birth to a being so 
base. 

25- 
If she did — let her long-boasted prov- 
erb be hushed. 
Which proclaims that from Erin no 
reptile can spring — 
See the cold-blooded Serpent, with 
venom full flushed. 
Still warming its folds in the breast 
of a King! 



26. 

Shout, drink, feast, and flatter ! Oh ! 
Erin, how low 
Wert thou sunk by misfortune and 
tyranny, till 
Thy welcome of tyrants hath plunged 
thee below 
The depth of thy deep in a deeper 
gulf still. 

27. 

My voice, though but humble, was 
raised for thy right ; ^ 
My vote, as a freeman's, still voted 
thee free; 
This hand, though but feeble, would 
arm in thy fight, 
And this heart, though outworn, had 
a throb still for thee 1 

28. 

Yes, I loved thee and thine, though thou 
art not my land; 
I have known noble hearts and great 
souls in thy sons, 
And I wept with the world, o'er the 
patriot band 
Who are gone, but I weep them no 
longer as once. 

29. 

For happy are they now reposing 
afar, — 
Thy Grattan, thy Curran, thy 
Sheridan, all 
Who, for years, were the chiefs in the 
eloquent war, 
And redeemed, if they have not 
retarded, thy fall. 

30- 
Yes, happy are they in their cold 
English graves ! 
Their shades cannot start to thy 
shouts of to-day — 
Nor the steps of enslavers and chain- 
kissing slaves 
Be stamped in the turf o'er their 
fetterless clay. 

» [Byron spoke and voted in favour of the Earl 
of Donoughmore's motion for a Committee on 
the Roman Catholic claims, April 21, 1812.] 



STANZAS 



665 



31- 
Till now I had envied thy sons and their 
shore, 
Though their virtues were hunted, 
their liberties fled ; 
There was something so warm and 
sublime in the core 
Of an Irishman's heart, that I envy 
— thy dead. 

32. 
Or, if aught in my bosom can quench 
for an hour 
My contempt for a nation so servile, 
though sore. 
Which though trod like the worm will 
not turn upon power, 
'Tis the glory of Grattan, and genius 
of Moore ! 

R? September 16, 1821. 
[First published, Paris, September 10, 
1821.] 

STANZAS WRITTEN ON THE 

ROAD BETWEEN FLORENCE 

AND PISA. 



Oh talk not to me of a name great in 

story — 
The days of our Youth are the days of 

our glory; 
And the myrtle and ivy of swxet two- 

and-twenty 
Are worth all your laurels, though ever 

so plenty. 

2. 

What are garlands and crowns to the 
brow that is wrinkled? 

'Tis but as a dead flower with May- 
dew besprinkled : 

Then aAvay with all such from the head 
that is hoary. 

What care I for the wreaths that can 
only give glory ? 



Oh Fame ! — if I e'er took delight in 
thy praises, 

'Twas less for the sake of thy high- 
sounding phrases, 



Than to see the bright eyes of the dear 

One discover, 
She thought that I was not unworthy to 

love her. 

4. 
There chiefly I sought thee, there only 

I found thee ; 
Her Glance was the best of the rays 

that surround thee. 
When it sparkled o'er aught that was 

bright in my story, 
I knew it was Love, and I felt it was 

Glory. 

November 6, 1821. 
[First published, Letters and Journals 

of Lord Byron, 1830, ii. 566, note.] 



STANZAS TO A HINDOO AIR. 



Oh ! my lonely — lonely — lonely 

— Pillow ! 

Where is my lover ? where is my lover ? 
Is it his bark which my dreary dreams 
discover ? 
Far — far away ! and alone along 
the billow? 

2. 

Oh ! mv lonelv — lonelv — lonely 

— Pillow ! 

Why must my head ache where his 

gentle brow lay? 
How the long night flags lovelessly and 
slowly. 
And my head droops over thee like 
the willow ! 

3- 
Oh ! thou, my sad and solitary 
Pillow ! 
Send me kind dreams to keep my heart 

from breaking. 
In return for the tears I shed upon thee 
waking ; 
Let me not die till he comes back o'er 
the billow. 

4- 
Then if thou wilt — no more my 
lonely Pillow, 
In one embrace let these arms again 
enfold him, 



666 



POEMS 1816-1823 



And then expire of the joy — but to be- 
hold him ! 
Oh ! my lone bosom ! — oh ! my 
lonely Pillow ! 
[First published, Works of Lord 
Byron, 1832, xiv. 357.] 

TO ^ 

I. 

But once I dared to lift my eyes — 

To lift my eyes to thee ; 
And since that day, beneath the 
skies, 

No other sight they see. 



In vain sleep shuts them in the night — 
The night grows day to me ; 

Presenting idly to my sight 
What still a dream must be. 



A fatal dream — for many a bar 
Divides thy fate from mine ; 

And still my passions wake and war, 
But peace be still with thine. 

[First published. New Monthly Maga- 
zine, 1833, vol. 37, p. 308.] 

TO THE COUNTESS OF 
BLESSINGTON. 



You have asked for a verse : — the 

request 

In a rhymer 'twere strange to deny; 

But my Hippocrene was but my breast. 

And my feelings (its fountain) are 

dry. 

2. 

Were I now as I was, I had sung 
What Lawrence has painted so well ; ^ 

But the strain would expire on my 
tongue 
And the theme is too soft for my shell. 

I [Probably "To Lady Blessington," who 
includes them in her Conversations of Lord 
Byron.] 

" [The portrait of Lady Blessington by Sir 
Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., is now in the Wal- 
lace Collection at Hertford House.] 



I am ashes where once I was fire. 

And the bard in my bosom is dead; 

What I loved I now merely admire. 
And my heart is as grey as my head. 



My life is not dated by years — 

There are moments which act as a 
plough. 

And there is not a furrow appears 
But is deep in my soul as my brow. 

5- 
Let the young and the brilliant aspire 

To sing what I gaze on in vain ; 
For Sorrow has torn from my lyre 
The string which was worthy the 
strain. 

B. 
[First published. Letters and Journals^ 
1830, ii. 635, 636.] 



ARISTOMENES.* 

Canto First. 



The Gods of old are silent on their 

shore 
Since the great Pan expired, and through 

the roar 
Of the Ionian waters broke a dread 
Voice which proclaimed "the Mighty 

Pan is dead." 
How much died with him ! false or 

true — the dream 
Was beautiful which peopled every 

stream 
With more than finny tenants, and 

adorned 

' [Aristomenes, the Achilles of the Alexandrian 
poet Rhianus, is- the legendary hero of the second 
Messenian War (b.c. 685-668). Thrice he slew 
a hundred of the Spartan foe, and thrice he 
offered the Hekatomphonia on Mount Ithome. 
At the close of the second century of the Christian 
era, Pausanias made a note of Messenian maidens 
hymning his victory over the Lacedaemonians — 

" From the heart of the plain he drove them, 
And he drove them back to the hill: 
To the top of the hill he drove them, 
As he followed them, followed them still !"] 



ECL. I.] 



THE BLUES 



667 



The woods and waters with coy nymphs 

that scorned 
Pursuing Deities, or in the embrace 
Of gods brought forth the high heroic 
race 10 

Whose names are on the hills and o'er 
the seas. 

Cephalonia, Septr loth 1823. 
[First published, 1903.] 



THE BLUES:' 

A LITERARY ECLOGUE. 



"Nimium ne crede colori." — Virgil \_Ecl. ii. 17], 

O trust not, ye beautiful creatures, to hue, 
Though your hair were as red, as your stockings 
are blue. 



ECLOGUE THE FIRST. 

London. — Before the door of a Lecture 
Room. 

Enter Tracy, meeting Inkel. 

Ink. You're too late. 
Tra. Is it over? 

Ink. Nor will be this hour. 

But the benches are crammed, like a 

garden in flower, 
With the pride of our belles, who have 

made it the fashion; 
So, instead of "beaux arts," we may say 

"la belle passion" 
For learning, which lately has taken the 

lead in 
The world, and set all the fine gentle- 
men reading. 
Tra. I know it too well, and have 
worn out my patience 
With studying to study your new 

publications. 
There's Vamp, Scamp, and Mouthy, 
and Words worths and Co. 

With their damnable 

Ink. Hold, my good friend, do you 
know 10 

Whom you speak to? 

' [The Blues was written, August 6, 1821, and 
published anonymously in the third number of 
The Liberal, April 26, 1823.] 



Tra. Right well, boy, and so does 

"the Row": ^ 
You're an author — a poet — 

Ink. And think you that I 

Can stand tamely in silence, to hear 

you decry 
The Muses? 

Tra. Excuse me: I meant no offence 
To the Nine; though the number who 

make some pretence 
To their favours is such — but the sub- 
ject to drop, 
I am just piping hot from a pubUsher's 

shop, 
(Next door to the pastry cook's; so that 

when I 
Cannot find the new volume I wanted to 

buy 
On the bibhopole's shelves, it is only 

two paces, 20 

As one finds every author in one of 

those places:) 
Where I just had been skimming a 

charming critique. 
So studded with wit, and so sprinkled 

with Greek! 
Where your friend — you know who — 

has just got such a threshing. 
That it is, as a phrase goes, extremely 

''refreshing.''^ ^ 
What a beautiful word ! 

Ink. Very true; 'tis so soft 

And so cooling — they use it a little 

too oft; 
And the papers have got it at last — 

but no matter. 
So they've cut up our friend then? 

Tra. Not left him a tatter — 

Not a rag of his present or past repu- 
tation, 30 
Which they call a disgrace to the age, 

and the nation. 
Ink. I'm sorry to hear this ! for 

friendship, you know 

Our poor friend ! — but I thought it 

would terminate so. 
Our friendship is such, I'll read nothing 

to shock it. 



' [Vamp and Scamp may stand for Coleridge 
and Hazlitt. Mouthy, of course, is Southey, 
Inkel and Tracy are, possibly, B>Ton and Moore.] 

2 [This phrase is said to have been tirst used 
in the Edinburgh Review — probably by Jeffrey.] 



668 



THE BLUES 



[ECL. I. 



You don't happen to have the Review 
in your pocket? 
Tra. No; 1 left a round dozen of 
authors and others 
(Very sorry, no doubt, since the cause 

is a brother's) 
All scrambling and jostling, like so 

many imps. 
And on fire with impatience to get the 
next glimpse. 
Ink. Let us join them. 
Tra. What, won't 

you return to the lecture? 40 

Ink. Why the place is so crammed, 
there's not room for a spectre. 
Besides, our friend Scamp is to-day so 
absurd — ^ 
Tra. How can you know that till 

you hear him? 
Ink. I heard 

Quite enough; and, to tell you the 

truth, my retreat 

Was from his vile nonsense, no less than 

the heat. 

Tra. I have had no great loss then? 

Ink. Loss ! — such a palaver ! 

I'd inoculate sooner my wife with the 

slaver 
Of a dog when gone rabid, than listen 

two hours 
To the torrent of trash which around 

him he pours. 
Pumped up with such effort, disgorged 
with such labour, 50 

That — come — do not make me speak 
ill of one's neighbour. 
Tra. I make you ! 
Ink. Yes, you ! I said nothing until 
You compelled me, by speaking the 

truth 

Tra. To speak ill? 

Is that your deduction ? 

Ink. When speaking of Scamp ill, 
I certainly follow, not set an example. 
The fellow's a fool, an impostor, a zany. 
Tra. And the crowd of to-day shows 
that one fool makes many. 

' [It is possible that the description of Hazlitt's 
Lectures of 1818 is coloured by recollections of 
Coleridge's Lectures of 181T-1812, which Byron 
attended; but the substance of the attack is 
probably derived from Gifford's review of 
Lectures on the Enf^lish Pnets (Quarterly Review, 
December, 1818, vol. xix. pp. 424-434.] 



But we two will be wise. 

Ink. Pray, then, let us retire. 

Tra. I would, but 

Ink. There must be 

attraction much higher 
Than Scamp, or the Jew's harp he 
nicknames his lyre, 60 

To call you to this hotbed. 

Tra. I own it — 'tis true — 

A fair lady 

Ink. A spinster? 

Tra. Miss Lilac. 

Ink. The Blue ! 

Tra. The heiress ! The angel ! 
Ink. The devil ! why, man. 

Pray get out of this hobble as fast as you 

can. 
You wed with Miss Lilac ! 'twould be 

your perdition: 
She's a poet, a chymist, a mathema- 
tician.^ 
Tra. I say she's an angel. 
Ink. Say rather an angle. 

If you and she marry, you'll certainly 

wrangle. 
I say she's a Blue, man, as blue as the 
ether. 
Tra. And is that any cause for not 
coming together? 70 

Ink. Humph 1 I can't say I know any 
happy alliance 
Which has lately sprung up from a wed- 
lock with science. 
She's so learned in all things, and fond 

of concerning 
Herself in all matters connected with 
learning, 

That 

Tra. What? 

Ink. I perhaps may as well 

hold my tongue; 
But there's five hundred people can tell 
you you're wrong. 
Tra. You forget Lady Lilac's as rich 

as a Jew. 
Ink. Is it miss or the cash of mamma 
you pursue? 



' [" Yesterday, a very pretty letter from Anna- 
bella. . . . She is . . . very little spoiled, 
which is strange in an heiress. . . . She is a 
poetess — a mathematician — a metaphysician." 
— Journal, November 30, 1813, Letters, 1898, 
ii- 357-] 



ECL. I.] 



THE BLUES 



669 



Tra. Why, Jack, I'll be frank with 
you — something of both. > 
The girl's a fine girl. 

Ink. And you feel nothing loth 80 
To her good lady-mother's reversion ; 

and yet 
Her life is as good as your own, I will 
bet. 
Tra. Let her live, and as long as she 
likes; I demand 
Nothing more than the heart of her 
daughter and hand. 
Ink. Why, that heart's in the ink- 
stand — that hand on the pen. 
Tra. A propos — Will you write me 

a song now and then ? 
Ink. To what purpose? 
Tra. You know, my 

dear friend, that in prose 
My talent is decent, as far as it goes; 

But in rhyme 

Ink. You're a terrible stick, to be sure. 

Tra, I own it ; and yet, in these 

times, there's no lure 90 

For the heart of the fair like a stanza or 

two ; 
And so, as I can't, will you furnish a 
few ? 
Ink. In your name ? 
Tra. In my name. 

I will copy them out. 
To slip into her hand at the very next 
rout. 
Ink. Are you so far advanced as to 

hazard this? 
Tra. Why, 

Do you think me subdued by a Blue- 
stocking's eye, 
So far as to tremble to tell her in rhyme 
What I've told her in prose, at the least, 
as sublime ? 
Ink. As sublime! If it be so, no 

need of my Muse. 
Tra. But consider, dear Inkel, she's 
one of the "Blues." 100 

Ink. As sublime ! — Mr Tracy — 
I've nothing to say. 
Stick to prose — As sublime ! ! — but I 
wish you good day. 
Tra. Nay, stay, my dear fellow — 
consider — I'm wrong; 
I own it ; but, prithee, compose me the 
song. 



Ink. As sublime ! ! 

Tra. I but used the 

expression in haste. 
Ink. That may be, Mr Tracy, but 

shows damned bad taste. 
Tra. I own it, I know it, acknow- 
ledge it — what 
Can I say to you more? 

Ink. I see what you'd be at : 

You disparage my parts with insidious 

abuse, 
Till you think you can turn them best 
to your own use. no 

Tra. And is that not a sign I respect 

them? 
Ink. Why that 

To be sure makes a difference. 

Tra. I know what is what : 

And you, who're a man of the gay 

world, no less 
Than a poet of t'other, may easily 

guess 
That I never could mean, by a word, to 

offend 
A genius like you, and, moreover, my 
friend. 
Ink. No doubt; you by this time 
should know what is due 
To a man of — but come — let us shake 
hands. 
Tra. You knew, 

And you know, my dear fellow, how 

heartily I, 
Whatever you publish, am ready to 
buy. 120 

Ink. That's my bookseller's busi- 
ness; I care not for sale; 
Indeed the best poems at first rather 

fail. 
There were Renegade's epics, and 
Botherby's plays,^ 

And my own grand romance 

Tra. Had its full share of praise. 
I myself saw it puffed in the "Old Girl's 
Review." ^ 
Ink. What Review? 



' [Sotheby's plays, Ivan, The Death of 
Darnlcy, etc., were published under the title of 
Five Tragedies, in 1814.] 

' [Compare — 
"I've bribed my Grandmother's Review — the 
British." 

— Doti Juan, Canto I. stanza ccix. line 9.] 



670 



THE BLUES 



[ECL. II. 



Tra. 'Tis the Eng- 

lish "Journal de Trevoux;" ^ 
A clerical work of our Jesuits at home. 
Have you never yet seen it ? 

Ink. That pleasure's to come. 

Tra. Make haste then. 
Ink. Why so? 

Tra. I have heard people say 

That it threatened to give up the ghost 
t'other day.^ 130 

Ink. Well, that is a sign of some 

spirit. 
Tra. No doubt. 

Shall you be at the Countess of Fiddle- 
come's rout? 
Ink. I've a card, and shall go: but 
at present, as soon 
As friend Scamp shall be pleased to step 

down from the moon, 
(Where he seems to be soaring in search 

of his wits), 
And an interval grants from his lectur- 
ing' fits, 
I'm engaged to the Lady Bluebottle's 

collation. 
To partake of a luncheon and learned 

conversation : 
'Tis a sort of reunion for Scamp, on the 

days 
Of his lecture, to treat him with cold 
tongue and praise. 140 

And I own, for my own part, that 'tis 

not unpleasant. 
Will you go? There's Miss Lilac will 
also be present. 
Tra. That "metal's attractive." 
Ink. No doubt — to the pocket. 

Tra. You should rather encourage 
my passion than shock it. 
But let us proceed; for I think by the 

hum 

Ink. Very true; let us go, then, be- 
fore they can come. 
Or else we'll be kept here an hour at 

their levee. 
On the rack of cross questions, by all the 
blue bevy. 

' [The Journal de Trevoux, published under 
the title of Memoires de Trevoux (i 701-1775, 
265 vols. 12°), edited by members of the Society 
of Jesus, was an imitation of the Journal des 
Savants.] 

' [The publication of the British Review was 
discontinued in 1825.] 



Hark! Zounds, they'll be on us; I 

know by the drone 
Of old Botherby's spouting ex cathedra 

tone. 150 

Aye ! there he is at it. Poor Scamp ! 

better join 
Your friends, or he'll pay you back in 

your own coin. 
Tra. All fair; 'tis but lecture for 

lecture. 
Ink. That's clear. 

But for God's sake let's go, or the Bore 

will be here. 
Come, come: nay, I'm off. 

[Exit Inkel. 

Tra. You are right, and I'll follow; 

'Tis high time for a "Sic me servavit 

Apollo." 
And yet we shall have the whole crew 

on our kibes. 
Blues, dandies, and dowagers, and 

second-hand scribes,. 
All flocking to moisten their exquisite 

throttles 
With a glass of Madeira at Lady Blue- 
bottle's. 160 . 
[Exit Tracy. 

ECLOGUE THE SECOND. 

An Apartment in the House of Lady 
Bluebottle. — A Table prepared. 

Sir Richard Bluebottle solus. 

Was there ever a man who was married 

so sorry? 
Like a fool, I must needs do the thing ' 

in a hurry. 
My life is reversed, and my quiet i 

destroyed ; 
My days, which once passed in so gentle . 

a void, / 

Must now, every hour of the' twelve, be 

employed ; 
The twelve, do I say ? — of the whole 

twenty-four, 
Is there one which I dare call my own 

any more? 
What with driving and visiting, dancing ^ 

and dining, 
What with learning, and teaching, and 

scribbling, and shining 



ECL. II.] 



THE BLUES 



671 



In science and art, I'll be cursed if I 

know 10 

Myself from my wife; for although we 

are two, 
Yet she somehow contrives that all 

things shall be done 
In a style which proclaims us eternally 

one. 
But the thing of all things which dis- 
tresses me more 
Than the bills of the week (though they 

trouble me sore) 
Is the numerous, humorous, backbiting 

crew 
Of scribblers, wits, lecturers, white, 

black, and blue, 
Who are brought to my house as an inn, 

to my cost — 
For the bill here, it seems, is defrayed by 

the host — 
No pleasure ! no leisure ! no thought for 

my pains, 20 

But to hear a vile jargon which addles 

my brains; 
A smatter and chatter, gleaned out of 

reviews. 
By the rag, tag, and bobtail of those 

they call "Blues" ; 
A rabble who know not — But soft, 

here they come ! 
Would to God I were deaf ! as I'm not, 

I'll be dumb. 

Enter Lady Bluebottle, Miss Lilac, 
Lady Bluemount, Mr Botherby, 
Inkel, Tracy, Miss Mazarine, 
and others, with Scamp the Lec- 
turer, etc., etc. 

Lady Bliieh. Ah ! Sir Richard, good 
morning: I've brought you some 
friends. 
Sir Rich, {hows, and afterwards 
aside). If friends, they're the first. 
Lady Blueb. But the luncheon at- 
tends. 
I pray ye be seated, '^ sans ceremonie." 
Mr Scamp, you're fatigued; take your 
chair there, next me. {They all sit. 
Sir Rich, {aside). If he does, his 
' fatigue is to come. 
Lady Blueb. Mr Tracy — 30 

Lady Bluemount — Miss Lilac — be 
pleased, pray, to place ye; 



And you, Mr Botherby — 

Both. Oh, my dear Lady, 

I obey. 

Lady Blueb. Mr Inkel, I ought to 
upbraid ye: 
You were not at the lecture. 

Lnk. Excuse me, I was; 

But the heat forced me out in the best 

part — alas ! 
And when — 

Lady Blueb. To be sure it was broil- 
ing; but then 
You have lost such a lecture ! 

Both. The best of the ten. 

Tra. How can you know that? 

there are two more. 
Both. Because 

I defy him to beat this day's wondrous 

applause. 
The very walls shook. 

Ink. Oh, if that be the test, 40 

I allow our friend Scamp has this day 

done his best. 
Miss Lilac, permit me to help you ; — a 
wing ? 
Miss Lil. No more, sir, I thank you. 

Who lectures next spring? 
Both. Dick Dunder. 
Ink. That is, if he lives. 

Miss Lil. And why not? 

Ink. No reason whatever, save that 
he's a sot. 
Lady Bluemount ! a glass of Madeira ? 
Lady Bliiem. With pleasure. 

Ink. How does your friend Words- 
words, that Windermere treasure? 
Does he stick to his lakes, like the leeches 

he sings, ^ 
And their gatherers, as Homer sung 
warriors and kings ? 
Lady Bluem. He has just got a place. ^ 
Ink. As a footman? 

Lady Bluem. For shame ! 

Nor profane with your sneers so poetic 
a name. . 51 

Ink. Nay, I meant him no evil, but 
pitied his master; 



I [Wordsworth's Resolution and Independence, 
originally entitled The Leech-gatherer, was 
written in 1802, and published in 1807.] 

=! [Wordsworth was appointed Distributor of 
Stamps for the County of Westrnoreland, in 
March 1813.] 



672 



THE BLUES 



[ECL. II. 



For the poet of pedlars 'twere, sure, no 

disaster 
To wear a new livery; the more, as 'tis 

not 
The first time he has turned both his 
creed and his coat. 
Lady Bliiem. For shame ! I repeat. 

If Sir George could but hear 

Lady Blueh. Never mind our friend 
Inkel ; we all know, my dear, 
'Tis his way. 

^^V Rich. But this place 

Ink. Is perhaps like friend Scamp's, 
A lecturer's. 

Lady Bluem. Excuse me — 'tis one 
in the "Stamps" : 
He is made a collector. 

Tra. Collector ! 

Sir Rich. How? 

Miss Lil. What? 60 

Ink. I shall think of him oft when I 
buy a new hat : ^ 

There his works will appear 

Lady Bluem. Sir, 

they reach to the Ganges. 
Ink. I shan't go so far — I can have 

them at Grange's.^ 
Lady Bluem. Oh fie ! 
Miss Lil. And for shame ! 

Lady Bluem. You're too bad. 

Both. Very good ! 

Lady Bluem. How good? 
Lady Blueh. He means 

nought — 'tis his phrase. 
Lady Bluem. He grows rude. 

Lady Blueh. He means nothing ; nay, 

ask him. 
Lady Bluem. Pray, Sir ! did you 
mean 
What you say? 

Ink. Never mind if he did ; 'twill be 
seen 
That whatever he means won't alloy 
what he says. 
Both. Sir! 

Ink. Pray be content with 

your portion of praise ; 
'Twas in your defence. 

I [Byron did not know, or did not choose to 
remember, that hat stamps had gone out with 
the hat tax, which was abolished in 181 1.] 

^ Grange is or was a famous pastry-cook and 
fruiterer in Piccadilly. 



Both. If you please, with submis- 
sion 70 
I can make out my own. 

Ink. It would be your perdition. 

While you live, my dear Botherby, never 

defend 
Yourself or your works ; but leave both 

to a friend. 
A propos — Is your play then accepted 
at last? 
Both. At last ? 

Ink. Why I thought — that's to say 
— there had passed 
A few green-room whispers, which 

hinted, — you know 
That the taste of the actors at best is 
so so. 
Both. Sir, the green-room's in rap- 
ture, and so's the Committee. 
Ink. Aye — yours are the plays for 
exciting our "pity 
And fear," as the Greek says: for 
"purging the mind," 80 

I doubt if you'll leave us an equal 
behind. 
Both. I have written the prologue, 
and meant to have prayed 
For a spice of your wit in an epilogue's 
aid. 
Ink. Well, time enough yet, when the 
play's to be played. 
Is it cast yet? 

Both. The actors are fighting for 

parts, 
As is usual in that most litigious of arts. 
Lady Blueh. We'll all make a party, 

and go the first night. 
Tra. And you promised the epi- 
logue, Inkel. 
Ink. Not quite. 

However, to save my friend Botherby 

trouble, 
I'll do what I can, though my pains 
must be double. 90 

Tra. Why so ? 
Ink. To do justice to what goes 

before. 
Both. Sir, I'm happy to say, I've no 
fears on that score. 

Your parts, Mr Inkel, are 

Ink. Never mind mine; 

Stick to those of your play, which is 
quite your own line. 



ECL. II.] 



THE BLUES 



673 



Lady Bluem. You're a fugitive writer, 

I think, sir, of rhymes? 
Ink. Yes, ma'am; and a fugitive 
reader sometimes. 
On Wordswords, for instance, I seldom 

alight, 
Or on Mouthey, his friend, without 
taking to flight. 
Lady Bluem. Sir, your taste is too 
common; but time and posterity 
Will right these great men, and this age's 
severity 100 

Become its reproach. 

Ink. I've no sort of objection, 

So I'm not of the party to take the infec- 
tion. 
Lady Blueb. Perhaps you have doubts 

that they ever will take ? 
Ink. Not at all ; on the contrary, 
those of the lake 
Have taken already, and still will con- 
tinue 
To take — what they can, from a groat 

to a guinea. 
Of pension or place ; — but the subject's 
a bore. 
Lady Bluem. Well, sir, the time's 

coming. 
Ink. Scamp ! don't you feel sore ? 
What say you to this? 

Scamp. They have merit, I own; 

Though their system's absurdity keeps 

it unknown. no 

Ink. Then why not unearth it in one 

of your lectures? 
Scamp. It is only time past which 

comes under my strictures. 
Lady Blueb. Come, a truce with all 
tartness ; — the joy of my heart 
Is to see Nature's triumph o'er all that 

is art. 
Wild Nature ! — Grand Shakespeare ' 
Both. And down Aristotle ! 

Lady Bluem. Sir George^ thinks ex- 
actly with Lady Bluebottle : 
And my Lord Seventy-four,^ who pro- 
tects our dear Bard, 

' [Sir George Beaumont, Bart., of Coleorton, 
Leicestershire (1753-1827), landscape-painter, 
art critic, and picture-collector, married, in 1778, 
Margaret Willis, granddaughter of Chief Justice 
Willis. She corresponded with Wordsworth 
and his sister Dorothy, and with Coleridge.] 

' [It was not Wordsworth's patron, William 

2 X 



And who gave him his place, has the 

greatest regard 
For the poet, who, singing of pedlars 

and asses. 
Has found out the way to dispense with 
Parnassus. 120 

Tra. And you, Scamp ! — 
Scamp. I needs 

must confess I'm embarrassed. 
Ink. Don't call upon Scamp, who's 
already so harassed 
With old schools, and new- schools, and 
no schools, and all schools.^ 
Tra. Well, one thing is certain, that 
some must be fools. 
I should like to know who. 

Ink. And I should not be sorry 

To know who are not : — it would save 

us some worry. 

Lady Blueb. A truce with remark, and 

let nothing control 

This "feast of our reason, and flow of 

the soul." 
Oh ! my dear Mr Botherby 1 sympa- 
thise ! — I 
Now feel such a rapture, I'm ready to 

fly, . 130 

I feel so elastic — "so buoyant — so 
buoyant!" ^ 
Ink. Tracy ! open the window. 
Tra. I wish her much joy on't. 

Both. For God's sake, my Lady 
Bluebottle, check not 

This gentle emotion, so seldom our lot 

Upon earth. Give it way: 'tis an im- 
pulse which lifts 

Our spirits from earth — the sublimest 
of gifts; 

For which poor Prometheus was chained 
to his mountain : 

'Tis the source of all sentiment — feel- 
ing's true fountain: 

'Tis the Vision of Heaven upon Earth: 
'tis the gas 

Of the soul : 'tis the seizing of shades as 
they pass, 140 

Lord Lonsdale, but his kinsman James, the first 
earl, who, towards the close of the American war, 
offered to build and man a ship of seventy-four 
guns.] 

• [For "schools" of poetry, see Hazlitt's Lec- 
tures on the English Poets (No. viii.), 1818, p. 
318.] 

' Fact from life, with the words. 



674 



SARDANAPALUS 



And making them substance: 'tis 
something divine : — 
Ink. Shall I help you, my friend, to a 

little more wine ? 
Both. I thank you: not any more, 

sir, till I dine. 
Ink. A propos — Do you dine with 

Sir Humphry to-day? ^ 
Tra. I should think with Duke 

Humphry was more in your way. 
Ink. It might be of yore; but we 
authors now look 
To the Knight, as a landlord, much 

more than the Duke. 
The truth is, each writer now quite at 

his ease is. 
And (except with his publisher) dines 

where he pleases. 
But 'tis now nearly five, and I must 
to the Park. 150 

Tra. And I'll take a turn with you 
there till 'tis dark. 
And you, Scamp — 

Scamp. Excuse me ! I must to my 
notes. 
For my lecture next week. 

Ink. He must mind whom he quotes 
Out of "Elegant Extracts." 

Lady Blueb. Well, now we break 
up; 
But remember Miss Diddle ^ invites us 
to sup. 
Ink. Then at two hours past mid- 
night we all meet again. 
For the sciences, sandwiches, hock, and 
champagne ! 
Tra. And the sweet lobster salad ! 
Both. I honour that meal; 

For 'tis then that our feelings most 
genuinely — feel. 
Ink. True; feeling is truest then, far 
beyond question: 160 

I wish to the Gods 'twas the same with 
digestion ! 
Lady Blueb. Pshaw ! — never mind 
that; for one moment of feeling 
Is worth — God knows what. 

' [Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829).] 
^ ["Lydia White," writes Lady Morgan {Me- 
moirs, 1862, ii. 236), "was a personage of much 
social celebrity in her day. She was an Irish 
lady of large fortune and considerable talent, 
noted for her hospitality and dinners in all the 
capitals of Europe."] 



Ink. 'Tis at least worth concealing 
For itself, or what follows. — But here 

comes your carriage. 
Sir Rich, {aside). I wish all these 

people were d d with my mar- 



riage 



\Exeunt. 



SARDANAPALUS : 

A TRAGEDY. 



TO 

THE ILLUSTRIOUS GOETHE 

A STRANGER 

PRESUMES TO OFFER THE HOMAGE 

OF A LITERARY VASSAL TO HIS LIEGE 

LORD, 

THE FIRST OF EXISTING WRITERS, 

WHO HAS CREATED 

THE LITERATURE OF HIS OWN COUNTRY, 

AND ILLUSTRATED THAT OF EUROPE. 

THE UNWORTHY PRODUCTION 

WHICH THE AUTHOR VENTURES TO 

INSCRIBE 

TO HIM IS ENTITLED 

SARDANAPALUS.^ 



PREFACE. 

In publishing the following Tragedies 
I have only to repeat, that they were 
not composed with the most remote 
view to the stage. On the attempt made 

I [Sardanapalus was begun January 12, 
finished May 27, and published in the same 
volume with The Two Foscari, and Cain, Decem- 
ber 19, 1821.] 

^ ["A manuscript dedication of Sardanapalus 
. . . was forwarded to him, with an obliging 
inquiry whether it might be prefixed to the 
tragedy. The German, who, at his advanced 
age, was conscious of his own powers, and of their 
effects, could only gratefully and modestly con- 
sider this Dedication as the expression of an in- 
exhaustible intellect, deeply feeling and creating 
its own object. He was by no means dissatisfied 
when, after long delay, Sardanapalus appeared 
without the Dedication; and was made happy by 
the possession of a facsimile of it, engraved on 
stone, which he considered a precious memorial." 
— Lebensverhdltnik zu Byron, Werke, 1833, ^'^i. 
22 1--225. (See, too, for translivtion. Life, p. 593-)] 



SARDANAPALUS 



675 



by the managers in a former instance, 
the public opinion has been already ex- 
pressed. With regard to my own pri- 
vate feelings, as it seems that they are to 
stand for nothing, I shall say nothing. 

For the historical foundation of the 
following compositions the reader is 
referred to the Notes. 

The Author has in one instance at- 
tempted to preserve, and in the other to 
approach, the "unities"; conceiving 
that with any very distant departure from 
them, there may be poetry, but can be 
no drama. He is aware of the unpopu- 
larity of this notion in present English 
literature; but it is not a system of his 
own, being merely an opinion, which, 
not very long ago, was the law of 
literature throughout the world, and is 
still so in the more civilised parts of it. 
But "nous avons change tout cela," and 
are reaping the advantages of the change. 
The writer is far from conceiving that 
anything he can adduce by personal 
precept or example can at all approach 
his regular, or even irregular predeces- 
sors : he is merely giving a reason why 
he preferred the more regular formation 
of a structure, however feeble, to an 
entire abandonment of all rules whatso- 
i ever. Where he has failed, the failure 
I is in the architect, — and not in the art. 



In this tragedy it has been my inten- 
tion to follow the account of Diodorus 
Siculus; ^ reducing it, however, to such 
(f ramatic regularity as I best could, and 
rying to approach the unities. I there- 
ore suppose the rebellion to explode 
md succeed in one day by a sudden 
:onspiracy, instead of the long war of 
;he history. 

[" Sardanapalus, the Thirtieth from Ninus, 
md the last King of the Assyrians, exceeded all 
lis Predecessors in Sloth and Luxury; for 
resides that he was seen of none out of his 
■antily, he led a most effeminate life: for wal- 
owing in Pleasure and wanton Dalliances, he 
:lothed himself in Women's attire, and spun 
ine Wool and Purple amongst the throngs of 
lis Whores and Concubines. He painted like- 
?,ise his Face, and decked his whole Body with 
3ther Allurements. ... He imitated likewise 
I Woman's voice . . . ; and proceeded to such 



DRAMATIS PERSON.^. 

MEN. 

Sardanapalus, King of Nineveh and 

Assyria, etc. 
Arbaces, the Mede who aspired to the 

Throne. 
Beleses, a Chaldean and Soothsayer. 
Salemenes, the King's Brother-in-Law. 
Alt AD A, an Assyrian Officer of the Palace. 
Pania. 
Zames. 
Sfero. 
Balea. 

women. 

Zarina, the Queen. 

Myrrha, an Ionian female Slave, and 
the Favourite Mistress of Sarda- 
napalus. 

a degree of voluptuousness that he composed 
verses for his Epitaph . . . which were thus 
translated by a Grecian out of the Barbarian 
language — 
TavT €\(a 6a €(f>ayov koX e(f)vPpt<Ta, Kol /mer* 

Tepirv kiraOov rd 6e iroXka. koX 6A/3ia Kelva. 
AeXeiTTTai. 

'What once I gorged I now enjoy, 
And wanton Lusts me still employ; 
All other things by Mortals prized 
Are left as dirt by me despised.' 

— The Historical Library of Diodorus the 
Sicilian, made English by G. Booth, of the City 
of Chester, Esquire, 1700, p. 65. 

"Another king of the sort was Sardanapalus. 
. . . And so, when Arbaces, who was one of the 
generals under him, a Mede by birth, endeav- 
oured to manage by the assistance of one of the 
eunuchs, whose name was Sparamizus, to see 
Sardanapalus: and when ... he saw him 
painted with vermilion, and adorned like a 
woman, sitting among his concubines, carding 
purple wool, and sitting among them with his 
feet up, wearing a woman's robe, and with his 
beard carefully scraped, and his face smoothed 
with pumice stone (for he was whiter than milk, 
and pencilled under his eyes and eyebrows; 
and when he saw Arbaces he was putting a little 
more white under his eyes). Most historians, 
of whom Duris is one, relate that Arbaces, 
being indignant at his countrymen being ruled 
over by such a monarch as that, stabbed him 
and slew him. But Ctesias says that he went to 
war with him, and collected a great army, and 
then that Sardanapalus, being dethroned by 
Arbaces, died, burning himself alive in his 
palace, having heaped up a funeral pile four 
plethra in extent, on which he placed 150 golden 
couches." — The Deipnosophislce ... of Athe- 
nfeus, bk. xii. c, 38, translated by C, D, Yonge, 
1854, iii. 847.] 



«76 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act I. 



Women composing the Harer.i of Sarda- 
NAPALUS, Guards, Attendants, Chal- 
dean Priests, Medes, etc., etc. 

Scene. — A Hall in the Royal Palace of 

Nineveh. 

[Sardanapale, Tragedie Imitee de 
Lord Byron, par L. Alvin, was per- 
formed at the Theatre Royal at Brus- 
sels, January 13, 16, 1834. 

Sardanapalus, a Tragedy, was played 
for the first time at Drury Lane Thea- 
tre, April ID, 1834, and (for the twenty- 
second time) June 5, 1834. Macready 
appeared as "Sardanapalus," Miss 
Phillips as "Zarina," and Miss Ellen 
Tree as "Myrrha." [In his diary for 
April II, 1834 (see Reminiscences, 1875, 
i. 414, 415) Macready wrote, " On arriv- 
ing at my chambers ... I found a 
letter without a signature; the seal was 
the head of Byron, and in the envelope 
was a folded sheet with merely the 
words, 'Werner, Nov., 1830. Byron, 
Ravenna, 182 1,' and 'Sardanapalus, 
April 10*'', 1834.' Encircling the name 
of Byron, etc., was a lock of grey hair 
fastened by a gold thread, which I am 
sure was Byron's, ... it surprised and 
pleased me."] 

Sardanapaius, King of Assyria, was 
produced at the Princess's Theatre, 
June 13, 1853, and played till Septem- 
ber 2, 1853. Charles Kean appeared 
as "Sardanapalus," Miss Heath as 
"Zarina," and Mrs Charles Kean as 
"Myrrha." 

Sardanapale, Opera en Trois Actes, 
par M. Henry Becque, Musique de 
M. Victorin Joncieres, was performed 
for the first time at the Theatre Imperial- 
Lyrique, February 8, 1867. 

Lord Byron'' s Tragedy of Sardanapa- 
lus, in four acts, was performed at the 
Theatre Royal, Manchester, March 31- 
April 28, 1877. Charles Calvert (the 
adapter) played "Sardanapalus," Miss 
Hathaway "Zarina," and Miss Fanny 
Ensor "Myrrha"; and June 26- 
July 27, 1877, at the Royal Alexandra 
Theatre, Liverpool. Calvert's adapta- 
tion was also performed at Booth's 
Theatre, New York.] 



ACT I. 

Scene I. — A Hall in the Palace. 

Salemenes (solus). He hath wronged 
his queen, but still he is her lord; 

He hath wronged my sister — still he is 
my brother; 

He hath wronged his people — still he 
is their sovereign — 

And I must be his friend as well as sub- 
ject : 

He must not perish thus. I will not see 

The blood of Nimrod and Semiramis 

Sink in the earth, and thirteen hundred 
years 

Of Empire ending like a shepherd's tale; 

He must be roused. In his effeminate 
heart 

There is a careless courage which Cor- 
ruption 10 

Has not all quenched, and latent ener- 
gies. 

Repressed by circumstance, but not 
destroyed — 

Steeped, but not drowned, in deep 
voluptuousness. 

If born a peasant, he had been a man 

To have reached an empire: to an 
empire born. 

He will bequeath none; nothing but a 
name, 

Which his sons will not prize in heri- 
tage : — 

Yet — not all lost — even yet — he may 
redeem 

His sloth and shame, by only being that 

Which he should be, as easily as the 
thing 20 

He should not be and is. Were it less 
toil 

To sway his nations than consume his 
life? 

To head an army than to rule a harem ? 

He sweats in palling pleasures, dulls his 
soul, 

And saps his goodly strength, in toils 
which yield not 

Health like the chase, nor glory like the 
war — 

He must be roused. Alas! there is no 
sound 
[Sound of soft music heard from within. 



€ENE II.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



677 



To rouse him short of thunder. Hark ! 
the lute — 

Tlje lyre — the timbrel; the lascivious 
tinklings 

( )/ lulling instruments, the softening 
voices 30 

3f women, and of beings less than 
women, 

l^lust chime in to the echo of his revel, 

Nhile the great King of all we know of 

earth 
Lolls crowned with roses, and his dia- 

I dem 

Lies negligently by to be caught up 

By the first manly hand which dares to 
snatch it. 

L,o, where they come ! already I per- 
ceive 

The reeking odours of the perfumed 
trains, 

Vnd see the bright gems of the glittering 
girls, 

It once his Chorus and his Council, 
flash 40 

llong the gallery, and amidst the dam- 
sels, 
s femininely garbed, and scarce less 

female, 
he grandson of Semiramis, the Man- 
Queen. — 

]f e comes ! Shall I await him ? yes, 
and front him, 

Aid tell him what all good men tell 
each other, 

S)eaking of him and his. They come, 
the slaves 

Libdby the monarch subject to his slaves. 

Scene II. 

Enter Sardanapalus effeminately 

dressedj his Head crowned with 

Flowers, and his Robe negligently 

flowing, attended by a Train of 

I Women and young Slaves. 

jSar. (speaking to some of his attend- 
ants). Let the pavilion over the 
Euphrates 
Be garlanded, and lit, and furnished 

forth 
For an especial banquet; at the hour 
Of midnight we will sup there: see 
nought wanting, 



And bid the galley be prepared. There 

is 
A cooling breeze which crisps the broad 

clear river: 
We will embark anon. Fair Nymphs, 

who deign 
To share the soft hours of Sardanapalus, 
We'll meet again in that the sweetest 

hour. 
When we shall gather like the stars 

above us, 10 

And you will form a heaven as bright 

as theirs; 
Till then, let each be mistress of her 

time. 
And thou, my own Ionian Myrrha, 

choose ; 
Wilt thou along with them or me ? 

Myr. My Lord 

Sar. My Lord ! — my Life ! why 

answerest thou so coldly? 
It is the curse of kings to be so answered. 
Rule thy own hours, thou rulest mine — 

say, wouldst thou 
Accompany our guests, or charm away 
The moments from me? 

Myr. The King's choice is mine. 

Sar. I pray thee say not so: my 

chiefest joy 20 

Is to contribute to thine every wish. 
I do not dare to breathe my own desire. 
Lest it should clash with thine ; for thou 

art still 
Too prompt to sacrifice thy thoughts for 

others. 
Myr. I would remain: I have no 

happiness 

Save in beholding thine ; yet • 

Sar. Yet 1 what yet ? 

Thy own sweet will shall be the only 

barrier 
Which ever rises betwixt thee and me. 
Myr. I think the present is the 

wonted hour 
Of council; it were better I retire. 30 
Sal. (comes forward and says) The 

Ionian slave says well: let her 

retire. 
Sar. Who answers? How now, 

brother ? 
Sal. The Queen's brother. 

And your most faithful vassal, royal 

Lord. 



678 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act 



\ 



Sar. {addressing his train) . As I have 
said, let all dispose their hours 
Till midnight, when again we pray 
your presence. 

{The court retiring. 
{To Myrrha, who is going.) Myrrha ! 
I thought thou wouldst remain. 
Myr. Great King, 

Thou didst not say so. 

Sar. But thou looked'st it: 

I know each glance of those Ionic eyes, 
Which said thou wouldst not leave me. 

Myr. Sire ! your brother ! ■ 

Sal. His Consort's brother, minion of 

Ionia ! 40 

How darest thou name me and not blush ? 

Sar. Not blush ! 

Thou hast no more eyes than heart to 

make her crimson 
Like to the dying day on Caucasus, 
Where sunset tints the snow with rosy 

shadows, 
And then reproach her with thine own 

cold blindness. 
Which will not see it. What ! in tears, 
my Myrrha? 
Sal. Let them flow on ; she weeps for 
more than one, 
And is herself the cause of bitterer tears. 
Sar. Cursed be he who caused those 

tears to flow ! 
Sal. Curse not thyself — millions do 
that already. 50 

Sar. Thou dost forget thee: make 
me not remember 
I am a monarch. 

Sal. Would thou couldst! 

Myr. My sovereign, 

I pray, and thou, too, Prince, permit my 
absence. 
Sar. Since it must be so, and this 
churl has checked 
Thy gentle spirit, go; but recollect 
That we must forthwith meet: I had 

rather lose 
An empire than thy presence. 

[Exit Myrrha. 

Sal. It may be. 

Thou wilt lose both — and both for 

ever! 

Sar. Brother ! 

I can at least command myself, who 

listen 



To language such as this : yet urge mi 

not 6 

Beyond my easy nature. 

Sal. 'Tis beyond 

That easy — far too easy — idle nature 
Which I would urge thee. O that I 

could rouse thee ! 
Though 'twere against myself. 

Sar. By the god Baal ! 

The man would make me tyrant. 

Sal. So thou art. 

Think'st thou there is no tyranny but 

that 
Of blood and chains? The despotism 

of vice. 
The weakness and the wickedness of 

luxury. 
The negligence, the apathy, the evils 
Of sensual sloth — produce ten thou- 
sand tyrants, 70 
Whose delegated cruelty surpasses 
The worst acts of one energetic master, 
However harsh and hard in his own 

bearing. 
The false and fond examples of thy 

lusts 
Corrupt no less than they oppress, and 

sap 
In the same moment all thy pageant 

power 
And those who should sustain it; so 

that whether 
A foreign foe invade, or civil broil 
Distract within, both will alike prove 

fatal : 
The first thy subjects have no heart to 

conquer; 80 

The last they rather would assist than 

vanquish. 
Sar. Why, what makes thee the 

mouthpiece of the people? 
Sal. Forgiveness of the Queen's, my 

sister's wrongs; 
A natural love unto my infant nephews; 
Faith to the King, a faith he may need 

shortly. 
In more than words; respect for Nim- 

rod's line; 
Also, another thing thou knowest not. 
Sar. What's that? 
Sal. To thee an unknown word^ 

Sar. Yet speak it 

I love to learn, 



^CENE II.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



679 



Sal. Virtue 

Sar. Not know the word ! 

Never was word yet rung so in my 
/ ears— ' go 

jtVorse than the rabble's shout, or spUt- 

ting trumpet: 
I've heard thy sister talk of nothing else. 
Sal. To change the irksome theme, 

then, hear of vice. 
Sar. From whom? 
Sal. Even from the 

winds, if thou couldst listen 
Unto the echoes of the Nation's voice. 
Sar. Come, I'm indulgent, as thou 
knowest, patient. 
As thou hast often proved — speak out, 
what moves thee? 
5a/. Thy peril. 
Sar. Say on. 

Sal. Thus, then: all the nations. 

For they are many, whom thy father left 
In heritage, are loud in wrath against 
thee. 100 

Sar. 'Gainst wg./.^ What would the 

slaves ? 
Sal. A king. 

Sar. And what 

^.m I then ? 

Sal. In their eyes a nothing; but 
n mine a man who might be something 
still. 
Sar. The railing drunkards ! why, 
what would they have? 
Have they not peace and plenty? 

Sal. Of "the first 

More than is glorious; of the last, far 

less 
Than the King recks of. 

Sar. Whose then is the crime. 

But the false satraps, who provide no 
better ? 
Sal. And somewhat in the Monarch 
who ne'er looks 
Beyond his palace walls, or if he stirs 
Beyond them, 'tis but to some mountain 
palace, 1 1 1 

Till summer heats wear down. O glori- 
ous Baal ! 
Who built up this vast empire, and wert 

made 
A God, or at the least shinest like a God 
Through the long centuries of thy re- 
nown, 



This, thy presumed descendant, ne'er 

beheld 
As king the kingdoms thou didst leave 

as hero. 
Won with thy blood, and toil, and time, 

and peril ! 
For what ? to furnish imposts for a revel, 
Or multiplied e.xtortions for a minion. 
Sar. I understand thee — thou 

wouldst have me go 121 

Forth as a conqueror. By all the stars 
Which the Chaldeans read — the rest- 
less slaves 
Deserve that I should curse them with 

their wishes, 
And lead them forth to glory. 

Sal. Wherefore not? 

Semiramis — a woman only — led 
These our Assyrians to the solar shores 
Of Ganges. 

Sar. 'Tis most true. And how re- 
turned? 
Sal. Why, like a man — a hero; 

baffled,' but 
Not vanquished. With but twenty 

guards, she made 130 

Good her retreat to Bactria. 

Sar. And how many 

Left she behind in India to the vultures ? 

Sal. Our annals say not. 

Sar. Then I will say for them — 

That she had better woven within her 

palace 
Some twenty garments, than with twenty 

guards 
Have fled to Bactria, leaving to the 

ravens. 
And wolves, and men — the fiercer of 

the three — 
Her mvriads of fond subjects. Is this 

Glory ? 
Then let me live in ignominy ever. 
Sal. All warlike spirits have not the 

same fate. 140 

Semiramis, the glorious parent of 
A hundred kings, although she failed in 

India, 
Brought Persia — Media — Bactria — 

to the realm 
Which she once swayed — and thou 

mightst sway. 
Sar. I sway them — 

She but subdued them. 



68o 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act i.j 



Sal. It may be ere long 

That they will need her sword more 
than your sceptre. 
Sar. There was a certain Bacchus, 
was there not? 
I've heard my Greek girls speak of such 

— they say 
He was a God, that is, a Grecian god, 
An idol foreign to Assyria's worship, 150 
Who conquered this same golden realm 

of Ind 
Thou prat'st of, where Semiramis was 
vanquished. 
Sal. I have heard of such a man; and 
thou perceiv'st 
That he is deemed a God for what he 
did. 
Sar. And in his godship I will 
honour him — 
Not much as man. What, ho! my 
cupbearer ! 
Sal. What means the King? 
Sar. To worship your new God 

And ancient conqueror. Some wine, 
I say. 

Enter Cupbearer. 

Sar. {addressing the Cupbearer). Bring 

me the golden goblet thick with 

gems. 

Which bears the name of Nimrod's 

chalice. Hence, 160 

Fill full, and bear it quickly. 

[Exit Cupbearer. 
Sal. Is this moment 

A fitting one for the resumption of 
Thy yet unslept-off revels ? 

Re-enter Cupbearer with wine. 

Sar. {taking the cup from him) . Noble 
kinsman, 
If these barbarian Greeks of the far 

shores 
And skirts of these our realms lie not, 

this Bacchus 
Conquered the whole of India, did he 
not? 
Sal. He did, and thence was deemed 

a Deity. 
Sar. Not so : — of all his conquests a 
few columns 
Which may be his, and might be mine, 
if I 



Thought them worth purchase and con- 
veyance, are 170 

The landmarks of the seas of gore hey^ 
shed, 

The realms he wasted, and the hearts he 
broke. 

But here — here in this goblet is his 
title 

To immortality — the immortal grape 

From which he first expressed the soul, 
and gave 

To gladden that of man, as some atone- 
ment I 

For the victorious mischiefs he had done, h 

Had it not been for this, he would have! 
been | 

A mortal still in name as in his grave ; | 

And, like my ancestor Semiramis, iSoj, 

A sort of semi-glorious human monster. 

Here's that which deified him — let it 
now 

Humanise thee; my surly, chiding 
brother. 

Pledge me to the Greek God ! 

Sal. For all thy realms 

I would not so blaspheme our country's 
creed. 
Sar. That is to say, thou thinkest 
him a hero, 

That he shed blood by oceans ; and no 
God, 

Because he turned a fruit to an enchant- 
ment. 

Which cheers the sad, revives the old, 
inspires 

The young, makes Weariness forget his 
toil, 190 

And Fear her danger ; opens a new world 

When this, the present, palls. Well, 
then / pledge thee \ 

And him as a true man, who did his 
utmost 

In good or evil to surprise mankind. 

[Drinks. 
Sal. WUt thou resume a revel at thi^ 

hour? 
Sar. And if I did, 'twere better than) 
a trophy. 

Being bought without a tear. But that 
is not 

My present purpose : since thou wilt not 

pledge me. 
Continue what thou pleasest. 



Scene ii.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



68i 



(To the Cupbearer.) Boy, retire. 

[Exit Cupbearer. 
Sal. I would but have recalled thee 
from thy dream; 200 

Better by me awakened than rebellion. 
Sar. Who should rebel? or why? 
what cause ? pretext ? 
I am the lawful King, descended from 
A race of Kings who knew no predeces- 
sors. 
What have I done to thee, or to the 

people. 
That thou shouldst rail, or they rise up 
against me ? 
Sal. Of what thou hast done to me, I 

speak not. 
Sar. But 

Thou think' st that I have wronged the 
Queen: is't not so? 
Sal. Think! Thou hast wronged 

her! 

Sar. Patience, Prince, and hear me. 

She has all power and splendour of her 

station, 210 

Respect, the tutelage of Assyria's heirs, 

The homage and the appanage of 

sovereignty. 
I married her as monarchs wed — for 

state. 
And loved her as most husbands love 

their wives. 
If she or thou supposedst I could link me 
Like a Chaldean peasant to his mate, 
Ye knew nor me — nor monarchs — 
nor mankind. 
Sal. I pray thee, change the theme : 
my blood disdains 
Complaint, and Salemenes' sister seeks 

not 
iteluctant love even from Assyria's 
lord! 220 

iTor would she deign to accept divided 

passion 

'Vith foreign strumpets and Ionian 
slaves. 
he Queen is silent. 
Sar. And why not her brother? 

Sal. I only echo thee the voice of 
empires. 
Which he who long neglects not long 
will govern. 
Sar. The ungrateful and ungracious 
slaves ! they murmur 



Because I have not shed their blood, nor 

led them 
To dry into the desert's dust by myriads, 
Or whiten with their bones the banks of 

Ganges ; 
Nor decimated them with savage laws, 
Nor sweated them to build up Pyra- 
mids, 231 
Or Babylonian walls. 

Sal. Yet these are trophies 

More worthy of a people and their 

prince 
Than songs, and lutes, and feasts, and 

concubines. 
And lavished treasures, and contemned 

virtues. 
Sar. Or for my trophies I have 

founded cities: 
There's Tarsus and Anchialus, both 

built 
In one day — what could that blood- 
loving beldame. 
My martial grandam, chaste Semiramis, 
Do more, except destroy them? 

Sal. 'Tis most true; 240 

I own thy merit in those founded cities. 
Built for a whim, recorded with a verse 
Which shames both them and thee to 

coming ages. 
Sar. Shame me ! By Baal, the cities, 

though well built, 
Are not more goodly than the verse ! 

Say what 
Thou wilt 'gainst me, my mode of life or 

rule, 
But nothing 'gainst the truth of that 

brief record. 
Why, those few lines contain the history 
Of all things human: hear — "Sar- 

danapalus, 249 

The king, and son of Anacyndaraxes, 
In one day built Anchialus and Tarsus. 
Eat, drink, and love; the rest's not 

worth a fillip." 
Sal. A worthy moral, and a wise in- 
scription. 
For a king to put up before his subjects ! 
Sar. Oh, thou wouldst have me 

doubtless set up edicts — 
" Obey the king — contribute to his 

treasure — 
Recruit his phalanx — spill your blood 

at bidding — 



682 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act I. 



Fall down and worship, or get up and 

toil." 
Or thus — " Sardanapalus on this spot 
Slew fifty thousand of his enemies. 260 
These are his sepulchres, and this his 

trophy." 
I leave such things to conquerors; 

enough 
For me, if I can make my subjects feel 
The weight of human misery less, and 

glide 
Ungroaning to the tomb: I take no 

license 
Which I deny to them. We all are men. 
Sal. Thy Sires have been revered as 

Gods — 
Sar. In dust 

And death, where they are neither Gods 

nor men. 
Talk not of such to me ! the worms are 

Gods; 
At least they banqueted upon your 

Gods, 270 

And died for lack of farther nutriment. 
Those Gods were merely men; look to 

their issue — 
I feel a thousand mortal things about me, 
But nothing godlike, — unless it may be 
The thing which you condemn, a dis- 
position 
To love and to be merciful, to pardon 
The follies of my species, and (that's 

human) 
To be indulgent to my own. 

Sal. Alas ! 

The doom of Nineveh is sealed. — Woe 

— woe 
To the unrivalled city. 

Sar. What dost dread? 280 

Sal. Thou art guarded by thy foes: 

in a few hours 
The tempest may break out which over- 
whelms thee, 
And thine and mine; and in another 

day 
What is shall be the past of Belus' race. 
Sar. What must we dread? 
Sal. Ambitious treachery, 

Which has environed thee with snares; 

but yet 
There is resource : empower me with 

thy signet 
To quell the machinations, and I lay 



>r 



The heads of thy chief foes before thy f 

feet. 

Sar. The heads — how many ? | 

Sal. Must I stay to number | 

When even thine own's in peril? Let , 

me go; 290 I, 

Give me thy signet — trust me with the j 

rest. 

Sar. I will trust no man with un- ) 

limited lives. ii 

When we take those from others, we | 

nor know 
What we have taken, nor the thing we 
give. 
Sal. Wouldst thou not take their 

lives who seek for thine ? 
Sar. That's a hard question — But 
I answer. Yes. 
Cannot the thing be done without 

Who are they 
Whom thou suspectest ? — Let them 
be arrested. 
Sal. I would thou wouldst not ask 
me ; the next moment 300 

Will send my answer through thy bab- 
bling troop 
Of paramours, and thence fly o'er the 

palace. 
Even to the city, and so baffle all. — 
Trust me. 

Sar. Thou knowest I have done so 
ever; 
Take thou the signet. 

[Gives the signet. 
Sal. I have one more recjuest, 

Sar. Name it. 

Sal. That thou this night 

forbear the banquet 
In the pavilion over the Euphrates. 
Sar. Forbear the banquet ! Not for 
all the plotters 
That ever shook a kingdom ! Let them 

come 
And do their worst : I shall not blench 
for them; 310 

Nor rise the sooner; nor forbear the 

goblet ; 
Nor crown me with a single rose the 

less; 
Nor lose one joyous hour. — I fear them 
not. 
Sal. But thou wouldst arm thee, 
wouldst thou not, if needful? 



Scene ii.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



683 



Sar. Perhaps. I have the goodliest 

armour, and 
A sword of such a temper, and a bow, 
And javelin, which might furnish Nim- 

rod forth : 
A little heavy, but yet not unwieldy. 
And now I think on't, 'tis long since I've 

used them. 
Even in the chase. Hast ever seen 

them, brother? 320 

Sal. Is this a time for such fantastic 

trifling ? — 
If need be, wilt thou wear them ? 

Sar. Will I not ? 

Oh ! if it must be so, and these rash 

slaves 
Will not be ruled with less, I'll use the 

sword 
Till they shall wish it turned into a dis- 
taff. 
Sal. They say thy Sceptre's turned 

to that already. 
Sar. That's false ! but let them say 

so : the old Greeks, 
Of whom our captives often sing, re- 
lated 
The same of their chief hero, Hercules, 
Because he loved a Lydian queen : thou 

seest 330 

The populace of all the nations seize 
Each calumny they can to sink their 

sovereigns. 
Sal. They did not speak thus of thy 

fathers. 
Sar. No ; 

They dared not. They were kept to toil 

and combat ; 
And never changed their chains but for 

their armour: 
Now they have peace and pastime, and 

the license 
To revel and to rail ; it irks me not. 
I would not give the smile of one fair 

girl 
For all the popular breath that e'er 

divided 
A name from nothing. What are the 

rank tongues 340 

Of this vile herd, grown insolent with 

feeding, 
That I should prize their noisy praise, or 

dread 
Their noisome clamour? 



Sal. You have said they are men; 

As such their hearts are something. 
Sar. So my dogs' are; 

And better, as more faithful : — but, 
proceed ; 

Thou hast my signet : — since they are 
tumultuous, 

Let them be tempered, vet not roughly, 
till 

Necessity enforce it. I hate all pain, 

Given or received; we have enough 
within us. 

The meanest vassal as the loftiest mon- 
arch, 350 

Not to add to each other's natural bur- 
then 

Of mortal misery, but rather lessen. 

By mild reciprocal alleviation. 

The fatal penalties imposed on life: 

But this they know not, or they will not 
know. 

I have, by Baal ! done all I could to 
soothe them: 

I made no wars, I added no new 'im- 
posts, 

I interfered not with their civic lives, 

I let them pass their days as best might 
suit them. 

Passing my own as suited me. 

Sal. Thou stopp'st 360 

Short of the duties of a king ; and there- 
fore 

They say thou art unfit to be a monarch. 
Sar. They lie. — Unhappily, I am 
unfit 

To be aught save a monarch ; else for me 

The meanest Mede might be the king 
instead. 
Sal. There is one Mede, at least, who 

seeks to be so. 
Sar. What mean'st thou ! — 'tis thy 
secret ; thou desirest 

Few questions, and I'm not of curious 
nature. 

Take the fit steps; and, since necessity 

Requires, I sanction and support thee. 
Ne'er 370 

Was man who more desired to rule in 
peace 

The peaceful only: if they rouse me, 
better 

They had conjured up stern Nimrod 
from his ashes, 



684 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act I. 



"The Mighty Hunter!" I will turn 

these realms 
To one wide desert chase of brutes, who 

were, 
But woicld no more, by their own choice, 

be human. 
What- they have found me, they belie; 

that which 
They yet may find me — shall defy their 

wish 
To speak it worse ; and let them thank 

themselves. 
Sal. Then thou at last canst feel ? 
Sar. Feel ! who feels not 380 

Ingratitude ? 

Sal. I will not pause to answer 
With words, but deeds. Keep thou 

awake that energy 
Which sleeps at times, but is not dead 

within thee, 
And thou may'st yet be glorious in thy 

reign, 
As powerful in thy realm. Farewell ! 

{Exit Salemenes. 

Sar. (solus). Farewell! 

He's gone; and on his finger bears my 

signet. 
Which is to him a sceptre. He is 

stern. 
As I am heedless; and the slaves de- 
serve 
To feel a master. What may be the 

danger, 
I know not: he hath found it, let him 

quell it. 390 

Must I consume my life — this little 

life — 
In guarding against all may make it 

less? 
It is not worth so much ! It were to die 
Before my hour, to live in dread of 

death. 
Tracing revolt ; suspecting all about me, 
Because they are near ; and all who are 

remote, 
Because they are far. But if it should 

be so — 
If they should sweep me off from Earth 

and Empire, 
Why, what is Earth or Empire of the 

Earth ? 
I have loved, and lived, and multiplied 

my image; 400 



To die is no less natural than those 
Acts of this clay ! 'Tis true I have not 

shed 
Blood as I might have done, in oceans, 

till 
My name became the synonyme of 

Death — 
A terror and a trophy. But for this 
I feel no penitence ; my life is love : 
If I must shed blood, it shall be by force. 
Till now, no drop from an Assyrian vein 
Hath flowed for me, nor hath the small- 
est coin 
Of Nineveh's vast treasures e'er been 

lavished 410 

On objects which could cost her sons a 

tear: 
If then they hate me, 'tis because I hate 

not: 
If they rebel, 'tis because I oppress not. 
Oh, men I ye must be ruled with scythes, 

not sceptres. 
And mowed down like the grass, else all 

we reap 
Is rank abundance, and a rotten harvest 
Of discontents infecting the fair soil. 
Making a desert of fertility. — 
I'll think no more. — Within there, ho ! 

Enter an Attendant. 

Sar. Slave, tell 

The Ionian Myrrha we would crave her 
presence. 420 

Attend. King, she is here. 

Myrrha enters. 

Sar. {apart to Attendant). Away! 

(Addressing Myrrha.) Beautiful being ! 
Thou dost almost anticipate my heart ; 
It throbbed for thee, and here thou 

comest : let me 
Deem that some unknown influence, 

some sweet oracle. 
Communicates between us, though un- 
seen, 
In absence, and attracts us to each other. 
Myr. There doth. 

Sar. I know there doth, but not its 
name: 
What is it ? 

Myr. In my native land a God, 

And in my heart a feeling like a God's, 
Exalted ; yet I own 'tis only mortal ; 430 



Scene ii.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



68s 



For what I feel is humble, and yet 
happy — 

That is, it would be happy ; but 

[Myrrha pauses. 

Sar. There comes 

For ever something between us and 

what 

We deem our happiness : let me remove 

The barrier which that hesitating accent 

Proclaims to thine, and mine is sealed. 

Myr. My Lord ! — 

Sdr. My Lord — my King — Sire — 

Sovereign ; thus it is — 

For ever thus, addressed with awe. I 

ne'er 
Can see a smile, unless in some broad 
banquet's 439 

Intoxicating glare, when the buffoons 
Have gorged themselves up to equality. 
Or I have quaffed me down to their 

abasement. 
Myrrha, I can hear all these things, 

these names. 
Lord — King — Sire — Monarch — 

nay, time was I prized them; 
That is, I suffered them — from slaves 

and nobles; 
But when they falter from the lips I 

love, 
The lips which have been pressed to 

mine, a chill 
Comes o'er my heart, a cold sense of 

the falsehood 
Of this my station, which represses 

feeling 
In those for whom I have felt most, and 
makes me 450 

iVish that I could lay down the dull 

tiara, 

Vnd share a cottage on the Caucasus 
iVith thee — and wear no crowns but 
those of flowers. 
Myr. Would that we could ! 
Sar. And dost thou feel this ? — 

Why? 
Myr. Then thou wouldst know what 
thou canst never know. 

Sar. And that is 

Myr. The true value of a heart ; 

\t least, a woman's. 

Sar. 1 have proved a thousand — 
\ thousand, and a thousand. 
Myr. Hearts ? 



Sar. I think so. 

Myr. Not one ! the time may come 

thou may'st. 
Sar. It will. 

Hear, Myrrha; Salemenes has de- 
clared — 460 
Or why or how he hath divined it, 

Belus, 
Who founded our great realm, knows 

more than I — 
But Salemenes hath declared my throne 
In peril. 

Myr. He did well. 
Sar. And say'st thou so? 

Thou whom he spurned so harshly, and 

now dared 
Drive from our presence with his savage 

jeers. 
And made thee weep and blush? 

Myr. I should do both 

More frequently, and he did well to call 

me 
Back to my duty. But thou spakest of 
peril — 

Peril to thee 

Sar. Aye, from dark plots and snares 

From Medes — and discontented troops 

and nations. 471 

I know not what — a labyrinth of 

things — 
A maze of muttered threats and mys- 
teries : 
Thou know'st the man — it is his usual 

custom. 
But he is honest. Come, we'll think no 

more on't — 
But of the midnight festival. 

Myr. 'Tis time 

To think of aught save festivals. Thou 

hast not 
Spurned his sage cautions? 

Sar. What ? — and dost thou fear? 

Myr. Fear ! — I'm a Greek, and 

how should I fear death? 

A slave, and wherefore should I dread 

my freedom? 480 

Sar. Then wherefore dost thou turn 

so pale? 
Myr. I love. 

Sar. And do not I ? I love thee far 
— far more 
Than either the brief life or the wide 
realm, 



686 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act I. 



Which, it may be, are menaced ; — yet 

I blench not. 
Myr. That means thou lovest not 

thyself nor me; 
For he who loves another loves him- 
self. 
Even for that other's sake. This is too 

rash: 
Kingdoms and lives are not to be so lost. 
Sar. Lost ! — why, who is the aspiring 

chief who dared 
Assume to win them? 

Myr. Who is he should dread 490 
To try so much ? When he who is their 

ruler 
Forgets himself — will they remember 

him? 
Sar. Myrrha ! 
Myr. Frown not upon, me : you have 

smiled 
Too often on me not to make those 

frowns 
Bitterer to bear than any punishment 
Which they may augur. — King, I am 

your subject ! 
Master, I am your slave ! Man, I have 

loved you ! — 
Loved you, I know not by what fatal 

weakness. 
Although a Greek, and born a foe to 

monarchs — 
A slave, and hating fetters — an Ionian, 
And, therefore, when I love a stranger, 

more 501 

Degraded by that passion than by 

chains ! 
Still I have loved you. If that love were 

strong 
Enough to overcome all former nature. 
Shall it not claim the privilege to save 

you? 
Sar. Save me, my beauty ! Thou 

art very fair. 
And what I seek of thee is love — not 

safety. 
Myr. And without love where dwells 

security ? . 
Sar. I speak of woman's love. 
Myr. The very first 

Of human life must spring from 

woman's breast, 510 

Your first small words are taught you 

from her lips, 



Your first tears quenched by her, and 

your last sighs 
Too often breathed out in a woman's 

hearing. 
When men have shrunk from the ignoble 

care 
Of watching the last hour of him who 
led them. 
Sar. My eloquent Ionian ! thou 
speak' St music: 
The very chorus of the tragic song 
I have heard thee talk of as the fa- 
vourite pastime 
Of thy far father-land. Nay, weep not 
— calm thee. 
Myr. I weep not. — But I pray thee, 
do not speak 520 

About my fathers or their land. 

Sar. Yet oft 

Thou speakest of them. 

Myr. True — true : constant thought 
Will overflow in words unconsciously; 
But when another speaks of Greeks, it 
wounds me. 
Sar. Well, then, how wouldst thou 

save me, as thou saidst? 
Myr. By teaching thee to save thy- 
self, and not 
Thyself alone, but these vast realms, 

from all 
The rage of the worst war — the war of 
brethren. 
Sar. Why, child, I loathe all war, 
and warriors; 
I live in peace and pleasure: what can 
man 530 

Do more? 

Myr. Alas ! my Lord, with common 
men 
There needs too oft the show of war to 

keep 
The substance of sweet peace ; and, for 

a king, 
'Tis sometimes better to be feared than 
loved. 
Sar. And I have never sought but 

for the last. 
Myr. And now art neither. 
Sar. Dost thou say so, Myrrha? 

Myr. I speak of civic popular love, 
self-love, 
Which means that men are kept in awe 
and law, 



Scene ii.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



687 



Yet not oppressed — at least they must 
not think so, 

Or, if they think so, deem it necessary. 

To ward off worse oppression, their own 
passions. 541 

A King of feasts, and flowers, and wine, 
and revel. 

And love, and mirth, was never King of 
Glory. 
Sar. Glory ! what's that ? 
Myr. Ask of the Gods thy fathers. 
Sar. They cannot answer ; when the 
priests speak for them, 

'Tis for some small addition to the 
temple. 
Myr. Look to the annals of thine 

Empire's founders. 
Sar. They are so blotted o'er with 
blood, I cannot. 

But what wouldst have ? the Empire has 
been founded. 

I cannot go on multiplying empires. 550 
Myr. Preserve thine own. 
Sar. At least, I will enjoy it. 

Come, Myrrha, let us go on to the 
Euphrates : 

The hour invites, the galley is pre- 
pared. 

And the pavilion, decked for our return, 

In fit adornment for the evening ban- 
quet, 

Shall blaze wuth beauty and with light, 
until 

It seems unto the stars which are 
above us 

.Itself an opposite star ; and we will sit 

Crowned with fresh flowers like 

Myr. Victims. 

Sar. No, like sovereigns, 

The Shepherd Kings of patriarchal 
times 560 

Who knew no brighter gems than sum- 
mer wreaths, 

And none but tearless triumphs. Let 
us on. 

Enter Pania. 

Pan. May the King live for ever ! 
Sar. Not an hour 

Longer than he can love. How my soul 

hates 
This language, which makes life itself 
a lie. 



Flattering dust with eternity. Well, 

Pania ! 
Be brief. 

Pan. I am charged by Salemenes to 
Reiterate his prayer unto the King, 
That for this day, at least, he will not 

quit 
The palace : when the General returns. 
He will adduce such reasons as will 

warrant 571 

His daring, and perhaps obtain the 

pardon 
Of his presumption. 

Sar. What ! am I then cooped ? 

Already captive ? can I not even breathe 
The breath of heaven? Tell prince 

Salemenes, 
Were all Assyria raging round the walls 
In mutinous myriads, I would still go 

forth. 

Pan. I must obey, and yet 

Myr. Oh, Monarch, listen. — 

How many a day and moon thou hast 

reclined 
Within these palace walls in silken 

dalliance, 580 

And never shown thee to thy people's 

Ipnging ; 
Leaving thy subjects' eyes ungratified. 
The satraps uncontrolled, the Gods un- 

worshipped. 
And all things in the anarchy of sloth, 
Till all, save evil, slumbered through 

the realm ! 
And wilt thou not now tarry for a day, — 
A day which may redeem thee? Wilt 

thou not 
Yield to the few still faithful a few 

hours. 
For them, for thee, for thy past father's 

race, 
And for thy sons' inheritance ? 

Pan. 'Tis true ! 590 

From the deep urgency with which the 

Prince 
Despatched me to your sacred pres- 
ence, I 
Must dare to add my feeble voice to that 
Which now has spoken. 

Sar. No, it must not be. 

Myr. For the sake of thy realm ! 
Sar. Away ! 

Pan. For that 



688 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act I. 



Of all thy faithful subjects, who will 

rally 
Round thee and thine. 

Sar. These are mere fantasies: 

There is no peril : — 'tis a sullen scheme 
Of Salemenes, to prove his zeal, 
And show himself more necessary to us. 
Myr. By all that's good and glorious 
take this counsel. 60 1 

Sar. Business to-morrow. 
Myr. Aye — or death to-night. 

Sar. Why, let it come then unex- 
pectedly, 
'Midst joy and gentleness, and mirth and 

love; 
So let me fall like the plucked rose ! — 

far better 
Thus than be withered. 

Myr. Then thou wilt not yield. 

Even for the sake of all that ever stirred 
A monarch into action, to forego 
A trifling revel. 
Sar. No. 

Myr. Then yield for mine; 

For my sake ! 

Sar. Thine, my Myrrha ! 

Myr. 'Tis the first 610 

Boon which I ever asked Assyria's king. 

Sar. That's true, and, wer't my 

kingdom, must be granted. 

Well, for thy sake, I yield me. Pania, 

hence ! 
Thou hear'st me. 

Pan. And obey. [Exit Pania. 

Sar. I marvel at thee. 

What is thy motive, Myrrha, thus to 

urge me ? 

Myr. Thy safety; and the certainty 

that nought 

Could urge the Prince thy kinsman to 

require 
Thus much from thee, but some im- 
pending danger. 
Sar. And if I do not dread it, why 

shouldst thou? 
Myr. Because thou dost not fear, I 
fear for thee. 620 

Sar. To-morrow thou wilt smile at 

these vain fancies. 
Myr. If the worst come, I shall be 
where none weep, 
And that is better than the power to 
smile. 



And thou? 

Sar. I shall be King, as heretofore. 

Myr. Where ? 

Sar. With Baal, Nimrod, and Se- 

miramis. 
Sole in Assyria, or with them elsewhere. 
Fate made me what I am — may make 

me nothing — 
But either that or nothing must I be : 
I will not live degraded. 

Myr. Hadst thou felt 

Thus always, none would ever dare de- 
grade thee. 630 
Sar. And who will do so now? 
Myr. Dost thou suspect none? 
Sar. Suspect ! — that's a spy's ofl&ce. 

Oh ! we lose 
Ten thousand precious moments in vain 

words, 
And vainer fears. Within there ! — ye 

slaves, deck 
The Hall of Nimrod for the evening 

revel ; 
If I must make a prison of our palace. 
At least we'll wear our fetters jocundly; 
If the Euphrates be forbid us, and 
The summer-dwelling on its beauteous 

border. 
Here we are still unmenaced. Ho ! 

within there ! [Exit Sardanapa- 

Lus. 640 

Myr. {sola) . Why do I love this man ? 

My country's daughters 
Love none but heroes. But I have no 

country ! 
The slave hath lost all save her bonds. 

I love him; 
And that's the heaviest link of the long 

chain — 
To love whom we esteem not. Be it so : 
The hour is coming when he'll need all 

love. 
And find none. To fall from him now 

were baser 
Than to have stabbed him on his throne 

when highest 
Would have been noble in my country's 

creed : 
I was not made for either. Could I 

save him, 650 

I should not love him better, but myself ; 
And I have need of the last, for I have 

fallen 



Scene i.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



689 



In my own thoughts, by loving this soft 

stranger : 
And yet, methinks, I love him more, 

perceiving 
That he is hated of his own barbarians, 
The natural foes of all the blood of 

Greece. 
Could I but wake a single thought like 

those 
Which even the Phrygians felt when 

battling long 
'Twixt Ilion and the sea, within his 

heart, 
He would tread down the barbarous 

crowds, and triumph. 660 

He loves me, and I love him ; the slave 

loves 
Her m.aster, and would free him from 

his vices. 
If not, I have a means of freedom still. 
And if I cannot teach him how to reign. 
May show him how alone a King can 

leave 
His throne. I must not lose him from 

my sight. [Exit. 

ACT II. 

Scene I. — The Portal of the same Hall 
of the Palace. 

Beleses (solus). The Sun goes down: 
methinks he sets more slowly. 
Taking his last look of Assyria's Empire. 
How red he glares amongst those deepen- 
ing clouds, 
Like the blood he predicts. If not in 
vain, 
hou Sun that sinkest, and ye stars 

which rise, 
have outwatchedye, reading ray by ray 
?he edicts of your orbs, which make 

Time tremble 
'or what he brings the nations, 'tis the 

furthest 
lour of Assyria's years. And yet how 

calm ! 

^n earthquake should announce so 
great a fall — 10 

V summer's sun discloses it. Yon disk. 
To the star-read Chaldean, bears upon 
ts everlasting page the end of what 
leemed everlasting ; but oh ! thou true 
Sun! 



The burning oracle of all that live, 
As fountain of all life, and symbol of 
Him who bestows it, wherefore dost 

thou limit 
Thy lore unto calamity? Why not 
Unfold the rise of days more worthy 

thine 
All -glorious burst from ocean ? why not 

dart 20 

A beam of hope athwart the future 

years, 
As of wrath to its days ? Hear me ! oh, 

hear me ! 
I am thy worshipper, thy priest, thy 

servant — 
I have gazed on thee at thy rise and fall, 
And bowed my head beneath thy mid- 
day beams. 
When my eye dared not meet thee. I 

have watched 
For thee, and after thee, and prayed to 

thee, 
And sacrificed to thee, and read, and 

feared thee. 
And asked of thee, and thou hast 

answered — but 
Only to thus much: while I speak, he 

sinks — 30 

Is gone — and leaves his beauty, not 

his knowledge. 
To the delighted West, which revels in 
Its hues of dying glory. Yet what is 
Death, so it be but glorious? 'Tis a 

sunset ; 
And mortals may be happy to resemble 
The Gods but in decay. 

Enter Are aces by an inner door. 

Arh. Beleses, why 

So wrapt in thy devotions? Dost thou 

stand 
Gazing to trace thy disappearing God 
Into some realm of undiscovered day? 
Our business is with night — 'tis come. 

Bel. But not 40 

Gone. 

Arb. Let it roll on — we are ready. 

Bel. Yes. 

Would it were over ! 

Arb. Does the prophet doubt, 

To whom the very stars shine Victory? 

Bel. I do not doubt of Victory — but 
the Victor. 



690 



SARDAXAPALUS 



[Act n. 



Arb. Well, let thy science settle that. 
Meantime 
I have prepared as many glittering 

spears 
As will out-sparkle our allies — your 

planets. 
There is no more to thv\-art tis. The 

she-king. 
That less than woman, is even now upon 
The waters with his female mates. The 
order 50 

Is issued for the feast in the pa\Tlion. 
The first cup which he drains will be 

the last 
Quaffed by the line of Ximrod. 

Bel. 'Twas a brave one. 

Arb. And is a weak one — 'tis worn 

out — we'll mend it. 
Bel. Art sure of that ? 
Arb. Its founder was a hunter — 
I am a soldier — what is there to 
fear? 
Bel. The soldier. 

Arb. And the priest, it may be: but 
If you thought thus, or think, why not 

retain 
Your king of concubines? why stir 

me up? 
Why spur me to this enterprise ? your 
own 60 

Xo less than mine ? 

Bel. Look to the sky I 

Arb. I look. 

Bel. \\'hat seest thou? 
Arb. A fair summer's twilight, and 
The gathering of the stars. 

Bel. And 'midst them, mark 

Yon earliest, and the brightest, which so 

quivers, 
As it would quit its place in the blue 
ether. 
Arb. WeU? 
Bel. 'Tis thy natal ruler — thy birth 

planet. 
Arb. (touching his scabbard). My star 
is in this scabbard : when it shines, 
It shall out-dazzle comets. Let us 

think 
Of what is to be done to justify 
Thy planets and their portents, ^^^len 
we conquer, 70 

They shall have temples — aye, and 
priests — and thou 



Shalt be the pontiff of — what Gods 

thou wilt ; 
For I observe that they are ever just, 
-\nd own the bravest for the most 
devout. 
Bel. Aye, and the most devout for 
brave — thou hast not 
Seen me turn back from battle. 

Arb. Xo; I own thee 

As firm in fight as Babylonia's captain, 
As skilful in Chaldea's worship : now, 
WUl it but please thee to forget the 

priest. 
And be the warrior? 

Bel. WTiv not both; 

Arb. ' The better; 80 

And yet it almost shames me, we shall 

have 
So little to effect. This woman's war- 
fare 
Degrades the ver}' conqueror. To have 

plucked 
A bold and bloody despot from his 

throne. 
And grappled with him, clashing steel 

with steel. 
That were heroic or to win or fall ; 
But to upraise my sword against this 
silkworm, 

And hear him whine, it may be 

Bel. Do not deem it : 

He has that in him which may make you 

strife yet; 
And were he all you think, his guards 
are hardy, 90 

And headed by the cool, stern Salemenes. 
Arb. They'll not resist. 
Bel. \\Tiy not? they are soldiers. 

Arb. True, 

And therefore need a soldier to com- 
mand them. 
Bel. That Salemenes is. 
Arb. But not their King. 

Besides, he hates the effeminate thing 

that governs, 
For the Queen's sake, his sister. Mark 

you not 
He keeps aloof from all the revels ? 

Bel. But 

Xot from the council — there he is ever 
constant. 
Arb. And ever thwarted: what 
would vou have more 



Scene i.] 



SARDAXAPALUS 



691 



To make a rebel out of? A fool reign- 
ing, 100 
His blood dishonoured, and himself dis- 
dained : 
WTiv, it is his revenge we work for. 

Bel. Could 

He but be brought to think so: this I 
doubt of. 
Arb. WTiat, if we sound him? 
Bel. Yes — if the time served. 

Enter Bale.\. 

Bal. Satraps I The king commands 
your presence at 
The feast to-night. 

Bel. To hear is to obey. 

In the pa^'ilion? 

Bal. Xo ; here in the palace. 

Arb. Howl in the palace? it was 

not thus ordered. 
Bal. It is so ordered now. 
Arb. And why? 

Bal. I know not. 

May I retire? 

Arb. Stay. 

Bel. (to Arb. aside). Hush! let him 

go his way. no 

{Alternatdy to' Bal.) Yes, Balea, thank 

the Monarch, kiss the hem 
Of his imperial robe, and say, his slaves 
"Will take the cnmibs he deigns to scatter 

from 
His royal table at the hour — was't 
midnight ? 
Bal. It was: the place, the hall of 
Ximrod. Lords, 
jl humble me before you, and depart. 

[E.xit B.AIEA. 

Arb. I like not this same sudden 

change of place ; 
There is some mystery : wherefore should 

he change it? 
Bel. Doth he not change a thousand 

times a day? 
Sloth is of all things the most fanciful — 
And moves more parasangs in its in- 
tents 121 
Than generals in their marches, when 

they seek 
To leave their foe at fault. — "\Miy dost 

thou muse? 
Arb. He loved that gay pa^-ilion, — 

it was ever 



His summer dotage. 

Bel. And he loved his Queen — 

And thrice a thousand harlotry besides — 
And he has loved all things by ttims, 

except 
Wisdom and Glorj'. 

Arb. ' Still — I like it noj. 

If he has changed — why, so must we : 

the attack 
Were easy in the isolated bower, 130 
Beset with drowsy guards and drunken 

courtiers ; 

But in the haU of Ximrod 

Bel. Is it so? 

Methought the haughty soldier feared 

to mount 
A throne too easily — does it disappoint 

thee 
To find there is a slipperier step or two 
Than what was counted on ? 

Arb. AMien the hour comes, 

Thou shalt perceive how far I fear or no. 
Thou hast seen my life at stake — and 

gaily played for: 
But here is more upon the die — a 

kingdom. 
Bel. I have foretold already — thou 

wilt win it : 140 

Then on, and prosper. 

Arb. Xow were I a soothsayer, 

I would have boded so much to myself. 
But be the stars obeyed — I cannot 

quarrel 
With them, nor their interpreter. 

\Mio"s here? 

Enter S.AXEiiEXES. 

Sal. Satraps I 

Bel. My Prince \ 

Sal. Well met — I sought ye both, 
But elsewhere than the palace. 

Arh. Wherefore so? 

Sal. 'Tis not the hour. 

Arb. The hour ! — what hour? 

Sal. Of midnight. 

Bel. Midnight, my Lord! 

Sal. Wliat, are you not invited? 

Bel. Oh I yes — we had forgotten. 

Sal. Is it usual 149 
Thus to forget a Sovereign's invitation? 

Arb. Whv — we but now received it. 

Sal. ' Then why here ? 

Arb. On dutv. 



692 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act II. 



Sal. On what duty? 

Bel. On the state's. 

We have the privilege to approach the 

presence; 
But found the Monarch absent. 

Sal. And I too 

Am upon duty. 

Arh. May we crave its purport? 

Sal. To arrest two traitors. Guards ! 
Within there ! 



Enter Guards. 



Satraps, 



Sal. {continuing). 
Your swords. 

Bel. {delivering his). My lord, be- 
hold my scimitar. 
Arb. {drawing his sword). Take 

mine. 
Sal. {advancing). I will. 
Arb. But in your heart the blade — 
The hilt quits not this hand. 

Sal. {drawing). How! dost thou 

brave me? 
'Tis well — this saves a trial, and false 
mercy. 160 

Soldiers, hew down the rebel ! 

Arb. Soldiers! Aye — 

Alone you dare not. 

Sal. Alone ! foolish slave — 

What is there in thee that a Prince 

should shrink from 
Of open force ? We dread thy treason, 

not 
Thy strength : thy tooth is nought with- 
out its venom — 
The serpent's, not the lion's. Cut him 
down. 
Bel. {interposing). Arbaces! Are you 
mad? Have I not rendered 
My sword? Then trust like me our 
Sovereign's justice. 
Arb. No — I will sooner trust the 
stars thou prat'st of, 
And this slight arm, and die a king at 
least 170 

Of my own breath and body — so far that 
None else shall chain them. 

Sal. {to the Guards). You hear him 
and me. 
Take him not, — kill. 
[The Guards attack Arbaces, who 
defends himself valiantly and dex- 
terously till they waver. 



Sal. Is it even so; and must 

I do the hangman's ofi&ce ? Recreants ! 

see 
How you should fell a traitor. 

[Salemenes attacks Arbaces. 

Enter Sardanapalus a^td Train. 

Sar. Hold your hands — 

Upon your lives, I say. What, deaf or 

drunken ? 
My sword ! O fool, I wear no sword : 

here, fellow, 
Give me thy weapon. [To a Guard. 
[Sardanapalus snatches a sword from 
one of the soldiers, and rushes be- 
tween the combatants — they separate. 
Sar. In my very palace ! . 

What hinders me from cleaving you in j 

twain, 
Audacious brawlers? 

Bel. Sire, your justice. 

Sal. Or — 180 

Your weakness. 

Sar. {raising the sword). How? 
Sal. Strike ! so the blow's repeated 
Upon yon traitor — whom you spare a 

moment, 
I trust, for torture — I'm content. 

Sar. What — him ! 

Who dares assail Arbaces? 

Sal. I ! I 

Sar. Indeed ! 

Prince, you forget yourself. Upon what 
warrant ? 
Sal. {showing the signet). Thine. 
Arb. {confused). The King's! 

Sal. Yes ! and let the King con- 

firm it. 
Sar. I parted not from this for such 

a purpose. 
Sal. You parted with it for your 
safety — I 
Employed it for the best. Pronounce 

in person. 
Here I am but your slave — a moment 
past 190 

I was your representative. 

Sar. Then sheathe 

Your swords. 

[Arbaces and Salemenes return their 
swords to the scabbards. 
Sal. Mine's sheathed: I pray you 
sheathe not yours: 



Scene i.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



693 



'Tis the sole sceptre left you now with 
safety. 
Sar. A heavy one; the hilt, too, hurts 
my hand. 
(To a Guard.) Here, fellow, take thy 

weapon back. Well, sirs. 
What doth this mean? 

Bel. The Prince must answer that. 
Sal. Truth upon my part, treason 

upon theirs. 
Sar. Treason — Arbaces ! treachery 
and Beleses ! 
That were an union I will not believe. 
Bel. Where is the proof? 
Sal. I'll answer that, if once 

The king demands your fellow-traitor's 
sword. 201 

Arb. {to Sal.). A sword which hath 
been drawn as oft as thine 
Against his foes. 

Sal. And now against his brother. 
And in an hour or so against himself. 
Sar. That is not possible: he dared 
not ; no — 
No — I'll not hear of such things. 

These vain bickerings 
Are spawned in courts by base intrigues, 

and baser 
Hirelings, who live by lies on good men's 

lives. 
You must have been deceived, my 
brother. 
Sal. First 

Let him deliver up his weapon, and 210 
Proclaim himself your subject by that 

duty, 
And I will answer all. 

Sar. Why, if I thought so — 

3ut no, it cannot be: the Mede Ar- 
baces — 

The trusty, rough, true soldier — the 
best captain 

Df all who discipline our nations 

No, 

not insult him thus, to bid him 
render 

The scimitar to me he never yielded 
Jnto our enemies. Chief, keep your 
weapon. 
Sal. (delivering back the signet). 

Monarch, take back your signet. 
Sar. No, retain it; 

But use it with more moderation. 



Sal. Sire, 220 

I used it for your honour, and restore it 
Because I cannot keep it with my own. 
Bestow it on Arbaces. 

Sar. So I should: 

He never asked it. 

Sal. Doubt not, he will have it, 

Without that hollow semblance of 
respect. 
Bel. I know not what hath preju- 
diced the Prince 
So strongly 'gainst two subjects, than 

whom none 
Have been more zealous for Assyria's 
weal. 
Sal. Peace, factious priest, and faith- 
less soldier ! thou 
Unit'st in thy own person the worst 
vices 230 

Of the most dangerous orders of man- 
kind. 
Keep thy smooth words and juggling 

homilies 
For those who know thee not. Thy 

fellow's sin 
Is, at the least, a bold one, and not tem- 
pered 
By the tricks taught thee in Chaldea. 

Bel. Hear him, 

My liege — the son of Belus ! he blas- 
phemes 
The worship of the land, which bows 

the knee 
Before your fathers. 

Sar. Oh ! for that I pray you 

Let him have absolution. I dispense 

with 239 

The worship of dead men ; feeling that I 

Am mortal, and believing that the 

race 
From whence I sprung are — w^hat I see 
them — ashes. 
Bel. King! Do not deem so: they 
are with the stars, 

And 

Sar. You shall join them ere they 
will rise, 
If you preach farther — Why, this is 
rank treason. 
Sal. My Lord ! 

Sar. To school me in the worship of 
Assyria's idols ! Let him be released — 
Give him his sword. 



694 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act II. 



Sal. My Lord, and 

King, and Brother, 
I pray ye pause. 

Sar. Yes, and be sermonised, 

And dinned, and deafened with dead 

men and Baal, 250 

And all Chaldea's starry mysteries. 
Bel. Monarch ! respect them. 
Sar. Oh ! for that — I love them ; 
I love to watch them in the deep blue 

vault. 
And to compare them with my Myrrha's 

eyes ; 
I love to see their rays redoubled in 
The tremulous silver of Euphrates' 

wave, 
As the light breeze of midnight crisps the 

broad 
And rolling water, sighing through the 

sedges 
Which fringe his banks: but whether 

they may be 
Gods, as some say, or the abodes of 

Gods, 260 

As others hold, or simply lamps of 

night, 
Worlds — or the lights of Worlds — I 

know' nor care not. 
There's something sweet in my uncer- 
tainty 
I would not change for your Chaldean 

lore; 
Besides, I know of these all clay can 

know 
Of aught above it, or below it — noth- 
ing- 
I see their brilliancy and feel their 

beauty — 
When they shine on my grave I shall 

know neither. 
Bel. For neither, Sire, say better. 
Sar. I will wait, 

If it so please you. Pontiff, for that 

knowledge. 270 

In the meantime receive your sword, and 

know 
That I prefer your service militant 
Unto your ministry — not loving either. 
Sal. (aside). His lusts have made him 

mad. Then must I save him. 
Spite of himself. 

Sar. Please you to hear me, Sa- 
traps ! 



And chiefly thou, my priest, because I 
doubt thee 

More than the soldier; and would doubt 
thee all 

Wert thou not half a warrior : let us part 

In peace — I'll not say pardon — which 
must be 

Earned by the guilty ; this I'll not pro- 
nounce ye, 280 

Although upon this breath of mine 
depends 

Your own; and, deadlier for ye, on my 
fears. 

But fear not — for that I am soft, not 
fearful — 

And so live on. Were I the thing some 
think me. 

Your heads would now be dripping the 
last drops 

Of their attainted gore from the high 
gates 

Of this our palace, into the dry dust, 

Their only portion of the coveted king- 
dom 

They would be crowned to reign o'er — 
let that pass. 

As I have said, I will not deem ye 
guilty, 290 

Nor doom ye guiltless. Albeit better 
men 

Than ye or I stand ready to arraign 
you; 

And should I leave your fate to sterner 
judges. 

And proofs of all kinds, I might sacri- 
fice 

Two men, who, whatsoe'er they now 
are, were 

Once honest. Ye are free, sirs. 

Arb. Sire, this clemency 

Bel. (interrupting him). Is worthy of 
yourself; and, although innocent. 

We thank 

Sar. Priest ! keep your thanks- 

givings for Belus; 

His offspring needs none. 

Bel. But being innocent 

Sar. Be silent. — Guilt is loud. If 
ye are loyal, 300 

Ye are injured men, and should be sad, 
not grateful. 
Bel. So we would be, were justice 
always done 



Scene i.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



69s 



By earthly power omnipotent ; but Inno- 
cence 
Must oft receive her right as a mere 

favour. 
Sar. That's a good sentence for a 

homily, 
Though not for this occasion. Prithee 

keep it 
To plead thy Sovereign's cause before 

his people. 
Bel. I trust there is no cause. 
Sar. No cause, perhaps; 

But many causers : — if ye meet with 

such 
In the exercise of your inquisitive func- 
tion 310 
On earth, or should you read of it in 

heaven 
In some mysterious twinkle of the 

stars, 
Which are your chronicles, I pray you 

note. 
That there are worse things betwixt 

earth and heaven 
Than him who ruleth many and slays 

none; 
And, hating not himself, yet loves his 

fellows 
Enough to spare even those who would 

not spare him 
Were they once masters — but that's 

doubtful. Satraps ! 
Your swords and persons are at liberty 
To use them as ye will — but from this 

hour 320 

I have no call for either. Salemenes ! 
Follow me. 
[Exeunt Sardanapalus, Salemenes, 

and the Train, etc., leaving Are aces 

and Beleses. 
Arh. Beleses ! 

Bel. Now, what think you ? 

Arh. That we are lost. 
Bel. That we have won the kingdom. 
Arh. What? thus suspected — with 

the sword slung o'er us 
But by a single hair, and that still 

wavering, 
To be blown down by his imperious 

breath 
Which spared us — why, I know not. 

Bel. Seek not why; 

But let us profit by the interval. 



The hour is still our own — our power 

the same — 
The night the same we destined. He 
hath changed 330 

Nothing except our ignorance of all 
Suspicion into such a certainty 
As must make madness of delay. 

Arh. And yet 

Bel. What, doubting still ? 
Arh. He spared our lives, nay, 
more. 
Saved them from Salemenes. 

Bel. And how long 

Will he so spare? till the first drunken 
minute. 
Arh. Or sober, rather. Yet he did 
it nobly; 
Gave royally what we had forfeited 

Basely 

Bel. Say bravely. 

Arh. Somewhat of both, perhaps — 
But it has touched me, and, whate'er 
betide, 340 

I will no further on. 

Bel. And lose the world ! 

Arh. Lose anything except my own 

esteem. 
Bel. I blush that we should owe our 
lives to such 
A king of distaffs ! 

Arh. But no less we owe them ; 

And I should blush far more to take the 
grantor's ! 
Bel. Thou may'st endure whate'er 
thou wilt — the stars 
Have written otherwise. 

Arh. Though they came down, 

And marshalled me the way in all their 

brightness, 
I would not follow. 

Bel. This is weakness — worse 

Than a scared beldam's dreaming of 

the dead, 350 

And waking in the dark. — Go to — 

go to. 

Arh. Methought he looked like 

Nimrod as he spoke. 

Even as the proud imperial statue 

stands 
Looking the monarch of the kings 

around it. 
And sways, while they but ornament, 
the temple. 



696 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act II. 



Bel. I told you that you had too 
much despised him, 
And that there was some royalty within 

him — 
What then ? he is the nobler foe. 

Arb. But we 

The meaner. — Would he had not 
spared us ! 
Bel. So — 

Wouldst thou be sacrificed thus readily ? 
Arb. No — but it had been better 
to have died 361 

Than live ungrateful. 

Bel. Oh, the souls of some men ! 

Thou wouldst digest what some call 

treason, and 
Fools treachery — and, behold, upon 

the sudden, 
Because for something or for nothing, 

this 
Rash reveller steps, ostentatiously, 
'Twixt thee and Salemenes, thou art 

turned 
Into — what shall I say ? — Sardana- 

palus ! 
I know no name more ignominious. 

Arb. But 

An hour ago, who dared to term me 

such _ 370 

Had held his life but lightly — as it 

is, 
I must forgive you, even as he forgave 

us — 
Semiramis herself would not have done 
it. 
Bel. No — the Queen liked no 
sharers of the kingdom. 
Not even a husband. 

Arb. I must serve him truly 

Bel. And humbly ? 
Arb. No, sir, proudly — being 
honest. 
T shall be nearer thrones than you to 

heaven ; 
And if not quite so haughty, yet more 

lofty. 
You may do your own deeming — you 
have codes. 
And mysteries, and corollaries of 380 
Right and wrong, which I lack for my 

direction, 
And must pursue but what a plain 
heart teaches. 



And now you know me. 

Bel. Have you finished? 

Arb. Yes — 

With you. 

Bel. And would, perhaps, betray as 
well 
As quit me ? 

Arb. That's a sacerdotal thought, 
And not a soldier's. 

Bel. Be it what you will — 

Truce with these wranglings, and but 
hear me. 
Arb. No — 

There is more peril in your subtle spirit 
Than in a phalanx. 

Bel. If it must be so — 

I'll on alone. 

Arb. Alone ! 

Bel. Thrones hold but one. 390 

Arb. But this is filled. 
Bel. With worse than vacancy — 
A despised monarch. Look to it, 

Arbaces : 
I have still aided, cherished, loved, and 

urged you; 
Was willing even to serve you, in the 

hope 
To serve and save Assyria. Heaven 

itself 
Seemed to consent, and all events were 

friendly, 
Even to the last, till that your spirit 

shrunk 
Into a shallow softness; but now, 

rather 

Than see my country languish, I will be 

Her saviour or the victim of her 

tyrant — 400 

Or one or both — for sometimes both 

are one; 
And if I win — Arbaces is my servant. 
Arb. Your servant ! 
Bel. Why not ? better than be slave. 
The pardoned slave of she Sardanapalus ! 

Enter Pania. 

Pan. My Lords, I bear an order 
from the king. 

Arb. It is obeyed ere spoken. 

Bel. Notwithstanding, ' 

Let's hear it. 

Pan. Forthwith, on this very night, 
Repair to your respective satrapies 



Scene i.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



697 



Of Babylon and Media. 

Bel. With our troops? 

Pan. My order is unto the Satraps 
and 410 

Their household train. 

Arb. But 

Bel. It must be obeyed: 

Say, we depart. 

Pan. My order is to see you 

Depart, and not to bear your answer. 

Bel. (aside). Aye! 

Well, Sir — we will accompany you 

hence. 

Pan. I will retire to marshal forth 

the guard 

Of honour which befits your rank, and 

wait 
Your leisure, so that it the hour exceeds 
not. [Exit Pania. 

Bel. Now then obey ! 
Arb. Doubtless. 

Bel. Yes, to the gates 

That grate the palace, which is now our 

prison — 
No further 

Arb. Thou hast harped the truth 
indeed ! 420 

The realm itself, in all its wide ex- 
tension. 
Yawns dungeons at each step for thee 
and me. 
Bel. Graves ! 

Arb. If I thought so, this 

good sword should dig 
One more than mine. 

Bel. It shall have work enough. 
Let me hope better than thou augurest ; 
At present, let us hence as best we 

may. 
Thou dost agree with me in under- 
standing 
This order as a sentence ? 

Arb. Why, what other 

Interpretation should it bear? it is 
The very policy of Orient monarchs — 
Pardon and poison — favours and a 
sword — 43 1 

A distant voyage, and an eternal sleep. 
How many Satraps in his father's time — 
For he I own is, or at least was, blood- 
less — 
Bel. But will not — can not be so 
now. 



Arb. I doubt it. 

How many Satraps have I seen set out 
In his Sire's day for mighty Vice-royal- 
ties, 
Whose tombs are on their path ! I 

know not how, 
But they all sickened by the way, it was 
So long and heavy. 

Bel. Let us but regain 440 

The free air of the city, and we'll shorten 
The journey. 

Arb. 'Twill be shortened at the gates, 
It may be. 

Bel. No; they hardly will risk that. 
They mean us to die privately, but not 
Within the palace or the city walls. 
Where we are known, and may have 

partisans : 
If they had meant to slay us here, we 

were 
No longer with the living. Let us 

hence. 
Arb. If I but thought he did not 

mean my life — 
Bel. Fool ! hence — what else 

should despotism alarmed 450 
Mean? Let us but rejoin our troops, 

and march. 
Arb. Towards our provinces? 
Bel. No; towards your kingdom. 
There's time — there's heart, and hope, 

and power, and means — 
Which their half measures leave us in 

full scope. — 
Away ! 

Arb. And I even yet repenting must 
Relapse to guilt ! 

Bel. Self-defence is a virtue, 

Sole bulwark of all right. Away, I 

say! 
Let's leave this place, the air grows 

thick and choking. 
And the walls have a scent of night- 
shade — hence ! 
Let us not leave them time for further 

council. 460 

Our quick departure proves our civic 

zeal; 
Our quick departure hinders our good 

escort. 
The worthy Pania, from anticipating 
The orders of some parasangs from 

hence : 



698 



SARD AN A P ALUS 



[Act II. 



Nay, there's no other choice, but — — 

hence I say. 
[Exit with Arbaces, who follows 

reluctantly. 

Enter Sardanapalus and Salemenes. 

Sar. Well, all is remedied, and with- 
out bloodshed, 
That worst of mockeries of a remedy; 
We are now secure by these men's 
exile. 
Sal. Yes, 

As he who treads on flowers is from the 

adder 
Twined round their roots. 

Sar. Why, what wouldst have me 
do? 470 

Sal. Undo what you have done. 
Sar. Revoke my pardon? 

Sal. Replace the crown now tottering 

on your temples. 
Sar. That were tyrannical. 
Sal. But sure. 

Sar. We are so. 

What danger can they work upon the 
frontier ? 
Sal. They are not there yet — never 
should they be so. 
Were I well listened to. 

Sar. Nay, I have listened 

Impartially to thee — why not to 
them? 
Sal. You may know that hereafter; 
as it is, 
I take my leave to order forth the 
guard. 
Sar And you will join us at the 

banquet ! 
Sal. Sire, 480 

Dispense with me — I am no was- 

sailer : 
Command me in all service save the 
Bacchant's. 
Sar. Nay, but 'tis fit to revel now and 

then. 
Sal. And fit that some should watch 
for those who revel 
Too oft. Am I permitted to de- 
part? 

Sar. Yes Stay a moment, my 

good Salemenes, 
My brother — my best subject — better 
Prince 



Than I am King. You should have 
been the monarch, 

And I — I know not what, and care not ; 
but 

Think not I am insensible to all 490 

Thine honest wisdom, and thy rough 
yet kind. 

Though oft-reproving sufferance of my 
follies. 

If I have spared these men against thy 
counsel, 

That is, their lives — it is not that I 
doubt 

The advice was sound; but, let them 
live : we will not 

Cavil about their lives — so let them 
mend them. 

Their banishment will leave me still 
sound sleep, 

Which their death had not left me. 
Sal. Thus you run 

The risk to sleep for ever, to save 
traitors — 

A moment's pang now changed for 
years of crime. 500 

Still let them be made quiet. 

Sar. Tempt me not; 

My word is past. 

Sal. But it may be recalled. 

Sar. 'Tis royal. 

Sal. And should therefore be de- 
cisive. 

This half-indulgence of an exile serves 

But to provoke — a pardon should be 
full, 

Or it is none. 

Sar. And who persuaded me 

After I had repealed them, or at least 

Only dismissed them from our pres- 
ence, who 

Urged me to send them to their sat- 
rapies ? 
Sal. True; that I had forgotten; 
that is, Sire, 510 

If they e'er reach their satrapies — 
why, then, 

Reprove me more for my advice. 
Sar. And if 

They do not reach them — look to it ! 
— in safety, 

In safety, mark me — and security — 

Look to thine own. 

Sal. Permit me to depart ; 



Scene i.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



699 



Their safety shall be cared for. 

Sar. Get thee hence, then; 

And, prithee, think more gently of thy 

brother. 
Sal. Sire, I shall ever duly serve my 

sovereign. [Exit Salemenes. 

Sar. (solus). That man is of a 

temper too severe; 
Hard but as lofty as the rock, and free 
From all the taints of common earth — 

while I 521 

Am softer clay, impregnated with 

flowers : 
But as our mould is, must the produce 

be. 
If I have erred this time, 'tis on the 

side 
Where Error sits most lightly on that 

sense, 
I know not what to call it; but it 

reckons 
With me ofttimes for pain, and some- 
times pleasure; 
A spirit which seems placed about my 

heart 
To count its throbs, not quicken them, 

and ask 
Questions which mortal never dared 

to ask me, 530 

Nor Baal, though an oracular deity — 
Albeit his marble face majestical 
Frowns as the shadows of the evening 

dim 
His brows to changed expression, till 

at times 
I think the statue looks in act to speak. 
Away with these vain thoughts, I wnll 

be joyous — 
And here comes Joy's true herald. 

Enter Myrrh a. 

Myr. King ! the sky 

Is overcast, and musters muttering 

thunder. 
In clouds that seem approaching fast, 

and show 
In forked flashes a commanding 
tempest. 540 

Will you then quit the palace ? 

Sar. Tempest, say'st thou? 

Myr. Aye, my good lord. 

Sar. For my own part, I should be 



Not ill content to vary the smooth scene. 
And watch the warring elements; but 

this 
Would little suit the silken garments and 
Smooth faces of our festive friends. 

Say, Myrrha, 
Art thou of those who dread the roar of 
clouds ? 
Myr. In my own country we respect 
their voices 
As auguries of Jove. 

Sar. Jove ! — aye, your Baal — 

Ours also has a property in thunder, 
And ever and anon some falling bolt 551 
Proves his divinity, — and yet sometimes 
Strikes his own altars. 

Myr. That were a dread omen. 

Sar. Yes — for the priests. Well, 
we will not go forth 
Beyond the palace walls to-night, but 

make 
Our feast within. 

Myr. Now, Jove be praised ! that he 
Hath heard the prayer thou wouldst 

not hear. The Gods 
Are kinder to thee than thou to thyself. 
And flash this storm between thee and 

thy foes, 
To shield thee from them. 

Sar. Child, if there be peril, 560 

Methinks it is the same within these 

walls 
As on the river's brink. 

Myr. Not so; these walls 

Are high and strong, and guarded. 

Treason has 
To penetrate through many a winding 

way, 
And massy portal; but in the pavilion 
There is no bulwark. 

Sar. No, nor in the palace, 

Nor in the fortress, nor upon the top 
Of cloud-fenced Caucasus, where the 

eagle sits 
Nested in pathless clefts, if treachery be : 
Even as the arrow finds the airy king. 
The steel will reach the earthly. But 
be calm; 571 

The men, or innocent or guilty, are 
Banished, and far upon their way. 
Myr. They live, then? 

Sar. So sanguinary? Thou! 
Myr. I would not shrink 



700 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act in. 



From just infliction of due punishment 
On those who seek your life: were't 

otherwise, 
I should not merit mine. Besides, you 

heard 
The princely Salemenes. 

Sar. This is strange; 

The gentle and the austere are both 

against me, 
And urge me to revenge. 

Myr. 'Tis a Greek virtue. 580 

Sar. But not a kingly one — I'll 

none on't; or 
If ever I indulge in't, it shall be 
With kings — my equals. 

Myr. These men sought to be so. 

Sar. Myrrha, this is too feminine, 

and springs 

From fear 

Myr. For you. 

Sar. No matter, still 'tis fear. 

I have observed your sex, once roused 

to wrath. 
Are timidly vindictive to a pitch 
Of perseverance, which I would not 

copy. 
I thought you were exempt from this, as 

from 
The childish helplessness of Asian 

women. 590 

Myr. My Lord, I am no boaster of 

my love, 
Nor of my attributes; I have shared 

your splendour. 
And will partake your fortunes. You 

may live 
To find one slave more true than subject 

myriads : 
But this the Gods avert ! I am content 
To be beloved on trust for what I feel, 
Rather than prove it to you in your 

griefs, 
Which might not yield to any cares of 

mine. 
Sar. Grief cannot come where per- 
fect love exists. 
Except to heighten it, and vanish from 
That which it could not scare away. 

Let's in — 601 

The hour approaches, and we must 

prepare 
To meet the invited guests who grace 

our feast. [Exeunt. 



ACT III. 

Scene I. — The Hall of the Palace 

illuminated — Sard anap ALUS and 
his Guests at Table. — A storm 
without, and Thunder occasionally 
heard during the Banquet. 

Sar. Fill full ! why this is as it 

should be: here 
Is my true realm, amidst bright eyes 

and faces 
Happy as fair! Here" sorrow cannot 

reach. 
Zam. Nor elsewhere — where the 

King is, pleasure sparkles. 
Sar. Is not this better now than 

Nimrod's huntings, 
Or my wild Grandam's chase in search 

of kingdoms 
She could not keep when conquered ? 

Alt. Mighty though 

They were, as all thy royal line have 

been. 
Yet none of those who went before 

have reached 
The acme of Sardanapalus, who 10 

Has placed his joy in peace — the sole 

true glory. 
Sar. And pleasure, good Altada, to 

which glory 
Is but the path. What is it that we 

seek? 
Enjoyment ! We have cut the way 

short to it, 
And not gone tracking it through 

human ashes, 
Making a grave with every footstep. 

Zam. No; 

All hearts are happy, and all voices 

bless 
The King of peace — who holds a 

world in jubilee. 
Sar. Art sure of that ? I have heard 

otherwise; 
Some say that there be traitors. 

Zam. Traitors they 20 

Who dare to say so ! — 'Tis impossible. 
What cause? 

Sar. What cause ? true, — fill the 

goblet up ; 
We will not think of them: there are 

none such. 



Scene i.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



701 



Or if they be, they are gone. 

Alt. Guests, to my pledge! 

Down on your knees, and drink a 

measure to 
The safety of the King — the monarch, 

say I? 
The God Sardanapalus ! 
[Zames and the Guests kneel, and 
exclaim — 

Mightier than 
His father Baal, the God Sardanapalus ! 
[// thunders as they kneel; some start 
up in confusion. 
Zam. Why do you rise, my friends? 
in that strong peal 
His father gods consented. 

Myr. Menaced, rather. 30 

King, wilt thou bear this mad impiety ^ 



Sar. Impiety I 



nay. 



if the sires 



who reigned 
Before me can be Gods, I'll not dis- 
grace 
Their lineage. But arise, my pious 

friends ; 
Hoard your devotion for the Thun- 
derer there : 
I seek but to be loved, not worshipped. 
Alt. Both — 

Both you must ever be by all true 
subjects. 
Sar. Methinks the thunders still 
increase: it is 
An awful night. 

Myr. Oh yes, for those who have 

No palace to protect their worshippers. 

Sar. That's true, my Myrrha; and 

could I convert 41 

My realm to one wide shelter for the 

wretched, 
I'd do it. 

Myr. Thou'rt no God, then — not 
to be 
Able to work a will so good and general. 
As thy wish would imply. 

Sar. And your Gods, then, 

Who can, and do not? 

Myr. Do not speak of that. 

Lest we provoke them. 

Sar. True — , they love not censure 
Better than mortals. Friends, a thought 

has struck me : 
Were there no temples, would there, 
think ye, be 



Air worshippers? that is, when it is 
angry, 50 

And pelting as even now. 

Myr. The Persian prays 

Upon his mountain. 

Sar. Yes, when the Sun shines. 

Alyr. And I would ask if this your 
palace were 
Unroofed and desolate, how many 

flatterers 

Would lick the dust in which the King 

lay low? 

Alt. The fair Ionian is too sarcastic 

Upon a nation whom she knows not well ; 

The Assyrians know no pleasure but 

their King's, 
And homage is their pride. 

Sar. Nay, pardon, guests, 

The fair Greek's readiness of speech. 

Alt. Pardon! sire: 60 

We honour her of all things next to thee. 
Hark ! what was that ? 

Zam. That ! nothing but the jar 

Of distant portals shaken by the wind. 

Alt. It sounded like the clash of — 

hark again ! 
Zam. The big rain pattering on the 

roof. 
Sar. No more. 
Myrrha, my love, hast thou thy shell in 

order ? 
Sing me a song of Sappho; her, thou 

know'st, 
Who in thy country threw — 

Enter Pania, with his sword and gar- 
ments bloody, and disordered. The 
guests rise in confusion. 

Pan. {to the Guards). Look to the 
portals ; 
And with your best speed to the walls 

without. 
Your arms ! To arms ! The King's in 
danger. Monarch 70 

Excuse this haste, — 'tis faith. 

Sar. Speak on. 

Pan. It is 

As Salemenes feared; the faithless 
Satraps — - 
Sar. You are wounded — give some 

wine. Take breath, good Pania. 
Pan. 'Tis nothing — a mere flesh 
wound. I am worn 



702 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act III. 



More with my speed to warn my sover- 
eign, 
Than hurt in his defence. 

Myr. Well, Sir, the rebels? 

Pan. Soon as Arbaces and Beleses 

reached 

Their stations in the city, they refused 

To march; and on my attempt to use 

the power 
Which I was delegated with, they called 
Upon their troops, who rose in fierce 
defiance. 8i 

Myr. All? 
Pan. Too many. 

Sar. Spare not of thy free speech, 
To spare mine ears — the truth. 

Pan. My own slight guard 

Were faithful, and what's left of it is 
still so. 
Myr. And are these all the force still 

faithful? 
Pan. No — 

The Bactrians, now led on by Salemenes, 
Who even then was on his way, still 

urged 
By strong suspicion of the Median chiefs. 
Are numerous, and make strong head 

against 
The rebels, fighting inch by inch, and 
forming 90 

An orb around the palace, where they 

mean 
To centre all their force, and save the 
King. 

{He hesitates.) I am charged to 

Myr. 'Tis no time for hesitation. 

Pan. Prince Salemenes doth implore 
the King 
To arm himself, though but for a 

moment. 
And show himself unto the soldiers : his 
Sole presence in this instant might do 

more 
Than hosts can do in his behalf. 

Sar. What, ho! 

My armour there. 

Myr. And wilt thou? 

Sar. Will I not ? 

Ho, there ! — but seek not for the 

buckler: 'tis 100 

Too heavy : — a light cuirass and my 

sword. 
Where are the rebels? 



Pan. Scarce a furlong's length 

From the outward wall the fiercest con- 
flict rages. 
Sar. Then I may charge on horse- 
back. Sfero, ho ! 
Order my horse out. — There is space 

enough 
Even in our courts, and by the outer 

gate. 
To marshal half the horsemen of Arabia. 
[Exit Sfero for the armour. 
Myr. How I do love thee ! 
Sar. I ne'er doubted it. 

Myr. But now I know thee. 
Sar. (to his Attendant). Bring down 
my spear too — 109 

Where's Salemenes? 

Pan. Where a soldier should be, 

In the thick of the fight. 

Sar. Then hasten to him Is 

The path still open, and communication 

Left 'twixt the palace and the phalanx? 

Pan. 'Twas 

When I late left him, and I have no fear ; 

Our troops were steady, and the phalanx 

formed. 

Sar. Tell him to spare his person for 

the present. 

And that I will not spare my own — 

and say, 
I come. 

Pan. There's victory in the very word. 

[Exit Pania. 

Sar. Altada — Zames — forth, and 

arm ye ! There 

Is all in readiness in the armoury. 120 

See that the women are bestowed in 

safety 
In the remote apartments : let a guard 
Be set before them, with strict charge 

to quit 
The post but with their lives — com- 
mand it, Zames. 
Altada, arm yourself, and return here; 
Your post is near our person. 
[Exeiint Zames, Altada, and all save 
Myrrha. 

Enter Sfero and others with the King's 
Arms, etc. 

Sje. King ! your armour, 

Sar. {arming himself). Give me the 

cuirass — so : my baldric ; now 



Scene i.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



JOS 



My sword : I had forgot the helm - — 

where is it ? 
That's well — no, 'tis too heavy ; you 

mistake, too — • 
It was not this I meant, but that which 
bears 130 

A diadem around it. 

Sfe. Sire, I deemed 

That too conspicuous from the precious 

stones 
To risk your sacred brow beneath — 

and trust me, 
This is of better metal, though less rich. 
Sar. You deemed ! Are you too 
turned a rebel ? Fellow ! 
Your part is to obey : return, and — 

no — 
It is too late — I will go forth without it. 
Sfe. At least, wear this. 
Sar. Wear Caucasus ! w^hy, 'tis 
A mountain on my temples. 

Sfe. Sire, the meanest 

Soldier goes not forth thus exposed to 

battle. 140 

All men will recognise you — for the 

storm 
Has ceased, and the moon breaks forth 
in her brightness. 
Sar. I go forth to be recognised, and 
thus 
Shall be so sooner — Now — my spear ! 

I'm armed. 
[In going stops short, and turns to Sfero. 
Sfero — I had forgotten — bring the 
mirror.^ 
Sfe. The mirror. Sire ? 
Sar. Yes, sir, of polished brass, 

' ["In the third act, when Sardanapalus calls 
for a mirror to look at himself in his armour, re- 
collect to quote the Latin passage from Juvenal 
upon Otho (a similar character, who did the 
same thing: Gifford will help you to it). The 
trait is, perhaps, too familiar, but it is historical 
(of Otho, at least), and natural in an effeminate 
character." — ^ Letter to Murray, May 30, 1821, 
Letters, iqoi, v. 301. The quotation was not 
made in the first edition, 1821, nor in any sub- 
sequent issue, till 1832. It is from Juvenal, 
Sat. ii. lines 199-203 — ■ 

"This grasps a mirror — pathic Otho's boast 
(Auruncan Actor's spoil), where, while his host, 
With shouts, the signal of the fight required, 
He viewed his mailed form; viewed, and ad- 
mired ! 
Lo, a new subject for the historic page, 
A MIRROR, midst the arms of civil rage!" 

— GiFFOKD.] 



Brought from the spoils of India — but 
be speedy. [Exit Sfero. 

Sar. Myrrha, retire unto a place of 
safety. 
Why went you not forth with the other 
damsels ? 
Myr. Because my place is here. 

Sar. And when I am gone 

Myr. I follow. 

Sar. You! to battle? 

Myr. If it were so, 

'Twere not the first Greek girl had trod 
the path. 152 

I will await here your return. 

Sar. The place 

Is spacious, and the first to be sought out, 
If they prevail ; and, if it be so, 
And I return not — 

Myr. Still we meet again. 

Sar. How ? 

Myr. In the spot where all 

must meet at last — ■ 
In Hades ! if there be, as I believe, 
A shore beyond the Styx; and if there 

be not, 
In ashes. 

Sar. Barest thou so much? 
Myr. I dare all things 160 

Except survive what I have loved, to be 
A rebel's booty: forth, and do your 
bravest. 

Re-enfer Sfero with the mirror. 

Sar. {looking at himself). This cui- 
rass fits me well, the baldric better, 

And the helm not at all. Methinks I 
seem 

[Flings away the helmet after trying it 
again. 

Passing well in these toys; and now to 
prove them. 

Altada ! where's Altada? 

Sfe. Waiting, Sire, 

Without: he has your shield in readi- 
ness. 
Sar. True — I forgot — he is my 
shield-bearer 

By right of blood, derived from age to 
age. 

Myrrha, embrace me ; — yet once more 
— once more — 1 70 

Love me, whate'er betide. My chiefest 
glory 



704 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act III. 



Shall be to make me worthier of your 

love. 
Myr. Go forth, and conquer ! 
[Exeunt Sardanapalus and Sfero. 
Now, I am alone : 
All are gone forth, and of that all how 

few 
Perhaps return ! Let him but vanquish, 

and 
Me perish ! If he vanquish not, I 

perish ; 
For I will not outlive him. He has 

wound 
About my heart, I know not how nor 

why. 
Not for that he is King; for now his 

kingdom 
Rocks underneath his throne, and the 

earth yawns i8o 

To yield him no more of it than a grave ; 
And yet I love him more. Oh, mighty 

Jove ! 
Forgive this monstrous love for a bar- 
barian. 
Who knows not of Olympus ! yes, I love 

him 
Now — now — far more than Hark 

— to the war shout ! 
Methinks it nears me. If it should be so, 
[She draws forth a small vial. 
This cunning Colchian poison, which my 

father « 

Learned to compound on Euxine shores, 

and taught me 
How to preserve, shall free me ! It had 

freed me 
Long ere this hour, but that I loved, 

until 190 

I half forgot I was a slave : — where all 
Are slaves save One, and proud of 

servitude. 
So they are served in turn by something 

lower 
In the degree of bondage : we forget 
That shackles worn like ornaments no less 
Are chains. Again that shout 1 and 

now the clash 
Of arms — and now — and now 

Enter Altada. 

Alt. Ho, Sfero, ho! 

Myr. He is not here; what wouldst 
thou with him ? How 



Goes on the conflict? 

Alt. Dubiously and fiercely. 

Myr. And the King? 

Alt. Like a king. I must find 

Sfero, 200 

And bring him a new spear with his own 

helmet. 
He fights till now bare-headed, and bv 

far 
Too much exposed. The soldiers knew 

his face. 
And the foe too; and in the moon's 

broad light. 
His silk tiara and his flowing hair 
Make him a mark too royal. Every 

arrow 
Is pointed at the fair hair and fair 

features. 
And the broad fillet which crowns both. 
Myr. Ye Gods, 

Who fulminate o'er my father's land, 

protect him ! 
Were you sent by the King? 

Alt. By Salemenes, 210 

Who sent me privily upon this charge, 
Without the knowledge of the careless 

sovereign. 
The King ! the King fights as he revels ! 

ho! 

What, Sfero ! I will seek the armoury — 

He must be there. [Exit Altada. 

Myr. 'Tis no dishonour — no — 

'Tis no dishonour to have loved this 

man. 
I almost wish now, what I never wished 
Before — that he were Grecian. If 

Alcides 
Were shamed in wearing Lydian Om- 

phale's 
She-garb, and wielding her vile distafi; 

surely 220 

He, who springs up a Hercules at once, 
Nursed in effeminate arts from youth to 

manhood. 
And rushes from the banquet to the 

battle, 
As though it were a bed of love, deserves 
That a Greek girl should be his para- 
mour, 
And a Greek bard his minstrel — a 

Greek tomb 
His monument. How goes the strife, 

sir? 



Scene i.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



70s 



Enter an Officer. 
Officer. Lost, 

Lost almost past recovery. Zames ! 

Where 
Is Zames? 

Myr. Posted with the guard ap- 
pointed 
To watch before the apartment of the 

women. 230 

[Exit Officer. 

Myr. (sola). He's gone; and told no 

more than that all's lost ! 
What need have I to know more ? In 

those words, 
Those little words, a kingdom and a 

king, 
A line of thirteen ages, and the lives 
Of thousands, and the fortune of all left 
With life, are merged ; and I, too, with 

the great, 
Like a small bubble breaking with the 

wave 
Which bore it, shall be nothing. At the 

least, 
My fate is in my keeping: no proud 

victor 
Shall count me with his spoils. 

Enter Pania. 

Pan. Away with me, 240 

Myrrha, without delay; we must not 

lose 
A moment — all that's left us now. 
Myr. The King? 

Pan. Sent me here to conduct you 
; hence, beyond 

I The river, by a secret passage. 

Myr. Then 

He lives 

Pan. And charged me to secure 

your life. 
And beg you to live on for his sake, till 
He can rejoin you. 

Myr. V/ill he then give way? 

Pan. Not till the last. Still, still he 
does whate'er 
Despair can do; and step by step dis- 
putes 
The very palace. 

Myr. They are here, then : — aye. 
Their shouts come ringing through the 
ancient ha.lls, 251 

Never profaned by rebel echoes till 
2 z 



This fatal night. Farewell, Assyria's 

line ! 
Farewell to all of Nimrod ! Even the 

name 
Is now no more. 

Pan. Away with me — away ! 

Myr. No : I'll die here 1 — Away, and 
tell your King 
I loved him to the last. 

Enter Sardanapalus and Salemenes 
with Soldiers. Pania quits Myrrha 
and ranges himself with them. 

Sar. Since it is thus, 

We'll die where we were born — in our 

own halls. 
Serry your ranks — stand firm. I have 

despatched 
A trusty satrap for the guard of Zames, 
All fresh and faithful; they'll be here 
anon. 261 

All is not over. — Pania, look to 
Myrrha. 
[Pania returns towards Myrrha. 
Sal. We have breathing time ; yet 
once more charge, my friends — 
One for Assyria ! 

Sar. Rather say for Bactria ! 

My faithful Bactrians, I will henceforth 

be 
King of your nation, and we'll hold 

together 
This realm as province. 

Sal. Hark ! they come — they come. 

Enter Beleses and Arbaces with the 
Rebels. 

Arb. Set on, we have them in the toil. 
Charge ! charge ! 

Bel. On ! on ! — Heaven fights for 
us, and with us — On ! 
[They charge the King and Salemenes 
with their troops, who defend them- 
selves till the arrival of Zames with 
the Guard before mentioned. The 
Rebels are then driven off, and 
pursued by Salemenes, etc. As 
the King is going to join the pur- 
suit, Beleses crosses him. 

Bel. Ho ! tyrant — / will end this war. 

Sar. Even so, 270 

My warlike priest, and precious 
prophet, and 



7o6 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act III, 



Grateful and trusty subject: yield, I 

pray thee. 
I would reserve thee for a fitter doom, 
Rather than dip my hands in holy blood. 
Bel. Thine hour is come. 
Sar. No, thine. — I've lately read, 
Though but a young astrologer, the 

stars ; 
And ranging round the zodiac, found 

thy fate 
In the sign of the Scorpion, which pro- 
claims 
That thou wilt now be crushed. 

Bel. But not by thee. 

[They fight; Beleses is wounded and 

disarmed. 
Sar. (raising his sword to despatch 

hint, exclaims) — 
Now call upon thy planets, will they 

shoot 280 

From the sky to preserve their seer and 

credit ? 
[A party of Rebels enter and rescue 

Beleses. They assail the King, 

who in turn, is rescued by a Party 

of his Soldiers, who drive the Rebels 

off. 
The villain was a prophet after all. 
Upon them — ho ! there — victory is 

ours. [Exit in pursuit. 

Myr. {to Pan.). Pursue! Why 

stand' st thou here, and lea vest the 

ranks 
Of fellow-soldiers conquering without 

thee? 
Pan. The King's command was not 

to quit thee. 
Myr. Me ! 

Think not of me — a single soldier's arm 
Must not be wanting now. I ask no 

guard, 
I need no guard : what, with a world at 

stake, 
Keep watch upon a woman ? Hence, I 

say, 290 

Or thou art ashamed ! Nay, then, I will 

go forth, 
A feeble female, 'midst their desperate 

strife, 
And bid thee guard me there — where 

thou shouldst shield 
Thy sovereign. [Exit Myrrh A. 

Pan. Yet stay, damsel ! — She's gone. 



If aught of ill betide her, better I 

Had lost my life. Sardanapalus holds 

her 
Far dearer than his kingdom, yet he 

fights 
For that too ; and can I do less than he. 
Who never flashed a scimitar till now ? 
Myrrha, return, and I obey you, though 
In disobedience to the monarch. 

[Exit Pania. 

Enter Altada and Sfero by an opposite 
door. 
Alt. Myrrha! 301 

What, gone ? yet she was here when the 

fight raged. 
And Pania also. Can aught have be- 
fallen them? 
Sfe. I saw both safe, when late the 

rebels fled; 
They probably are but retired to 

make 
Their way back to the harem. 

Alt. If the King 

Prove victor, as it seems even now he 

must. 
And miss his own Ionian, we are 

doomed 
To worse than captive rebels. 

Sfe. Let us trace them: 

She cannot be fled far ; and, found, she 

makes 310 

A richer prize to our soft sovereign 
Than his recovered kingdom. 

Alt. Baal himself. 

Ne'er fought more fiercely to win empire 

than 
His silken son to save it: he defies 
All augury of foes or friends; and like 
The close and sultry summer's day, 

which bodes 
A twilight tempest, bursts forth in such 

thunder 
As sweeps the air and deluges the earth. 
The man's inscrutable. 

Sfe. Not more than others. 

All are the sons of circumstance : 

away — 320 

Let's seek the slave out, or prepare 

to be 
Tortured for his infatuation, and 
Condemned without a crime. 

[Exeunt, 



Scene i.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



707 



Enter Salemenes and Soldiers, etc. 

Sal. The triumph is 

Flattering: they are beaten backward 

from the palace, 
And we have opened regular access 
To the troops stationed on the other side 
Euphrates, who may still be true; nay, 

must be. 
When they hear of our victory. But 

where 
Is the chief victor? where's the King? 

Enter Sardanapalus, cum suis, etc., 
and Myrrha. 

Sar. Here, brother. 

Sal. Unhurt, I hope. 

Sar. Not quite; but let it pass. 330 

We've cleared the palace 

Sal. And I trust the city. 

Our numbers gather; and I've ordered 

onward 
A cloud of Parthians, hitherto reserved. 
All fresh and fiery, to be poured upon 

them 
In their retreat, which soon will be a 
flight. 
Sar. It is already, or at least they 
marched 
Faster than I could follow with my 

Bactrians, 
Who spared no speed. I am spent : 
give me a seat. 
Sal. There stands the throne, .Sire. 
Sar. 'Tis no place to rest on. 

For mind nor body: let me have a 
couch, 340 

[They place a seat. 
A feasant's stool, I care not what : so — 

now 
I breathe more freely. 

Sal. This great hour has proved 

The brightest and most glorious of your 
life. 
Sar. And the most tiresome. 
Where's my cupbearer? 
Bring me some water. 

Sal. {smiling). 'Tis the first time he 
Ever had such an order: even I, 
Your most austere of counsellors, would 

now 
Suggest a purpler beverage. 

Sar. Blood — doubtless. 



But there's enough of that shed : as for 

wine, 
I have learned to-night the price of the 

pure element: 350 

Thrice have I drank of it, and thrice 

renewed, 
With greater strength than the grape 

ever gave me. 
My charge upon the rebels. Where's 

the soldier 
Who gave me water in his helmet ? ^ 

One of the Guards. Slain, Sire ! 

An arrow pierced his brain, while, scat- 
tering 
The last drops from his helm, he stood 

in act 
To place it on his brows. 

Sar. Slain! unrewarded! 

And slain to serve my thirst: that's 

hard, poor slave ! 
Had he but lived, I would have gorged 

him with 
Gold : all the gold of earth could ne'er 

repay 360 

The pleasure of that draught ; for I was 

parched 
As I am now. \They bring water — he 

drinks. 

I live again — from henceforth 
The goblet I reserve for hours of love, 
But war on water. 

Sal. And that bandage, Sire, 

Which girds your arm? 

Sar. A scratch from brave Beleses. 
Myr. Oh ! he is wounded ! 



'["When 'the king was almost dying with 
thirst' . . . the eunuch Satibarzanes sought 
every place for water. . . . After much search 
he found one of those poor Caunians had about 
two quarts of bad water in a mean bottle, and 
he took it and carried it to the king. After the 
king had drawn it all up, the eunuch asked him 
'If he did not find it a disagreeable beverage?' 
Upon which he swore by all the gods, 'That he 
had never drunk the most delicious wine nor 
the lightest and clearest water with so much 
pleasure. I wish only,' continued he, 'that I 
could find the man who gave it thee, that I might 
make him a recompense. In the mean time 
I entreat the gods to make him happy and rich.' " 
— Plutarch's Artaxerxes, Langhorne's trans- 
lation, 1838, p. 6q4. Poetry as well as history 
repeats itself. Compare the "water green" 
which Gunga Din brought, at the risk of his own 
life, to fill the wounded soldier's helmet {Bar- 
rack-Room Ballads, by Rudyard Kipling, 1892, 
p. 25).] 



7o8 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act hi. 



Sar. Not too much of that; 

And yet it feels a little stiff and painful, 
Now I am cooler. 

Myr. You have bound it with 

Sar. The fillet of my diadem: the 

first time 
That ornament was ever aught to me, 
Save an encumbrance. 

Myr. {to the Attendants). Summon 

speedily 371 

A leech of the most skilful : pray, retire : 
I will unbind your wound and tend it. 

Sar. Do so, 

For now it throbs sufficiently : but what 
Know'st thou of wounds ? yet wherefore 

do I ask? 
Know'st thou, my brother, where I 

lighted on 
This minion? 

Sal. Herding with the other females, 
Like frightened antelopes. 

Sar. No : like the dam 

Of the young lion, femininely raging 
(And femininely meaneth furiously, 380 
Because all passions in excess are 

female,) 
Against the hunter flying with her cub. 
She urged on with her voice and gesture, 

and 
Her floating hair and flashing eyes, the 

soldiers, 
In the pursuit. 

Sal. Indeed ! 

Sar. You see, this night 

Made warriors of more than me. I 

paused 
To look upon her, and her kindled 

cheek ; 
Her large black eyes, that flashed 

through her long hair 
As it streamed o'er her; her blue veins 

that rose 
Along her most transparent brow; her 

nostril 390 

Dilated from its symmetry; her lips 
Apart ; her voice that clove through all 

the din, 
As a lute pierceth through the cymbal's 

clash, 
Jarred but not drowned by the loud 

brattling; her 
Waved arms, more dazzling with their 

own born whiteness 



Than the steel her hand held, which she 

caught up 
From a dead soldier's grasp; — all 

these things made 
Her seem unto the troops a prophetess 
Of victory, or Victory herself. 
Come down to hail us hers. 

Sal. (aside). This is too much. 400 
Again the love-fit's on him, and all's 

lost. 
Unless we turn his thoughts. (Aloud.) 

But pray thee. Sire, 
Think of your wound — you said even 
now 'twas painful. 
Sar. That's true, too ; but I must not 

think of it. 
Sal. I have looked to all things need- 
ful, and will now 
Receive reports of progress made in 

such 
Orders as I had given, and then return 
To hear your further pleasure. 

Sar. Be it so. 

Sal. (in retiring). Myrrha ! 
Myr. Prince ! 

Sal. You have shown a soul to-night. 

Which, were he not my sister's lord 

But now 410 

I have no time : thou lovest the King ? 
Myr. I love 

Sardanapalus. 

Sal. But wouldst have him King still ? 
Myr. I would not have him less than 

what he should be. 
Sal. Well then, to have him King, 
and yours, and all 
He should, or should not be; to have 

him live, 
Let him not sink back into luxury. 
You have more power upon his spirit 

than 
Wisdom within these walls, or fierce 

rebellion 
Raging without: look well that he 
relapse not. 
Myr. There needed not the voice of 
Salemenes 420 

To urge me on to this : I will not fail. 

All that a woman's weakness can 

Sal. Is power 

Omnipotent o'er such a heart as his: 
Exert it wisely. [Exit Salemenes. 

Sar. Myrrha ! what, at whispers 



Scene i.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



709 



With my stern brother ? I shall soon be 
jealous. 
Myr. (smiling). . You have cause, 
Sire; for on the earth there 
breathes not 
A man m.ore worthy of a woman's love, 
A soldier's trust, a subject's reverence, 
A king's esteem — the whole world's 
admiration ! 
Sar. Praise him, but not so warmly. 
I must not 430 

Hear those sweet lips grow eloquent in 

aught 
That throws me into shade; yet you 
speak truth. 
Myr. And now retire, to have your 
wound looked to; 
Pray lean on me. 

Sar. Yes, love ! but not from pain. 
[Exeunt omnes. 

ACT IV. 

Scene I. — Sardanapalus discovered 
sleeping upon a Couch, and occa- 
sionally disturbed in his slumbers, 
with Myrrha watching. 

j Myr. (sola, gazing). I have stolen 

upon his rest, if rest it be, 
Which thus convulses slumber: shall 

I wake him? 
No, he seems calmer. Oh, thou God of 

Quiet ! 
Whose reign is o'er sealed eyelids and 

soft dreams. 
Of deep, deep sleep, so as to be un- 

fathomed, 
] ,ook like thy brother. Death, — so 
still, so stirless — 
'or then we are happiest, as it may be, 

we 

Lre happiest of all within the realm 
)f thy stern, silent, and unwakening 

Twin, 
^gain he moves — again the play of 
pain ID 

hoots o'er his features, as the sudden 

gust 
>isps the reluctant lake that lay so calm 
beneath the mountain shadow; or the 

blast 

luffles the autumn leaves, that droop- 
ing cling 



Faintly and motionless to their loved 

boughs. 
I must awake him — yet not yet; who 

knows 
From what I rouse him? It seems pain; 

but if 
I quicken him to heavier pain? The 

fever 
Of this tumultuous night, the grief too of 
His wound, though slight, may cause all 

this, and shake 20 

Me more to see than him to suffer. No : 
Let Nature use her own maternal means, 
And I await to second, not disturb her. 
Sar. (awakening). Not so — although 
ye multiplied the stars, 
And gave them to me as a realm to share 
From you and with you ! I would' not 

so purchase 
The empire of Eternity. Hence — 

hence — 
Old Hunter of the earliest brutes! 

and ye, 
Who hunted fellow-creatures as if 

brutes ! 
Once bloody mortals — and now bloodier 

idols, 30 

If your priests lie not ! And thou, 

ghastly Beldame ! 
Dripping with dusky gore, and tramp- 
ling on 
The carcasses of Inde — away ! away ! 
Where am I? Where the spectres? 

Where No — that 

Is no false phantom: I should know it 

'midst 
All that the dead dare gloomily raise up 
From their black gulf to daunt the 

living. Myrrha ! 
Myr. Alas ! thou art pale, and on 

thy brow the drops 
Gather like night dew. My beloved, 

hush — 
Calm thee. Thy speech seems of 

another world, 40 

And thou art lord of this. Be of good 

cheer; 
All will go well. 

Sar. Thy hand — so — 'tis 

thy hand; 
'Tis flesh ; grasp — clasp — yet closer, 

till I feel 
Myself that which I was. 



7IO 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act IV. 



Myr. At least know me 

For what I am, and ever must be — 
thine. 
Sar. I know it now. I know this 
life again. 
Ah, Myrrha ! I have been where we 
shall be. 
Myr. My lord ! 

Sar. I've been i' the grave — where 
worms are lords 

And kings are But I did not deem 

it so; 
I thought 'twas nothing. 

Myr. So it is; except 50 

Unto the timid, who anticipate 
That which may never be. 

Sar. Oh, Myrrha ! if 

Sleep shows such things, what may not 

Death disclose? 

Myr. I know no evil Death can show, 

which Life 

Has not already shown to. those who live 

Embodied longest. If there be indeed 

A shore where Mind survives, 'twill be 

as Mind 
All unincorporate : or if there flits 
A shadow of this cumbrous clog of clay. 
Which stalks, methinks, between our 
souls and heaven, 60 

And fetters us to earth — at least the 

phantom, 
Whate'er it have to fear, will not fear 
Death. 
Sar. I fear it not; but I have felt — 
have seen — 
A legion of the dead. 

Myr. And so have I. 

The dust we tread upon was once alive. 
And wretched. But proceed : what hast 

thou seen ? 
Speak it, 'twill lighten thy dimmed 
mind. 

Sar. Methought ■ 

Myr. Yet pause, thou art tired — in 
pain — exhausted; all 
Which can impair both strength and 

spirit: seek 
Rather to sleep again. 

Sar. Not now — I would not 70 
Dream; though I know it now to be a 

dream 
What I have dreamt: — and canst thou 
bear to hear it ? 



Myr. I can bear all things, dreams 

of life or death, 
Which I participate with you, in sem- 
blance 
Or full reality. 

Sar. And this looked real, 

I tell you : after that these eyes were 

open, 
I saw them in their flight — for then 

they fled. 
Myr. Say on. 

Sar. I saw, that is, I dreamed myself 
Here — here — even where we are, 

guests as we were, . 
Myself a host that deemed himself but 

guest, 80 

Willing to equal all to social freedom; 
But, on my right hand and my left, 

instead 
Of thee and Zames, and our customed 

meeting, 
Was ranged on my left hand a haughty, 

dark, 
And deadly face; I could not recognise 

it, 
Yet I had seen it, though I knew not 

where : 
The features were a Giant's, and the eye 
Was still, yet lighted; his long locks 

curled down 
On his vast bust, whence a huge quiver 

rose 
With shaft-heads feathered from the 

eagle's wing, 90 

That peeped up bristling through his 

serpent hair. 
I invited him to fill the cup which stood 
Between us, but he answered not; I 

filled it; 
He took it not, but stared upon me, till 
I trembled at the fixed glare of his eye : 
I frowned upon him as a king should 

frown ; 
He frowned not in his turn, but looked 

upon me 
With the same aspect, which appalled 

me more, 
Because it changed not; and I turned 

for refuge 
To milder guests, and sought them on 

the right, 100 

Where thou wert wont to be. But ■ 

[He pauses. 



Scene i.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



711 



Myr. What instead ? 

Sar. In thy own chair — thy own 

place in the banquet — 
I sought thy sweet face in the circle — 

but 
Instead — a grey-haired, withered, 

blood 3'-eyed, 
And bloody-handed, ghastly, ghostly 

thing, 
Female in garb, and crowned upon the 

brow. 
Furrowed with years, yet sneering with 

the passion 
Of vengeance, leering too with that of 

lust, 
Sate: — my veins curdled. 

Myr. Is this all ? 

Sar. Upon 

Her right hand — her lank, bird-like, 

right hand — stood no 

A goblet, bubbling o'er with blood; 

and on 
Her left, another, filled with — what 

I saw not. 
But turned from it and her. But all 

along 
The table sate a range of crowned 

wretches. 
Of various aspects, but of one expres- 
sion. 
Myr. And felt you not this a mere 

vision ? 
Sar. No : 

It was so palpable, I could have touched 

them. 
I turned from one face to another, in 
The hope to find at last one which I 

knew 
Ere I saw theirs : but no — all turned 

upon me, 120 

And stared, but neither ate nor drank, 

but stared. 
Till I grew stone, as they seemed half 

to be. 
Yet breathing stone, for I felt life in 

them. 
And life in me : there was a horrid kind 
Of sympathy between us, as if they 
Had lost a part of death to come to me, 
And I the half of life to sit by them. 
We were in an existence all apart 
From heaven or earth And rather 

let me see 



Death all than such a being ! 

Myr. And the end? 130 

Sar. At last I sate, marble, as they, 
when rose 
The Hunter and the Crone; and smil- 
ing on me — 
Yes, the enlarged but noble aspect of 
The Hunter smiled upon me — I should 

His lips, for his eyes moved not — and 

the woman's 
Thin lips relaxed to something like a 

smile. 
Both rose, and the crowned figures on 

each hand 
Rose also, as if aping their chief 

shades — 
Mere mimics even in death — but I sate 

still; 
A desperate courage crept through every 

limb, 140 

And at the last I feared them not, but 

laughed 
Full in their phantom faces. But then 

— then 
The Hunter laid his arm on mine: 

I took it, 
And grasped it — but it melted from 

my own; 
While he too vanished, and left nothing 

but 
The memory of a hero, for he looked 

so. 
Myr. And was: the ancestor of 

heroes, too. 
And thine no less. 

Sar. Aye, Myrrha, but the woman. 
The female who remained, she flew 

upon me. 
And burnt my lips up with her noisome 

kisses; 150 

And, flinging down the goblets on each 

hand, 
Methought their poisons flowed around 

us, till 
Each formed a hideous river. Still she 

clung; 
The other phantoms, like a row of 

statues. 
Stood dull as in our temples, but she still 
Embraced me, while I shrunk from her, 

as if, 
In lieu of her remote descendant, I 



712 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act IV. 



Had been the son who slew her for her 

incest.^ 
Then — then — a chaos of all loath- 
some things 
Thronged thick and shapeless: I was 

dead, yet feeling — i6o 

Buried, and raised again — consumed 

by worms, 
Purged by the flames, and withered in 

the air ! 
I can fix nothing further of my thoughts, 
Save that I longed for thee, and sought 

for thee. 
In all these agonies, — and woke and 

found thee. 
Myr. So shalt thou find me ever at 

thy side. 
Here and hereafter, if the last may be. 
But think not of these things — the 

mere creations 
Of late events, acting upon a frame 169 
Unused to toil, yet over wrought by toil — 
Such as might try the sternest. 

Sar. I am better. 

Now that I see thee once more, what 

was seen 
Seems nothing. 

Enter Salemenes. 

Sal. Is the king so soon awake ? 

Sar. Yes, brother, and I would I had 

not slept; 
For all the predecessors of our line 
Rose up, methought, to drag me down 

to them. 
My father was amongst them, too; but 

he, 
I know not why, kept from me, leaving 

me 
Between the hunter-founder of our race, 
And her, the homicide and husband- 
killer, 180 
Whom you call glorious. 

Sal. So I term you also. 

Now you have shown a spirit like to hers. 
By daybreak I propose that we set forth. 
And charge once more the rebel crew, 

who still 
Keep gathering head, repulsed, but 

not quite quelled. 
Sar. How wears the night ? 

' [For the story of Semiramis and Ninya, see 
Justinus Hist., lib. i. cap. ii.] 



Sal. There yet remain some hours 
Of darkness : use them for your further 
rest 
Sar. No, not to-night, if 'tis not gone : 
methought 
I passed hours in that vision. 

Myr. Scarcely one; 189 

I watched by you : it was a heavy hour, 
But an hour only. 

Sar. Let us then hold council ; 

To-morrow we set forth. 

Sal. But ere that time, 

I had a grace to seek. 

Sar. 'Tis granted. 

Sal. Hear it 

Ere you reply too readily ; and 'tis 
For your ear only. 

Myr. Prince, I take my leave. 

[Exit Myrrha. 

Sal. That slave deserves her freedom. 

Sar. Freedom only ! 

That slave deserves to share a throne. 

Sal. Your patience — 

'Tis not yet vacant, and 'tis of its partner 
I come to speak with you. 

Sar. How ! of the Queen ? 

Sal. Even so. I judged it fitting for 

their safety, 200 

That, ere the dawn, she sets forth with 

her children 
For Paphlagonia, where our kinsman 

Cotta ^ 
Governs ; and there, at all events, secure 
My nephews and your sons their lives, 

and with them 
Their just pretensions to the crown in 

case 

Sar. I perish — as is probable : well 
thought — 
Let them set forth with a sure escort. 

Sal. That 

Is all provided, and the galley ready 
To drop down the Euphrates; but ere 
they 

Depart, will you not see 

Sar. My sons? It may 210 

Unman my heart, and the poor boys 

will weep ; 
And what can I reply to comfort them, 
Save with some hollow hopes, and ill- 
worn smiles? 

' [See Diod. Siculi, Bibl. HisL, lib. ii. 80 c. 
Cotta was not a kinsman, but a royal tributary.] 



Scene i.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



713 



You know I cannot feign. 

Sal. But you can feel ! 

At least, I trust so : in a word, the Queen 
Requests to see you ere you part — 
for ever. 
Sar. Unto what end ? what purpose ? 
I will grant 
Aught — all that she can ask — but 
such a meeting. 
Sal. You know, or ought to know, 
enough of women, 219 

Since you have studied them so steadily, 
That what they ask in aught that touches 

on 
The heart, is dearer to their feelings or 
Their fancy, than the whole external 

world. 
I think as you do of my sister's wish ; 
But 'tw^as her wish — she is my sister — 

you 
Her husband — will you grant it ? 

Sar. 'Twill be useless : 

But let her come. 

Sal. I go. [Exit Salemenes. 

Sar. We have lived asunder 

Too long to meet again — and now to 

meet! 
Have I not cares enow, and pangs 

enow, 
To bear alone, that we must mingle 
sorrows, 230 

Who have ceased to mingle love ? 
Re-enter Salemenes and Zarina. 
Sal. My sister ! Courage : 

Shame not our blood with trembling, 

but remember. 
From whence we sprung. The Queen 
is present. Sire. 
Zar. I pray thee, brother, leave me. 
Sal. Since you ask it. 

[Exit Salemenes. 
Zar. Alone with him ! How many a 
year has passed, 
Though we are still so young, since we 

have met, 
Wnich I have worn in widowhood of 

heart. 
He loved me not; yet he seems little 

changed — 
Changed to me only — would the 

change were mutual ! 
He speaks not — scarce regards me — 
not a word, 240 



Nor look — yet he was soft of voice 

and aspect, 
Indifferent, not austere. My Lord ! 
Sar. Zarina ! 

Zar. No, not Zarina — do not say 
Zarina. 
That tone — That word — annihilate 

long years, 
And things which make them longer. 

Sar. 'Tis too late 

To think of these past dreams. Let's 

not reproach — 
That is, reproach me not — for the 

last time 

Zar. And first. I ne'er reproached 

you. 
Sar. 'Tis most true ; 

And that reproof comes heavier on my 
heart 

Than But our hearts are not in our 

ow^n power. 250 

Zar. Nor hands ; but I gave both. 
Sar. Your brother said 

It was your will to see me, ere you went 

From Nineveh with (He hesitates.) 

Zar. Our children : it is true. 

I wish to thank you that you have not 

divided 
My heart from all that's left it now to 

love — 
Those who are yours and mine, who 

look like you, 
And look upon me as you looked upon 
me 

Once but they have not changed. 

Sar. Nor ever will. 

I fain would have them dutiful. 

Zar. I cherish 

Those infants, not alone from the blind 

love 260 

Of a fond mother, but as a fond woman. 

They are now the only tie between us. 

Sar. Deem not 

I have not done you justice : rather 

make them 
Resemble your own line than their own 

Sire. 
I trust them with you — to you : fit 

them for 
A throne, or, if that be denied — You 

have heard 
Of this night's tumults ? 

Zar. I had half forgotten, 



714 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act IV. 



And could have welcomed any grief 

save yours, 
Which gave me to behold your face 

again. 
Sar. The throne — I say it not in 

fear — but 'tis 270 

In peril: they perhaps may never 

mount it; 
But let them not for this lose sight of it. 
I will dare all things to bequeath it 

them; 
But if I fail, then they must win it back 
Bravely — and, won, wear it wisely, 

not as I 
Have wasted down my royalty. 

Zar. They ne'er 

Shall know from me of aught but what 

may honour 
Their father's memory. 

Sar. Rather let them hear 

The truth from you than from a tramp- 
ling world. 
If they be in adversity, they'll learn 280 
Too soon the scorn of crowds for crown- 
less Princes, 
And find that all their father's sins are 

theirs. 
My boys ! — I could have borne it were 

I childless. 
Zar. Oh ! do not say so — do not 

poison all 
My peace left, by unwishing that thou 

wert 
A father. If thou conquerest, they shall 

reign. 
And honour him who saved the realm 

for them. 
So little cared for as his own; and 

if 

Sar. 'Tis lost, all Earth will cry out, 

"thank your father !" 
And they will swell the echo with a 

curse. 290 

Zar. That they shall never do; but 

rather honour 
The name of him, who, dying like a 

king. 
In his last hours did more for his own 

memory 
Than many monarchs in a length of 

days, 
Which date the flight of time, but make 

no annals. 



Sar. Our annals draw perchance 
unto their close ; 
But at the least, whate'er the past, 

their end 
Shall be like their beginning — memo- 
rable. 
Zar. Yet, be not rash — be careful of 
your life. 
Live but for those who love. 

Sar. And who are they ? 300 

A slave, who loves from passion — I'll 

not say 
Ambition — she has seen thrones shake, 

and loves; 
A few friends who have revelled till we 

are 
As one, for they are nothing if I 

fall; 
A brother I have injured — children 
whom 

I have neglected, and a spouse 

Zar. Who loves. 

Sar. And pardons ? 
Zar. 1 have never thought of this, 

And cannot pardon till I have con- 
demned. 
Sar. My wife ! 

Zar. Now blessings on thee for that 

word ! 

I never thought to hear it more — from 

thee. 310 

Sar. Oh! thou wilt hear it from my 

subjects. Yes — 

These slaves whom I have nurtured, 

pampered, fed. 
And swoln with peace, and gorged with 

plenty, till 
They reign themselves — all monarchs 

in their mansions — 
Now swarm forth in rebellion, and 

demand 
His death, who made their lives a jubi- 
lee; 
While the few upon whom I have no 

claim 
Are faithful ! This is true, yet mons- 
trous. 
Zar. 'Tis 

Perhaps too natural; for benefits 
Turn poison in bad minds. 

Sar. And good ones make 320 

Good out of evil. Happier than the 
bee, 



Scene i.' 



SARDANAPALUS 



715 



Which hives not but from wholesome 

flowers. 
Zar. Then reap 

The honey, nor inquire whence 'tis 

derived. 
Be satisfied — you are not all aban- 
doned. 
Sar. My life insures me that. How 

long, bethink you, 
Were not I yet a king, should I be 

mortal ; 
That is, where mortals are, not where 

they must be? 
Zar. I know not. But yet live for 

my — that is, 
Your children's sake ! 

Sar. My gentle, wronged Zarina ! 
I am the very slave of Circumstance 330 
And Impulse — borne away with every 

breath ! 
Misplaced upon the throne — misplaced 

in life. 
I know not what I could have been, but 

feel 
I am not what I should be — let it 

end. 
But take this with thee: if I was not 

formed 
To prize a love like thine, a mind like 

thine. 
Nor dote even on thy beauty — as I've 

doted 
On lesser charms, for no cause save that 

such 
Devotion was a duty, and I hated 
All that looked like a chain for me or 

others 340 

(This even Rebellion must avouch) ; 

yet hear 
These words, perhaps among my last — 

that none 
E'er valued more thy virtues, though he 

knew not 

To profit by them — as the miner lights 
Upon a vein of virgin ore, discovering 
That which avails him nothing: he 

hath found it. 
But 'tis not his — but some superior's, 

who 
Placed him to dig, but not divide the 

wealth 
Which sparkles at his feet; nor dare he 

lift 



Nor poise it, but must grovel on, up- 
turning 350 

The sullen, earth. 

Zar. Oh ! if thou hast at length 

Discovered that my love is worth esteem, 

I ask no more — but let us hence to- 
gether. 

And / — let me say we — shall yet be 
happy. 

Assyria is not all the earth — we'll find 

A world out of our own — and be more 
blessed 

Than I have ever been, or thou, with all 

An empire to indulge thee. 

Enter Salemenes. 

Sal. I must part ye — 

The moments, which must not be lost, 
are passing. 
Zar. Inhuman brother! wilt thou 
thus weigh out 360 

Instants so high and blest? 
Sal. Blest ! 

Zar. He hath been 

So gentle with me, that I cannot think 
Of quitting. 

Sal. So — this feminine farewell 

Ends as such partings end, in no de- 
parture. 
I thought as much, and yielded against 

all 
Mv better bodings. Biit it must not be. 
Zar. Not be ! 

Sal. Remain, and perish 

Zar. With my husband 

Sal. And children. 
Zar. Alas ! 

Sal. Hear me, sister, like 

My sister : — all's prepared to make 

your safety 
Certain, and of the boys too, our last 
hopes; 370 

'Tis not a single question of mere feel- 
ing, 
Though that were much — but 'tis a 

point of state: 
The rebels would do more to seize upon 
The offspring of their sovereign, and so 

crush 

Zar. Ah ! do not name it. 
Sal. Well, then, mark me: when 

They are safe beyond the Median's 
grasp, the rebels 



7i6 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act IV, 



Have missed their chief aim — the ex- 
tinction of 
The hne of Nimrod. Though the 

present King 
Fall, his sons live — for victory and 

vengeance. 
Zar. But could not I remain, alone? 
Sal. What! leave 380 

Your children, with two parents and yet 

orphans — 
In a strange land — so young, so dis- 
tant? 
Zar. No — 
My heart will break. 

Sal. Now you know all — decide. 
Sar. Zarina, he hath spoken well, 

and we 
Must yield awhile to this necessity. 
Remaining here, you may lose all; 

departing, 
You save the better part of what is left, 
To both of us, and to such loyal 

hearts 
As yet beat in these kingdoms. 

Sal. The time presses. 

Sar. Go, then. If e'er we meet 

again, perhaps 390 

I may be worthier of you — ■ and, if not. 
Remember that my faults, though not 

atoned for, 
Are ended. Yet, I dread thy nature will 
Grieve more above the blighted name 

and ashes 
Which once were mightiest in Assyria — - 

than 

But I grow womanish again, and must 

not; 
I must learn sternness now. My sins 

have all 
Been of the softer order hide thy 

tears — 
I do not bid thee not to shed them — ■ 

'twere 
Easier to stop Euphrates at its source 
Than one tear of a true and tender 

heart — 401 

But let me not behold them; they unman 

me 
Here when I had remanned myself. 

My brother. 
Lead her away. 

Zar. Oh, God ! I never shall 

Behold him more! 



Sal. {striving to conduct her). Nay, 

sister, I must be obeyed. 
Zar. I must remain — away ! you 
shall not hold me. 
What, shall he die alone ? — I live 
alone ? 
Sal. He shall not die alone; but 
lonely you 
Have lived for years. 

Zar. That's false ! I 

knew he lived, 
And lived upon his image — let me go ! 
Sal. {conducting her off the stage). 
Nay, then, I must use some fra- 
ternal force, 411 
Which you will pardon. 

Zar. Never. Help me ! Oh ! 

Sardanapalus, mlt thou thus behold me 
Torn from thee? 

Sal. Nay — then all is lost again, 
If that this moment is not gained. 

Zar. My brain turns — • 

My eyes fail — where is he ? 

[She faints. 
Sar. {advancing) . No — set her 
down; 
She's dead — and you have slain her. 

Sal. 'Tis the mere 

Faintness of o'erwrought passion : in the 

air 
She will recover. Pray, keep back. — • 

[Aside.] I must 
Avail myself of this sole moment to 420 
Bear her to where her children are 

embarked, 
I' the royal galley on the river. 

[Salemenes bears her off. 

Sar. {solus). This, too — 

And this too must I suffer — I, who 

never 
Inflicted purposely on human hearts 
A voluntary pang ! But that is false — 
She loved me, and I loved her. — Fatal 

passion ! 
Why dost thou not expire at once in 

hearts 
Which thou hast lighted up at once? 

Zarina ! 
I must pay dearly for the desolation 
Now brought upon thee. Had I never 
loved 430 

But thee, I should have been an un- 
opposed 



Scene i.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



717 



Monarch of honouring nations. To 

what gulfs 
A single deviation from the track 
Of human duties leads even those who 

claim 
The homage of mankind as their born 

due, 
And find it, till they forfeit it themselves ! 

Enter Myrrha. 

Sar. You here ! Who called you ? 
Myr. No one — but I heard 

Far off a voice of wail and lamentation, 
And thought — 

Sar. It forms no portion of 

your duties 
To enter here till sought for. 

Myr. Though I might, 440 

Perhaps, recall some softer words of 

yours 
(Although they too were chiding), which 

reproved me, 
Because I ever dreaded to intrude; 
Resisting my own wish and your in- 
junction 
To heed no time nor presence, but 

approach you 
Uncalled for : — I retire. 

Sar. Yet stay — being here. 

I pray you pardon me: events have 

soured me 
Till I wax peevish — heed it not : I 

shall 
Soon be myself again. 

Myr. I wait with patience, 

What I shall see with pleasure. 

Sar. Scarce a moment 450 

Before your entrance in this hall, 

Zarina, 

5ueen of Assyria, departed hence. 
Myr. Ah! 

Sar. Wherefore do you start? 

Myr. Did I do so? 

Sar. 'Twas well you entered by 
another portal. 
Else you had met. That pang at least 
is spared her 1 
Myr. I know to feel for her. 
Sar. That is too much, 

(Vnd beyond nature — 'tis nor mutual 
Mor possible. You cannot pity her, 

STor she aught but 

Myr. Despise the favourite slave? 



Not more than I have ever scorned 
myself. 460 

Sar. Scorned ! what, to be the envy 
of your sex. 
And lord it o'er the heart of the World's 
lord? 
Myr. Were you the lord of twice ten 
thousand worlds — 
As you are like to lose the one you 

swayed — 
I did abase myself as much in being 
Your paramour, as though you were a 

peasant — 
Nay, more, if that the peasant were a 
Greek. 

Sar. You talk it well 

Myr. And truly. 

Sar. In the hour 

Of man's adversity all things grow 

daring 
Against the falling; but as I am not 470 
Quite fall'n, nor now disposed to bear 

reproaches. 
Perhaps because I merit them too often. 
Let us then part while peace is still 
between us. 
Myr. Part ! 

Sar. Have not all past hu- 

man beings parted. 
And must not all the present one day 
part? 
Myr. Why? 

Sar. For your safety, which I 

will have looked to. 
With a strong escort to your native 

land; 
And such gifts, as, if you had not been all 
A Queen, shall make your dowry worth 
a kingdom. 
Myr I pray you talk not thus. 
Sar. The Queen is gone: 

You need not shame to follow. I would 
fall 481 

Alone — I seek no partners but in 
pleasure. 
Myr. And I no pleasure but in part- 
ing not. 
You shall not force me from you. 

Sar. Think well of it — 

It soon may be too late. 

Myr. So let it be; 

For then you cannot separate me from 
you. 



7i8 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act. IV. 



Sar. And will not; but I thought 

you wished it. 

Myr. I ! 

Sar. You spoke of your abasement. 

Myr. And I feel it 

Deeply — more deeply than all things 

but love. 
Sar. Then fly from it. 
Myr. 'Twill not recall the past — 
'Twill not restore my honour, nor my 

heart. 491 

No — here I stand or fall. If that you 

conquer, 
I live to joy in your great triumph: 

should 
Your lot be different, I'll not weep, but 

share it. 
You did not doubt me a few hours ago. 
Sar. Your courage never — nor your 

love till now; 
And none could make me doubt it save 

yourself. 

Those words 

Myr. Were words. I pray you, let 

the proofs 
Be in the past acts you were pleased to 

praise 
This very night, and in my further 

bearing, 500 

Beside, wherever you are borne by fate. 

Sar. I am content : and, trusting in 

my cause. 
Think we may yet be victors and 

return 
To peace — the only victory I covet. 
To me war is no glory — conquest no 
Renown. To be forced thus to uphold 

my right 
Sits heavier on my heart than all the 

wrongs 
These men would bow me down with. 

Never, never 
Can I forget this night, even should I live 
To add it to the memory of others. 510 
I thought to have made mine inoffensive 

rule 
An era of sweet peace 'midst bloody 

annals, 
A green spot amidst desert centuries. 
On which the Future would turn back 

and smile. 
And cultivate, or sigh when it could not 
Recall Sardanapalus' golden reign. 



I thought, to have made my realm a 

paradise, 
And every moon an epoch of new pleas- 
ures. 
I took the rabble's shouts for love — 

the breath 
Of friends for truth — the lips of 

woman for 520 

My only guerdon — so they are, my 

Myrrha: {He kisses her. 

Kiss me. Now let them take my realm 

and life ! 
They shall have both, but never thee! 

Myr. No, never! 

Man may despoil his brother man of all 
That's great or glittering — kingdoms 

fall — hosts yield, 
Friends fail — slaves fly — and all 

betray — and, more 
Than all, the most indebted — but a 

heart 
That loves without self-love ! 'Tis 

here — now prove it. 

Enter Salemenes. 

Sal. I sought you — How ! she here 

again ? 
Sar. Return not 

Now to reproof: methinks your aspect 
speaks 530 

Of higher matter than a woman's 
presence. 
Sal. The only woman whom it much 
imports me 
At such a moment now is safe in ab- 
sence — 
The Queen's embarked. 

Sar. And well? say that much. 

Sal. Yes. 

Her transient weakness has passed o'er; 

at least, 
It settled into tearless silence : her 
Pale face and glittering eye, after a 

glance 
Upon her sleeping children, were still 

fixed 
Upon the palace towers as the swift 

galley 
Stole down the hurrying stream beneath 
the starlight; 540 

But she said nothing. 

Sar. Would I felt no more 

Than she had said ! 



|l 



Scene i.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



719 



Sal. 'Tis now too late to feel. 

Your feelings cannot cancel a sole pang : 
To change them — my advices bring 

sure tidings 
That the rebellious Medes and Chaldees, 

marshalled 
By their two leaders, are already up 
In arms again; and, serrying their 

ranks. 
Prepare to attack : they have apparently 
Been joined by other Satraps, 

Sar. What ! more rebels ? 

Let us be first, then. 

Sal. That were hardly prudent 550 
Now, though it was our first inten- 
tion. If 
By noon to-morrow we are joined by 

those 
I've sent for by sure messengers, we 

shall be 
In strength enough to venture an attack, 
Aye, and pursuit too; but, till then, my 

voice 
Is to await the onset. 

Sar. I detest 

That waiting: though it seems so safe 

to fight 
Behind high walls, and hurl down foes 

into 
Deep fosses, or behold them sprawl on 

spikes 
Strewed to receive them, still I like it 

not — 560 

My soul seems lukewarm; but when I 

set on them. 
Though they were piled on mountains, 

I would have 
A pluck at them, or perish in hot 

blood ! — 
Let me then charge. 

Sal. You talk like a young soldier. 
Sar. 1 am no soldier, but a man: 

speak not 
Of soldiership, I loathe the w^ord, and 

those 
Who pride themselves upon it; but 

direct me 
Where I may pour upon them. 

Sal. You must spare 

To expose your life too hastily ; 'tis not 
Like mine or any other subject's breath; 
The whole war turns upon it — with it ; 

this 571 



Alone creates it, kindles, and may 

quench it — 
Prolong it — end it. 

Sar. Then let us end both ! 

'Twere better thus, perhaps, than pro- 
long either; 
I'm sick of one, perchance of both. 

[A trumpet sounds without. 
Sal. Hark ! 

Sar. Let us 

Reply, not listen, 

Sal. And your wound ! 

Sar. 'Tis bound — 

'Tis healed — I had forgotten it. Away ! 
A leech's lancet would have scratched 

me deeper; 
The slave that gave it might be well 

ashamed 
To have struck so weakly, 

Sal. Now, may none this hour 580 
Strike with a better aim ! 

Sar. Aye, if we conquer; 

But if not, they will only leave to me 
A task they might have spared their 
king. Upon them ! 

{Trumpet sounds again. 
Sal. I am with you. 
Sar. Ho, my arms ! again, my arms. 
{Exeunt. 

ACT V. 

Scene I. — The same Hall in the Palace. 
Myrrha and Balea. 

Myr. {at a window). The day at last 

has broken. What a night 
Hath ushered it ! How beautiful in 

heaven ! 
Though varied with a transitory storm, 
More beautiful in that variety ! 
How hideous upon earth ! where Peace 

and Hope, 
And Love and Revel, in an hour were 

trampled 
By human passions to a human chaos, 
Not yet resolved to separate elements — ■ 
'Tis warring still ! And can the sun so 

rise, 
So bright, so rolling back the clouds into 
Vapours more lovely than the unclouded 

sky, 1 1 

With golden pinnacles, and snowy 

mountains, 



720 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act v. 



And billows purpler than the Ocean's 

making 
In heaven a glorious mockery of the 

earth, 
So like we almost deem it permanent; 
So fleeting, we can scarcely call it 

aught 
Beyond a vision, 'tis so transiently 
Scattered along the eternal vault: and 

yet 
It dwells upon the soul, and soothes the 

soul. 
And blends itself into the soul, until 20 
Sunrise and sunset form the haunted 

epoch 
Of Sorrow and of Love ; which they who 

mark not. 
Know not the realms where those twin 

genii 
(Who chasten and who purify our hearts, 
So that we would not change their sweet 

rebukes 
For all the boisterous joys that ever 

shook 
The air with clamour) build the palaces 
Where their fond votaries repose and 

breathe 
Briefly ; — but in that brief cool calm 

inhale 
Enough of heaven to enable them to 

bear 30 

The rest of common, heavy, human 

hours. 
And dream them through in placid 

sufferance. 
Though seemingly employed like all the 

rest 
Of toiling breathers in allotted tasks 
Of pain or pleasure — two names for 

one feeling. 
Which our internal, restless agony 
Would vary in the sound, although the 

sense 
Escapes our highest efforts to be happy. 
Bal. You muse right calmly: and 

can you so watch 
The sunrise which may be our last? 

Myr. It is 40 

Therefore that I so watch it, and re- 
proach 
Those eyes, which never may behold it 

more. 
For having looked upon it oft, too oft, 



Without the reverence and the rapture 

due 
To that which keeps all earth from 

being as fragile 
As I am in this form. Come, look upon 

it, 
The Chaldee's God, which, when I gaze 

upon, 
I grow almost a convert to your Baal. 
Bal. As now he reigns in heaven, so 

once on earth 
He swayed. 

Myr. He sways it now far more, then ; 

never 50 

Had earthly monarch half the power 

and glory 
Which centres in a single ray of his. 
Bal. Surely he is a God ! 
Myr. So we Greeks deem too; 

And yet I sometimes think that gorgeous 

orb 
Must rather be the abode of Gods than 

one 
Of the immortal sovereigns. Now he 

breaks 
Through all the clouds, and fills my eyes 

with light 
That shuts the world out. I can look 

no more. 

Bal. Hark ! heard you not a sound ? 

Myr. No, 'twas mere fancy; 59 

They battle it beyond the wall, and not 

As in late midnight conflict in the very 

Chambers: the palace has become a 

fortress 
Since that insidious hour; and here, 

within 
The very centre, girded by vast courts 
And regal halls of pyramid proportions. 
Which must be carried one by one before 
They penetrate to where they then 

arrived. 
We are as much shut in even from the 

sound 
Of peril as from glory. 

Bal. But they reached 

Thus far before. 

Myr. Yes, by surprise, and were 70 
Beat back by valour: now at once we 

have 
Courage and vigilance to guard us. 

Bal. May they 

Prosper ! 



Scene i.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



721 



Myr. That is the prayer of many, 
and 
The dread of more : it is an anxious 

hour; 
I strive to keep it from my thoughts. 

Alas! 
How vainly ! 

Bal. It is said the King's demeanour 

In the late action scarcely more appalled 

The rebels than astonished his true 

subjects. 

Myr. 'Tis easy to astonish or appall 

The vulgar mass which moulds a horde 

of slaves; 80 

But he did bravely. 

Bal. Slew he not Beleses? 

I heard the soldiers say he struck him 
down. 
Myr. The wretch was overthrown, 
but rescued to 
Triumph, perhaps, o'er one who van- 
quished him 
In fight, as he had spared him in his 

peril ; 
And by that heedless pity risked a crown. 
Bal. Hark ! 

Myr. You are right; some steps 
approach but slowly. 
Enter Soldiers, bearing in Salemenes 
wounded, with a broken javelin in 
his side: they seat him upon one 
oj the couches which furnish the 
Apartment. 
Myr. Oh, Jove ! 
Bal. Then all is over. 

Sal. That is false, 

lew down the slave who says so, if a 
soldier. 
Myr. Spare him — he's none : a 
mere court butterfly, 90 

That flutters in the pageant of a mon- 
arch. 
Sal. Let him live on, then. 
Myr. So wilt thou, I trust. 

Sal. I fain would live this hour out, 
and the event, 
3ut doubt it. Wherefore did ye bear 
me here? 
Sol. By the Kii^g's order. When the 
javelin struck you, 
i(^ou fell and fainted: 'twas his strict 

command 
To bear you to this hall. 
.3 A 



Sal. 'Twas not ill done : 

For seeming slain in that cold dizzy 

trance. 
The sight might shake our soldiers — 

but — 'tis vain, 
I feel it ebbing ! 

Myr. Let me see the wound; 100 
I am not quite skilless: in my native 

land 
'Tis part of our instruction. War 

being constant. 
We are nerved to lock on such things. 

Sol. Best extract 

The javelin. 

Myr. Hold ! no, no, it cannot be. 
Sal. I am sped, then ! 
Myr. With the blood that fast must 
follow 
The extracted weapon, I do fear thy 
life. 
Sal. And I not death. Where was 
the King when you 
Conveyed me from the spot where I was 
stricken ? 
Sol. Upon the same ground, and en- 
couraging 
With voice and gesture the dispirited 
troops no 

Who had seen you fall, and faltered 
back. 
Sal. Whom heard ye 

Named next to the command? 

Sol. I did not hear. 

Sal. Fly, then, and tell him, 'twas my 
last request 
That Zames take my post until the 

junction, 
So hoped for, yet delayed, of Ofratanes, 
Satrap of Susa. Leave me here: our 

troops 
Are not so numerous as to spare your 
absence. 

Sol. But Prince 

Sal. Hence, I say ! Here's a courtier 
and 118 

A woman, the best chamber company. 
As you would not permit me to expire 
Upon the field, I'll have no idle soldiers 
About my sick couch. Hence ! and do 
my bidding ! [Exeunt the Soldiers. 
Myr. Gallant and glorious Spirit ! 
must the earth 
So soon resign thee? 



722 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act v. 



Sal. Gentle Myrrha, 'tis 

The end I would have chosen, had I 

saved 
The monarch or the monarchy by this ; 
As 'tis, I have not outlived them. 

Myr. You wax paler. 

Sal. Your hand ; this broken weapon 
but prolongs 
My pangs, without sustaining life 

enough 
To make me useful : I would draw it 
forth 130 

And my life with it, could I but hear how 
The fight goes. 

Enter Sardanapalus and Soldiers. 



My best brother ! 

And the battle 



Sar. 

Sal. 

Is lost? 

Sar. {despondingly) . You see me here. 

Sal. I'd rather see you thus! 

[He draws out the weapon from the 

wound, and dies. 

Sar. And thus I will be seen ; unless 

the succour. 

The last frail reed of our beleaguered 

hopes, 
Arrive with Ofratanes. 

Myr. Did you not 

Receive a token from your dying 

brother, 
Appointing Zames chief? 
Sar. I did. 

Myr. Where's Zames? 

Sar. Dead. 

Myr. And Altada ? 

Sar. Dying. 

Myr. Pania? Sfero? 

Sar. Pania yet lives; but Sfero's fled 
or captive. 140 

I am alone. 

Myr. And is all lost ? 

Sar. Our walls. 

Though thinly manned, may still hold 

out against 
Their present force, or aught save 
treachery : 

But i' the field 

Myr. I thought 'twas the intent 

Of Salemenes not to risk a sally 
Till ye were strengthened by the ex- 
pected succours. 
Sar. I over-ruled him. 



Myr. Well, the fault's a brave one. 
Sar. But fatal. Oh, my brother ! I 

would give 
These realms, of which thou wert the ; 

ornament. 
The sword and shield, the sole-redeem- 
ing honour, 150 
To call back But I will not weep for 

thee; 
Thou shalt be mourned for as thou 

wouldst be mourned. 
It grieves me most that thou couldst quit 

this life 
Believing that I could survive what thou 
Hast died for — our long royalty of race. 
If I redeem it, I will give thee blood 
Of thousands, tears of millions, for 

atonement 
(The tears of all the good are thine 

already). 
If not, we meet again soon, — if the 

spirit 
Within us lives beyond : — thou readest 

mine, 160 

x\nd dost me justice now. Let me once 

clasp 
That yet warm hand, and fold that 

throbless heart 

[Embraces the body. 
To this which beats so bitterly. Now, 

bear 
The body hence. 

Soldier. Where ? 

Sar. To my proper chamber. 

Place it beneath my canopy, as though 
The King lay there : when this is done, 

we will 
Speak further of the rites due to such 

ashes. 
[Exeunt Soldiers with the body of 

Salemenes. 

Enter Pania. 

Sar. Well, Pania ! have you placed 

the guards, and issued 
The orders fixed on? 

Pan. Sire, I have obeyed. 

Sar. And do the soldiers keep their 

hearts up? 
Pan. Sire? 170: 

Sar. I am answered! When a king! 

asks twice, and has 
A question as an answer to his question, 



Scene i.l 



SARDANAPALUS 



723 



It is a portent. What ! they are dis- 
heartened ? 
Pan. The death of Salemenes, and 
the shouts 

Of the exuhing rebels on his fall, 

Have made them 

Sar. Rage — not droop — it should 
have been. 

We'll find the means to rouse them. 
Pan. Such a loss 

Might sadden even a victory. 

Sar. Alas ! 

Who can so feel it as I feel ? but yet, 

Though cooped within these v\^alls, they 
are strong, and we 180 

Have those without will break their way 
through hosts, 

To make their sovereign's dwelling 
what it was — 

A palace, not a prison — nor a fortress. 

Enter an Officer, hastily. 

Sar. Thy face seems ominous. Speak ! 
Offi. I dare not. 

Sar. Dare not ? 

While millions dare revolt with sword in 

hand ! 
That's strange. I pray thee break that 

loyal silence 
Which loathes to shock its sovereign; 

we can hear 
Worse than thou hast to tell. 

Pan. Proceed — thou hearest. 

Offi. The wall which skirted near the 
river's brink 
[s thrown down by the sudden inunda- 
tion I go 
)f the Euphrates, which now rolling, 

swoln 
rom the enormous mountains where it 

rises, 
3y the late rains of that tempestuous 

region, 
3'erfloods its banks, and hath destroyed 
the bulwark. 
Pan. That's a black augury ! it has 
been said 
^or ages, "That the City ne'er should 

yield 
To man, until the River grew its foe." 
Sar. I can forgive the omen, not the 
ravage. 
Tow much is swept down of the wall ? 



Offi. About 

Some twenty stadia.^ 

Sar. And all this is left 200 

Pervious to the assailants? 

Offi. For the present 

The River's fury must impede the 

assault ; 
But when he shrinks into his wonted 

channel. 
And may be crossed by the accustomed 

barks. 
The palace is their own. 

Sar. That shall be never. 

Though men, and gods, and elements, 

and omens, 
Have risen up 'gainst one who ne'er 

provoked them, 
My father's house shall never be a cave 
For wolves to horde and howl in. 

Pan. With your sanction, 

I will proceed to the spot, and take such 
measures 210 

For the assurance of the vacant space 
As time and means permit. 

Sar. About it straight, 

And bring me back, as speedily as full 
And fair investigation may permit, 
Report of the true state of this irruption 
Of waters. [Exeunt Pania and the Officer. 
Myr. Thus the very waves rise up 
Against you. 

Sar. They are not my subjects, girl, 
And may be pardoned, since they can't 
be punished. 
Myr. I joy to see this portent shakes 

you not. 
Sar. I am past the fear of portents : 
they can tell me 220 

Nothing I have not told myself since 

midnight : 
Despair anticipates such things. 

Myr. Despair ! 

Sar. No; not despair precisely. 
W^hen we know 
All that can come, and how to meet it, 

our 
Resolves, if firm, may merit a more 

noble 
Word than this is to give it utterance. 
But what are words to us ? we have well 

nigh done 
With them and all things. 

' About two miles and a half. 



724 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act v. 



Myr. Save one deed — the last 

And greatest to all mortals; crowning 

act 229 

Of all that was, or is, or is to be — 
The only thing common to all mankind. 
So different in their births, tongues, 

sexes, natures, 
Hues, features, climes, times, feelings, 

intellects, 
Without one point of union save in 

this — 
To which we tend, for which we're born, 

and thread 
The labyrinth of mystery, called life. 
Sar. Our clue being well nigh wound 

out, let's be cheerful. 
They who have nothing more to fear 

may well 
Indulge a smile at that which once 

appalled ; 
As children at discovered bugbears. 

Re-enter Pania. 
Pan. 'Tis 240 

As was reported : I have ordered there 
A double guard, withdrawing from the 

wall. 
Where it was strongest, the required 

addition 
To watch the breech occasioned by the 

waters. 
Sar. You have done your duty faith- 
fully, and as 
My worthy Pania ! further ties between 

us 
Draw near a close — I pray you take 

this key: [Gives a key. 

It opens to a secret chamber, placed 
Behind the couch in my own chamber — 

(Now 
Pressed by a nobler weight than e'er it 

bore — 250 

Though a long line of sovereigns have 

lain down 
Along its golden frame — as bearing 

for 
A time what late was Salemenes.) — 

Search 
The secret covert to which this will lead 

you; 
'Tis full of treasure ; take it for yourself 
And your companions: there's enough 

to load ye, 



Though ye be many. Let the slaves be 

freed, too; 
And all the inmates of the palace, of 
Whatever sex, now quit it in an hour. 
Thence launch the regal barks, once 
formed for pleasure, 260 

And now to serve for safety, and em- 
bark. 
The river's broad and swoln, and un- 

commanded, 
(More potent than a king) by these 

besiegers. 
Fly ! and be happy ! 

Pan. Under your protection ! 

So you accompany your faithful guard. 
Sar. No, Pania ! that must not be ; 
get thee hence. 
And leave me to my fate. 

Pan. 'Tis the first time 

I ever disobeyed : but now 

Sar. So all men 

Dare beard me now, and Insolence 

within 
Apes Treason from without. Question 
no further; 270 

'Tis my command, my last command. 

Wilt thou 
Oppose it? thou! 

Pan. But yet — not yet. 

Sar. ^ Well, then 

Swear that you will obey when I shall 

give 
The signal. 

Pan. With a heavy but true heart, 
I promise. 

Sar. 'Tis enough. Now order here 
Faggots, pine-nuts, and withered leaves, 

and such 
Things as catch fire and blaze with one 

sole spark; 
Bring cedar, too, and precious drugs, 

and spices. 
And mighty planks, to nourish a tall pile ; 
Bring frankincense and myrrh, too, for 
it is 280 

For a great sacrifice I build the pyre ! 
And heap them round yon throne. 
Pan. ' My Lord ! 

Sar. I have said it. 

And you have sworn. 

Pan. And could keep my faith 

Without a vow. 

[Exit Pania. 



Scene i.] 



SARDANAPALUS 



725 



Myr. What mean you ? 

Sar. You shall know 

Anon — what the whole earth shall ne'er 
forget. 

Pania, returning with a Herald. 

Pan. My King, in going forth upon 
my duty, 
This herald has been brought before me, 

craving 
An audience. 

Sar. Let him speak. 

Her. The King Arbaces 

Sar. What, crowned already ? — But, 

proceed. 
Her. Beleses, 

The anointed High-priest 

Sar. Of what god or demon ? 

With new kings rise new altars. But, 

proceed; 291 

You are sent to prate your master's will, 

and not 
Reply to mine. 

Her. And Satrap Ofratanes 

Sar. Why, he is ours. 
Her. {showing a ring). Be sure that 
he is now 

[n the camp of the conquerors ; behold 
His signet ring. 

Sar. 'Tis his. A worthy triad ! 

Poor Salemenes ! thou hast died in time 
To see one treachery the less : this man 
l\'as thy true friend and my most trusted 

subject. 
i*roceed. 
Her. They offer thee thy life, and 
freedom 300 

Of choice to single out a residence 
[n any of the further provinces, 
Gfuarded and watched, but not confined 

in person, 
^here thou shalt pass thy days in peace ; 

but on 

(|ondition that the three young princes 
are 
iven up as hostages. 
Sar. {ironically). The generous Vic- 
tors ! 
Her. I wait the answer. 
Sar. Answer, slave ! How long 

Ifave slaves decided on the doom of 
kings ? 
Her. Since they were free. 



Sar. Mouthpiece of mutiny ! 

Thou at the least shalt learn the penalty 
Of treason, though its proxy only. 

Pania! 311 

Let his head be thrown from our walls 

within 
The rebels' lines, his carcass down the 

river. 
Away with him ! 

[Pania and the Guards seizing him. 
Pan. I never yet obeyed 

Your orders with more pleasure than the 

present. 
Hence with him, soldiers ! do not soil 

this hall 
Of royalty with treasonable gore; 
Put him to rest without. 

Her. A single word : 

My office, King, is sacred. 

Sar. And what's mine? 

That thou shouldst come and dare to 

ask of me 320 

To lay it down? 

Her. I but obeyed my orders, 

At the same peril if refused, as now 
Incurred by my obedience. 

Sar. So there are 

New monarchs of an hour's growth as 

despotic 
As sovereigns swathed in purple, and 

enthroned 
From birth to manhood ! 

Her. My life waits your breath. 

Yours (I speak humbly) — but it may 

be — yours 
May also be in danger scarce less immi- 
nent : 
Would it then suit the last hours of a line 
Such as is that of Nimrod, to destroy 
A peaceful herald, unarmed, in his 

office; 331 

And violate not only all that man 
Holds sacred between man and man — 

but that 
More holv tie which links us with the 

Gods? 
Sar. He's right. — Let him go free. 

— My life's last act 
Shall not be one of wrath. Here, fellow, 

take 
[Gives him a golden cup from a table 

near. 
This golden goblet, let it hold your wine, 



726 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act v. 



And think of me; or melt it into ingots, 

And think of nothing but their weight 

and value. 

Her. I thank you doubly for my life, 

and this 340 

Most gorgeous gift, which renders it 

more precious. 
But must I bear no answer ? 

Sar. Yes, — I ask 

An hour's truce to consider. 

Her. But an hour's? 

Sar. An hour's: if at the expiration of 

That time your masters hear no further 

from me. 
They are to deem that I reject their 

terms. 
And act befittingly. 

Her. I shall not fail 

To be a faithful legate of your pleasure. 
Sar. And hark ! a word more. 
Her. I shall not forget it, 

Whate'er it be. 

Sar. Commend me to Beleses; 350 
And tell him, ere a year expire, I 

summon 
Him hence to meet me. 

Her. Where ? 

Sar. At Babylon. 

At least from thence he will depart to 
meet me. 
Her. I shall obey you to the letter. 

[Exit Herald. 
Sar. Pania ! — 

Now, my good Pania ! — quick — with 
what I ordered. 
Pan. My Lord, — the soldiers are 
already charged. 
And see ! they enter. 

Soldiers enter, and form a Pile about 
the Throne, etc. 

Sar. Higher, my good soldiers, 

And thicker yet; and see that the 

foundation 
Be such as will not speedily exhaust 
Its own too subtle flame; nor yet be 
quenched 360 

With aught officious aid would bring to 

quell it. 
Let the throne form the core of it; I 

would not 
Leave that, save fraught with fire un- 
quenchable, 



To the new comers. Frame the whole 

as if 
'Twere to enkindle the strong tower of 

our 
Inveterate enemies. Now it bears an 1 

aspect ! 
How say you, Pania, will this pile suffice 
For a King's obsequies? 

Pan. Aye, for a kingdom's. 

I understand you, now. 

Sar. And blame me? 

Pan. No — 

Let me but fire the pile, and share it 
with you. 370 

Myr. That duty^s mine. 
Pan. A woman's ! 

Myr. 'Tis the soldier's 

Part to die jor his sovereign, and why not 
The woman's with her lover? 

Pan. 'Tis most strange ! 

Myr. But not so rare, my Pania, as 
thou think'st it. 
In the meantime, live thou. — Farewell : 

the pile 
Is ready. 

Pan. I should shame to leave my 
sovereign 
With but a single female to partake 
His death. 

Sar. Too many far have heralded 
Me to the dust already. Get thee hence; 
Enrich thee. 

Pan. And live wretched? 
Sar. Think upon 380 

Thy vow : — 'tis sacred and irrevocable. 
Pan. Since it is so, farewell. 
Sar. Search well my chamber, 

Feel no remorse at bearing off the 

gold; 
Remember, what you leave you leave 

the slaves 
Who slew me: and when you have 

borne away 
All safe off to your boats, blow one long 

blast 
Upon the trumpet as you quit the palace. 
The river's brink is too remote, itjs 

stream 

Too loud at present to permit the echo 

To reach distinctly from its banks. 

Then fly, — 390 

And as you sail turn back; but still 

keep on 



Scene i.] 



SARD AN AP ALUS 



727 



Your way along the Euphrates: if you 

reach 
The land of Paphlagonia, where the 

Queen 
Is safe with my three sons in Cotta's 

court, 
Say what you saw at parting, and re- 
quest 
That she remember what I said at one 
Parting more mournful still. 

Pan. That royal hand ! 

Let me then once more press it to my 

lips; 
And these poor soldiers who throng 

round you, and 
Would fain die with you ! 
{The Soldiers and Pania throng round 
him, kissing his hand and the hem 
of his robe. 
Sar. My best ! my last friends ! 

Let's not unman each other: part at 
once; 401 

All farewells should be sudden, when for 

ever. 
Else they make an eternity of moments, 
And clog the last sad sands of life with 

tears. 
Hence, and be happy: trust me, I am 

not 
Now to be pitied ; or far more for what 
Is past than present ; — for the future, 

'tis 
In the hands of the deities, if such 
There be. I shall know soon. Fare- 
well — Farewell. 

[Exeunt Pania and Soldiers. 

Myr. These men were honest: it is 

comfort still 410 

hat our last looks should be on loving 

faces. 
Sar. And lovely ones, my beautiful ! 
— but hear me ! 
f at this moment, — for we now are on 
he brink, — thou feel'st an inward 

shrinking from 
'his leap through flame into the future, 

say it: 
shall not love thee less; nay, perhaps 

more, 
or yielding to thy nature : and there's 

time 
et for thee to escape hence. 
Myr. Shall I light 



One of the torches which lie heaped be- 
neath 
The ever-burning lamp that burns with- 
out, 420 
Before Baal's shrine, in the adjoining 
hall? 
Sar. Do so. Is that thy answer? 
Myr. Thou shalt see. 
[Exit Myrrh A. 
Sar. (solus). She's firm. My fa- 
thers ! whom I will rejoin. 
It may be, purified by death from some 
Of the gross stains of too material being, 
I would not leave your ancient first 

abode 
To the defilement of usurping bonds- 
men; 
If I have not kept your inheritance 
As ye bequeathed it, this bright part of it, 
Your treasure — your abode — your 
sacred relics 430 

Of arms, and records — monuments, 

and spoils. 
In which they would have revelled, I 

bear with me 
To you in that absorbing element. 
Which most personifies the soul as leav- 
ing 
The least of matter unconsumed before 
Its fiery workings : — and the light of 

this 
Most royal of funereal pyres shall be 
Not a mere pillar formed of cloud and 

flame, 
A beacon in the horizon for a day. 
And then a mount of ashes — but a light 
To lesson ages, rebel nations, and 441 
Voluptuous princes. Time shall quench 

full many 
A people's records, and a hero's acts; 
Sweep empire after empire, like this first 
Of empire's, into nothing ; but even then 
Shall spare this deed of mine, and hold 

it up 
A problem few dare imitate, and none 
Despise — but, it may be, avoid the life 
Which led to such a consummation. 

Myrrh A returns with a lighted Torch in 
one Hand, and a Cup in the other. 

Myr. Lo ! 

I've lit the lamp which lights us to the 

stars. 450 



728 



SARDANAPALUS 



[Act v. 



Sar. And the cup? 
Myr. 'Tis my country's custom to 
Make a libation to the Gods. 

Sar. And mine 

To make libations amongst men. I've 

not 
Forgot the custom; and although alone, 
Will drain one draught in memory of 

many 
A joyous banquet past. 
[Sardanapalus takes the cup, and 
after drinking and tinkling the 
reversed cup, as a drop falls, ex- 
claims — 

And this libation 
Is for the excellent Beleses. 

Myr. Why 

Dwells thy mind rather upon that man's 

name 
Than on his mate's in villany? 

Sar. The one 

Is a mere soldier, a mere tool, a kind 
Of human sword in a friend's hand; the 
other 461 

Is master-mover of his warlike puppet ; 
But I dismiss them from my mind. — 

Yet pause, 
My Myrrha ! dost thou truly follow me, 
Freely and fearlessly? 

Myr. And dost thou think 

A Greek girl dare not do for love, that 

which 
An Indian widow braves for custom ? 

Sar. Then 

We but await the signal. 

Myr. It is long 

In sounding. 

Sar. Now, farewell ; one last embrace. 

Myr. Embrace, but not the last; 

there is one more. 470 

Sar. True, the commingling fire will 

mix our ashes. 
Myr. And pure as is my love to thee, 
shall they. 
Purged from the dross of earth, and 

earthly passion. 
Mix pale with thine. A single thought 
yet irks me. 
Sar. Say it. 

Myr. It is that no kind hand 

will gather 
The dust of both into one urn.. 

Sar. The better : 



Rather let them be borne abroad upon 
The winds of heaven, and scattered into 

air. 
Than be polluted more by human hands 
Of slaves and traitors. In this blazing 
palace, 480 

AHd its enormous walls of reeking ruin, 
We leave a nobler monument than Egypt 
Hath piled in her brick mountains, o'er 

dead kings. 
Or kine — for none knovv^ whether those 

proud piles 
Be for their monarch, or their ox-god 

Apis: 
So much for monuments that have for- 
gotten 
Their very record ! 

Myr. Then farewell, thou earth ! 

And loveliest spot of earth ! farewell, 

Ionia ! 
Be thou still free and beautiful, and far 
Aloof from desolation ! My last prayer 
Was for thee, my last thoughts, save one, 
were of thee ! 491 

Sar. And that ? 
Myr. Is yours. 

[The trumpet of Pania sounds without. 
Sar. Hark ! 

Myr. Now I 

Sar. Adieu, Assyria 

I loved thee well, my own, my fathet's 

land. 
And better as my country than my king- 
dom. 
I sated thee with peace and joys; and 

this 
Is my reward ! and now I owe thee 

nothing. 
Not even a grave. [He mounts the pile, 
Now, Myrrha! 
Myr. Art thou ready? 

Sar. As the torch in thy grasp. 

[Myrrha fires the pile. 
Myr. 'Tis fired ! I come. 

[As Myrrha springs forward to throw 
herself into the flames, the Cur- 
tain falls. 

Ravenna. 
May 27th, 1821. 
Mem. — I began the drama on the 13th of 
January, 182 1, and continued the two first acts 
very slowly and at long intervals. The thre 
last acts were written since the 13th of May, 
1 82 1 (this present month, that is to say in 
fortnight). 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



729 



THE TWO FOSCARI.i 

AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY.^ 



"The father softens, but the governor's re- 
solved." — Critic. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 

MEN. 

Francis Foscari, Doge of Venice. 
Jacopo Foscari, Son of the Doge. 
James Loredano, a Patrician. 
Marco Memmo, a Chief of the Forty. 
Barbarigo, a Senator. 
Other Senators, The Council of Ten, 
Guards, Attendants, etc., etc. 

woman. 
Marina, Wife of young Foscari. 

Scene — The Ducal Palace, Venice. 

\The Two Foscari was produced at 
Drury Lane Theatre April 7, and again 
on April 18 and April 25, 1838. Ma- 
cready played " Francis Foscari," Mr. 

I [The Two Foscari was begun June 12, 
finished July 9, and published December 19, 
1821.I 

' [Francesco, son of Nicolo Foscari, was born 
in 1373. He was nominated a member of the 
Council of Ten in 1399, and, elected Doge in 
1423. His dukedom, the longest on record, 
lasted till 1457. He was married, in 1395, to 
Maria, daughter of "Andrea Priuli, and, en 
secondes noces, to Maria, or Marina, daughter 
of Bartolommeo Nani. By his two wives he 
was the father of ten children — five sons and 
five daughters. Of the five sons, four died of 
the plague, and the tifth, Jacopo, lived to be 
the cause, if not the hero, of a tragedy. 

The younger of the "Two Foscari" was a 
man of some cultivation, a child and lover of 
Venice, but indifferent to her ideals and re- 
gardless of her prejudices and restrictions. He 
seems to have begun life in a blaze of popularity 
the admired of all admirers. His wedding with 
Lucrezia Contarini (January, 1441) was cele- 
brated with a novel and peculiar splendour. 
Four years after his marriage (February 17, 
1445) an accusation was laid before the Ten 
that, contrary to the law embodied in the Ducal 
Promissione, he had accepted gifts of jewels and 
money, not only from his fellow-citizens, but 
from his country's bitterest enemy, Filippo 
Visconti, Duke of Milan. Jacopo fled to Trieste, 



Anderson "Jacopo Foscari," and Miss . 
Helen Faucit " Marina." 

According to the Times, April 9, 1838, 
" Miss Faucit's Marina, the most ener- 
getic part of the whole, was clever, and 
showed a careful attention to the points 
which might be made." 

Macready notes in his diary, April 7, 
1838 {Reminiscences, 1875, ii. 106): 
"Acted Foscari very well. Was very 
warmly received . . . was called for at 
the end of the tragedy, and received by 
the whole house standing up and waving 
handkerchiefs with great enthusiasm. 
Dickens, Forster, Proctor, Browning, 
Talfourd, all came into my room."j 

and in his absence the Ten, supported by a 
giunta of ten, on their own authority and in- 
dependently of the Doge, sentenced him to 
perpetual banishment at Nauplia, in Roumania. 
It is to be noted that this sentence was never 
carried into effect. At the end of four months, 
thanks to the intervention of five members of 
the Ten, he was removed from Trieste to Tre- 
viso, and, two years later (September 13, 1447). 
out of consideration to the Doge, who pleaded 
that the exile of his only son prevented him 
from giving his whole heart and soul to the 
Republic, permitted to return to Venice. 

Tliree years went by, and once again, Jan- 
uary, 1451, a charge was preferred against 
Jacopo Foscari, and on this occasion he was 
arrested and brought before the Ten. He was 
accused of being implicated in the murder of 
Ermolao Donate, who was assassinated Novem- 
ber 5, 1450, on leaving the Ducal Palace, where 
he had been attending the Council of the Pre- 
gadi. The charge may be said to have been 
non-proven, but innocent or guilty, he was 
sentenced to perpetual banishment to the city 
of Candia, on the north coast of the island of 
Crete; and, guilty or innocent, Jacopo was not 
the man to make the best of what remained 
to him and submit to fate. Intrigue he must, 
and, five years later (June, 1456), a report 
reached Venice that papers fiad been found in 
his possession, some relating to the Duke _ of 
Milan, calculated to excite "nuovi scandali e 
disordini," and others in cipher, which the Ten 
could not read. Over and above these papers 
there was direct evidence that Jacopo had written 
to the Imperatore dci Tjirchi, imploring him to 
send his galley and take him away from Candia. 
Here was a fresh instance of treachery to the 
Republic, and July 21, 1456, Jacopo returned 
to Venice under the custody of Lorenzo Loredano. 

According to Romanin (Sloria, cic, iv. 284), 
he was not put to the torture, but confessed his 
guilt spontaneously, pleading, by way of excuse, 
that the letter to the Duke of Milan had been 
allowed to fall into the hands of spies, with a 
view to his being recalled to Venice and obtam- 
ing a glimpse of his parents and family, even at 
a risk of a fresh trial. On the other hand, the 



73° 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act I. 



ACT I. 

Scene I. — A Hall in the Ducal Palace. 

Enter Loredano and Barbarigo, vteet- 
ing. 

Lor. Where is the prisoner? 

Bar. Reposing from 

The Question. 

Lor. The hour's past — fixed 

yesterday 
For the resumption of his trial. — Let us 
Rejoin our colleagues: in the council, and 
Urge his recall. 

Bar. Nay, let him profit by 

A few brief minutes for his tortured 

limbs; 
He was o'erwrought by the Question 

yesterday, 
And may die under it if now repeated. 

Lor. Well? 

Dolfin Cronaca, the work of a kinsman of the 
Foscari, which records Jacopo's fruitless appeal 
to the sorrowful but inexorable Doge, and other 
incidents of a personal nature, testifies, if not to 
torture on the rack, "to mutilation by thirty 
strokes of the lash." Be that as it may, he was 
once more condemned to lifelong exile, with 
the additional penalty that he should be im- 
prisoned for a year. He sailed from Venice 
July 31, 1456, and died at Candia, January 12, 
1457. Jacopo's misconduct and consequent 
misfortune overshadowed the splendour of his 
father's reign, and, in very truth, "brought his 
gray hairs with sorrow to the grave." 

After his son's death, the aged Doge, now 
in his eighty-fifth year, retired to his own apart- 
ments, and refused to preside at Councils of 
State. The Ten, who in 1446 had yielded to the 
Doge's plea that a father fretting for an exiled 
son could not discharge his public duties, were 
instant that he should abdicate the dukedom on 
the score of decrepitude. Accounts differ as to 
the mode in which he received the sentence of 
deposition. It is certain that he was compelled 
to abdicate on Sunday morning, October 23, 
1457. but was allowed a breathing-space of a few 
days to make his arrangements for quitting the 
Ducal Palace. 

On Monday, October 24, the Great Council 
met to elect his successor, and sat with closed 
doors till Sunday, October 30. 

On Sunday, October 30, Pasquale Malipiero 
was declared Doge, and two davs after. All 
Samts' Day, at the first hour of "the morning. 
Francesco Foscari died. If the interval between 
ten o'clock on Sunday night and one o'clock on 
Tuesday morning disproves the legend that the 
discrowned Doge ruptured a blood-vessel at the 
moment when the bell was tolling for the election 
of his successor, the truth remains that, old as 
he was, he died of a broken heart.] 



Bar. I yield not to you in love 

of justice, 
Or hate of the ambitious Foscari, 10 
Father and son, and all their noxious 

race; 
But the poor wretch has suffered beyond 

Nature's 
Most stoical endurance. 

Lor. Without owning 

His crime? . 

Bar. Perhaps without commit- 

' ting any. 

But he avowed the letter to. the Duke 
Of Milan, and his sufferings half atone 

for 
Such weakness. 

Lor. We shall see. 

Bar, You, Loredano, 

Pursue hereditary hate too far. 
Lor. How far? 

Bar. To extermination. 

Lor. When they are 

Extinct, you may say this. — Let's in 

to council. 20 

Bar. Yet pause — the number of our 

colleagues is not 

Complete yet; two are wanting ere we 

can 
Proceed. 

Lor. And the chief judge, the Doge ? 
Bar. No — he, 

With more than Roman fortitude, is ever 
First at the board in this unhappy pro- 
cess 
Against his last and only son. 

Lor. True — true — 

His last. 

Bar. Will nothing move you? 

Lor. Feels he, think you? 

Bar. He shows it not. 
Lor. I have marked that — the 

wretch ! 
Bar. But yesterday, I hear, on his 
return 
To the ducal chambers, as he passed the 
threshold 30 

The old man fainted. 

Lor. It begins to work, then. 

Bar. The work is half your own. 
Lor. And should be all mine — 

My father and my uncle are no more. 
Bar. I have read their epitaph, which 
says they died 



Scene i.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



731 



By poison. 

Lor. When the Doge declared that he 
Should never deem himself a sovereign 

till 
The death of Peter Loredano, both 
The brothers sickened shortly : — he is 
Sovereign. 

Bar. A wretched one. 

Lor. What should they be who make 
Orphans ? 

Bar. But did the Doge make you so ? 

Lor. Yes. 40 

Bar. What solid proofs? 

Lor. When Princes set themselves 
To work in secret, proofs and process are 
Alike made difficult ; but I have such 
Of the first, as shall make the second 
needless. 

Bar. But you will move by law? 

Lor. By all the laws 

Which he would leave us. 

Bar. They are such in this 

Our state as render retribution easier 
Than 'mongst remoter nations. Is it 

true 
That you have written in your books of 

commerce, 
(The wealthy practice of our highest 
nobles) 50 

" Doge Foscari, my debtor for the deaths 
Of Marco and Pietro Loredano, 
My sire and uncle" ? ^ 

Lor. It is written thus. 

Bar. And will you leave it unerased ? 

Lor. Till balanced. 

Bar. And how? 
[Two Senators pass over the stage, as in 

their way to "the Hall of the Council 

of Ten." 

Lor. You see the number is complete. 
Follow me. [Exit Loredano. 

Bar. (solus). Follow thee! I have 
followed long 
Thy path of desolation, as the wave 
Sweeps after that before it, alike whelm- 
ing 
The wreck that creaks to the wild winds, 

and wretch 
Who shrieks within its riven ribs, as 
gush 60 

I [Daru gives Palazzi's Fasti Ducales and 
L'Hisloire Venitienne of Vianolo as his authori- 
ties for this story.] 



The waters through them; but this son 

and sire 
Might move the elements to pause, and 

yet 
Must I on hardily like them — Oh ! 

would 
I could as blindly and remorselessly ! — 
Lo, where he comes ! — Be still, my 

heart ! they are 
Thy foes, must be thy victims : wilt thou 

beat 
For those who almost broke thee? 

Enter Guards, with young Foscari 
as Prisoner, etc. 

Guard. Let him rest. 

Signor, take time. 

Jac. Fos. I thank thee, friend, I'm 
feeble ; 
But thou mayst stand reproved. 

Guard. I'll stand the hazard. 

Jac. Fos. That's kind : — I meet 
some pity, but no mercy; 70 

This is the first. 

Guard. And might be the last, did 
they 
Who rule behold us. 

Bar. (advancing to the Guard). 

There is one who does: 

Yet fear not; I will neither be thy judge 

Nor thy accuser; though the hour is past, 

Wait their last summons — I am of 

"the Ten," 
And waiting for that summons, sanction 

you 
Even by my presence: when the last 

call sounds. 
We'll in together. — Look well to the 
prisoner ! 
Jac. Fos. What voice is that ? — 'Tis 
Barbarigo's ! Ah ! 
Our House's foe, and one of my few 
judges. 80 

Bar. To balance such a foe, if such 
there be, 
Thy father sits amongst thy judges. 

Jac. Fos. True, 

He judges. 

Bar. Then deem not the laws too 
harsh 
Which yield so much indulgence to a 

sire, 
As to allow his voice in such high matter 



732 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act I. 



As the state's safety 

Jac. Fos. And his son's. I'm faint; 
Let me approach, I pray you, for a 

breath 
Of air, yon window which o'erlooks the 

waters. 

Enter an Officer, who whispers Bar- 

BARIGO. 

Bar. {to the Guard). Let him ap- 
proach. I must not speak with 
him 

Further than this: I have transgressed 
my duty 90 

In this brief parley, and must now re- 
deem it 

Within the Council Chamber. 

{Exit Barbarigo. 

{Guard conducting Jacopo Foscari to 
the window. 
Guard. There, sir, 'tis 

Open. — How feel you? 

Jac. Fos. Like a boy — Oh Venice ! 
Guard. And your limbs? 
Jac. Fos. Limbs ! how 

often have they borne me 

Bounding o'er yon blue tide, as I have 
skimmed 

The gondola along in childish race, 

And, masqued as a young gondolier, 
amidst 

My gay competitors, noble as I, 

Raced for our pleasure, in the pride of 
strength; 

While the fair populace of crowding 
beauties, 100 

Plebeian as patrician, cheered us on 

With dazzling smiles, and wishes audi- 
ble. 

And waving kerchiefs, and applauding 
hands. 

Even to the goal ! — How many a time 
have I 

Cloven with arm still lustier, breast more 
daring, 

The wave all roughened ; with a swim- 
mer's stroke 

Flinging the billows back from my 
drenched hair, 

And laughing from my lip the audacious 
brine, 

Which kissed it like a wine-cup, rising 
o'er 



The waves as they arose, and prouder 
still no 

The loftier they uplifted me; and oft. 

In wantonness of spirit, plunging down 

Into their green and glassy gulfs, and 
making 

My way to shells and sea-weed, all un- 
seen 

By those above, till they waxed fearful ; 
then 

Returning with my grasp full of such 
tokens 

As showed that I had searched the deep : 
exulting. 

With a far-dashing stroke, and, drawing 
deep 

The long-suspended breath, again I 
spurned 

The foam which broke around me, and 
pursued 120 

My track like a sea-bird. — I was a boy 
then. 
Guard. Be a man now : there never 
was more need 

Of manhood's strength. 

Jac. Fos. {looking from the lattice). 
My beautiful, my own, 

My only Venice — this is breath! Thy 
breeze, 

Thine Adrian sea-breeze, how it fans my 
face ! 

The very winds feel native to my veins, 

And cool them into calmness ! How un- 
like 

The hot gales of the horrid Cyclades, 

Which howled about my Candiote dun- 
geon,^ and 

Made my heart sick. 

Guard. I see the colour comes 130 

Back to your cheek: Heaven send you 
strength to bear 

What more may be imposed ! — I dread 
to think on't. 
Jac. Fos. They will not banish me 
again ? — No — no. 

Let them wring on ; I am strong yet. 
Guard. Confess, 

And the rack will be spared you. 

' [The climate of Crete is genial and healthy; 
but the towTi of Candia is exposed to winds from 
the north and north-west. Ulysses was driven 
into Crete, KpvjTTji-Se (Od. xix. 186), by a northern 
wind, and St. Paul (Acts, xxvii. 14) was driven by 
the same wind from the coast of Crete to Clauda.] 



Scene i.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



733 



Jac. Fos. I confessed 

Once — twice before : both times they 
exiled me. 
Guard. And the third time will slay 

you. 
Jac. Fos. Let them do so, 

So I be buried in my birth-place : better 
Be ashes here than aught that lives else- 
where. 
Guard. And can you so much love the 
soil which hates you? 140 

Jac. Fos. The soil ! — Oh no, it is 
the seed of the soil 
Which persecutes me: but my native 

earth 
Will take me as a mother to her arms. 
I ask no more than a Venetian grave, 
A dungeon, what they will, so it be here. 

Enter an Officer. 

Offi. Bring in the prisoner ! 
Guard. Signor, you hear the order. 
Jac. Fos. Aye, I am used to such a 
summons; 'tis 
The third time they have tortured me: 

— then lend me 
Thine arm. \To the Guard. 

Offi. Take mine, sir ; 'tis my duty to 
Be nearest to your person. 

Jac. Fos. You ! — you are he 150 
Who yesterday presided o'er my pangs — 
Away ! — I'll walk alone. 

Offi. As you please, Signor; 

The sentence was not of my signing, but 
I dared not disobey the Council when 

They 

Jac. Fos. Bade thee stretch me on 
their horrid engine. 
I pray thee touch me not — that is, just 

now; 
jThe time will come they will renew that 

order. 

Jut keep off from me till 'tis issued. As 
look upon my hands my curdling limbs 
Quiver with the anticipated wrenching, 
^nd the cold drops strain through my 
brow, as if— — - 161 

Jut onward — I have borne it — I can 

bear it. — 
low looks my father? 
Offfi. With his wonted aspect. 

Jac. Fos. So does the earth, and sky, 
the blue of Ocean, 



The brightness of our city, and her 

domes. 
The mirth of her Piazza — even now 
Its merry hum of nations pierces here. 
Even here, into these chambers of the 

unknown 
Who govern, and the unknown and 

the unnumbered 
Judged and destroyed in silence, — all' 

things wear 170 

The self-same aspect, to my very 

sire ! 
Nothing can sympathise with Foscari, 
Not even a Foscari, — Sir, I attend 

you. 
[Exeunt Jacopo Foscari, Officer, etc. 

Enter Memmo and another Senator. 

Mem. He's gone — we are too late : — 
think you "the Ten" 
Will sit for any length of time to-day? 
Sen. They say the prisoner is most 
obdurate. 
Persisting in his first avowal; but 
More I know not. 

Mem. And that is much ; the secrets 

Of yon terrific chamber are as hidden 

From us, the premier nobles of the 

state, 180 

As from the people. 

Sen. Save the wonted rumours, 

Which — like the tales of spectres, that 

are rife 
Near ruined buildings — never have 

been proved. 
Nor wholly disbelieved: men know as 

little. 
Of the state's real acts as of the grave's 
Unfathomed mysteries. 

Mem. But with length of time 

We gain a step in knowledge, and I look 
Forward to be one day of the decemvirs. 
Sen. Or Doge ? 

Mem. Why, no ; not if I can avoid it. 
Sen. 'Tis the first station of the 
state, and may 190 

Be lawfully desired, and lawfully 
Attained by noble aspirants. 

Mem. To such 

I leave it ; though born noble, my ambi- 
tion 
Is limited : I'd rather be an unit 
Of an united and Imperial "Ten," 



734 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act I. 



Than shine a lonely, though a gilded 

cipher. — 
Whom have we here? the wife of 

Foscari ? 

Enter Marina, with a female Attendant. 

Mar. What, no one ? — I am wrong, 
there still are two : 
But they are senators. 

Mem. Most noble lady, 199 

Command us. 

Mar. I command ! — Alas ! my life 
Has been one long entreaty, and a vain 
one. 
Mem. I understand thee, but I must 

not answer. 
Mar. (fiercely). True — none dare 
answer here save on the rack, 

Or question save those 

Mem. (interrupting her). High-born 
dame ! bethink thee 
Where thou now art. 

Mar. Where I now am ! — It was 

My husband's father's palace. 

Mem. The Duke's palace. 

Mar. And his son's prison ! — True, 
I have not forgot it ; 
And, if there were no other nearer, 

bitterer 
Remembrances, would thank the illus- 
trious Memmo 
For pointing out the pleasures of the 
place. 210 

Mem. Be calm ! 

Mar. (looking up towards heaven). 
I am; but oh, thou eternal God ! 
Canst thou continue so, with such a 
world ? 
Mem. Thy husband yet may be 

absolved. 
Mar. He is. 

In Heaven. I pray you, Signor Senator, 
Speak not of that; you are a man of 

office, 
So is the Doge; he has a son at stake 
Now, at this moment, and I have a 

husband. 
Or had ; they are there within, or were 

at least 
An hour since, face to face, as judge 

and culprit: 
Will he condemn him ? 

Mem. I trust not. 



Mar. But if 220 

He does not, there are those will sen- 
tence both. 
Mem. They can. 

Mar. And with them power and will 
are one 
In wickedness; — my husband's lost ! 

Mem. Not so; 

Justice is judge in Venice. 

Mar. If it were so, 

There now would be no Venice. But 

let it 
Live on, so the good die not, till the hour 
Of Nature's summons; but "the Ten's" 

is quicker, 
And we must wait on't. Ah ! a voice 
of wail ! 

\A faint cry within. 
Sen. Hark ! 

Mem. 'Twas a cry of — 

Mar. No, no; not my husband's — j 
Not Foscari's. j 

Mem. The voice was — 

Mar. Not his : no. 230 

He shriek! No; that should be his 

father's part, 
Not his — not his — he'll die in silence. 
[A faint groan again within. 
Mem. What ! 

Again ? 

Mar. His voice! it seemed so: 

I will not 

Believe it. Should he shrink, I cannot 

cease ! 

To love; but — no — no — no — it 

must have been 
A fearful pang, which wrung a groan 
from him. 
Sen. And, feeling for thy husband's 
wrongs, wouldst thou 
Have him bear more than mortal pain 
in silence ? 
Mar. We all must bear our tortures^ 
I have not 
Left barren the great house of Foscari;. 
Though they sweep both the Doge anc^i 
son from life; 241 

I have endured as much in giving 

life 
To those who will succeed them, as 

they can 
In leaving it : but mine were joyful 
pangs : 



Scene i.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



735 



And yet they wrung me till I could have 

shrieked, 
But did not; for my hope was to bring 

forth 
Heroes, and would not welcome them 

with tears. 
Mem. All's silent now. 
Mar. Perhaps all's over; but 

I will not deem it: he hath nerved 

himself. 
And now defies them. 

Enter an Officer hastily. 

Mem. How now, friend, what seek 
you? 250 

Offi. A leech. The prisoner has 
fainted. 

[Exit Officer. 
Mem. Lady, 

'Twere better to retire. 

Sen. {offering to assist her). I pray 

thee do so. 
Mar. Off ! I will tend him. 
Mem. You ! Remember, lady ! 

Ingress is given to none within those 

chambers 

Except "the Ten," and their familiars. 

Mar. Well, 

I know that none who enter there return 

As they have entered — many never; 

but 
They shall not balk my entrance. 

Mem. Alas ! this 

Ebut to expose yourself to harsh repulse, 
id worse suspense. 
Mar. Who shall oppose me ? 

Mem. They 260 

hose duty 'tis to do so. 
Mar. 'Tis their duty 

^o trample on all human feelings, all 
Ties which bind man to man, to emulate 
The fiends who will one day requite 

them in 
Variety of torturing ! Yet I'll pass. 
Mem. It is impossible. 
Mar. That shall be tried. 

Despair defies even despotism : there is 
That in my heart would make its way 

through hosts 
With levelled spears; and think you a 

few jailors 
Shall put me from my path? Give me, 
then, way; 270 



This is the Doge's palace; I am wife 
Of the Duke's son, the innocent Duke's 

son. 
And they shall hear this ! 

Mem. It will only serve 

More to exasperate his judges. 

Mar. What 

Are judges who give way to anger ? they 

Who do so are assassins. Give me way 

[Exit Marina 

Sen. Poor lady ! 

Mem. 'Tis mere desperation : she 

Will not be admitted o'er the threshold. 
Sen. And 

Even if she be so, cannot save her hus- 
band. 
But, see, the officer returns. 
[The Officer passes over the stage with 
another person. 
Mem. I hardly 280 

Thought that "the Ten "had even this 

touch of pity, 
Or would permit assistance to this 
sufferer. 
Se7t. Pity ! Is't pity to recall to feel- 
ing 
The wretch too happy to escape to 

Death 
By the compassionate trance, poor 

Nature's last 
Resource against the tyranny of pain? 
Mem. I marvel they condemn him 

not at once. 
Seit. That's not their policy: they'd 
have him live, 
Because he fears not death ; and banish 

him, 
Because all earth, except his native 
land, 290 

To him is one wide prison, and each 

breath 
Of foreign air he draws seems a slow 

poison. 
Consuming but not killing. 

Mem. Circumstance 

Confirms his crimes, but he avows them 

not. 

Sen. None, save the Letter, which, 

he says, was written 

Addressed to Milan's duke, in the full 

knowledge 
That it would fall into the Senate's 
hands, 



736 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act r. 



And thus he should be re-conveyed to 

Venice. 

Mem. But as a culprit. 

Sen. Yes, but to his country; 

And that was all he sought, — so he 

avouches. 3°° 

Mem. The accusation of the bribes 

was proved. 
Sen. Not clearly, and the charge of 
homicide 
Has been annulled by the death-bed 

confession 
Of Nicolas Erizzo, who slev/ the late 
Chief of "the Ten." 

Mem. Then why not clear him ? 
Sen. That 

They ought to answer; for it is well 

known 
That Almoro Donato, as I said, 
Was slain by Erizzo for private ven- 
geance. 
Mem. There must be more in this 
strange process than 
The apparent crimes of the accused 
disclose — 310 

But here come two of "the Ten"; 
let us retire. 

{Exeunt Memmo and Senator. 

Enter Loredano and Barbarigo. 

Bar. {addressing Lor.). That were 
too much: believe me, 'twas not 
meet 
The trial should go further at this mo- 
ment. 
Lor. And so the Council must break 
up, and Justice 
Pause in her full career, because a 

woman 
Breaks in on our deliberations? 

Bar. No, 

That's not the cause; you saw the 
prisoner's state. 
Lor. And had he not recovered? 
Bar. To relapse 

Upon the least renewal. 

Lor. 'Twas not tried. 

Bar. 'Tis vain to murmur; the 
majority 320 

In council were against you. 

Lor. Thanks to you, sir, 

And the old ducal dotard, who com- 
bined 



The worthy voices which o'er-ruled my 
own. 
Bar. I am a judge; but must con- 
fess that part 
Of our stern duty, which prescribes 

the Question, 
And bids us sit and see its sharp inflic- 
tion, 

Makes me wish 

Lor. What ? 

Bar. That you w^ould sometimes 

feel, 
As I do always. 

Lor. Go to, you're a child, 

Infirm of feeling as of purpose, blown 
About by every breath, shook by a sigh, 
And melted by a tear — a precious 
judge 331 

For Venice ! and a worthy statesman to 
Be partner in my policy. 

Bar. He shed 

No tears. 

Lor. He cried out twice. 
Bar. A Saint had done so, 

Even with the crown of Glory in his 

eye, 
At such inhuman artifice of pain 
As was forced on him; but he did not 

cry 
For pity ; not a word nor groan escaped 

him, 
And those two shrieks were not in sup- 
plication, 
But wrung from pangs, and followed by 
no prayers. 340 

Lor. He muttered many times be- 
tween his teeth, 
But inarticulately. 

Bar. That I heard not : 

You stood more near him. 
Lor. I did so. 

Bar. Methought, 

To my surprise too, you were touched 

with mercy, 
And were the first to call out for assist- 
ance 
When he was failing. 

Lor. I believed that swoon 

His last. 

Bar. And have I not oft heard thee 
name 
His and his father's death your nearest 
wish? 



Scene i.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



737 



Lor. If he dies innocent, that is to 

say, 

With his guilt unavowed, he'll be 

lamented. 3-0 

Bar. What, wouldst thou slay his 

memory ? 
Lor. Wouldst thou have 

His state descend to his children, as it 

must, 
If he die unattainted ? 

Bar. War with them too? 

Lor. With all their house, till theirs 

or mine are nothing. 
Bar. And the deep agony of his pale 
wife. 
And the repressed convulsion of the high 
And princely brow of his old father, 

which 
Broke forth in a slight shuddering, 

though rarely, 
Or in some clammy drops, soon wiped 
away _ 359 

In stern serenity; these moved you not ? 

[Exit LOREDANO. 

He's silent in his hate, as Foscari 

Was in his suffering; and the poor 
wretch moved me 

More by his silence than a thousand 
outcries 

Could have effected. 'Twas a dreadful 
sight 

When his distracted wife broke through 
into 

The hall of our tribunal, and beheld 

What we could scarcely look upon, 
long used 

To such sights. I must think no more 
of this, 

Lest I forget in this compassion for 

Our foes, their former injuries, and 
lose 370 

The hold of vengeance Loredano plans 

For him and me; but mine would be 
content 

With lesser retribution than he thirsts 
for. 

And I would mitigate his deeper 
hatred 

To milder thoughts; but, for the pres- 
ent, Foscari 

Has a short hourly respite, granted at 

The instance of the elders of the Coun- 
cil, 

3B 



Moved doubtless by his wife's appear- 
ance in 

The hall, and his own sufferings. — 
Lo ! they come : 

How feeble and forlorn ! I cannot bear 

To look on them again in this extrem- 
ity: 381 

I'll hence, and try to soften Loredano. 
[Exit Barbarigo. 

ACT II. 

Scene I. — A hall in the Doge's Palace. 

The Doge and a Senator. 

Sen. Is it your pleasure to sign the 

report 
Now, or postpone it till to-morrow? 

Doge. Now; 

I overlooked it yesterday: it wants 
Merely the signature. Give me the 

pen — 
[The Doge sits down and signs the 

paper. 
There, Signor. 

Sen. {looking at the paper). You 

have forgot; it is not signed. 
Doge. Not signed? Ah, I perceive 
my eyes begin 
To wax more weak with age. I did 

not see 
That I had dipped the pen without effect. 
Sen. {dipping the pen into the ink, 
and placing the paper hejore 
the Doge). 
Your hand, too, shakes, my Lord; 
allow mc, thus — 
Doge. 'Tis done, I thank you. 
Sen. Thus the act confirmed 

By you and by " the Ten " gives peace to 
Venice. 1 1 

Doge. 'Tis long since she enjoyed it : 
may it be 
As long ere she resume her arms! 

Sen. 'Tis almost 

Thirty-four years of nearly ceaseless 

warfare 
With the Turk, or the powers of Italy; 
The state had need of some repose. 

Doge. No doubt: 

I found her Queen of Ocean, and I 

leave her 
Lady of Lombardy; it is a comfort 



738 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act II. 



That I have added to her diadem 
The gems of Brescia and Ravenna; 
Crema 20 

And Bergamo no less are hers; her 

realm 
By land has grown by thus much in 

my reign, 
While her sea-sway has not shrunk. 

Sen. 'Tis most true, 

And merits all our country's grati- 
tude. 
Doge. Perhaps so. 
Sen. Which should be made manifest. 
Doge. I have not complained, sir. 
Sen. My good Lord, forgive me. 

Doge. For what? 

Sen. My heart bleeds for you. 

Doge. For me, Signor? 

Sen. And for your 

Doge. Stop ! 

Sen. It must have way, my Lord: 
I have too many duties towards you 
And all your house, for past and present 
kindness, 30 

Not to feel deeply for your son. 

Doge. Was this 

In your commission? 

Sen. What, my Lord? 

Doge. This prattle 

Of things you know not : but the treaty's 

signed ; 
Return with it to them who sent you. 

Sen. I 

Obey. I had in charge, too, from the 

Council, 
That you would fix an hour for their 
reunion. 
Doge. Say, when they will — now, 
even at this moment, 
If it so please them: I am the State's 
servant. 
Sen. They would accord some time 

for your repose. 
Doge. I have no repose, that is, 
none which shall cause 40 

The loss of an hour's time unto the 

State. 
Let them meet when they will, I shall 

be found 
Where I should be, and what I have 

been ever. 
[Exit Senator. The Doge remains 
in silence. 



Enter an Attendant. 

Att. Prince! 

Doge. Say on. 

Att. The illustrious lady Foscari 

Requests an audience. 

Doge. Bid her enter. Poor 

Marina ! 

[Exit Attendant. The Doge remaifts 
in silence as before. 

Enter Marina. 
Mar. I have ventured, father, on 
Your privacy. 

Doge. I have none from you, my 
child. 
Command my time, when not com- 
manded by 
The State. 

Mar. I wished to speak to you of him. 
Doge. Your husband? 
Mar. And your son. 

Doge. Proceed, my daughter! 

Mar. I had obtained permission 
from "the Ten" 51 

To attend my husband for a limited 

number 
Of hours. 

Doge. You had so. 
Mar. 'Tis revoked. 

Doge. By whom ? 

Mar. "The Ten."— When we had 
reached "the Bridge of Sighs," ^ 
Which I prepared to pass with Foscari, 
The gloomy guardian of that passage 

first 
Demurred: a messenger was sent back 

to 
"The Ten;" — but as the Court no 

longer sate. 
And no permission had been given in 

writing, 
I was thrust back, with the assurance 
that 60 

Until that high tribunal reassembled 
The dungeon walls must still divide us. 
Doge. True, 

The form had been omitted in the haste 
With which the court adjourned; and 

till it meets, 
'Tis dubious. 

' [The Bridge of Sighs was not built till the 
end of the sixteenth century.] 



Scene i.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



739 



Mar. Till it meets ! and when 

it meets, 
They'll torture him again ; and he and I 
Must purchase by renewal of the rack 
The interview of husband and of wife, 
The holiest tie beneath the Heavens ! — ■ 

Oh God ! 
Dost thou see this? 

Doge. Child — child 

Mar. {abruptly). Call me not "child !" 
You soon will have no children — you 

deserve none — 71 

You, who can talk thus calmly of a son 
In circumstances which would call forth 

tears 
Of blood from Spartans ! Though 

these did not weep 
Their boys who died in battle, is it 

written 
That they beheld them perish piecemeal, 

nor 
Stretched forth a hand to save them ? 

Doge. You behold me: 

I cannot weep — I would I could ; 

but if 
Each white hair on this head were a 

young life, 
This ducal cap the Diadem of earth, 80 
This ducal ring with which I wed the 

waves 
A talisman to still them — I'd give all 
For him. 

Mar. With less he surely might 

be saved. 
Doge. That answer only shows you 

know not Venice. 
Alas ! how should you ? she knows not 

herself. 
In all her mystery. Hear me — they 

who aim 
At Foscari, aim no less at his father; 
The sire's destruction would not s?.ve the 

son; 
They work by different means to the 

same end, 
And that is — but they have not con- 
quered yet. 90 
Mar. But they have crushed. 
Doge. Nor crushed as yet — I live. 
Mar. And your son, — how long 

will he live? 
Doge. I trust. 

For all that yet is past, as many years 



And happier than his father. The 

rash boy, 
With womanish impatience to return, 
Hath ruined all by that detected letter : 
A high crime, which I neither can deny 
Nor palliate, as parent or as Duke: 
Had he but borne a little, little longer 
His Candiote exile, I had hopes 

he has quenched them — 100 

He must return. 

Mar. To exile ? 

Doge. I have said it. 

Mar. And can I not go with him ? 
Doge. You well know 

This prayer of yours was twice denied 

before 
By the assembled "Ten," and hardly 

now 
Will be accorded to a third request, 
Since aggravated errors on the part 
Of your Lord renders them still more 

austere. 
Mar. Austere? Atrocious! The old 

human fiends, 
With one foot in the grave, with dim 

eyes, strange 
To tears save drops of dotage, with 

long white no 

And scanty hairs, and shaking hands, 

and heads 
As palsied as their hearts are hard, they 

counsel, 
Cabal, and put men's lives out, as if Life 
Were no more than the feelings long 

extinguished 
In their accursed bosoms. 

Doge. You know not 

Mar. I do — I do — and so should 

you, methinks — 
That these are demons : could it be else 

that 
Men, who have been of women born and 

suckled — 
Who have loved, or talked at least of 

Love — have given 
Their hands in sacred vows — have 

danced their babes 120 

Upon their knees, perhaps have 

mourned above them — 
In pain, in peril, or in death — who 

are. 
Or were, at least in seeming, human, 

could 



740 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act II. 



Do as they have done by yours, and you 

yourself — 
You, who abet them? 

Doge. I forgive this, for 

You know not what you say. 

Mar. You know it well, 

And feel it nothing. 

Doge. I have borne so much. 

That words have ceased to shake me. 

Mar. Oh, no doubt ! 

You have seen your son's blood flow, 

and your flesh shook not; 
And after that, what are a woman's 
words? 130 

No more than woman's tears, that they 
should shake you. 
Doge. Woman, this clamorous grief 
of thine, I tell thee. 
Is no more in the balance weighed with 
that 

Which but I pity thee, my poor 

Marina ! 
Mar. Pity my husband, or I cast it 
from me; 
Pity thy son ! Thou pity ! — 'tis a word 
Strange to thy heart — how came it on 
thy lips? 
Doge. I must bear these reproaches, 
though they wrong me. 

Couldst thou but read 

Mar. 'Tis not upon thy brow, 

Nor in thine eyes, nor in thine acts, — 

where then 140 

Should I behold this sympathy? or 

shall? 

Doge, {pointing downwards). There 

Mar. In the earth? 

Doge. To which I am tending : when 

It lies upon this heart, far lightlier, 

though 
Loaded with marble, than the thoughts 

which press it 
Now, you will know me better. 

Mar. Are you, then, 

Indeed, thus to be pitied? 

Doge. Pitied ! None 

Shall ever use that base word, with 

which men 
Cloak their soul's hoarded triumph, as a 

fit one 
To mingle with my name; that name 

shall be. 
As far as / have borne it, what it was 150 



When I received it. 

Mar. But for the poor children 

Of him thou canst not, or thou wilt not 
save, 

You were the last to bear it. 

Doge. Would it were so ! 

Better for him he never had been born ; 

Better for me. — I have seen our house 
dishonoured. 
Mar. That's false ! A truer, nobler, 
trustier heart. 

More loving, or more loyal, never beat 

Within a human breast. I would not 
change 

My exiled, persecuted, mangled hus- 
band. 

Oppressed but not disgraced, crushed, 
overwhelmed, 160 

Alive, or dead, for Prince or Paladin 

In story or in fable, with a world 

To back his suit. Dishonoured ! — he 
dishonoured ! 

I tell thee. Doge, 'tis Venice is dis- 
honoured ; 

His name shall be her foulest, worst 
reproach. 

For what he suffers, not for what he did. 

'Tis ye who are all traitors, Tyrant ! — 



ye 



Did you but love your Country like this 

victim 
Who totters back in chains to tortures, 

and 

Submits to all things rather than to exile, 
You'd fling yourselves before him, and 
implore 171 

His grace for your enormous guilt. . 

Doge. He was 

Indeed all you have said. I better bore 
The deaths of the two sons Heaven took] 

from me, 
Than Jacopo's disgrace. 

Mar. That word again? 

Doge. Has he not been condemned? 
Mar. Is none but guilt so? 

Doge. Time may restore his memory 
— I would hope so. 
He was my pride, my — but 'tis useless 

now — 
I am not given to tears, but wept for 

joy 

When he was born: those drops were 
ominous. 180 



Scene i.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



741 



Mar. I say he's innocent ! And 

were he not so, 
Is our own blood and kin to shrink from 

us 
In fatal moments? 

Doge. I shrank not from him: 

But I have other duties than a 

father's; 
The state would not dispense me from 

those duties; 
Twice I demanded it, but was refused: 
They must then be fulfilled. 

Enter an Attendant. 

Att. A message from 

"The Ten." 

Doge. Who bears it? 

Att. Noble Loredano. 

Doge. He ! — but admit him. 

[Exit Attendant. 

Mar. Must I then retire? 

Doge. Perhaps it is not requisite, if 

this 190 

Concerns your husband, and if not 

Well, Signor, 

{To Loredano entering. 
Your pleasure? 

Lor. I bear that of "the Ten." 
Doge. They 

Have chosen well their envoy. 

Lor. 'Tis their choice 

Which leads me here. 

Doge. It does their wisdom honour, 
And no less to their courtesy. — Proceed. 
Lor. We have decided. 
Doge. We ? 

Lor. "The Ten" in council. 

Doge. What ! have they met again, 
and met without 
Apprising me? 

Lor. They wished to spare your feel- 
ings, 
No less than age. 

Doge. That's new — when spared 
they either? 
I thank them, notwithstanding. 

Lor. You know well 200 

That they have power to act at their 

discretion, 
With or without the presence of the 
Doge. 
Doge. 'Tis some years since I learned 
this, long before 



I became Doge, or dreamed of such 

advancement, 
You need not school me, Signor; I sate 

in 
That Council when you were a young 
patrician. 
Lor. True, in my father's time; I 
have heard him and 
The Admiral, his brother, say as much. 
Your Highness may remember them; 
they both 209 

Died suddenly. 

Doge. And if they did so, better 

So die than live on lingeringly in pain. 

Lor. No doubt : yet most men like to 

live their days out. 
Doge. And did not they? 
Lor. The Grave knows best : 

they died. 
As I said, suddenly. 

Doge. Is that so strange, 

That you repeat the word emphatically ? 
Lor. So far from strange, that never 
was there death 
In my mind half so natural as theirs. 
Think you not so? 

Doge. What should I think 

of mortals ? 

Lor. That they have mortal foes. 

Doge. I understand you; 

Your sires were mine, and you are heir 

in all things. 220 

Lor. You best know if I should be so. 

Doge. I do. 

Your fathers were my foes, and I have 

heard 
Foul rumours were abroad ; I have also 

read 
Their epitaph, attributing their deaths 
To poison. 'Tis perhaps as true as most 
Inscriptions upon tombs, and yet no less 
A fable. 

Lor. Who dares say so? 

Doge. I ! 'Tis true 

Your fathers were mine enemies, as bitter 
As their son e'er can be, and I no less 
Was theirs ; but I was openly their foe : 
I never worked by plot in Council, nor 
Cabal in commonwealth, nor secret 
means 232 

Of practice against life by steel or drug. 
The proof is — your existence. 

Lor. I fear not 



742 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act II. 



Doge. You have no cause, being what 

I am; but were I 
That you would have me thought, you 

long ere now 
Were past the sense of fear. Hate on; 

I care not. 
Lor. I never yet knew that a noble's 

life 
In Venice had to dread a Doge's frown. 
That is, by open means. 

Doge. But I, good Signor, 240 

Am, or at least was, more than a mere 

duke, 
In blood, in mind, in means; and that 

they know 
Who dreaded to elect me, and have since 
Striven all they dare to weigh me down : 

be sure, 
Before or since that period, had I held 

you 
At so much price as to require your 

absence, 
A word of mine had set such spirits to 

work 
As would have made you nothing. But 

in all things 
I have observed the strictest reverence; 
Not for the laws alone, for those you 

have strained 250 

(I do not speak of you but as a single 
Voice of the many) somewhat beyond 

what 
I could enforce for my authority, 
Were I disposed to brawl ; but, as I said, 
I have observed with veneration, like 
A priest's for the High Altar, even unto 
The sacrifice of my own blood and quiet. 
Safety, and all save honour, the decrees. 
The health, the pride, and welfare of the 

State. 
And now, sir, to your business. 

Lor. 'Tis decreed, 260 

That, without further repetition of 
The Question, or continuance of the trial, 
Which only tends to show how stubborn 

guilt is, 
("The Ten," dispensing with the stricter 

law 
Which still prescribes the Question till a 

full 
Confession, and the prisoner partly 

having 
Avowed his crime in not denying that 



The letter to the Duke of Milan 's his), 
James Foscari return to banishment. 
And sail in the same galley which con- 
veyed him. 270 
Mar. Thank God! At least they 
will not drag him more 
Before that horrible tribunal. Would he 
But think so, to my mind the happiest 

doom. 
Not he alone, but all who dwell here, 

could 
Desire, were to escape from such a land. 
Doge. That is not a Venetian 

thought, my daughter. 
Mar. No, 'twas too human. May I 

share his exile? 
Lor. Of this "the Ten" said nothing. 
Mar. So I thought ! 

That were too human, also. But it was 

not 279 

Inhibited ? 

Lor. It was not named. 

Mar. {to the Doge). Then, father. 
Surely you can obtain or grant me thus 
much: [To Loredano. 

And you, sir, not oppose my prayer to be 
Permitted to accompany my husband. 
Doge. I will endeavour. 
Mar. And you, Signor? 

Lor. Lady ! 

'Tis not for me to anticipate the pleasure 
Of the tribunal. 

Mar. Pleasure ! what a word 

To use for the decrees of 

Doge. Daughter, know you 

In what a presence you pronounce these 
things ? 
Mar. A Prince's and his subject's. 
Lor. Subject ! 

Mar. _ Oh ! 

It galls you : — well, you are his equal, 
as 290 

You think; but that you are not, nor 

would be. 
Were he a peasant : — well, then, you're 

a Prince, 

A princely noble ; and what then am I ? 

Lor. The offspring of a noble house. 

Mar. And wedded 

To one as noble. What, or whose, 

then, is 
The presence that should silence my 
free thoughts? 



Scene i.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



743 



Lor. The presence of your husband's 

Judges. 
Doge. And 

The deference due even to the lightest 

word 
That falls from those who rule in Venice. 
Mar. Keep 

Those maxims for your mass of scared 

mechanics, 300 

Your merchants, your Dalmatian and 

Greek slaves, 
Your tributaries, your dumb citizens, 
And masked noljility, your sbirri, and 
Your spies, your galley and your other 

slaves, 
To whom your midnight carryings off 

and drownings. 
Your dungeons next the palace roofs, or 

under 
The water's level; your mysterious 

meetings, 
And unknown dooms, and sudden exe- 
cutions, 
Your "Bridge of Sighs," your stran- 
gling chamber, and 
Your torturing instruments, have made 

ye 5eem 310 

The beings of another and worse world ! 
Keep such for them: I fear ye not. I 

know ye ; 
Have known and proved your worst, in 

the infernal 
Process of my poor husband ! Treat 

me as 
Ye treated him : — you did so, in so 

dealing 
With him. Then what have I to fear 

jrom you, 
Even if I were of fearful nature, which 
I trust I am not? 

Doge. You hear, she speaks wildly. 
Mar. Not wisely, yet not wildly. 
Lor. Lady ! words 

Uttered within these walls I bear no 

further 320 

Than to the threshold, saving such as 

pass 
Between the Duke and me on the State's 

service. 
Doge ! have you aught in answer ? 

Doge. Something from 

The Doge ; it may be also from a 

parent. 



Lor. My mission here is to the Doge. 

Doge. Then say 

The Doge will choose his own ambassa- 
dor. 
Or state in person what is meet ; and for 
The father 

Lor. I remember mine. — Farewell ! 
I kiss the hands of the illustrious Lady, 
And bow me to the Duke. 

[Exit LOREDANO. 

Mar. Are you content ? 330 

Doge. I am what you behold. 
Mar. And that's a mystery. 

Doge. All things are so to mortals; 

who can read them 
Save he who made ? or, if they can, the 

few 
And gifted spirits, who have studied 

long, 
That loathsome volume — man, and 

pored upon 
Those black and bloody leaves, his 

heart and brain, 
But learn a magic which recoils upon 
The adept who pursues it: all the 

sins 
We find in others, Nature made our 

own ; 
All our advantages are those of Fortune ; 
Birth, wealth, health, beauty, are her 

accidents, 341 

And when we cry out against Fate, 

'twere well v 

We should remember Fortune can take 

nought 
Save what she gave — the rest was 

nakedness. 
And lusts, and appetites, and vanities, 
The universal heritage, to battle 
With as we may, and least in humblest 

stations, 
Where Hunger swallows all in one low 

- want. 
And the original ordinance, that man 
Must sweat for his poor pittance, keeps 

all passions 350 

Aloof, save fear of famine ! All is low, 
And false, and hollow — clay from first 

to last, 
The Prince's urn no less than potter's 

vessel. 
Our Fame is in men's breath, our lives 

upon 



744 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act II. 



Less than their breath; our durance 

upon days, 
Our days on seasons; our whole being 

on 
Something which is not us! — So, we 

are slaves. 
The greatest as the meanest — nothing 

rests 
Upon our will ; the will itself no less 
Depends upon a straw than on a storm ; 
And when we think we lead, we are 

most led, 361 

And still towards Death, a thing which 

comes as much 
Without our act or choice as birth, so 

that 
Methinks we must have sinned in some 

old world, 
And this is Hell : the best is, that it is 

not 
Eternal. 

Mar. These are things we cannot 

judge 
On earth. 

Doge. And how then shall we judge 

each other. 
Who are all earth, and I, who am 

called upon 
To judge my son ? I have administered 
My country faithfully — victoriously — 
I dare them to the proof, the chart of 

what 371 

She was and is: my reign has doubled 

realms ; 
And, in reward, the gratitude of Venice 
Has left, or is about to leave, me single. 
Mar. And Foscari? I do not think 

of such things. 
So I be left with him. 

Doge. You shall be so; 

Thus much they cannot well deny. 

Mar. And if 

They should, I will fly with him. 

Doge. That can ne'er be. 

And whither would you fly? 

Mar. I know not, reck not — 

To Syria, Egypt, to the Ottoman — 380 
Anywhere, where we might respire un- 
fettered, 
And live nor girt by spies, nor liable 
To edicts of inquisitors of state. 

Doge. What, wouldst thou have a 

renegade for husband, 



And turn him into traitor? 

Mar. He is none ! 

The Country is the traitress, which 
thrust forth 

Her best and bravest from her. Tyr- 
anny 

Is far the worst of treasons. Dost thou 
deem 

None rebels except subjects? The 
Prince who 

Neglects or violates his trust is more 390 

A brigand than the robber-chief. 

Doge. I cannot 

Charge me with such a breach of faith. 
Mar. No; thou 

Observ'st, obey'st such laws as make 
old Draco's 

A code of mercy by comparison. 

Doge. I found the law; I did not 
make it. Were I 

A subject, still I might find parts and 
portions 

Fit for amendment; but as Prince I 
never 

Would change, for the sake of my house, 
the charter 

Left by our fathers. 

Mar. Did they make it for 

The ruin of their children ? 

Doge. Under such laws, Venice 

Has risen to what she is — a state to 
rival 401 

In deeds and days, and sway, and let 
me add. 

In glory (for we have had Roman spirits 

Amongst us), all that history has be- 
queathed 

Of Rome and Carthage in their best 
times, when 

The people swayed by Senates. 

Mar. Rather say, 

Groaned under the stern Oligarchs. 
Doge. Perhaps so; 

But yet subdued the World : in such a 
state 

An individual, be he richest of 

Such rank as is permitted, or the mean- 
est, 410 

Without a name, is alike nothing, 
when 

The policy, irrevocably tending 

To one great end, must be maintained 
in vigour. 



bCENE I.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



745 



Mar. This means that you are more 

a Doge than father. 
Doge. It means, I am more citizen 
than either. 
If we had not for many centuries 
Had thousands of such citizens, and shall 
I trust, have still such, Venice were no 
city. 
Mar. Accursed be the city where the 
laws 
Would stifle Nature's ! 

Doge. Had I as many sons 

As I have years, I would have given 
them all, 421 

Not without feeling, but I would have 

given them 
To the State's service, to fulfil her wishes, 
On the flood, in the field, or, if it must be, 
As it, alas ! has been, to ostracism. 
Exile, or chains, or whatsoever worse, 
She might decree. 

Mar. And this is Patriotism ? 

To me it seems the worst barbarity. 
Let me seek out my husband : the sage 

"Ten," 
With all its jealousy, will hardly war 430 
So far v/ith a weak woman as deny me 
A moment's access to his dungeon. 

Doge. I'll 

So far take on myself, as order that 
You may be admitted. 

Mar. And what shall I say 

To Foscari from his father? 

Doge. That he obey 

The laws. 
Mar. And nothing more? Will 

you not see him 
Eire he depart? It may be the last 
time. 
Doge. The last ! — my boy ! — the 
last time I shall see 
l^jly last of children ! Tell him I will 
come. [Exeunt. 

ACT HI. 

Scene I. — The prison of Jacopo 
Foscari. 

Jac. Fos. (solus). No light, save yon 
faint gleam which shows me walls 
Which never echoed but to Sorrow's 
sounds. 



The sigh of long imprisonment, the step 
Of feet on which the iron clanked the 

groan 
Of Death, the imprecation of Despair ! 
And yet for this I have returned to 

Venice, 
With some faint hope, 'tis true, that 

Time, which wears 
The marble down, had worn away the 

hate 
Of men's hearts ; but I knew them not, 

and here 
Must I consume my own, which never 

beat 10 

For Venice but with such a yearning as 
The dove has for her distant nest, when 

wheeling 
High in the air on her return to greet 
Her callow brood. What letters are 

these which 

[Approaching the wall. 
Are scrawled along the inexorable 

wall ? 
Will the gleam let me trace them ? Ah ! 

the names 
Of my sad predecessors in this place. 
The dates of their despair, the brief 

words of 
A grief too great for many. This stone 

page 
Holds like an epitaph their history; 20 
And the poor captive's tale is graven on 
His dungeon barrier, like the lover's 

record 
Upon the bark of some tall tree, which 

bears 
His own and his beloved's name. Alas ! 
I recognise some names familiar to me, 
And blighted like to mine, which I will 

add. 
Fittest for such a chronicle as this, 
Which only can be read, as writ, by 

wretches. [He engraves his name. 

Enter a Familiar of "the Ten." 

Fam. I bring you food. 
Jac. Fos. I pray you set it down; 
I am past hunger: but my lips are 
parched — 30 

The water ! 

Fam. There. 

Jac. Fos. (after drinking). I thank 
you: I am better. 



746 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act III. 



Fam. I am commanded to inform 
you that 
Your further trial is postponed. 

Jac. Fos. Till when? 

Fam. I know not. — It is also in my 
orders 
That your illustrious lady be admitted. 
Jac. Fos. Ah ! they relent, then — I 
had ceased to hope it: 
'Twas time. 

Enter Marina. 

Mar. My best beloved ! 

Jac. Fos. {embracing her). My true 

wife, 
And only friend i What happiness ! 

Mar. We'll part 

No more. 

Jac. Fos. How ! would' st thou share 

a dungeon? 
Mar. Aye, 

The rack, the grave, all — anything 

with thee, 40 

But the tomb last of all, for there we 

shall 
Be ignorant of each other, yet I will 
Share that — all things except new 

separation ; 
It is too much to have survived the first. 
How dost thou? How are those worn 

limbs ? Alas ! 

Why do I ask ? Thy paleness 

Jac. Fos. 'Tis the joy 

Of seeing thee again so soon, and so 
Without expectancy, has sent the blood 
Back to my heart, and left my cheeks 

like thine. 
For thou art pale too, my Marina ! 

Mar. 'Tis 50 

The gloom of this eternal cell, which 

never 
Knew sunbeam, and the sallow sullen 

glare 
Of the familiar's torch, which seems 

akin 
To darkness more than light, by lending 

to 
The dungeon vapours its bituminous 

smoke, 
Which cloud whate'er we gaze on, even 

thine eyes — 
No, not thine eyes — they sparkle — 

how they sparkle ! 



Jac. Fos. And thine ! — but I am 

blinded by the torch. 
Mar. As I had been without it. 

Couldst thou see here? 
Jac. Fos. Nothing at first; but use 
and time had taught me 6ot 

Familiarity with what was darkness; 1 
And the grey twilight of such glimmer- 
ings as 
Glide through the crevices made by the 

winds 
Was kinder to mine eyes than the full 

Sun, 
When gorgeously o'ergilding any towers 
Save those of Venice ; but a moment ere 
Thou camest hither I was busy writing. 
Mar. What? 

Jac. Fos. My name : look, 'tis 

there recorded next 
The name of him who here preceded J 

me, — 
If dungeon dates say true. 

Mar. And what of him ? 70 

Jac. Fos. These walls are silent of 
men's ends ; they only 
Seem to hint shrewdly of them. Such 

stern walls 
Were never piled on high save o'er the 

dead, 
Or those who soon must be so. — Whai , 

of him ? j 

Thou askest. — What of me ? may soon ! 

be asked, 1 

With the like answer — doubt and 
dreadful surmise — i 

Unless thou tell'st my tale. 

Mar. I speak of thee ! 

Jac. Fos. And wherefore not? All 

then shall speak of me : ■ 

The tyranny of silence is not lasting, , 

And, though events be hidden, jusi 1 

men's groans 8(ii 

Will burst all cerement, even a living 

grave's ! 
I do not doubt my memory, but my life ; 
And neither do I fear. 

Mar. Thy life is safe. . 

Jac. Fos. And liberty? 
Mar. The mind should make its own ! 1 
Jac. Fos. That has a noble sound;; 
but 'tis a sound, 
A music most impressive, but too 
transient : 



Scene i.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



747 



The Mind is much, but is not all. The 

Mind 
Hath nerved me to endure the risk of 

death, 
And torture positive, far worse than 

death 
(If death be a deep sleep), without a 

groan, 90 

Or with a cry which rather shamed my 

judges 
Than me ; but 'tis not all, for there are 

things 
More woful — such as this small dun- 
geon, where 
I may breathe many years. 

Mar. Alas ! and this 

Small dungeon is all that belongs to thee 
Of this wide realm, of which thy sire is 

Prince. 
Jac. Fos. That thought would 

scarcely aid me to endure it. 
My doom is common; many are in 

dungeons, 
But none like mine, so near their 

father's palace; 
But then my heart is sometimes high, 

and hope 100 

Will stream along those moted rays of 

light 

Peopled with dusty atoms, which afford 
Our only day; for, save the gaoler's 

torch, 
i^nd a strange firefly, which was quickly 

caught 

]},ast night in yon enormous spider's net, 

ne'er saw aught here like a ray. Alas ! 

know if mind may bear us up, or no, 

flor I have such, and shown it before 

men; 

]l sinks in solitude : my soul is social. 
Mar. I will be with thee. 
Jac. Fos. Ah! if it were so! no 

ut that they never granted — nor will 

grant, 
nd I shall be alone : no men ; no 

books — 
'hose lying likenesses of lying men. 
\ asked for even those outlines of their 

kind, 
' ,'hich they term annals, history, what 

you will, 
^ /hich men bequeath as portraits, and 

they were 



Refused me, — so these walls have been 

my study. 
More faithful pictures of Venetian story. 
With all their blank, or dismal stains, 

than is 
The Hall not far from hence, which 
bears on high 120 

Hundreds of Doges, and their deeds and 
dates. 
Mar. I come to tell thee the result of 
their 
Last council on thy doom. 

Jac. Fos. I know it — look ! 

[He points to his limbs, as referring to 
the Question which he had under- 
go jw. 
Mar. No — no — no more of that : 
even they relent 
From that atrocity. 

Jac. Fos. What then? 

Mar. That you 

Return to Candia. 

Jac. Fos. Then my last hope's gone. 
I could endure my dungeon, for 'twas 

Venice ; 
I could support the torture, there was 

something 
In my native air that buoyed my spirits 

up 
Like a ship on the Ocean tossed by 
storms, 130 

But proudly still bestriding the high 

waves. 
And holding on its course; but there, 

afar. 
In that accursed isle of slaves and cap- 
tives. 
And unbelievers, like a stranded wreck, 
My very soul seemed mouldering in my 

bosom. 
And piecemeal I shall perish, if re- 
manded. 
Mar. And here? 

Jac. Fos. At once — by better means, 
as briefer. 
W'hat ! would they even deny qie my 

Sire's sepulchre. 
As well as home and heritage? 

Mar. My husband! 

I have sued to accompany thee hence. 
And not so hopelessly. This love of 
thine 141 

I For an ungrateful and tyrannic soil 



748 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act III. 



Is Passion, and not Patriotism ; for me, 
So I could see thee with a quiet aspect, 
And the sweet freedom of the earth and 

air, 
I would not cavil about climes or regions. 
This crowd of palaces and prisons is not 
A Paradise; its first inhabitants 
Were wretched exiles. 

Jac. Fos. Well I know how wretched ! 
Mar. And yet you see how, from 

their banishment 150 

Before the Tartar into these salt isles, 
Their antique energy of mind, all that 
Remained of Rome for their inheritance. 
Created by degrees an ocean Rome ; ^ 
And shall an evil, which so often leads 
To good, depress thee thus ? 

Jac. Fos. Had I gone forth 

From my own land, like the old patri- 
archs, seeking 
Another region, with their flocks and 

herds ; 
Had I been cast out like the Jews from 

Zion, 
Or like our fathers, driven by Attila ^ 1 60 
From fertile Italy, to barren islets, 
I would have given some tears to my late 

country 
And many thoughts; but afterwards 

addressed 
Myself, with those about me, to create 
A new home and fresh state : perhaps I 

could 
Have borne this — though I know not. 
Mar. Wherefore not ? 



I In Lady Morgan's fearless and excellent 
work upon Italy, I perceive the expression of 
"Rome of the Ocean" applied to Venice. The 
same phrase occurs in the "Two Foscari." 
My publisher can vouch for me, that the tragedy 
was written and sent to England some time 
before I had seen Lady Morgan's work, which 
I only received on the i6th of August. I hasten, 
however, to notice the coincidence, and to yield 
the originality of the phrase to her who first 
placed it before the public. 

[Byron calls Lady Morgan's Italy "fearless" 
on account of her strictures on the behaviour 
of Great Britain to Genoa in 1814. The 
passage which Byron feared might be quoted 
as a plagiarism runs as follows: "As the bark 
glides on, as the shore recedes, and the city of 
waves, the Rome of the ocean, rises on the 
horizon, the spirits rally," etc. — Italy, 182 1, 
ii. 449-] 

= [Compare Marino Faliero, act ii. sc. 2, line 
no, Poetical Works, 901, iv. 386, note 3.] 



It was the lot of millions, and must be 
The fate of myriads more. 

Jac. Fos. Aye — we but hear 

Of the survivors' toil in their new 

lands, 
Their numbers and success; but who 

can number 170 

The liearts which broke in silence at 

that parting. 
Or after their departure; of that 

malady ^ 
Which calls up green and native fields 

to view 
From the rough deep, with such identity 
To the poor exile's fevered eye, that he 
Can scarcely be restrained from tread- 
ing them? 
That melody,^ which out of tones and 

tunes 
Collects such pasture for the longing 

sorrow 
Of the sad mountaineer, when far away 
From his snow canopy of cliffs and 

clouds, 180 

That he feeds on the sweet, but poison- 
ous thought. 
And dies. You call this weakness! It 

is strength, 
I say, — the parent of all honest feeling. 
He who loves not his Country, can love 

nothing. 
Mar. Obey her, then: 'tis she that 

puts thee forth. 
Jac. Fos. Aye, there it is ; 'tis like a 

mother's curse 
Upon my soul — the mark is set upon 



' The Calenture. — [From the Spanish Ca 
lenlura, a fever peculiar to sailors within the 
Tropics — 

"So, by a calenture misled, 

The mariner with rapture sees, 
On the smooth ocean's azure bed, 
Enamelled fields and verdant trees." 

— Swift, The South-Sea Project, 1721. Works 
i8?4, xiv. 147.] 

2 Alluding to the Swiss air and its effects. — 
[The Ranz des Vaches, played upon the bag-pipe 
by the young cowkeepers on the mountains :_ 
"An air," says Rousseau, "so dear to the Swiss, 
that it was forbidden, under the pain of death, 
to play it to the troops, as it immediately drew 
tears from them, and made those who heard it 
desert, or die of what is called la maladie du pais, 
so ardent a desire did it excite to return to their 
country."] 



Scene i.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



749 



The exiles you speak of went forth by 

nations, 
Their hands upheld each other by the 

way, 
Their tents were pitched together — 

I'm alone. 190 

Adar. You shall be so no more — I 

will go with thee. 
Jac. Fos. My best Marina ! — and 

our children ? 
Mar. They, 

I fear, by the prevention of the state's 
Abhorrent policy, (which holds all ties 
As threads, which may be broken at her 

pleasure), 
Will not be suffered to proceed with us. 
Jac. Fos. And canst thou leave 

them? 
Mar. Yes — with many a pang ! 

But — I can leave them, children as 

they are, 
To teach you to be less a child. From 

this 
Learn you to sway your feelings, when 

exacted 200 

By duties paramount; and 'tis our first 
On earth to bear. 

Jac. Fos. Have I not borne ? 

Mar. Too much 

From tyrannous injustice, and enough 
To teach you not to shrink now from 

a lot, 
Which, as compared with whsit you 

have undergone 
Of late, is mercy. 

Jac. Fos. Ah I you never yet 

Were far away from Venice, never saw 
3er beautiful towers in the receding 

distance. 

While every furrow of the vessel's track 
Seemed ploughing deep into your heart ; 

you never 210 

Saw day go down upon your native 

spires 
3o calmly with its gold and crimson 

glory, 

And after dreaming a disturbed vision 
Of them and theirs, awoke and found 

them not. 
Mar. I will divide this with you. Let 

us think 
Of our departure from this much-loved 

city. 



(Since you must love it, as it seems,) and 

this 
Chamber of state, her gratitude allots 

you. 
Our children will be cared for by the 

Doge, 
And by my uncles; we must sail ere 
night. 220 

Jac. Fos. That's sudden. Shall I 

not behold my father? 
Mar. You will. 
Jac. Fos. Where? 

Mar. Here, or 

in the ducal chamber — 
He said not which. I would that you 

could bear 
Your exile as he bears it. 

Jac. Fos. Blame him not. 

I sometimes murmur for a moment; 

but 
He could not now act otherwise. A 

show 
Of feeling or compassion on his part 
Would have but drawn upon his aged 

head 
Suspicion from "the Ten," and upon 

mine 
Accumulated ills. 

Mar. Accumulated ! 230 

What pangs are those they have spared 

you? 

Jac. Fos. That of leaving 

Venice without beholding him or you, 

Which might have been forbidden now, 

as 'twas 
Upon my former exile. 

Mar. That is true. 

And thus far I am also the State's 

debtor. 
And shall be more so when I see us both 
Floating on the free waves — away — 

away — 
Be it to the earth's end, from this 
abhorred. 

Unjust, and 

Jac. Fos. Curse it not. If I am 

silent. 
Who dares accuse my Country ? 

Mar. Men and Angels ! 240 

The blood of myriads reeking up to 

Heaven, 
The groans of slaves in chains, and men 
in dungeons. 



750 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act III. 



Mothers, and wives, and sons, and sires, 

and subjects. 
Held in the bondage of ten bald-heads ; 

and 
Though last, not least, thy silence 1 

Couldst thou say- 
Aught in its favour, who would praise 

like thee ? 
Jac. Fos. Let us address us then, 

since so it must be. 
To our departure. Who comes here? 

Enter Loredano attended by Familiars. 
Lor. {to the Familiars). Retire, 

But leave the torch. 

{Exeunt the two Familiars. 

Jac. Fos. Most welcome, noble 

Signor. 

I did not deem this poor place could 

have drawn 250 

Such presence hither. 

Lor. 'Tis not the first time 

I have visited these places. 

Mar. Nor would be 

The last, were all men's merits well re- 
warded. 
Came you here to insult us, or remain 
As spy upon us, or as hostage for 
us? 
Lor. Neither are of my office, noble 
Lady! 
I am sent hither to your husband, to 
Announce "the Ten's" decree. 

Mar. That tenderness 

Has been anticipated : it is known. 
Lor. As how? 

Mar. I have informed him, not so 

gently, 260 

Doubtless, as your nice feelings would 

prescribe. 
The indulgence of your colleagues ; but 

he knew it. 
If you come for our thanks, take them, 

and hence ! 
The dungeon gloom is deep enough 

without you. 
And full of reptiles, not less loathsome, 

though 
Their sting is honester. 

Jac. Fos. I pray you, calm you : 

What can avail such words? 

Mar. ^ To let him know 

That he is known. 



Lor. Let the fair dame preserve 

Her sex's privilege. 

Mar. I have some sons, sir. 

Will one day thank you better. 

Lor. You do well 270 

To nurse them wisely. Foscari — you 

know 
Your sentence, then? 

Jac. Fos. Return to Candia? 

Lor. True — 

For life. 

Jac. Fos. Not long. 

Lor. I said — for life. 

Jac. Fos. And I 

Repeat — not long. 

Lor. A year's imprisonment 

In Canea — afterwards the freedom of 
The whole isle. 

Jac. Fos. Both the same to me : 

the after 
Freedom as is the first imprisonment. 
Is't true my wife accompanies me ? 

Lor. Yes, 

If she so wills it. 

Mar. Who obtained that justice? 

Lor. One who wars not with women. 

Mar. But oppresses 280 

Men : howsoever let him have my thanks 
For the only boon I would have asked 

or taken 
From him or such as he is. 

Lor. He receives them 

As they are offered. 

Mar. May they thrive with him 

So much ! — no more. 

Jac. Fos. Is this, sir, your 

whole mission ? 
Because we have brief time for prepara- 
tion. 
And you perceive your presence doth 

disquiet 
This lady, of a house noble as yours. 

Mar. Nobler ! 

Lor. How nobler? 

Mar. As more generous ! 

We say the "generous steed" to express 

. the purity 290 

Of his high blood. Thus much I've 

learnt, although 
Venetian (who see few steeds save of 

bronze). 
From those Venetians who have skirred 
the coasts 



fc 



CENE I.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



751 



^Of Egypt and her neighbour Araby : 
I And why not say as soon the ''generous 

man^' ? 
If race be aught, it is in qualities 
More than in years; and mine, which 

is as old 
As yours, is better in its product, nay — 
Look not so stern — but get you back, 

and pore 

Upon your genealogic tree's most green 
Of leaves and most mature of fruits, 

and there 301 

Blush to find ancestors, who would 

have blushed 
For such a son — thou cold inveterate 

hater ! 
Jac. Fos. Again, Marina ! 
Mar. Again ! still, Marina. 

See you not, he comes here to glut his 

hate 
With a last look upon our misery? 
Let him partake it ! 

Jac. Fos. That were difficult. 

Mar. Nothing more easy. He par- 
takes it now — 
Aye, he may veil beneath a marble brow 
And sneering lip the pang, but he par- 
takes it. 310 
A few brief words of truth shame the 

Devil's servants 
No less than Master ; I have probed his 

soul 
A moment, as the Eternal Fire, ere long. 
Will reach it always. See how he 
I shrinks from me ! 
With death, and chains, and exile in his 

hand. 
To scatter o'er his kind as he thinks 

fit; 
They are his weapons, not his armour, 

for 
I have pierced him to the core of his 

cold heart. 
I "care not for his frowns ! We can but 

die, 319 

And he but live, for him the very worst 
Of destinies : each day secures him more 
[Bis tempter's. 

Jac. Fos. This is mere insanity. 

Mar. It may be so; and who hath 

made us mad? 
Lor. Let her go on ; it irks not me. 
Mar. That's false ! 



You came here to enjoy a heartless tri- 
umph 
Of cold looks upon manifold griefs! 

You came 
To be sued to in vain — to mark our 

tears, 
And hoard our groans — to gaze upon 

the wreck 
Which you have made a Prince's son — 

my husband; 
In short, to trample on the fallen — an 

office 330 

The hangman shrinks from, as all men 

from him ? 
How have you sped ? We are wretched, 

Signor, as 
Your plots could make, and vengeance 

could desire us. 
And how jeel you? 

Lor. As rocks. 

Mar. By thunder blasted: 

They feel not, but no less are shivered. 

Come, 
Foscari; now let us go, and leave this 

felon, 
The sole fit inhabitant of such a cell. 
Which he has peopled often, but ne'er 

fitly 
Till he himself shall brood in it alone. 

Enter the Doge. 

Jac. Fos. My father ! 
Doge {embracing him). Jacopo ! my 
son — my son ! 340 

Jac. Fos. My father still ! How long 
it is since I 
Have heard thee name my name — our 
name 1 
Doge. My boy ! 

Couldst thou but know 

Jac. Fos. I rarely, sir, have mur- 
mured. 
Doge. I feel too much thou hast not. 
Mar. Doge, look there 1 

[She points to Loredano. 
Doge. I see the man — what mean'st 

thou? 
Mar. Caution ! 

Lor. Being 

The virtue which this noble lady 

most 
Mav practise, she doth well to recom- 
mend it. 



752 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act III. 



Mar. Wretch ! 'tis no virtue, but the 

policy 
Of those who fain must deal perforce 

with vice : 
As such I recommend it, as I would 350 
To one whose foot was on an adder's 

path. 
Doge. Daughter, it is superfluous; I 

have long 
Known Loredano. 

Lor. You may know him better. 

Mar. Yes; worse he could not. 

Jac. Fas. Father, let not these 

Our parting hours be lost in listening to 

Reproaches, which boot nothing. Is it 

— is it, 
Indeed, our last of meetings? 

Doge. You behold 

These white hairs ! 

Jac. Fos. And I feel, besides, 

that mine 
Will never be so white. Embrace me, 

father ! 
I loved you ever — never more than 

now. 360 

Look to my children — to your last 

child's children ! 
Let them be all to you which he was once. 
And never be to you what I am now. 
May I not see them also ? 

Mar. No — not here. 

Jac. Fos. They might behold their 

parent any where. 
Mar. 1 would that they beheld their 

father in 
A place which would not mingle fear 

with love, 
To freeze their young blood in its 

natural current. 
They have fed well, slept soft, and knew 

not that 
Their sire was a mere hunted outlaw. 

Well, 370 

I know his fate may one day be their 

heritage, 
But let it only be their heritage, 
And not their present fee. Their senses, 

though 
Alive to love, are yet awake to terror ; 
And these vile damps, too, and yon 

thick green wave 
Which floats above the place where we 

now stand — 



A cell so far below the water's level. 
Sending its pestilence through every 

crevice. 
Might strike them: this is not their 

atmosphere, 
However you — and you — and most 
of ah, 380 

As worthiest — you, sir, noble Lore- 
dano ! 
May breathe it without prejudice. 

Jac. Fos. I had not 

Reflected upon this, but acquiesce. 
I shall depart, then, without meeting 
them ! 
Doge. Not so: they shall await you 

in my chamber. 
Jac. Fos. And must I leave them — 

all? 
Lor. You must. 

Jac. Fos. Not one? 

Lor. They are the State's. 
Mar. I thought they had been mine. 
Lor. They are, in all maternal things. 
Mar. That is, 

In all things painful. If they're sick, 

they will 
Be left to me to tend them ; should they 
die, 390 

To me to bury and to mourn ; but if 
They live, they'll make you soldiers, 

senators, 
Slaves, exiles — what yoii will ; or if 

they are 
Females with portions, brides and 

bribes for nobles ! 
Behold the State's care for its sons and 
mothers ! 
Lor. The hour approaches, and the 

wind is fair. 
Jac. Fos. How know you that here, 
where the genial wind 
Ne'er blows in all its blustering free- 
dom? 
Lor. 'Twas so 

When I came here. The galley floats 

within 
A bow -shot of the "Riva di Schiavoni." 
Jac. Fos. Father ! I pray you to 
precede me, and 401 

Prepare my children to behold their 
father. 
Doge. Be firm, my son ! 
Jac. Fos. I will do my endeavour. 



;CENE I.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



1SZ 



Mar. Farewell ! at least to this de- 
tested dungeon, 
And him to whose good offices you owe 
1 .1 part your past imprisonment. 

Lor. And present 

liberation. 

Doge. He speaks truth. 

Jac. Fos. No doubt ! but 'tis 

Exchange of chains for heavier chains I 

owe him. 
He knows this, or he had not sought to 

change them, 
But I reproach not. 

Lor. The time narrows, Signor. 410 
Jac. Fos. Alas! I little thought so 
lingeringly 
To leave abodes like this: but when I 

feel 
That every step I take, even from this 

cell, 
Is one away from Venice, I look back 

Even on these dull damp walls, and 

Doge. Boy ! no tears. 

Mar. Let them flow on : he w^ept not 
on the rack 
To shame him, and they cannot shame 

him now. 
They will relieve his heart — that too 

kind heart — 
And I will find an hour to wipe away 
Those tears, or add my own. I could 
weep now, 420 

But would not gratify yon wretch so far. 
Let us proceed. Doge, lead the way. 
Lor. (to the Familiar). The torch, 

there ! 
Mar. Yes, light us on, as to a funeral 
pyre, 
With Loredano mourning like an heir. 
Doge. My son, you are feeble; take 

this hand. 
Jac. Fos. Alas ! 

Must youth support itself on age, and I 
Who ought to be the prop of yours? 
Lor. Take mine. 

Mar. Touch it not, Foscari; 'twill 
sting you. Signor, 
Stand off ! be sure, that if a grasp of 

yours 
W^ould raise us from the gulf wherein 
we are plunged, 430 

No hand of ours would stretch itself to 
meet it. 

3C 



Come, Foscari, take the hand the altar 

gave you; 
It could not save, but will support you 

ever. [Exeunt. 

ACT IV. 

Scene L — A Hall in the Ducal Palace. 

Enter Loredano and Barbaeigo. 

Bar. And have you confidence in 

such a project? 
Lor. I have. 

Bar. 'Tis hard upon his years. 

Lor. Say rather 

Kind to relieve him from the cares of 

State. 

Bar. 'Twill break his heart. 

Lor. Age has no heart to break. 

He has seen his son's half broken, and, 

except 
A start of feeling in his dungeon, never 
Swerved. 

Bar. In his countenance, I grant you, 
never; 
But I have seen him sometimes in a calm 
So desolate, that the most clamorous 

grief 
Had nought to envy him within. Where 
is he? 10 

Lor. In his own portion of the palace, 
with 
His son, and the whole race of Foscaris. 
Bar. Bidding farewell. 
Lor. A last ! as, soon, he shall 

Bid to his Dukedom. 

Bar. When embarks the son ? 

Lor. Forthwith — when this long 
leave is taken. 'Tis 
Time to admonish them again. 

Bar. Forbear; 

Retrench not from their moments. 

Lor. Not I, now 

We have higher business for our own. 

This day 
Shall be the last of the old Doge's reign. 
As the first of his son's last banishment. 
And that is vengeance. 

Bar. In my mind, too deep. 21 

Lor. 'Tis moderate — not even life 
for life, the rule 
Denounced of retribution from all time- 



754 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act i\r| 



They owe me still my father's and my 
uncle's. 
Bar. Did not the Doge deny this 

strongly ? 
Lor. Doubtless. 

Bar. And did not this shake your 

suspicion ? 
Lor. No. 

Bar. But if this deposition should 
take place 
By our united influence in the Council, 
It must be done with all the deference 
Due to his years, his station, and his 
deeds. 30 

Lor. As much of ceremony as you 
will. 
So that the thing be done. You may, 

for aught 
I care, depute the Council on their 

knees, 
(Like Barbarossa to the Pope,) to beg 

him 
To have the courtesy to abdicate. 
Bar. What if he will not? 
Lor. We'll elect another, 

And make him null. 

Bar. But will the laws uphold us ? ^ 
Lor. What laws? — "The Ten" are 
laws; and if they were not, 
I will be legislator in this business. 
Bar. At your own peril? 
Lor. There is none, I tell you, 40 
Our powers are such. 

Bar. But he has twice already 

Solicited permission to retire, 
And twice it was refused. 

Lor. The better reason 

To grant it the third time. 

Bar. Unasked ? 

Lor. It shows 

The impression of his former instances : 
If they were from his heart, he may be 

thankful : 
If not, 'twill punish his hypocrisy. 
Come, they are met by this time; let us 

join them, 
And be thou fixed in purpose for this 
once. 

I [According to the law, it rested with the six 
councillors of the Doge and a majority of the 
Grand Council to insist upon the abdication of a 
Doge. The action of the Ten was an usurpa- 
tion of powers to which they were not entitled by 
the terms of the Constitution.] 



I have prepared such arguments as will! 

not 5;o 

Fail to move them, and to remove him: 

since 
Their thoughts, their objects, have bee n 

sounded, do not 

You^ with your wonted scruples, teac.i 

us pause, f] 

And all will prosper. 

Bar. Could I but be certain 

This is no prelude to such persecution ^ 
Of the sire as has fallen upon the son, 
I would support you. 

Lor. He is safe, I tell you 

His fourscore years and five may linger 

on 
As long as he can drag them: 'tis his 

throne 
Alone is aimed at. 

Bar. But discarded Princes 60 

Are seldom long of life. 

Lor. And men of eighty 

More seldom still. 

Bar. And why not wait these few 

years ? 
Lor. Because we have waited long 
enough, and he 
Lived longer than enough. Hence ! in 
to council ! 
[Exeunt Loredano and Barbarigo. 



Enter Memmo and 



Senator . 
'the Ten"! 



Sen. A summons to 
why so? 

Mem. "The Ten" 

Alone can answer; they are rarely wont 
To let their thoughts anticipate their 

purpose 
By previous proclamation. We are 

summoned — 
That is enough. 

Sen. For them, but not for us; 

I would know why. 

Mem. You will know why anon, 70 
If you obey; and, if not, you no less 
Will know why you should have obeyed. 

Sen. I mean not 

To oppose them, hut 

Mem. In Venice "hut'' 's a traitoCi^ 

But me no "huts,'' unless you woull 

pass o'er r 

The Bridge which few repass. * 

Sen. I am silent. 



Scene i.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



755 



Mem. Why 

Thus hesitate? "The Ten" have called 

in aid 
Of their deliberation five and twenty 
Patricians of the Senate — you are one, 
And I another; and it seems to me 
Both honoured by the choice or chance 
v^^hich leads us 80 

To mingle w^ith a body so august. 
Sen. Most true. I say no more. 
Mem. As we hope, Signor, 

And all may honestly, (that is, all those 
Of noble blood may,) one day hope to be 
Decemvir, it is surely for the Senate's 
Chosen delegates, a school of wisdom, to 
Be thus admitted, though as novices, 
To view the mysteries. 

Sen. Let us view them: they, 

No doubt, are worth it. 

Mem. Being worth our lives 

If we divulge them, doubtless they are 
worth 90 

Something, at least to you or me. 

Sen. I sought not 

A place within the sanctuary; but being 
Chosen, however reluctantly so chosen, 
shall fulfil my office. 
Mem. Let us not 

Be latest in obeying "the Ten's" sum- 
mons. 
Sen. All are not met, but I am of 
your thought 
So far — let's in. 

Mem. The earliest are most wel- 
come 
In earnest councils — we will not be 
least so. {Exeunt. 

Enter the Doge, Jacopo Foscari, 
and Marina. 

Jac. Fos. Ah, father ! though I must 
and will depart, 99 

Yet — yet — I pray you to obtain for me 
That I once more return unto my home, 
, Howe'er remote the period. Let there be 
A point of time, as beacon to my heart. 
With any penalty annexed they please, 
But let me still return. 

Doge. Son Jacopo, 

Go and obey our Country's will : 'tis not 
For us to look beyond. 

Jac. Fos. But still I must 

Look back. I pray you think of me. 



Doge. Alas ! 

You ever were my dearest offspring, 

when 
They were more numerous, nor can be 

less so no 

Now you are last; but did the State 

demand 
The exile of the disinterred ashes 
Of your three goodly brothers, now in 

earth, 
And their desponding shades came flit- 
ting round 
To impede the act, I must no less obey 
A duty, paramount to every duty. 
Mar. My husband ! let us on : this 

but prolongs 
Our sorrow. 

Jac. Fos. But we are not summoned 

yet; 
The galley sails are not unfurled : — 

who knows? 
The wind may change. 

Mar. And if it do, it will not 120 
Change their hearts, or your lot: the 

galley's oars 
Will quickly clear the harbour. 

Jac. Fos. O, ye Elements! 

Where are your storms? 

Mar. In human breasts. Alas ! 

Will nothing calm you? 

Jac. Fos. Never yet did mariner 

Put up to patrbn saint such prayers for 

prosperous 
And pleasant breezes, as I call upon you, 
Ye tutelar saints of my own city ! which 
Ye love not with more holy love 

than I, 
To lash up from the deep the Adrian 

waves. 
And waken Auster, sovereign of the 

Tempest ! 130 

Till the sea dash me back on my own 

shore 
A broken corse upon the barren Lido, 
Where I may mingle with the sands 

which skirt 
The land I love, and never shall see 

more ! 
Mar. And wish you this with me 

beside^ you ? 
Jac. Fos. No — 

No — not for thee, too good, too kind ! 

May'st thou 



756 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act IV, 



Live long to be a mother to those chil- 
dren 
Thy fond fidelity for a time deprives 
Of such support ! But for myself alone, 
May all the winds of Heaven howl down 

the Gulf, 140 

And tear the vessel, till the mariners. 
Appalled, turn their despairing eyes on 

me, 
As the Phenicians did on Jonah, then 
Cast me out from amongst them, as an 

offering 
To appease the waves. The billow 

which destroys me 
Will be more merciful than man, and 

• bear me 
Dead, but still hear me to a native grave. 
From fishers' hands, upon the desolate 

strand, 
Which, of its thousand wrecks, hath 

ne'er received 
One lacerated like the heart which then 
Will be. — But wherefore breaks it not ? 

why live I? 151 

Mar. To man thyself, I trust, with 

time, to master 
Such useless passion. Until now thou 

wert 
A sufferer, but not a loud one : why 
What is this to the things thou hast 

borne in silence — 
Imprisonment and actual torture? 

Jac. Fos. Double, 

Triple, and tenfold torture ! But you 

are right. 
It must be borne. Father, your blessing. 
Doge. Would 

It could avail thee ! but no less thou 

hast it. 

Jac. Fos. Forgive 

Doge. What ? 

Jac. Fos. My poor mother, for my 

birth, 160 

And me for having lived, and you your- 
self 
(As I forgive you), for the gift of life. 
Which you bestowed upon me as my sire. 
Mar. What hast thou done? 
Jac. Fos. Nothing. I cannot charge 
My memory with much save sorrow: 

but 
I have been so beyond the common lot 
Chastened and visited, I needs mustthink 



That I was wicked. If it be so, may 
What I have undergone here keep me 

from 
A like hereafter! 

Mar. Fear not: that's reserved 170 
For your oppressors. 

Jac. Fos. Let me hope not. 

Mar. Hope not?, 

Jac. Fos. I cannot wish them all 
they have inflicted. , 

Mar. All! the consummate fiends! 
A thousandfold 
May the worm which never dieth feed 
upon them ! 
Jac. Fos. They may repent. 
Mar. And if they do. Heaven will not 
Accept the tardy penitence of demons. 

Enter an Officer and Guards. 

Offi. Signor ! the boat is at the shore 
— the wind 
Is rising — we are ready to attend you. 
Jac. Fos. And I to be attended. 
Once more, father. 
Your hand ! 

Doge. Take it. Alas! how thine 
own trembles ! 180 

Jac. Fos. No — you mistake ; 'tis 
yours that shakes, my father. 
Farewell ! 

Doge. Farewell ! Is there aught 

else? 
Jac. Fos. No — nothing. 

[To the Officer. 
Lend me your arm, good Signor. 

Offi. You turn pale — 

Let me support you — paler — ho ! 

some aid there ! 
Some water ! 

Mar. Ah, he is dying! 

Jac. Fos. Now, I'm ready — 

My eyes swim strangely — where's the 

door? 

Mar. Away ! 

Let me support him — my best love ! 

Oh, God! 
How faintly beats this heart — this 
pulse ! 
Jac. Fos. The light | 

Is it the light? — I am faint. 

[Officer presents him with wate 
Offi. He will be betteil 

Perhaps, in the air. 



Scene i.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



1S1 



Jac. Fos. I doubt not. Father — 
wife — 190 

Your hands ! 

Mar. There's death in that damp, 
clammy grasp. 
Oh, God ! — My Foscari, how fare you ? 
Jac. Fos. Well ! [He dies. 

Offi. He's gone ! 
Doge. He's free. 

Mar. No — no, he is not dead ; 

There must be life yet in that heart — 

he could not 
Thus leave me. 

Doge. Daughter ! 

Mar. Hold thy peace, old man ! 

I am no daughter now — thou hast no 

son. 
Oh, Foscari! 

Offi. We must remove the body. 

Mar. Touch it not, dungeon mis- 
creants ! your base office 
Ends with his life, and goes not beyond 

murder, 
Even by your murderous laws. Leave 
his remains 200 

To those who know to honour them. 

Ofji. I must 

Inform the Signory, and learn their 

pleasure. 

Doge. Inform the Signory from me, 

the Doge, 

They have no further power upon those 

ashes : 
While he lived, he was theirs, as fits a 

subject — 
Now he is mine — my broken-hearted 
boy ! [Exit Officer. 

Mar. And I must live ! 
Doge. Your children live, Marina. 
Mar. My children ! true — they live, 
and I must live 
To bring them up to serve the State, 

and die 

As died their father. Oh ! what best 
* of blessings 210 

Were barrenness in Venice ! Would my 

mother 
Had been so! 

Doge. My unhappy children ! 

Mar. What ! 

You feel it then at last — you ! — Where 

is now 
The Stoic of the State ? 



Doge. {throwing himself down by 

the body). Here! 
Mar. Aye, weep, on ! 

I thought you had no tears — you hoard 

them 
Until they are useless; but weep on ! he 

never 
Shall weep more — never, never more. 

Enter Loredano and Barbarigo. 

Lor. What's here? 

Mar. Ah ! the Devil come to insult 
the dead ! Avaunt ! 
Incarnate Lucifer ! 'tis holy ground. 
A martyr's ashes now lie there, which 
make it 220 

A shrine. Get thee back to thy place 
of torment ! 
Bar. Lady, we knew not of this sad 
event. 
But passed here merely on our path from 
council. 
Mar. Pass on. 

Lor. We sought the Doge.^ 

Mar. {pointing to the Doge, who is 

still on the ground by his son's body). 

He's busy, look. 

About the business you provided for 

him. 
Are ye content? 

Bar. . We will not interrupt 

A parent's sorrows. 

Mar. No, ye only make them. 

Then leave them. 

Doge {rising). Sirs, I am ready. 
Bar. No — not now. 

Lor. Yet 'twas important. 
Doge. If 'twas so, I can 

Only repeat — I am ready. 

Bar. It shall not be 230 

Just now, though Venice tottered o'er 

the deep 
Like a frail vessel. I respect your griefs. 
Doge. I thank you. If the tidings 
which you bring 
Are evil, you may say them; nothing 

further 
Can touch me more than him thou 

look'st on there; 
If they be good, say on; you need not 

fear 
That they can comfort me. 

Bar. I would they could ! 



758 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act IV. 



Doge. I spoke not to you, but to 
Loredano. 
He understands me. 

Mar. Ah ! I thought it would be so. 
Doge. What mean you? 
Mar. Lo ! there is the blood begin- 
ning 240 
To flow through the dead lips of 

Foscari — 
The body bleeds in presence of the 
assassin. \To Loredano. 

Thou cowardly murderer by law, behold 
How Death itself bears witness to thy 
deeds ! 
Doge. My child ! this is a phantasy 
of grief. 
Bear hence the body. \To his Attend- 
ants.'] Signors, if it please you, 
Within an hour I'll hear you. 

{Exeunt Doge, Marina, and Attend- 
ants with the body. Manent 
Loredano and Barbarigo. 
Bar. He must not 

Be troubled now. 

Lor. He said himself that nought 
Could give him trouble farther. 

Bar. These are words; 

But grief is lonely, and the breaking in 
Upon it barbarous. 

Lor. Sorrow preys upon 251 

Its solitude, and nothing more diverts it 
From its sad visions of the other world. 
Than calling it at moments back to this. 
The busy have no time for tears. 

Bar. And therefore 

You would deprive this old man of all 
business ? 
Lor. The thing's decreed. The 
Giunta and "the Ten" 
Have made it law — who shall oppose 
that law? 
Bar. Humanity ! 

Lor. Because his son is dead? 

Bar. And yet unburied. 
Lor. Had we known this when 260 
The act was passing, it might have 

suspended 
Its passage, but impedes it not — once 
passed. 
Bar. I'll not consent. 
Lor. You have consented to 

All that's essential — leave the rest to 



Bar. Why press his abdication now ? 

Lor. The feelings 

Of private passion may not interrupt 
The public benefit; and what the State 
Decides to-day must not give way before 
To-morrow for a natural accident. 

Bar. You have a son. 

Lor. I have — and had a father. 

Bar. Still so inexorable? 271 

Lor. Still. 

Bar. But let him 

Inter his son before we press upon him 
This edict. 

Lor. Let him call Up into life 

My sire and uncle — I consent. Men 

may, 
Even aged men, be, or appear to be, 
Sires of a hundred sons, but cannot 

kindle 
An atom of their ancestors from earth. 
The victims are not equal; he has seen 
His sons expire by natural deaths, and I 
My sires by violent and mysterious 
maladies. 280 

I used no poison, bribed no subtle master 
Of the destructive art of healing, to 
Shorten the path to the eternal cure. 
His sons — and he had four — are dead,.s 
without i 

My dabbling in vile drugs. 

Bar. And art thou sure 

He dealt in such? 

Lor. Most sure. 

Bar. And yet he seems 

All openness. 

Lor. And so he seemed not long 

Ago to Carmagnuola. 

Bar. The attainted 

And foreign traitor? 

Lor. Even so: when he, 

After the very night in which "the Ten" 
(Joined with the Doge) decided his de- 
struction, 291 
Met the great Duke at daybreak with a 

jest, 
Demanding whether he should augur 

him 
"The good day or good night?" his 

Dogeship answered, 
"That he in truth had passed a night of 

vigil, 
"In which" (he added with a gracious 
smile) 



Scene i.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



759 



"There often has been question about 

you." ^ 
'Twas true ; the question was the death 

resolved 
Of Carmagnuola, eight months ere he 

died; 
And the old Doge, who knew him 

doomed, smiled on him 300 

With deadly cozenage, eight long months 

beforehand — 
Eight months of such hypocrisy as is 
Learnt but in eighty years. Brave 

Carmagnuola 
Is dead; so is young Foscari and his 

brethren — 
I never smiled on them. 

Bar. Was Carmagnuola 

Your friend? 

Lor. He was the safeguard of the city. 
In early life its foe, but in his manhood. 
Its saviour first, then victim. 

Bar. Ah ! that seems 

The penalty of saving cities. He 

Whom we now act against not only saved 

Our own, but added others to her sway. 

Lor. The Romans (and we ape them) 

gave a crown 312 

To him who took a city : and they gave 
A crov/n to him who saved a citizen 
In battle : the rewards are equal. Now, 
If we should measure forth the cities 

taken 
By the Doge Foscari, with citizens 
Destroyed by him, or through him, the 

account 
Were fearfully against him, although 

narrowed 

To private havoc, such as between him 

And my dead father. 321 

Bar. Are you then thus fixed ? 

Lor. Why, what should change me? 

Bar. That which changes me. 

But you, I know, are marble to retain 

A feud. But when all is accomplished, 

when 
The old man is deposed, his name de- 
graded. 
His sons all dead, his family depressed, 

» An historical fact. [See Daru [182 i], torn. 
ii. pp. 398, 399. Daru quotes as his authorities 
Sabellicus and Pietro Giustiniani. As a matter 
of fact, the Doge did his utmost to save Car- 
magnola, pleading that his sentence should be 
commuted to imprisonment for life.] 



And you and yours triumphant, shall 

you sleep? 
Lor. More soundly. 
Bar. That's an error, 

and you'll find it 
Ere you sleep with your fathers. 

Lor. They sleep not 

In their accelerated graves, nor will 330 
Till Foscari fills his. Each night I see 

them 
Stalk frowning round my couch, and, 

pointing towards 
The ducal palace, marshal me to ven- 
geance. 
Bar. Fancy's distemperature ! There 

is no passion 
More spectral or fantastical than 

Hate; 
Not even its opposite^ Love, so peoples 

air 
With phantoms, as this madness of the 

heart. 

Enter an Officer. 

Lor. Where go you, sirrah? 
Offi. By the ducal order 

To forward the preparatory rites 
For the late Foscari's interment. 

Bar. Their 340 

Vault has been often opened of late 
years. 
Lor. 'Twill be full soon, and may be 

closed for ever ! 
Offi. May I pass on? 
Lor. You may. 

Bar. How bears the Doge 

This last calamity? 

Offi. With desperate firmness. 

In presence of another he says little, 
But I perceive his lips move now and 

then; 
And once or twice I heard him, from the 

adjoining 
Apartment, mutter forth the words — 

"My son !" 
Scarce audibly. I must proceed. 

[Exit Officer. 
Bar. This stroke 

Will move all Venice in his favour. 

Lor. Right ! 350 

We must be speedy : let us call together 
The delegates appointed to convey 
The Council's resolution. 



760 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act V 



Bar. I protest 

Against it at this moment. 

Lor. As you please — 

I'll take their voices on it ne'ertheless, 
And see whose most may sway them, 
yours or mine. 

{Exeunt Barbarigo mid Loredano. 

ACT V. 

Scene I. — The Doge's Apartment. 

The Doge and Attendants. 

Att. My Lord, the deputation is in 
waiting; 
But add, that if another hour would 

better 

Accord with your will, they will make it 

theirs. 

Doge. To me all hours are like. Let 

them approach. [Exit Attendant. 

An Officer. Prince ! I have done 

your bidding. 
Doge. What command? 

Offi. A melancholy one — to call the 
attendance 

Of 

Doge. True — true — true : I crave 
your pardon. I 
Begin to fail in apprehension, and 
Wax very old — old almost as my 

years. 
Till now I fought them off, but they 
begin 10 

To overtake me. 

Enter the Deputation, consisting of six 
of the Signory and the Chief of the 
Ten. 

Noble men, your pleasure ! 
Chief of the Ten. In the first place, 
the Council doth condole 
With the Doge on his late and private 
grief. 
Doge. No more — no more of that. 
Chief of the Ten. Will not the Duke 
Accept the homage of respect? 

Doge. I do 

Accept it as 'tis given — proceed. 

Chief of the Ten. "The Ten," 

With a selected giunta from the Senate 
Of twenty-five of the best born patricians. 
Having deliberated on the state 



Of the Republic, and the o'erwhelming 

cares 20 

Which, at this moment, doubly must 

oppress 
Your years, so long devoted to your 

Country, 
Have judged it fitting, with all reverence. 
Now to solicit from your wisdom (which 
Upon reflection must accord in this). 
The resignation of the ducal ring, 
Which you have worn so long and 

venerably : 
And to prove that they are not ungrate- 
ful, nor 
Cold to your years and services, they 

add 
An appanage of twenty hundred golden 
Ducats, to make retirement not less 
splendid 31 

Than should become a Sovereign's re- 
treat. 
Doge. Did I hear rightly? 
Chief of the Ten. Need I say again ? 
Doge. No. — Have you done ? 
Chief of the Ten. I have spoken. 
Twenty-four 
Hours are accorded you to give an 
answer. 
Doge. I shall not need so many 

seconds. 
Chief of the Ten. We 

Will now retire. 

Doge. Stay ! four and twenty hours 
Will alter nothing which I have to say. 
Chief of the Ten. Speak ! 
Doge. When I twice before reiterated 
My wish to abdicate, it was refused me ; 
And not alone refused, but ye exacted 41 
An oath from me that I would never 

more 
Renew this instance. I have sworn to 

die 
In full exertion of the functions, which 
My Country called me here to exercise. 
According to my honour and my con- 
science — 
I cannot break my oath. 

Chief of the Ten. Reduce us not 

To the alternative of a decree, 
Instead of your compliance. 

Doge. Providence 

Prolongs my days to prove and chasten 

me; 50 



Scene i.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



761 



But ye have no right to reproach my 

length 
Of days, since every hour has been the 

Country's. 
I am ready to lay down my life for her, 
As I have laid down dearer things than 

life: 

But for my dignity — I hold it of 
\ The whole Republic : when the general 

will 

Is manifest, then you shall all be 
answered. 
Chief of the Ten. We grieve for such 
an answer; but it cannot 
Avail you aught. 

Doge. I can submit to all things, 
But nothing will advance; no, not a 

moment. 

What you decree — decree. 61 

Chief of the Ten. With this, then, 
must we 
Return to those who sent us? 

Doge. You have heard me. 

Chief of the Ten. With all due 
reverence we retire. 

[Exeunt the Deputation, etc. 
Enter an Attendant. 
Ait. My Lord, 

The noble dame Marina craves an 
audience. 
Doge. My time is hers. 

Enter Marina. 

Mar. My Lord, if I intrude — 

Perhaps you fain would be alone? 

Doge. Alone ! 

Alone, come all the world around me, I 
Am now and evermore. But we will 
bear it. 

Mar.. We will, and for the sake of 
those who are. 
Endeavour Oh, my husband ! 

Doge. Give it way: 70 

I cannot comfort thee. 

Mar. He might have lived, 

So formed for gentle privacy of life. 
So loving, so beloved; the native of 
Another land, and who so blest and 

blessing 
As my poor Foscari? Nothing was 

wanting 
Unto his happiness and mine save not 
To be Venetian 



Doge. Or a Prince's son. 

Mar. Yes; all things which conduce 

to other men's 

Imperfect happiness or high ambition. 

By some strange destiny, to him proved 

deadly. 80 

The Country and the People whom he 

loved, 
The Prince of whom he was the elder 
born, 

And 

Doge. Soon may be a Prince no 

longer. 
Mar. How ? 

Doge. They have taken my son from 
me, and now aim 
At my too long worn diadem and ring. 
Let them resume the gewgaws ! 

Mar. Oh, the tyrants ! 

In such an hour too ! 

Doge. 'Tis the fittest time; 

An hour ago I should have felt it. 

Mar. And 

Will you not now resent it ? — Oh, for 

vengeance ! 
But he, who, had he been enough pro- 
tected, 90 
Might have repaid protection in this 

moment, 
Cannot assist his father. 

Doge. Nor should do so 

Against his Country, had he a thousand 
lives 

Instead of that 

Mar. They tortured from him. This 
May be pure patriotism. I am a 

woman : 
To me my husband and my children 

were 
Country and home. I loved him — • 

how I loved him! 
I have seen him pass through such an 

ordeal as 
The old martyrs would have shrunk 

from: he is gone, 
And I, who would have given my blood 
for him, 100 

Have nought to give but tears! But 

could I compass 
The retribution of his wrongs ! — Well, 

well! 
I have sons, who shall be men. 

Doge. Your grief distracts you. 



762 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act v. 



Mar. I thought I could have borne 
it, when I saw him 
Bowed down by such oppression; yes, 

I thought 
That I would rather look upon his corse 
Than his prolonged captivity : — I am 

punished 
For that thought now. Would I were 
in his grave ! 
Doge. I must look on him once more. 
Mar. Come with me ! 

Doge. Is he 

Mar. Our bridal bed is now his bier. 

Doge. And he is in his shroud ! 1 1 1 

Mar. Come, come, old man ! 

[Exeunt the Doge and Marina. 

Enter Barbarigo and Lored.vno. 

Bar. {to an Attendant). Where is the 

Doge? 
Att. This instant retired hence. 

With the illustrious lady his son's 
widow. 
Lor. Where ? 
Att. To the chamber where the body 

lies. 
Bar. Let us return, then. 
Lor. You forget, you cannot. 

We have the implicit order of the 

Giunta 
To await their coming here, and join 

them in 
Their office: they'll be here soon after 
us. 
Bar. And will they press their answer 

on the Doge? 
Lor. 'Twas his own \A'ish that all 
should be done promptly. 120 

He answered quickly, and must so be 

answered ; 
His dignity is looked to, his estate 
Cared for — what would he more ? 

Bar. Die in his robes: 

He could not have lived long; but I 

have done 
My best to save his honours, and op- 
posed 
This proposition to the last, though 

vainly. 
Why would the general vote compel me 
' hither ? 
Lor. 'Twas fit that some one of such 
different thoughts 



From ours should be a witness, lest false 

tongues 

Should whisper that a harsh majority 
Dreaded to have its acts beheld by 

others. 131 

Bar. And not less, I must needs 

think, for the sake 
Of humbling me for my vain opposition. 
You are ingenious, Loredano, in 
Your modes of vengeance, nay, poetical, 
A very Ovid in the art of hating; 
'Tis thus (although a secondary object, 
Yet hate has microscopic eyes), to you 
I owe, by way of foil to the more zealous. 
This undesired association in 140 

Your Giunta's duties. 

Lor. How ! — my Giunta ! 

Bar. Yours I 

They speak your language, watch your 

nod, approve 
Your plans, and do your work. Are 

they not yours? 
Lor. You talk unwarily. 'Twere 

best they hear not 
This from you. 

Bar. Oh ! they'll hear as much one 

day 
From louder tongues than mine; they 

have gone beyond 
Even their exorbitance of power: and 

when 
This happens in the most contemned 

and abject 
States, stung humanity will rise to check 

it. 
Lor. You talk but idly. 
Bar. That remains for proof. 150 
Here come our colleagues. 

Enter the Deputation as before. 

Chief of the Ten. Is the Duke aware 
We seek his presence? 

Att. He shall be informed. 

[Exit Attendant. 
Bar. The Duke is with his son. 
Chief of the Ten. If it be so, 

We will remit him till the rites are over. 
Let us return. 'Tis time enough to- 
morrow. 
Lor. (aside to Bar.). Now the rich 
man's hell-fire upon your tongue, 
Unquenched, unquenchable ! I'll have 
it torn 



Scene i.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



763 



From its vile babbling roots, till you 

shall utter 
Nothing but sobs through blood, for 

this ! Sage Signors, 
I pray ye be not hasty. 

[Aloud to the others. 
Bar. But be human ! 160 

Lor. See, the Duke comes ! 

Enter the Doge. 

Doge. I have obeyed your summons. 
Chief of the Ten. We come once 

more to urge our past request. 
Doge. And I to answer. 
Chief oj the Ten. What? 

Doge. My only answer. 

You have heard it. 

Chief of the Ten. Hear you then the 
last decree. 
Definitive and absolute ! 

Doge. To the point — 

To the point ! I know of old the forms 

of office, 

And gentle preludes to strong acts. — 
Go on! 
Chief of the Ten. You are no longer 
Doge; you are released 
From your imperial oath as Sovereign; 
Your ducal robes must be put off; but 
for 170 

Your services, the State allots the ap- 
panage 
Already mentioned in our former 

congress. 
Three days are left you to remove from 

hence. 

Under the penalty to see confiscated 
All your own private fortune. 

Doge. That last clause, 

I am proud to say, would not enrich the 
treasury. 
Chief of the Ten. Your answer, 

Duke ! 
Lor. Your answer, Francis 

Foscari ! 
Doge. If I could have foreseen that 
my old age 
Was prejudicial to the State, the Chief 
Of the Republic never would have 
shown 180 

Himself so far ungrateful, as to place 
His own high dignity before his Country; 
But this life having been so many years 



Not useless to that Country, I would 

fain jg 

Have consecrated my last moments to ^ 

her. 
But the decree being rendered, I obey. 
Chief of the Ten. If you would have 
the three days named extended, 
We willingly will lengthen them to 

eight, 
As sign of our esteem. 

Doge. Not eight hours, Signor, 
Not even eight minutes — there's the 
ducal ring, 190 

[Taking off his ring and cap. 
And there the ducal diadem ! And so 
The Adriatic's free to wed another. 
Chief of the Ten. Yet go not forth so 

quickly. 
Doge. I am old, sir. 

And even to move but slowly must 

begin 
To move betimes. Methinks I see 

amongst you 
A face I know not. — Senator ! your 

name. 
You, by your garb. Chief of the Forty ! 
Mem. Signor, 

I am the son of Marco Memmo. 

Doge. Ah ! 

Your father was my friend. — But sons 

and fathers ! — 
What, ho ! my servants there ! 
Att. My Prince! 

Doge. No Prince — 200 

There are the princes of the Prince ! 
[Pointing to the Ten's Deputation.] 
— Prepare 
To part from hence upon the instant. 

Chief of the Ten. Why 

So rashly? 'twill give scandal. 

Answer that; 
[To the Ten. 
It is your province. — Sirs, bestir your- 
selves: [To the Servants. 
There is one burthen which I beg you 

bear 
With care, although 'tis past all farther 

harm — 
But I will look to that myself. 

Bar. He means 

The body of his son. 

Doge. ' And call Marina, 

My daughter! 



764 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act v. 



Enter Marina. 
Doge. Get thee ready, we must mourn 
Elsewhere. 

Mar. And everywhere. 
Doge. True ; but in freedom, 210 
Without these jealous spies upon the 

great. 
Signors, you may depart: what would 

you more? 
We are going: do you fear that we 

shall bear' 
The palace with us? Its old walls, ten 

times 
As old as I am, and I'm very old. 
Have served you, so have I, and I and 

they 
Could tell a tale ; but I invoke them not 
To fall upon you ! else they would, as 

erst 
The pillars of stone Dagon's temple 

on 
The Israelite and his Philistine foes. 220 
Such power I do believe there might 

exist 
In such a curse as mine, provoked by 

such 
As you; but I curse not. Adieu, good 

Signors ! 
May the next Duke be better than the 
present ! 
Lor. The present Duke is Paschal 

Malipiero. 
Doge. Not till I pass the threshold of 

these doors. 
Lor. Saint Mark's great bell is soon 
about to toll 
For his inauguration. 

Doge. Earth and Heaven ! 

Ye will reverberate this peal ; and I 

Live to hear this ! — the first Doge who 

e'er heard 230 

Such sound for his successor: happier 

he. 
My attainted predecessor, stern Faliero — 
This insult at the least was spared him. 
Lor. What ! 

Do you regret a traitor? 

Doge. No — I merely 

Envy the dead. 

Chief of the Ten. My Lord, if you 
indeed 
Are bent upon this rash abandonment 



Of the State's palace, at the least retire 
By the private staircase, which conducts 

you towards 
The landing-place of the canal. 

Doge. No. I 239 

Will now descend the stairs by which 

I mounted 
To sovereignty — the Giant's Stairs, 

on whose 
Broad eminence I was invested Duke. 
My services have called me up those 

steps, 
The malice of my foes will drive me 

down them. 
There five and thirty years ago was I ' 
Installed, and traversed these same halls, 

from which 
I never thought to be divorced except 
A corse — a corse, it might be, fighting 

for them — 
But not pushed hence by fellow-citizens. 
But come; my son and I will go to- 
gether — 250 
He to his grave, and I to pray for 

mine. 
Chief of the Ten. What! thus in 

public ? 
Doge. I was publicly 

Elected, and so will I be deposed. 
Marina ! art thou willing ? 

Mar. Here's my arm ! 

Doge. And here my staff: thus 

propped will I go forth. 
Chief of the Ten. It must not be — 

the people will perceive it. 
Doge. The people ! — There's no 

people, you well know it. 
Else you dare not deal thus by them or 

me. 
There is a populace, perhaps, whose 

looks 
May shame you; but they dare not 

groan nor curse you, 260 

Save with their hearts and eyes. 

Chief of the Ten. You speak in 

passion, 

Else 

Doge. You have reason. I have 

spoken much 
More than my wont: it is a foible 

which 
Was not of mine, but more excuses 

you, 



Scene i.] 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



I^S 



Inasmuch as it shows, that I approach 
A dotage which may justify this deed 
Of yours, although the law does not, 

nor will. 
Farewell, sirs ! 

Bar. You shall not depart without 
An escort fitting past and present 

rank. 
We will accompany, with due re- 
spect, 270 
The Doge unto his private palace. 

Say ! 
My brethren, will we not ? 

Different voices. Aye ! — Aye ! 

Doge. You shall not 

Stir — in my train, at least. I entered 

here 
As Sovereign — I go out as citizen 
By the same portals, but as citizen. 
All these vain ceremonies are base 

insults, 
Which only ulcerate the heart the 

more, 
Applying poisons there as antidotes. 
Pomp is for Princes — I am none ! — 

That's false, 
I am, but only to these gates. — Ah ! 
Lor. Hark ! 280 

[The great hell of St. Mark's tolls. 
Bar. The bell ! 

Chief of the Ten. St. Mark's, which 
tolls for the election 
Of Malipiero. 

Doge. Well I recognise 

The sound ! I heard it once, but once 

before, 
And that is five and thirty years ago; 
Even then I was not young. 

Bar. Sit down, my Lord ! 

You tremble. 

Doge. 'Tis the knell of my poor boy ! 
My heart aches bitterly. 

Bar. I pray you sit. 

Doge. No; my seat here has been 
a throne until now. 
Marina ! let us go. 

Mar. Most readily. 

Doge {walks a few steps, then stops). 
I feel athirst — will no one bring 
me here 290 

A cup of water? 

Bar. I 

Mar. And I 



Lor. And I ^ 

[The Doge takes a goblet from the hand M 

of LOREDANO. 

Doge. I take yours, Loredano, from 
the hand 
Most fit for such an hour as 
this. 
Lor. Why so ? 

Doge. 'Tis said that our Venetian 
crystal has 
Such pure antipathy to poisons as 
To burst, if aught of venom touches 

it. 
You bore this goblet, and it is not 
broken. 
Lor. Well, sir ! 

Doge. Then it is false, or you are 
true. 
For my own part, I credit neither; 

'tis 
An idle legend. 
- Mar. You talk wildly, and 300 

Had better now be seated, nor as 

yet 
Depart. Ah ! now you look as looked 
my husband ! 
Bar. He sinks ! — support him ! — 

quick — a chair — support him ! 
Doge. The bell tolls on ! — let's 

hence — my brain's on fire ! 
Bar. I do beseech you, lean upon 

us! 
Doge. No ! 
A Sovereign should die standing. My 

poor boy ! 
Off with your arms ! — That belli 

[The Doge drops down and dies. 
Mar. My God ! My God ! 

Bar. {to Lor.). Behold! your work's 

completed ! 
Chief of the Ten. Is there then 

No aid ? Call in assistance ! 

Att. 'Tis all over. 

Chief of the Ten. If it be so, at least 

his obsequies 310 

Shall be such as befits his name and 

nation. 
His rank and his devotion to the 

. duties 
Of the realm, while his age permitted 

him 
To do himself and them full justice. 
Brethren, 



766 



THE TWO FOSCARI 



[Act 



Say, shall it not be so ? 

Bar. He has not had 

The misery to die a subject where 
He reigned: then let his funeral rites 

be princely. 
Chiej of the Ten. We are agreed, 

then? 
All, except Lor., answer, Yes. 

Chiej of the Ten. Heaven's peace be 

with him ! 
Mar. Signors, your pardon: this 

is mockery. 320 

Juggle no more with that poor rem- 
nant, which, 
A moment since, while yet it had a 

soul, 
(A soul by whom you have increased 

your Empire, 
And made your power as proud as was 

his glory), 
You banished from his palace and tore 

down 
From his high place, with such relentless 

coldness; 
And now, when he can neither know 

these honours. 
Nor would accept them if he could, 

you, Signors, 
Purpose, with idle and superfluous 

pomp. 
To make a pageant over what you 

trampled. 330 

A princely funeral will be your re- 
proach, 
And not his honour. 

Chiej oj the Ten. Lady, we revoke 

not 
Our purposes so readily. 

Mar. I know it. 

As far as touches torturing the 

living. 
I thought the dead had been beyond 

even you. 
Though (some, no doubt) consigned to 

powers which may 
Resemble that you exercise on earth. 
Leave him to me ; you would have done 

so for 
His dregs of life, which you have kindly 

shortened : 
It is my last of duties, and may 

prove 340 

A dreary comfort in my desolation. 



Grief is fantastical, and loves the dead, 
And the apparel of the grave. 

Chiej oj the Ten. Do you 

Pretend still to this office ? 

Mar. I do, Signor. 

Though his possessions have been all 

consumed 
In the State's service, I have still my 

dowry, 
Which shall be consecrated to his 

rites, 

And those of 

[She stops with agitation. 
Chiej oj the Ten. Best retain it for 

your children. 
Mar. Aye, they are fatherless, I 

thank you. 
Chiej oj the Ten. We 

Cannot comply with your request. His 

relics 350 

Shall be exposed with wonted pomp, and 

followed 
Unto their home by the new Doge, not 

clad 
As Doge, but simply as a senator. 

Mar. 1 have heard of murderers, 

who have interred 
Their victims; but ne'er heard, until 

this hour, 
Of so much splendour in hypocrisy 
O'er those they slew.^ I've heard of 

widows' tears — 
Alas ! I have shed some — always 

thanks to you ! 
I've heard of heirs in sables — you 

have left none 



' The Venetians appear to have had a partic- 
ular turn for breaking the hearts of their Doges. 
The following is another instance of the kind 
in the Doge Marco Barbarigo: he was succeeded 
by his brother Agostino Barbarigo, whose chief 
merit is here mentioned. — -"Le doge, blesse de 
trouver constamment un contradicteur et un" 
censeur si amer dans son frere, lui dit un jour 
en plein conseil: 'Messire Augustin, vous faites 
tout votre possible pour hater ma mort: vous 
vous flattez de me succeder; mais, si les autres 
vous connaissent aussi bien que je vous connais, 
ils n'auront garde de vous elire.' La-dessus 11 
se leva, emu de colere, rentra dans son apparte- 
ment, et mourut quelques jours apres. Ce 
frere, contre lequel il s'etait emporte, fut pre- 
cisement le successeur qu'on lui donna. C'etalt 
un merite dont on aimait a tenir compte; sur- 
tout a un parent, de s'etre mis en opposition 
avec le chef de la rcpublique." — Daru, Hist. 
de Venise, 182 1, iii. 29. 



CAIN 



V- 



W^ 



rJ 767 



To the deceased, so you would act the 

part 360 

Of such. Well, sirs, your will be done ! 

as one day, 
I trust, Heaven's will be done too ! 

Chief of the Ten. Know you. Lady, 

To whom ye speak, and perils of such 

speech ? 

Mar. I know the former better than 

yourselves; 

The latter — like yourselves ; and can 

face both. 
Wish you more funerals? 

Bar. Heed not her rash words : 

Her circumstances must excuse her 
bearing. 
Chief of the Ten. We will not note 

them down. 
Bar. {turning to Lor., who is writing 
upon his tablets). 

What art thou writing, 
With such an earnest brow, upon thy 
tablets ? 
Lor. {pointing to the Doge's body). 

That he has paid me ! ^ 
Chief of the Ten. What debt did he 
owe you? 370 

Lor. A long and just one; Nature's 
debt and mine.^ 

[Curtain falls.^ 



' " Uha pagata." An historical fact. See 
Hist, de Venise, par P. Daru, 1821, ii. 528, 529. 

[Daru quotes Palazzi's Fasti Ducales as his 
authority for this story. According to Pietro 
Giustiniani (Storia, lib. viii.), Jacopo Loredano 
was at pains to announce the decree of the Ten 
to the Doge in coxu-teous and considerate terms, 
and begged him to pardon him for what it was 
his duty to do. Romanin points out that this 
version of the interview is inconsistent with the 
famous "I'ha pagata." — Storia, etc., iv. 290, 
note I.] 

' [Here the original MS. ends. The two 
lines which follow were added by GifEord.] 

3 [The Appendix to the First Edition of The 
Two Foscari consisted of (i.) an extract from 
P. Daru's Histoire de la Republique Frangaise, 
1821, ii. 520-537; (ii.) an extract from J. C. L. 
Simonde de Sismondi's Histoire des Republiques 
lialiennes du Moyen Age, 1815, x. 36-46; and 
(iii.) a note in response to certain charges of 
plagiarism brought against the author in the 
Literary Gazette and elsewhere; and to Southey's 
indictment of the "Satanic School," which had 
recently appeared in the Preface to the Laureate's 
Vision of Judgment {Poetical Works of Robert 
Southey, 1838, x. 202-207). See too, the "In- 
troduction to The Vision of Judgment, Poetical 
Works," 1891, jv, pp. 475-480.] 



K CAIN:^ 

A MYSTERY.I 




"Now the Serpent was more subtil than any 
beast of the field which the Lord God had made." 
Genesis, 
Chapter ^rd, verse i. 



TO 

SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART., 

THIS MYSTERY OF CAIN 

IS INSCRIBED, 
BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND 

AND FAITHFUL SERVANT, 

THE AUTHOR.^ 



PREFACE. 



The following scenes are entitled "A 
Mystery," in conformity with the 
ancient title annexed to dramas upon 
similar subjects, which were styled 
"Mysteries, or Moralities." The author 

' [Cain was begun, at Ravenna, July 16, 
finished September 9, 182 1, and published, with 
Sardanapahis and The Two Foscari, December 
19, 1821.J 

»[On the 13th December [1821] Sir Walter 
received a copy of Cain, as yet unpublished, 
from Murray, who had been instructed to ask 
whether he had any objection to having the 
"Mystery" dedicated to him. He replied in 
these words — 

"Edinburgh, 4/7i December, 1821. 

"My dear Sir, — I accept, with feelings of 
great obligation, the flattering proposal of Lord 
B}Ton to prefix my name to the very grand and 
tremendous drama of 'Cain.' I may be partial 
to it, and you will allow I have cause; but I do 
not know that his Muse has ever taken so lofty 
a flight amid her former soarings. He has 
certainly matched Milton on his own ground. 
Some part of the language is bold, and may 
shock one class of readers, whose line will be 
adopted by others out of affectation or envy. 
But then they must condemn the 'Paradise 
Lost,' if they have a mind to be consistent. The 
fiend-like reasoning and bold blasphemy of the 
fiend and of his pupil lead exactly to the point 
which was to be expected, — the commission of 
the first murder, and the ruin and despair of the 
perpetrator. 

"I do not see how any one can accuse the 
author himself of Manicheism. The Dev-il talks 



768 



CAIN 



has by no means taken the same 
^liberties with his subject which were 
'common formerly, as may be seen by 
any reader curious enough to refer to 
those very profane productions, whether 
in English, French, Italian, or Spanish. 
The author has endeavoured to pre- 
serve the language adapted to his 
characters; and where it is (and this 
is but rarely) taken from actual Scrip- 
ture, he has made as little alteration, 
even of words, as the rhythm would 
permit. The reader will recollect that 
the book of Genesis does not state 
that Eve was tempted by a demon, but 
by "the Serpent;"^ and that only 
because he was "the most subtil of all 
the beasts of the field." Whatever 
interpretation the Rabbins and the 
Fathers may have put upon this, I 
take the words as I find them, and 



the language of that sect, doubtless; because, 
not being able to deny the existence of the Good 
Principle, he endeavours to exalt himself — the 
Evil Principle — to a seeming equality with 
the Good; but such arguments, in the mouth 
of such a being, can only be used to deceive and 
to betray. Lord Byron might have made this 
more evident, by placing in the mouth of Adam, 
or of some good and protecting spirit, the reasons 
vsrhich render the existence of moral evil con- 
sistent with the general benevolence of the Deity. 
The great key to the mystery is, perhaps, the 
imperfection of our own faculties, which see 
and feel strongly the partial evils which press 
upon us, but know too little of the general 
system of the universe, to be aware how the 
existence of these is to be reconciled with the 
benevolence of the great Creator. 

"To drop these speculations, you have much 
occasion for some mighty spirit, like Lord Byron, 
to come down and trouble the waters; for, ex- 
cepting 'The John Bull,'* you seem stagnating 
strangely in London. 

"Yours, my dear Sir, 
"Very truly, 

"Walter Scott. 
"To John Murray, Esq."] 

' [For the contention that "the snake was the 
snake," see La Bible enfin Expliquee, etc.; 
(Euvres Cotnpleles de Voltaire, Paris, 1837, vi. 
338, note.] 



* [The first number of John Bull, "For God, 
the King, and the People," was published Sunday, 
December 17, 1820. Theodore Hook was the 
editor, and it is supposed that he owed his ap- 
pointment to the intervention of Sir Walter Scott. 
The raison d'etre of John Bull was to write up 
George IV., and to write down Queen Caroline.] 



reply, with Bishop Watson ^ upon 
similar occasions, when the Fathers 
were quoted to him as Moderator in 
the schools of Cambridge, " Behold the 
Book!" — holding up the Scripture. 
It is to be recollected, that my present 
subject has nothing to do with the 
New Testament, to which no reference 
can be here made without anachronism. 
With the poems upon similar topics I 
have not been recently familiar. Since 
I was twenty I have never read Milton; 
but I had read him so frequently before, 
that this may make little difference. 
Gesner's "Death of Abel" I have 
never read since I was eight years of 
age, at Aberdeen. The general impres- 
sion of my recollection is delight; but 
of the contents I remember only that 
Cain's wife was called Mahala, and 
Abel's Thirza; in the following pages 
I have called them "Adah" and "Zil- 
lah," the earliest female names which 
occur in Genesis. They were those 
of Lamech's wives: those of Cain and 
Abel are not called by their names. 
Whether, then, a coincidence of subject 
may have caused the same in expression, 
I know nothing, and care as little. 

The reader will please to bear in 
mind (what few choose to recollect), 
that there is no allusion to a future 
state in any of the books of Moses, 
nor indeed in the Old Testament. 
For a reason for this extraordinary 
omission he may consult Warburton's 
"Divine Legation;" whether satisfac- 
tory or not, no better has yet been 
assigned. I have therefore supposed 
it new to Cain, without, I hope, any 
perversion of Holy Writ. 

With regard to the language of 
Lucifer, it was difficult for me to make 
him talk like a clergyman upon the 
same subjects; but I have done what 
I could to restrain him within the 
bounds of spiritual politeness. If he 
disclaims having tempted Eve in the 
shape of the Serpent, it is only because 

' [Richard Watson {1737-1816), Bishop of 
Llandaff, 1782, was appointed Moderator .of the 
Schools in 1762, and Regius Professor of Divia- 
ity, October 31, 177 1.] 



Scene i.] 



CAIN 



769 



the book of Genesis has not the most 
distant allusion to anything of the kind, 
but merely to the Serpent in his ser- 
pentine capacity. 

Note. — The reader will perceive 
that the author has partly adopted in 
this poem the notion of Cuvier, that 
the world had been destroyed several 
times before the creation of man. 
This speculation, derived from the 
different strata and the bones of enor- 
mous and unknown animals found 
in them, is not contrary to the Mosaic 
account, but rather confirms it; as no 
human bones have yet been discovered 
in those strata, although those of many 
known animals are found near the 
remains of the unknown. The asser- 
tion of Lucifer, that the pre-Adamite 
world was also peopled by rational 
beings much more intelligent than 
man, and proportionably powerful to 
the mammoth, etc, etc., is, of course, 
a poetical fiction to help him to make 
out his case. 

I ought to add, that there is a "trame- 

logedia" of Alfieri, called "Abele."^ 

I have never read that, nor any other 

. of the posthumous works of the writer, 

except his Life. 

Ravenna, Sept. 20, 1821. 



DRAMATIS PERSONiE. 
MEN. 



Adam. 
Cain. 
Abel. 



SPIRITS. 



Angel of the Lord. 
Lucifer. 

WOMEN. 

Eve. 
Adah. 

ZiLLAH. 

I ["In a long Preface to the Ahele Alfieri says 
that it is neither a tragedy, a comedy, a drama, 
a tragi-comedy, nor a Greek tragedy, which last 
would, he thinks, be correctly described as melo- 
tragedy. Opera-tragedy would, in his opinion, 
be a fitting name for it; but he prefers interpolat- 
ing the word 'melo' into the middle of the word 
'tragedy,' so as not to spoil the ending, although 

3D 



ACT I. 

Scene I. — The Land without Para- 
dise. — Time, Sunrise. 

Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Adah, 
ZiLLAH, offering a Sacrifice. 

Adam. God, the Eternal! Infinite! 

AUwise ! — 
Who out of darkness on the deep didst 

make 
Light on the waters with a word — 

All Hail ! 
Jehovah ! with returning light — All 

Hail! 
Eve. God ! who didst name the 

day, and separate 
Morning from night, till then divided 

never — 
Who didst divide the wave from wave, 

and call 
Part of thy work the firmament — All 

Hail! 
Abel. God! who didst call the 

elements into 
Earth, ocean, air and fire — and with 

the day 10 

And night, and worlds which these 

illuminate. 
Or shadow, madest beings to enjoy 

them. 
And love them both and thee — All 

Hail ! All Hail ! 
Adah. God, the Eternal ! Parent of 

all things ! 
Who didst create these best and beau- 

. teous beings, 
To be beloved, more than all — save 

thee — 
Let me love thee and them : — All 

Hail ! All Hail ! 
Zillah. Oh, God ! who loving, mak- 
ing, blessing all. 
Yet didst permit the Serpent to creep 

in. 
And drive my father forth from 

Paradise, 

by so doing he has cut in two . . . the root of 
the word — Tpayo<;." — The Tragedies of Vitto- 
rio Alfieri, edited by E. A. Bowring, C.B., 1876, 
ii. 472. . 

There is no resemblance whatever between 
Byron's Cain and Alfieri's Abele.] 



770 



CAIN 



[Act I. 



Keep us from further evil 
Hail! 



Hail! All 

21 



Adam. Son Cain ! my first-born — 
wherefore art thou silent? 
^ Cain. Why should I speak? 
Adam. To pray. 

Cain. Have ye not prayed? 

Adam. We have, most fervently. 
Cain. And loudly: I 

Have heard you. 

Adam. So will God, I trust. 

Abel. Amen ! 

Adam,. But thou my eldest born ! art 

silent still? 
Cain. 'Tis better I should be so. 
Adam. Wherefore so? 

Cain. I have nought to ask. 
Adam. Nor aught to thank for? 
Cain. No. 

Adam. Dost thou not live? 
Cain. Must I not die? 

Eve. Alas ! 

The fruit of our forbidden tree begins 30 
To fall. 

Adam. And we must gather it again. 
Oh God ! why didst thou plant the tree 
of knowledge? 
Cain. And wherefore plucked ye not 
the tree of life? 
Ye might have then defied him. 

Adam. Oh! my son, 

Blaspheme not: these are Serpent's 
words. 
Cain. Why not? 

The snake spoke truth; it was the Tree 

of Knowledge; 
It was the Tree of Life: knowledge is 

good. 
And Life is good ; and how can both be 
evil? 
Eve. My boy ! thou speakest as I 
spoke in sin, 
Before thy birth: let me not see re- 
newed 40 
My misery in thine. I have repented. 
Let me not see my offspring fall into 
The snares beyond the walls of Paradise, 
Which even in Paradise destroyed his 

parents. 
Content thee with what is. Had we 

been so. 
Thou now hadst been contented. — Oh, 
my son! 



Adam. Our orisons completed, let us 

hence, 
Each to his task of toil — not heavy,, 

though I 

Needful : the earth is young, and yields! 

us kindly 
Her fruits with little labour. 

Eve. Cain — my son — 

Behold thy father cheerful and re- 
signed — 51 
And do as he doth. 

[Exeunt Adam and Eve. 
Zillah. Wilt thou not, my brother? 
Abel. Why wilt thou wear this gloom 

upon thy brow, 
Which can avail thee nothing, save to 

rouse 
The Eternal anger? 

Adah. My beloved Cain, , 

Wilt thou frown even on me? 

Cain. No, Adah! no; 

I fain would be alone a little while. 
Abel, I'm sick at heart; but it will 

pass; 
Precede me, brother — I will follow) 

shortly. 50 

And you, too, sisters, tarry not behind; 
Your gentleness must not be harshly 

met: 
I'll follow you anon. 

Adah. If not, I will 

Return to seek you here. 

Abel. The peace of God 

Be on your spirit, brother ! 

[Exeunt Abel, Zillah, and Adah. 

Cain (solus). And this is 

Life ? — - Toil ! and wherefore should I 

toil ? — because 
Mv father could not keep his place in 

Eden? 
What had I done in this ? — I was un- 
born : 
I sought not to be born; nor love the 

state I 

To which that birth has brought me. I 

Why did he 
Yield to the Serpent and the woman ? or 
Yielding — why suffer ? What was 

there in this? 71 

The tree was planted, and why not for 

him? 
If not, why place him near it, where it 

grew 



Scene i.] 



CAIN 



771 



The fairest in the centre? They have 

but 
One answer to all questions, " 'Twas his 

will, 
And he is good." How know I that? 

Because 
He is all-powerful, must all-good, too, 

follow ? 
I judge but by the fruits — and they are 

bitter — 
Which I must feed on for a fault not 

mine. 
Whom have we here ? — A shape like to 

the angels 80 

Yet of a sterner and a sadder aspect 
Of spiritual essence : why do I quake ? 
j Why should I fear him more than other 

spirits. 
Whom I see daily wave their fiery swords 
Before the gates round which I linger 

oft, 
In Twilight's hour, to catch a glimpse of 

those 
Gardens which are my just inheritance. 
Ere the night closes o'er the inhibited 

walls 
And the immortal trees which overtop 
The Cherubim-defended battlements? 
If I shrink not from these, the fire-armed 

angels, 91 

Why should I quail from him who now 

approaches ? 
Yet — he seems mightier far than them, 

nor less 
Beauteous, and yet not all as beautiful 
As he hath been, and might be : sorrow 

seems 
Half of his immortality. And is it 
So? and can aught grieve save Hu- 
manity ? 
He Cometh. 

Enter Lucifer, 

Lucifer. Mortal ! 

Cain. Spirit, who art thou? 

Lucifer. Master of spirits. 

Cain. And being so, canst thou 

Leave them, and walk with dust? 

Lucifer. I know the thoughts 

Of dust, and feel for it, and with you. loi 

Cain . How ! 

You know my thoughts? 

Lucifer. They are the thoughts of all 



Worthy of thought; — 'tis your im- 
mortal part ^ 
Which speaks within you. 

Cain. What immortal part? 

This has not been revealed : the Tree of 

Life 
Was withheld from us by my father's 

.folly. 
While that of Knowledge, by my 

mother's haste. 
Was plucked too soon ; and all the fruit 
is Death ! 
Lucifer. They have deceived thee; 

thou shalt live. 
Cain. I live, 

But live to die; and, living, see no thing 
To make death hateful, save an innate 
clinging, 1 1 1 

A loathsome, and yet all invincible 
Instinct of life, which I abhor, as I 
Despise myself, yet cannot overcome — 
And so I live. Would I had never 
lived ! 
Lucifer. Thou livest — and must live 
for ever. Think not 
The Earth, which is thine outward 

cov'ring, is 
Existence — it will cease — and thou 

wilt be — 
No less than thou art now. 

Cain. No less! and why 

No more? 

Lucifer. It may be thou shalt be as 
we. 120 

Cain. And ye? 

Lucifer. Are everlasting. 

Cain. Are ye happy? 

Lucifer. We are mighty. 
Cain. Are ye happy? 

Lucifer. No : art thou ? 

Cain. How should I be so? Look 

on me ! 
Lucifer. Poor clay ! 

And thou pretendest to be wretched ! 
Thou! 
Cain. I am: — and thou, with all 

thy might, what art thou? 
Lucifer. One who aspired to be what 
made thee, and 

' [According to the Manichaeans, the divinely 
created and immortal soul is imprisoned in an 
alien and evil body. There can be no harmony 
between soul and body.] 



772 



CAIN 



[Act I. 



Would not have made thee what thou art. 
Cain. Ah ! 

Thou look'st almost a god ; and 

Lucifer. ' I am none: 

And having failed to be one, would be 

nought 
Save what I am. He conquered; let 

him reign ! 130 

Cain. Who? 
Lucifer. Thy Sire's maker — and 

the Earth's. 

Cain. And Heaven's, 

And all that in them is. So I have heard 

His Seraphs sing; and so my father saith. 

Lucifer. They say — what they must 

sing and say, on pain 
Of being that which I am, — and thou 

art — 
Of spirits and of men. 

Cain. And what is that? 

Lucifer. Souls who dare use their im- 
mortality — 
Souls who dare look the Omnipotent 

tyrant in 
His everlasting face, and tell him that 
His evil is not good ! If he has made. 
As he saith — which I know not, nor 

believe — 141 

But, if he made us, he cannot unmake : 
We are immortal ! — nay, he'd have us so, 
That he may torture : — let him ! He is 

great — 
But, in his greatness, is no happier than 
We in our conflict ! Goodness would 

not make 
Evil; and what else hath he made? 

But let him 
Sit on his vast and solitary throne — 
Creating worlds, to make eternity 
Less burthensome to his immense 

existence — 
And unparticipated solitude; ^ 151 

Let him crowd orb on orb : he is alone 
Indefinite, Indissoluble Tyrant; 

' [Compare — 

"Let him unite above 
Star upon star, moon, Sun; 
And let his God-head toil 
To re-adorn and re-illume his Heaven, 
Since in the end derision 
Shall prove his works and all his efforts vain." 

Adam, a Sacred Drama, by Giovanni Battista 
Andreini; Cowper's Milton, 1810, iii. 24. 
sqg.] 



Could he but crush himself, 'twere the 

best boon 
He ever granted : but let him reign on ! 
And multiply himself in misery ! 
Spirits and Men, at least we sym- 
pathise — 
And, suffering in concert, make our 

pangs 
Innumerable, more endurable, 
By the unbounded sympathy of all 160 f 
With all ! But He ! so wretched in his / 

height. 
So restless in his wretchedness, must still 
Create, and re-create — perhaps he'll 

make ^ 
One day a Son unto himself — as he 
Gave you a father — and if he so doth, 
Mark me ! that Son will be a sacrifice ! 
Cain. Thou speak'st to me of things 

which long have swum 
In visions through my thought : I never 

could 
Reconcile what I saw with what I heard. 
My father and my mother talk to me 170 
Of serpents, and of fruits and trees : I see 
The gates of what they call their Para- 
dise 
Guarded by fiery-sworded Cherubim, 
Which shut them out — and me : I feel 

the weight 
Of daily toil, and constant thought: I 

look 
Around a world where I seem nothing, 

with 
Thoughts which arise within me, as if 

they 
Could master all things — but I thought 

alone 
This misery was mine. My father is 
Tamed down ; my mother has forgot the 
mind 180 

Which made her thirst for knowledge at 

the risk 
Of an eternal curse; my brother is 
A watching shepherd boy,^ who offers up 

' [Lines 163-166 ("perhaps" . . . "sacrifice") 
which appear in the MS., were omitted from the 
text in the first and all subsequent editions. In 
the edition of 1832, etc. (xiv. 27), they are printed 
as a variant in a footnote. The present text 
follows the MS.] 

" [According to the Encyclopedia Biblica, the 
word "Abel" signifies "shepherd" or "herd- 
man." The Massorites give "breath" or 
"vanity," as an equivalent.] 



Scene i.] 



CAIN 



773 



The firstlings of the flock to him who 

bids 
The earth yield nothing to us without 

sweat ; 
My sister Zillah sings an earlier hymn 
Than the birds' matins; and my Adah 

— my 
Own and beloved — she, too, under- 
stands not 
The mind which overwhelms me ; never 

till 

Now met I aught to sympathise with me. 

'Tis well — I rather would consort with 

spirits. 191 

Lucifer. And hadst thou not been fit 

by thine own soul 

For such companionship, I would not 

now 
Have stood before thee as I am: a 

serpent 

Had been enough to charm ye, as before. 
Cain. Ah ! didst thou tempt my 

mother ? 
Lucifer. I tempt none, 

Save with the truth: was not the Tree, 

the Tree 
pf Knowledge? and was not the Tree 

of Life 
)till fruitful ? Did I bid her pluck them 

not? 

Did I plant things prohibited within 200 
The reach of beings innocent, and curi- 
ous 
y their own innocence ? I would have 

made ye 
irods; and even He who thrust ye forth, 

so thrust ye 
because "ye should not eat the fruits of 

life. 
And become gods as we." Were 
• those his words? 

Cain. They were, as I have heard 
from those who heard them, 
ti thunder. 
Lucifer. Then w^ho was the Demon? 

He 
7ho would not let ye live, or he who 

would 

[ave made ye live for ever, in the joy 
nd power of Knowledge? 
Cain. Would they had snatched both 
he fruits, or neither! 
Lucifer. One is yours already, 211 



The other may be still. 

Cain. How so? 

Lucifer. By being 

Yourselves, in your resistance. Nothing 

can 
Quench the mind, If the mind will be 

itself 
And centre of surrounding things — 'tis 

made 
To sway. 

Cain. But didst thou tempt my 

parents ? 
Lucifer. I ? 

Poor clay — what should I tempt them 

for, or how? 
Cain. They say the Serpent was a 

spirit. 
Lucifer. Who 

Saith that ? It is not written so on high : 
The proud One will not so far falsify, 
Though man's vast fears and little vanity 
Would make him cast upon the spiritual 

nature 222 

His own low failing. The snake was 

the snake — 
No more ; ^ and yet not less than those 

he tempted, 
In nature being earth also — more in 

wisdom, 
Since he could overcome them, and fore- 
knew 
The knowledge fatal to theirnarrow joys. 
Think'st thou I'd take the shape of 

things that die? 
Cain. But the thing had a demon? 
Lucifer. He but woke one 

In those he spake to with his forky 

tongue. 230 

I tell thee that the Serpent was no more 
Than a mere serpent : ask the Cherubim 
Who guard the tempting tree. When 

thousand ages 
Have rolled o'er your dead ashes, and 

your seed's, 
The seed of the then world may thus array 
Their earliest fault in fable, and attribute 
To me a shape I scorn, as I scorn all 
That bows to him, who made things but 

to bend 
Before his sullen, sole eternity; 
But we, who see the truth, must speak 

it. Thy 240 

I [Vide ante, "Preface," p. 767.] 



774 



CAIN 



[Act I. 



Fond parents listened to a creeping 

thing, 
And fell. For what should spirits tempt 

them ? What 
Was there to envy in the narrow bounds 
Of Paradise, that spirits who pervade 

Space but I speak to thee of what 

thou know'st not. 
With all thy Tree of Knowledge. 

Cain. But thou canst not 

Speak aught of Knowledge which I 

would not know, 
And do not thirst to know, and bear a 

mind 
To know. 

Lucifer. And heart to look on? 
Cain. Be it proved. 

Lucifer. Barest thou look on Death ? 
Cain. He has not yet 250 

Been seen. 

Lucifer. But must be undergone. 
Cain. My father 

Says he is something dreadful, and my 

mother 
Weeps when he's named ; and Abel lifts 

his eyes 
To Heaven, and Zillah casts hers to the 

earth. 
And sighs a prayer; and Adah looks on 

me. 
And speaks not. 

Lucifer. And thou? 
Cain. Thoughts unspeakable 

Crowd in my breast to burning, when I 

hear 
Of this almighty Death, who is, it 

seems, 
Inevitable. Could I wrestle with him? 
I wrestled with the lion, when a boy, 260 
In play, till he ran roaring from my gripe. 
Lucifer. It has no shape; but will 
absorb all things 
That bear the form of earth-born being. 
Cain. Ah ! 

I thought it was a being : who could do 
Such evil things to beings save a being ? 
Lucifer. Ask the Destroyer. 
Cain. Who ? 

Lucifer. The Maker — Call him 

Which name thou wilt : he makes but to 
destroy. 
Cain. I knew not that, yet thought it, 
since I heard 



J 



Of Death : although I know not what it 

is — 
Yet it seems horrible. I have looked out 
In the vast desolate night in search of 

him; 271 

And when I saw gigantic shadows in 
The umbrage of the walls of Eden, 

chequered 
By the far-flashing of the Cherubs' 

swords, 
I watched for what I thought his 

coming; for 
With fear rose longing in my heart to 

know 
What 'twas which shook us all — but 

nothing came. 
And then I turned my weary eyes from 

off 
Our native and forbidden Paradise 
Up to the lights above us, in th 

azure, 2 

Which are so beautiful : shall they, too, 

die? 
Lucifer. Perhaps — but long outlive 

both thine and thee. 
Cain. I'm glad of that: I would not 

have them die — 
They are so lovely. What is Death ? I 

fear, 
I feel, it is a dreadful thing; but what, 
I cannot compass: 'tis denounced 

against us. 
Both them who sinned and sinned not, 

as an ill — 
What ill ? 

Lucifer. To be resolved into the earth. 
Cain. But shall I know it ? 
Lucifer. As I know not death, 

I cannot answer. 

Cain. Were I quiet earth, 290 

That were no evil: would I ne'er had 

been 
Aught else but dust ! 

Lucifer. That is a grovelling wish, 
Less than thy father's — for he wished 

to know! 
Cain. But not to live — or wherefore 

plucked he not 
The Life-tree? 

Lucifer. He was hindered. 

Cain. Deadly error! 

Not to snatch first that fruit : — but ere 

he plucked 



Scene i.] 



CAIN 



775 



The knowledge, he was ignorant of 

Death. 

Alas ! I scarcely now know what it is, 
A.nd yet I fear it — fear I know not 
what ! 
Lucifer. And I, who know all things, 
fear nothing; see 300 

\Vhat is true knowledge. 
Cain. Wilt thou teach me all? 

Lucifer. Aye, upon one condition. 
Cain. Name it. 

Lucifer. That 

Thou dost fall down and worship me — 
thy Lord. 
Cain. Thou art not the Lord my 

father worships. 
Lucifer. No. 

Cain. His equal? 

Lucifer. No; — I have nought in 
common with him ! 
N"or would : I would be aught above — ■ 

beneath — 
\ught save a sharer or a servant of 
Bis power. I dwell apart; but I am 

great : — 
Many there are who worship me, and 

more 

Who shall — be thou amongst the first. 

Cain. I never 310 

As vet have bowed unto my father's 

'God. 

Although my brother Abel oft implores 
That I would join with him in sacri- 
fice: — 
Why should I bow to thee? 

Lucifer. Hast thou ne'er bowed 

To him? 

Cain. Have I not said it? — need I 
say it? 
Could not thy mighty knowledge teach 
thee that? 
Lucifer. He who bows not to him has 

bowed to me. 
Cain. But I will bend to neither. 
Lucifer. Ne'er the less, 

Thou art my worshipper; not wor- 
shipping 
Him makes thee mine the same. 

Cain. And what is that? 320 

Lucifer. Thou'lt know here — and 

hereafter. 
Cain. Let me but 

Be taught the mystery of my being. 



Lucifer. Follow 

Where I will lead thee. 

Cain. But I must retire 
To till the earth — for I had prom- 
ised 

Lucifer. What ? 

Cain. To cull some first-fruits. 
Lucifer. Why ? 

Cain. To offer up 

With Abel on an altar. 

Lucifer. Said'st thou not 

Thou ne'er hadst bent to him who made 
thee ? 
Cain. Yes — 

But Abel's earnest prayer has wrought 

upon me; 
The oft"ering is more his than mine — 

and Adah 

Lucifer. Why dost thou hesitate? 
Cain. She is my sister, 330 

Born on the same day, of the same 

womb; and 
She wrung from me, with tears, this 

promise; and 
Rather than see her weep, I would, 

methinks, 
Bear all — and worship aught. 

Lucifer. Then follow me 

Cain. I will. 

Enter Adah. 

Adah. My brother, I have come 
for thee; 
It is our hour of rest and joy — and we 
Have less without thee. Thou hast 

laboured not 
This morn; but I have done thy task: 

the fruits 
Are ripe, and glowing as the light 

which ripens: 
Come away. 

Cain. Seest thou not? 

Adah. I see an angel; 340 

We have seen many: will he share our 

hour 
Of rest ? — he is welcome. 

Cain. But he is not like 

The angels we have seen. 

Adah. Are there, then, others? 

But he is welcome, as they were: they 

deigned 
To be our guests — will he ? 

Cain {to Lucifer^. Wilt thou? 



776 



CAIN 



[Act l 



Lucifer. I ask 

Thee to be mine. 

Cain. I must away with him, 

Adah. And leave us? 

Cain. Aye. 

Adah. And me? 

Cain. Beloved Adah ! 

Adah. Let me go with thee. 

Lucifer. No, she must not. 

Adah. Who 

Art thou that steppest between heart 
and heart? 

Cain. He is a God. 

How know'st thou? 
He speaks like 



So did the Serpent, and it 

351 
Adah ! — was 



Adah. 
Cain, 
A God. 
Adah. 
lied. 
Lucifer. Thou errest, 
not the Tree that 
Of Knowledge? 

Adah. Aye — to our eternal sorrow. 
Lucifer. And yet that grief is know- 
ledge — so he lied not: 
And if he did betray you, 'twas with 

And Truth in its own essence cannot be 
But good. 
'Adah. But all we know of it 
gathered 
Evil on ill ; expulsion 

home, 
And dread, and toil, and sweat, and 

heaviness, 
Remorse of that which was — and 

hope of that 
Which Cometh not. Cain! walk not 
with this Spirit. 361 

Bear with what we have borne, and 

love me — I 
Love thee. 

Lucifer. More than thy mother, 

and thy sire ? 
Adah. I do. Is that a sin, too? 
Lucifer. No, not yet; 

It one day will be in your children. 

Adah. What ! 

Must not my daughter love her brother 
Enoch ? 
Lucifer. Not as thou lovest Cain. 
Adah. Oh, my God! 

Shall they not love and bring forth 
things that love 



from 



has 



Out of their love ? have they not drawn 

their milk 
Out of this bosom? was not he their 

father, 370 

Born of the same sole womb,^ in thb 

same hour 
With me? did we not love each other? 

and 
In multiplying our being multiply 
Things which will love each other as 

we love 
Them ? — And as I love thee, my Cain ! 

go not 
Forth with this spirit; he is not of 

ours. 
Lucifer. The sin I speak of is not of 

my making, 
And cannot be a sin in you — whate'er 
It seem in those who will replace ye in 
Mortality. 

Adah. What is the sin which is not 
Sin in itself? Can circumstance make 

sin 381 

Or virtue ? — if it doth, we are the 

slaves 

Of 

Lucifer. Higher things than ye are 

slaves: and higher 
Than them or ye would be so, did they 

not 
Prefer an independency of torture 
To the smooth agonies of adulation, 
In hymns and harpings, and self-seeking 

prayers, 
To that which is omnipotent, because 
It is omnipotent, and not from love, 
But terror and self-hope. 

Adah. Omnipotence 390 

Must be all goodness. 

Lucifer. Was it so in Eden ? 

Adah. Fiend! tempt me not with 

beauty; thou art fairer 
Than was the Serpent, and as false. 

Lucifer. As true. 

Ask Eve, your mother: bears she not 

the knowledge 
Of good and evil? 

" "The most common opinion is that a son 
and daughter were bom together; and they go 
so far as to tell us the very name of the daughters. 
Cain's twin sister was called Calmana, or Cai- 
mana, or Debora, or Azzrum; that of Abel was 
named Delbora or Awina." — Bayle's Diciion- 
tifyt 1735. ii' 854, art. "Eve," D.] 



Scene i.] 



CAIN 



777 



Adah. Oh, my mother ! thou 

Hast plucked a fruit more fatal to thine 

offspring 
Than to thyself; thou at the least hast 

passed 
Thy youth in Paradise, in innocent 
And happy intercourse with happy 

spirits: 
But we, thy children, ignorant of 

Eden, 400 

Are girt about by demons, who assume 
The \Yords of God, and tempt us with 

our own 
Dissatisfied and curious thoughts — 

as thou 
Wert worked on by the snake, in thy 

most flushed 
And heedless, harmless wantonness 

of bUss. 
I cannot answer this immortal thing 
Which stands before me; I cannot 

abhor him; 
I look upon him with a pleasing fear, 
And yet I fly not from him : in his eye 
There is a fastening attraction which 
Fixes my fluttering eyes on his; my 

heart 411 

Beats quick; he awes me, and yet 

draws me near. 
Nearer and nearer: — Cain — Cain — 

save me from him ! 
Cain. What dreads my Adah? This 

is no ill spirit. 
Adah. He is not God — nor God's: 

I have beheld 
The Cherubs and the Seraphs; he 

looks not 
Like them. 

Cain. But there are spirits loftier 

still — 
The archangels. 

Lucifer. And still loftier than the 

archangels. 
Adah. Aye — but not blessed. 
Lucifer. If the blessedness 

Consists in slavery — no. 

Adah. I have heard it said, 420 
The Seraphs love most — Cherubim 

know most — ^ 

' [See Bacon's Advancement of Learning, i. 28: 
"The first place is given to the Angels of loue, 
which are tearmed Seraphim, the second to the 
Angels of light, which are tearmed Cherubim."] 



And this should be a Cherub ■ — since 

he loves not. 
Lucifer. And if the higher knowledge 

quenches love, 
What must he he you cannot love when 

known ? 
Since the all-knowing Cherubim love 

least, 
The Seraphs' love can be but ignorance: 
That they are not compatible, the doom 
Of thy fond parents, for their daring, 

proves. 
Choose betwixt Love and Knowledge — 

since there is 
No other choice: your sire hath chosen 

already : 430 

His worship is but fear. 

Adah. Oh, Cain ! choose Love. 

Cain. For thee, my Adah, I choose 

not — It was 
Born with me — but I love nought else. 
Adah. Our parents? 

Cain. Did they love us when they 

snatched from the Tree 
That which hath driven us all from 

Paradise ? 
Adah. We were not born then — 

and if we had been, 
Should we not love them — and our 

children, Cain? 
Cain. My little Enoch ! and his 

lisping sister ! 
Could I but deem them happy, I would 

half 
Forget but it can never be for- 
gotten 440 
Through thrice a thousand generations ! 

never 
Shall men love the remembrance of 

the man 
Who sowed the seed of evil and man- 
kind 
In the same hour ! They plucked the 

tree of science 
And sin — and, not content with their 

own sorrow, 
Begot me — thee — and all the few 

that are, 
And all the unnumbered and innumer- 
able 
Multitudes, millions, myriads, which 

may be. 
To inherit agonies accumulated 



778 



CAIN 



[Act I. 



By ages ! — and / must be sire of such 

things ! 450 

Thy beauty and thy love — my love 

and joy, 
The rapturous moment and the placid 

hour, 
All we love in our children and each 

other. 
But lead them and ourselves through 

many years 
Of sin and pain — or few, but still of 

sorrow, 
Interchecked with an instant of brief 

pleasure. 
To Death — • the unknown ! Methinks 

the Tree of Knowledge 
Hath not fulfilled its promise: — if 

they sinned. 
At least they ought to have known all 

things that are 
Of knowledge — and the mystery of 

Death. 460 

What do they know ? — that they are 

miserable. 
What need of snakes and fruits to teach 

us that ? 
Adah. I am not wretched, Cain, 

and if thou 

Wert happy 

Cain. Be thou happy, then, alone — 
I will have naught to do with happiness. 
Which humbles me and mine. 

Adah. Alone I could not. 

Nor would be happy; but with those 

around us 
I think I could be so, despite of Death, 
Which, as I know it not, I dread not, 

though 
It seems an awful shadow — if I may 
Judge from what I have heard. 471 
Lucifer. And thou couldst not 

Alone, thou say'st, be happy? 

Adah. Alone! Oh, my God ! 

Who could be happy and alone, or good ? 
To me my solitude seems sin; unless 
When I think how soon I shall see my 

brother. 
His brother, and our children, and our 

parents. 
Lucifer. Yet thy God is alone; and 

is he happy? 
Lonely, and good ? 

Adah. He is not so; he hath 



The angels and the mortals to make 

happy. 
And thus becomes so in dififusing joy. 
What else can joy be, but the spreading I 
joy? ^ 481 j 

Lucifer. Ask of your sire, the exile 
fresh from Eden ; ^^^ \ 

Or of his first-born son: ask your own 

heart ; 
It is not tranquil. 

Adah. Alas! no! and you — 

Are you of Heaven? 

Lucifer. If I am not, enquire 

The cause of this all-spreading happi- 
ness 
(Which you proclaim) of the all-great 

and good 
Maker of life and living things; it is 
His secret, and he keeps it. We must 

bear. 
And some of us resist — and both in 
vain, 490 

His Seraphs say : but it is worth the trial, 
Since better may not be without: there 

is 
A wisdom in the spirit, which directs 
To right, as in the dim blue air the eye 
Of you, young mortals, lights at once 

upon 
The star which watches, welcoming 
the morn. 
Adah. It is a beautiful star; I love 
it for 
Its beauty. ^ 

Lucifer. And why not adore? 
Adah. Our father 

Adores the Invisible only. 

Lucifer. But the symbols 

Of the Invisible are the loveliest 500 
Of what is visible; and yon bright star 
Is leader of the host of Heaven. 

Adah. Our father 

Saith that he has beheld the God himself 
Who made him and our mother. 

Lucifer. Hast thou seen him ? 

Adah. Yes — in his works. 
Lucifer. But in his being? 

Adah. No — 

Save in my father, who is God's own 

image; 
Or in his angels, who are like to thee — 
And brighter, yet less beautiful and 
powerful 



Scene i.] 



CAIN 



779 



In seeming: as the silent sunny noon, 
All light, they look upon us; but thou 

seem' St 
Like an ethereal night, where long 
white clouds "^tt 

Streak the deep purple, and unnuin- 

bered stars 
Spangle the wonderful mysterious vault 
With things that look as if they would 

be suns; 
So beautiful, unnumbered, and endear- 
ing, 
Not dazzling, and yet drawing us to 

them, 
They fill my eyes with tears, and so 

dost thou. 
Thou seem'st unhappy: do not make 

us so. 
And I will weep for thee. 

Lucifer. Alas ! those tears ! 

Couldst thou but know what oceans 

will be shed 520 

Adah. By me? 
Lucifer. By all. 

Adah. What all? 

Lucifer. The milHon millions — 

The myriad myriads — the all-peopled 

earth — 
The unpeopled earth — and the o'er- 

peopled Hell, 
Of which thy bosom is the germ. 

Adah. OCain! 

This spirit curseth us. 

Cain. Let him say on; 

Him will I follow. 

Adah. Whither? 

Lucifer. To a place 

Whence he shall come back to thee in 

an hour; 
But in that hour see things of many 
days. 
Adah. How can that be ? 
Lucifer. Did not your Maker make 
Out of old worlds this new one in few 
days? 530 

And cannot I, who aided in this work, 
Show in an hour what he hath made in 

many. 
Or hath destroyed in few ? 

Cain. Lead on. 

Adah. Will he. 

In sooth, return within an hour? 

Lucifer. He shall. 



With us acts are exempt from time, and 

we 
Can crowd eternity into an hour, 
Or stretch an hour into eternity: 
We breathe not by a mortal measure- 
ment — 
But that's a mystery. Cain, come on 
with me. 
Adah. Will he return? 
Lucifer. Aye, woman ! he alone 540 
Of mortals from that place (the first 

and last 
Who shall return, save One), shall 

come back to thee. 
To make that silent and expectant 

world 
As populous as this: at present there 
Are few inhabitants. 

Adah. Where dwellest thou ? 
Lucifer: Throughout all space. 

Where should I dwell? Where are 
Thy God or Gods — there am I: all 

things are 
Divided with me : Life and Death — 

and Time — 
Eternity — and heaven and earth — 

and that 
Which is not heaven nor earth, but 
peopled with 551 

Those who once peopled or shall people 

both — 
These are my realms ! so that I do 

divide 
His, and possess a kingdom which is 

not 
His.'^ If I were not that which I have 

said, 
Could I stand here? His angels are 

within 
Your vision. 

Adah. So they were when the fair 
Serpent 
Spoke with our mother first. 

Lucifer. Cain ! thou hast heard. 

If thou dost long for knowledge, I can 

satiate 
That thirst; nor ask thee to partake 

of fruits 
Which shall deprive thee of a single 
good. 560 

' [Lucifer was evidently indebted to the Mani- 
chaeans for his theory of the duplex terra — an 
infernal as well as a celestial kingdom.] 



78o 



CAIN 



[Act II. 



The Conqueror has left thee. Follow 
me. 
Cain. Spirit, I have said it. 

[Exeunt Lucifer and Cain. 
Adah {follows, exclaiming). Cain ! 
my brother ! Cain ! 

ACT II. 

Scene I. — The Abyss of Space. 

Cain. I tread on air, and sink not — 

yet I fear 
To sink. 

Lucifer. Have faith in me, and thou 

shalt be 
Borne on the air,^ of which I am the 

Prince. 
Cain. Can I do so without impiety? 
Lucifer. Believe — and sink not ! 

doubt — and perish ! thus 
Would run the edict of the other God, 
Who names me Demon to his angels; 

they 
Echo the sound to miserable things, 
Which, knowing nought beyond their 

shallow senses. 
Worship the word which strikes their 

ear, and deem lo 

Evil or good what is proclaimed to them 
In their abasement. I will have none 

such: 
Worship or worship not, thou shalt 

behold 
The worlds beyond thy little world, 

nor be 
Amerced for doubts beyond thy little 

life, 
With torture of my dooming. There 

will come 
An hour, when, tossed upon some 

water-drops, 
A man shall say to a man, "Believe 

in me. 
And walk the waters;" and the man 

shall walk 
The billows and be safe. / will not 

say, 20 

Believe in me, as a conditional creed 
To save thee; but fly with me o'er the 

gulf 

• ["According to the prince of the power of 
the air" {,Eph. ii. 2).] 



Of space an equal flight, and I will show 
What thou dar'st not deny, — the 

history 
Of past — and present, and of future 

worlds. 
Cain. Oh God ! or Demon ! or 

whate'er thou art. 
Is yon our earth? 

Lucifer. Dost thou not recognise 

The dust which formed your father ? 

Cain. Can it be? 

Yon small blue circle, swinging in far 

ether, 
With an inferior circlet purpler still, 30 
Which looks like that which Ht our 

earthly night? 
Is this our Paradise? Where are its 

walls. 
And they who guard them ? 

Lucifer. Point me out the site 

Of Paradise. 

Cain. How should I ? As we move 
Like sunbeams onward, it grows small 

and smaller, 
And as it waxes little, and then less, 
Gathers a halo round it, like the light 
Which shone the roundest of the stars, 

when I 
Beheld them from the skirts of Para- 
dise: 
Methinks they both, as we recede from 

them, 40 

Appear to join the innumerable stars 
Which are around us; and, as we move 

on. 
Increase their myriads. 

Lucifer. And if there should be 

Worlds greater than thine own — 

inhabited 
By greater things — and they them- 
selves far more 
In number than the dust of thy dull 

earth. 
Though multiplied to animated atoms. 
All living — and all doomed to death — 

and wretched. 
What wouldst thou think? 

Cain. I should be proud of thought 
Which knew such things. 

Lucifer. But if that high thought 

were 50 

Linked to a servile mass of matter — 

and 



Scene i.] 



CAIN 



781 



Knowing such things, aspiring to such 

things, 
And science still beyond them, were 

chained down 
To the most gross and petty paltry 

wants, 
All foul and fulsome — and- the very 

best 
Of thine enjoyments a sweet degrada- 
tion, 
A most enervating and filthy cheat 
To lure thee on to the renewal of 
Fresh souls and bodies, all foredoomed 

to be 

As frail, and few so happy 

Cain. Spirit ! I 60 

Know nought of Death, save as a dread- 
ful thing 
Of which I have heard my parents 

speak, as of 
A hideous heritage I owe to them 
No less than life — a heritage not happy, 
If I may judge, till now. But, Spirit ! if 
It be as thou hast said (and I within 
Feel the prophetic torture of its truth). 
Here let me die: for to give birth to 

those 
Who can but suffer many years, and 

die — 
Methinks is merely propagating Death, 
And multiplying murder. 

Lucifer. Thou canst not 71 

All die — there is what must survive. 

Cain. The Other 

Spake not of this unto my father, 

when 
He shut him forth from Paradise, with 

death 
Written upon his forehead. But at least 
Let what is mortal of me perish, that 
I may be in the rest as angels are. 

Lucifer. I am angelic: wouldst thou 

be as I am ? 
Cain. I know not what thou art: 

I see thy power. 
And see thou show'st me things beyond 

my power, . 80 

Beyond all power of my born faculties, 
Although inferior still to my desires 
And my conceptions. 

Lucifer. What are they which dwell 
So humbly in their pride, as to sojourn 
With worms in clay ? 



Cain. And what art thou 

who dwellest 
So haughtily in spirit, and canst range 
Nature and immortality — and yet 
Seem'st sorrowful? 

Lucifer. I seem that which I am ; 

And therefore do I ask of thee, if thou 
Wouldst be immortal? 

Cain. Thou hast said, I must be 90 
Immortal in despite of me. I knew not 
This until lately — but since it must.be, 
Let me, or happy or unhappy, learn 
To anticipate my immortality. 

Lucifer. Thou didst before I came 

upon thee. 
Cain. How? 

Lucifer. By suffering. 
Cain. And must torture be im- 

mortal ? 
Lucifer. We and thy sons will try. 

But now, behold ! 
Is it not glorious? 

Cain. Oh thou beautiful 

And unimaginable ether! and 
Ye multiplying masses of increased 100 
And still-increasing lights I what are ye ? 

what 
Is this blue wilderness of interminable 
Air, where ye roll along, as I have 

seen 
The leaves along the limpid streams of 

Eden ? 
Is your course measured for ye ? Or do 

ye 
Sweep on in your unbounded revelry 
Through an aerial universe of endless 
Expansion — at which my soul aches to 

think — 
Intoxicated with eternity? 
Oh God 1 Oh Gods ! or whatsoe'er ye 

are! no 

How beautiful ye are ! how beautiful 
Your works, or accidents, or whatsoe'er 
They may be ! Let me die, as atoms 

die, 
(If that they die), or know ye in your 

might 
And knowledge ! My thoughts are not 

in this hour 
Unworthy what I see, though my dust is; 
Spirit ! let me expire, or see them nearer. 
Lucifer. Art thou not nearer? look 

back to thine earth ! 



782 



CAIN 



[Act II. 



Cain. Where is it? I see nothing 
save a mass 
Of most innumerable lights. 

Lucifer. Look there ! 120 

Cain. I cannot see it. 
Lucifer. Yet it sparkles still. 

Cain. That ! — yonder ! 
Lucifer. Yea. 

Cain. And wilt thou tell me so? 

Why, I have seen the fire-flies and fire- 

w^orms 
Sprinkle the dusky groves and the green 

banks 
In the dim twilight, brighter than yon 

world 
Which bears them. 

Lucifer. Thou hast seen both 

worms and worlds, 
Each bright and sparkling — what dost 
think of them? 
Cain. That they are beautiful in their 
own sphere. 
And that the night, which makes both 

beautiful, 
The little shining fire-fly in its flight, 130 
And the immortal star in its great 

course. 
Must both be guided. 

Lucifer. But by whom or what? 

Cain. Show me. 

Lucifer. Dar'st thou behold ? 

Cain. How know I what 

I dare behold ? As yet, thou hast shown 

nought 
I dare not gaze on further. 

Lucifer. On, then, with me. 

Wouldst thou behold things mortal or 
immortal ? 
Cain. Why, what are things? 
Lucifer. Both partly : but what doth 
Sit next thy heart? 

Cain. The things I see. 

Lucifer. But what 

Sate nearest it? 

Cain. The things I have not seen, 
Nor ever shall — the mysteries of Death. 
Lucifer. What, if I show to thee 
things which have died, 141 

As I have shown thee much which can- 
not die? 
Cain. Do so. 

Lucifer. Away, then ! on our 

mighty wings ! 



Cain. Oh ! how we cleave the blue ! 
The stars fade from us ! 
The earth ! where is my earth ? Let me 

look on it, 
For I was made of it. 

Lucifer. 'Tis now beyond thee, 

Less, in the universe, than thou in it; 
Yet deem not that thou canst escape it; 

thou 
Shalt soon return to earth, and all its 

dust: 
'Tis part of thy eternity, and mine. 150 
Cain. Where dost thou lead me? 
Lucifer. To what was before thee ! 
The phantasm of the world; of which 

thy world 
Is but the wreck. 

Cain. What ! is it not then new ? 
Lucifer. No more than life is; and 
that was ere thou 
Or I were, or the things which seem to us 
Greater than either: many things will 

have 
No end; and some, which would pre- 
tend to have 
Had no beginning, have had one as mean 
As thou ; and mightier things have been 

extinct 
To make way for much meaner than we 
can 160 

Surmise; for moments only and the 

space 
Have been and must be all unchangeable. 
But changes make not death, except to 

clay; 
But thou art clay — and canst but com- 
prehend 
That which was clay, and such thou 
shalt behold. 
Cain. Clay — Spirit — what thou 

wilt — I can survey. 
Lucifer. Away, then ! 
Cain. But the lights fade from me 
fast. 
And some till now grew larger as we 

approached. 
And wore the look of worlds. 

Lucifer. And such they are. 

Cain. And Edens in them? 
Lucifer. It may be. 

Cain. And men ? 

Lucifer. Yea, or things higher. 171 
Cain. Aye ! and serpents too ? 



Scene i.] 



CAIN 



783 



Lucifer. Wouldst thou have men 
without them? must no reptiles 
Breathe, save the erect ones? 

Cain. How the hghts recede ! 

Where fly we? 

Lucifer. To the world of phantoms, 
which 
Are beings past, and shadows still to 
come. 
Cain. But it grows dark, and dark — 

the stars are gone ! 
Lucifer. And yet thou seest. 
Cain. 'Tis a fearful light ! 

No sun — no moon — no lights in- 
numerable — 
The. very blue of the empurpled night 
Fades to a dreary twilight — yet I see 
Huge dusky masses; but unlike the 
worlds 181 

We were approaching, which, begirt 

with light, 
Seemed full of life even when their 

atmosphere 
Of light gave way, and showed them 

taking shapes 
Unequal, of deep valleys and vast 

mountains ; 
And some emitting sparks, and some 

displaying 
Enormous liquid plains, and some begirt 
With luminous belts, and floating 

moons, which took, 
Like them, the features of fair earth: 

instead. 
All here seems dark and dreadful. 

Lucifer. But distinct. 

Thou seekest to behold Death, and dead 

things? 191 

Cain. I seek it not; but as I know 

there are 

Such, and that my sire's sin makes him 

and me. 
And all that we inherit, liable 
To such, I would behold, at once, what I 
Must one day see perforce. 
Lucifer. Behold ! 

Cain. 'Tis darkness! 

Lucifer. And so it shall be ever — 
but we will 
Unfold its gates! . 

Cain. Enormous vapours roll 

Apart — what's this ? 

Lucifer. Enter ! 



Cain. Can I return? 

Lucifer. Return ! be sure : how else 

should Death be peopled? 200 

Its present realm is thin to what it will 

be. 
Through thee and thine. 

Cain. The clouds still open wide 

And wider, and make widening circles 
round us ! 
Lucifer. Advance ! 
Cain. And thou ! 

Lucifer. Fear not — without me thou 
Couldst not have gone beyond thy world. 
On! on! 
{They disappear through the clouds. 

Scene II. — Hades. 
Enter Lucifer and Cain. 

Cain. How silent and how vast are 

these dim worlds ! 
For they seem more than one, and yet 

more peopled 
Than the huge brilliant luminous orbs 

which swung 
So thickly in the upper air, that I 
Had deemed them rather the bright 

populace 
Of some all unimaginable Heaven, 
Than things to be inhabited themselves. 
But that on drawing near them I beheld 
Their swelling into palpable immensity 
Of matter, which seemed made for life 

to dwell on, 10 

Rather than life itself. But here, all is 
So shadowy, and so full of twilight, that 
It speaks of a day past. 

Lucifer. It is the realm 

Of Death. — Wouldst have it present ? 

Cain. Till I know 

That which it really is, I cannot answer. 
But if it be as I have heard my father 
Deal out in his long homilies, 'tis a 

thing — 
Oh God! I dare not think on't ! Cursed 

be 
He who invented Life that leads to 

Death ! 
Or the dull mass of life, that, being life. 
Could not retain, but needs must forfeit 

it — 21 

Even for the innocent! 

Lucifer. Dost thou curse thy father? 



784 



CAIN 



[Act II. 



Cain. Cursed he not me in giving me 
my birth? 
Cursed he not me before my birth, in 

daring 
To pluck the fruit forbidden? 

Lucifer. Thou say'st well: 

The curse is mutual 'twixt thy sire and 

thee — 
But for thy sons and brother? 

Cain. Let them share it 

With me, their sire and brother ! What 

else is • 
Bequeathed to me? I leave them my 

inheritance ! 
Oh, ye interminable gloomy realms 30 
Of swimming shadows and enormous 

shapes. 
Some fully shown, some indistinct, and 

all 
Mighty and melancholy — what are ye ? 
Live ye, or have ye lived? 

Lucifer. Somewhat of both. 

Cain. Then what is Death? 
Lucifer. What? Hath not he who 
made ye 
Said 'tis another life? 

Cain. Till now he hath 

Said nothing, save that all shall die. 

Lucifer. Perhaps 

He one day will unfold that further 
secret. 
Cain. Happy the day ! 
Lucifer. Yes; happy! when un- 
folded. 
Through agonies unspeakable, and 
clogged 40 

With agonies eternal, to innumerable 
Yet unborn myriads of unconscious 

atoms, 
All to be animated for this only ! 

Cain. What are these mighty phan- 
toms which I see 
Floating around me ? — They wear not 

the form 
Of the Intelligences I have seen 
Round our regretted and unentered 

Eden; 
Nor wear the form of man as I have 

viewed it 
In Adam's and in Abel's, and in 

mine, 
Nor in my sister-bride's, nor in my 
children's: 50 



And yet they have an aspect, which, 

though not 
Of men nor angels, looks like some- 
thing, which, 
If not the last, rose higher than the first. 
Haughty, and high, and beautiful, and 

full 
Of seeming strength, but of inexplicable 
Shape; for I never saw such. They 

bear not 
The wing of Seraph, nor the face of man. 
Nor form of mightiest brute, nor aught 

that is 
Now breathing; mighty yet and beauti- 
ful _ 59 
As the most beautiful and mighty which 
Live, and yet so unlike them, that I 

scarce 
Can call them living. 

Lucifer. Yet they lived. 

Cain. Where? 

Lucifer. Where 

Thou livest. 

Cain. When ? 

Lucifer. On what thou callest earth 
They did inhabit. 

Cain. Adam is the first. 

Lucifer. Of thine, I grant thee — but 
too mean to be 
The last of these. 

Cain. And what are they? 

Lucifer. That which 

Thou shalt be. 

Cain. But what were they? 

Lucifer. Living, high, 

Intelligent, good, great, and glorious 

things. 
As much superior unto all thy sire 
Adam could e'er have been in Eden, as 
The sixty-thousandth generation shall 
be, 71 

In its dull damp degeneracy, to 
Thee and thy son ; — and how weak 

they are, judge 
By thy own flesh. 

Cain. Ah me ! and did they perish ? 
Lucifer. Yes, from their earth, as 

thou wilt fade from thine. 
Cain. But was mine theirs? 
Lucifer. .It was. 

Cain. But not as now. 

It is too little and too lowly to 
Sustain such creatures. 



Scene ii.] 



CAIN 



78s 



Lucifer. True, it was more glorious. 
Cain.' And wherefore did it fall? 
Lucifer. Ask him who fells. 

Cain. But how? 

Lucifer. By a most crushing and in- 
exorable 80 
Destruction and disorderof theelements, 
Which struck a world to chaos, as a chaos 
Subsiding has struck out a world ; such 

things, 
Though rare in time, are frequent in 

eternity. — 
Pass on, and gaze upon the past. 
Cain. 'Tis awful ! 

Lucifer. And true. Behold these 
phantoms ! they were once 
Material as thou art. 

Cain. And must I be 

Like them? 

Lucifer. Let him who made thee 
answer that. 
I show thee what thy predecessors are. 
And what they were thou feelest, in 
degree 90 

Inferior as thy petty feelings and 
Thy pettier portion of the immortal part 
Of highintelligenceand earthly strength. 
What ye in common have with what 

they had 
Is Life, and what ye shall have — 

Death: the rest 
Of your poor attributes is such as suits 
Reptiles engendered out of the subsiding 
Slime of a mighty universe, crushed into 
A scarcely-yet shaped planet, peopled 

with 

Things whose enjoyment was to be in 
blindness — 100 

A Paradise of Ignorance, from which 
Knowledge was barred as poison. But 

behold 

What these superior beings are or were ; 
Or, if it irk thee, turn thee back and till 
The earth, thy task — I'll waft thee 
there in safety. 
Cain. No: I'll stay here. 
Lucifer. How long? 

Cain. For ever ! Since 

I must one day return here from the 

earth, 

I rather would remain ; I am sick of all 
That dust has shown me — let me dwell 
in shadows. 

3E 



Lucifer. It cannot be : thou now be- 

holdest as no 

A vision that which is reality. 
To make thyself fit for this dwelling, 

thou 
Must pass through what the things thou 

seest have passed — 
The gates of Death. 

Cain. By what gate have we entered 
Even now? 

Lucifer. By mine ! But, plighted to 

return, 
My spirit buoys thee up to breathe in 

regions 
Where all is breathless save thyself. 

Gaze on; 
But do not think to dwell here till thine 

hour 
Is come ! 

Cain. And these, too — can they 

ne'er repass 
To earth again? 

Lucifer. Their earth is gone for 

ever — 120 

So changed by its convulsion, they 

would not 
Be conscious to a single present spot 
Of its new scarcely hardened surface — 

'twas — 
Oh, what a beautiful w^orld it was! 

Cain. And is! 

It is not with the earth, though I must 

till it, 
I feel at war — but that I may not profit 
By what it bears of beautiful, untoiling. 
Nor gratify my thousand swelling 

thoughts 
With knowledge, nor allay my thousand 

fears 
Of Death and Life. 

Lucifer. What thy world is, thou 

see'st, 130 

But canst not comprehend the shadow of 
That which it was. 

Cain. And those enormous creatures, 
Phantoms inferior in intelligence 
(At least so seeming) to the things we 

have passed, 
Resembling somewhat the wild habitants 
Of the deep woods of earth, the hugest 

which 
Roar nightly in the forest, but ten-fold 
In magnitude and terror; taller than 



786 



CAIN 



[Act II. 



The cherub-guarded walls of Eden — 

with 
Eyes flashing like the fiery swords which 

fence them — 140 

And tusks projecting like the trees 

stripped of 
Their bark and branches — what were 

they? 
Lucifer. That which 

The Mammoth is in thy world ; — but 

these lie 
By myriads underneath its surface. 

Cain. But 

None on it? 

Lucijer. No : for thy frail race to war 
With them would render the curse on it 

useless — 
'Twould be destroyed so early. 

Cain. But why war? 

Lucijer. You have forgotten the de- 
nunciation 
Which drove your race from Eden — 

war with all things, 
And death to all things, and disease to 

most things, 150 

And pangs, and bitterness; these were 

the fruits 
Of the forbidden tree. 

Cain. But animals 

Did they, too, eat of it, that they must 

die? 
Lucifer. Your Maker told ye, they 

were made for you, 
As you for him. — You would not have 

their doom 
Superior to your own? Had Adam 

not 
Fallen, all had stood. 

Cain. Alas ! the hopeless wretches ! 
They too must share my sire's fate, like 

his sons; 
Like them, too, without having shared 

the apple; 
Like them, too, without the so dear- 
bought knowledge! 160 
It was a lying tree — for we know 

nothing. 
At least it promised knowledge at the 

price 
Of death — but knowledge still : but 

what knows man? 
Lucifer. It may be death leads to the 

highest knowledge; 



And being of all things the sole thing 

certain. 
At least leads to the surest science: 

therefore 
The Tree was true, though deadly. 

Cain. These dim realms ! 

I see them, but I know them not. 

Lucifer. Because 

Thy hour is yet afar, and matter can- 
not 
Comprehend spirit w^holly — but 'tis 
something 170 

To know there are such realms. 

Cain. We knew already 

That there was Death. 

Lucifer. But not what was beyond it. 
Cain. Nor know I now. 
Lucifer. Thou knewest that there is 
A state, and many states beyond thine 

own — 
And this thou knewest not this morn. 

Cain. But all 

Seems dim and shadowy. 

Lucifer. Be content; it will 

Seem clearer to thine immortality. 
Cain. And yon immeasurable liquid 
space 
Of glorious azure which floats on beyond 

us. 
Which looks like water, and which I 
should deem 180 

The river which flows out of Paradise 
Past my own dwelling, but that it is 

bankless 
And boundless, and of an ethereal hue — 
What is it? 

Lucifer. There is still some such on 
earth. 
Although inferior, and thy children shall 
Dwell near it — 'tis the phantasm of ah 
Ocean. 
Cain. 'Tis like another world; a 
liquid sun — 
And those inordinate creatures sporting 

o'er 
Its shining surface? 

Lucifer. Are its inhabitants. 

The past Leviathans. 

Cain. And yon immense 190 

Serpent, which rears his dripping mane 

and vasty 
Head, ten times higher than the 
haughtiest cedar, 



Scene ii.] 



CAIN 



787 



Forth from the abyss, looking as he 

could coil 
Himself around the orbs we lately looked 

on — 
Is he not of the kind which basked 

beneath 
The Tree in Eden ? 

Lucifer. Eve, thy mother, best 

Can tell what shape of serpent tempted 
her. 
Cain. This seems too terrible. No 
doubt the other 
Had more of beauty. 

Lucifer. Hast thou ne'er beheld him ? 
Cain. Many of the same kind (at 
least so called) 200 

But never that precisely, which per- 
suaded 
The fatal fruit, nor even of the same 
aspect. 
Lucifer. Your father saw him not? 
Cain. No: 'twas my mother 

Who tempted him — she tempted by 
the serpent. 
Lucifer. Good man ! whene'er thy 
wife, or thy son's wives, 
Tempt thee or them to aught that's new 

or strange. 
Be sure thou seest first who hath tempted 
them ! 
Cain. Thy precept comes too late : 
there is no more 
For serpents to tempt women to. 

Lucifer. But there 

Are some things still which woman may 

tempt man to, 210 

And man tempt woman : — let thy sons 

look to it ! 
My counsel is a kind one; for 'tis even 
Given chiefly at my own expense; 'tis 

true, 
'Twill not be followed, so there's little 
lost. 
Cain. I understand not this. 
Lucifer. The happier thou ! — 

Thy world and thou are still too young ! 

Thou thinkest 
Thyself most wicked and unhappy — is 

it 
Not so? 

Cain. For crime, I know not ; but for 
pain, 
I have felt much. 



Lucifer. First-born of the first man ! 

Thy present state of sin — and thou 

art evil — 220 

Of sorrow — and thou sufferest, are 

both Eden 
In all its innocence compared to what 
Thou shortly may'st be; and that state 

again, 
In its redoubled wretchedness, a Para- 
dise 
To what thy sons' sons' sons, accumu- 
lating 
In generations like to dust (which they 
In fact but add to), shall endure and 

do.— 
Now let us back to earth ! 

Cain. And wherefore didst thou 

Lead me here only to inform me this ? 
Lucifer. Was not thy quest for 

knowledge ? 
Cain. Yes — as being 230 

The road to happiness ! 

Lucifer. If truth be so, 

Thou hast it. 

Cain. Then my father's God 

did well 
When he prohibited the fatal Tree. 
Lucifer. But had done better in not 
planting it. 
But ignorance of evil doth not save 
From evil ; it must still roll on the same, 
A part of all things. 

Cain. Not of all things. No — 

I'll not beheve it — for I thirst for good. 

Lucifer. And who and what doth not ? 

Who covets evil 

For its own bitter sake ? — None — 

nothing ! 'tis 240 

The leaven of all life, and lifelessness. 

Cain. Within those glorious orbs 

which we behold. 

Distant, and dazzUng, and innumerable, 

Ere we came down into this phantom 

realm, 
111 cannot come: they are too beautiful. 
Lucifer. Thou hast seen them from 

afar. 
Cain. And what of that ? 

Distance can but diminish glory — they. 
When nearer, must be more ineffable. 
Lucifer. Approach the things of 
earth most beautiful. 
And judge their beauty near. 



CAIN 



Act II. 



Cain. I \\Si\t done this — 250 

The loveliest thing I know is loveliest 

nearest. 
Lucifer. Then there must be delu- 
sion. — What is that 
Which being nearest to thine eyes is 

still 
More beautiful than beauteous things 

remote ? 
Cain. My sister Adah. — All the 

stars of heaven, 
The deep blue noon of night, lit by an 

orb 
Which looks a spirit, or a spirit's world — ■ 
The hues of twilight — the Sun's 

gorgeous coming — 
His setting indescribable, which fills 
My eyes with pleasant tears as I behold 
Him sink, and feel my heart float softly 

with him 261 

Along that western paradise of clouds — ■ 
The forest shade, the green bough, the 

bird's voice — 
The vesper bird's, which seems to sing 

of love, 
And mingles with the song of Cherubim, 
As the day closes over Eden,'s walls; — 
All these are nothing, to my eyes and 

heart, 
Like Adah's face: I turn from earth 

and heaven 
To gaze on it. 

Lucifer. 'Tis fair as frail mortality, 
In the first dawn and bloom of young 

creation, 270 

And earliest embraces of earth's parents, 
Can make its offspring; still it is delu- 
sion. 
Cain. You think so, being not her 

brother. 
Lucifer. Mortal ! 

My brotherhood's with those who have 

no children. 
Cain. Then thou canst have no 

fellowship with us. 
Lucifer. It may be that thine own 

shall be for me. 
But if thou dost possess a beautiful 
Being beyond all beauty in thine eyes, 
Why art thou wretched ? 

Cain. Why do I exist ? 

Why art thou wretched? why are all 

things so ? 280 



Ev'n he who made us must be, as the 
maker' 

Of things unhappy ! To produce de- 
struction 

Can surely never be the task of joy, 

And yet my sire says he's omnipotent: 

Then why is Evil — he being Good ? 
I asked 

This question of my father; and he said, 

Because this Evil only was the path 

To Good. Strange Good, that must 
arise from out 

Its deadly opposite. I lately saw 

A lamb stung by a reptile: the poor 
suckling 2go 

Lay foaming on the earth, beneath the 
vain 

And piteous bleating of its restless 
dam; 

My father plucked some herbs, and laid 
them to 

The wound; and by degrees the help- 
less wretch 

Resumed its careless life, and rose to 
drain 

The mother's milk, who o'er it tremu- 
lous 

Stood licking its reviving limbs with joy. 

Behold, my son ! said Adam, how from 
Evil 

Springs Good ! 

Lucifer. What didst thou answer? 
Cain. Nothing; for 

He is my father: but I thought, that 
'twere 

A better portion for the animal 301 

Never to have been stung at all, than to 

Purchase renewal of its little life 

With agonies unutterable, though 

Dispelled by antidotes. 

Lucifer. But as thou saidst 

Of all beloved things thou lovest her 

Who shared thy mother's milk, and 
giveth hers 

Unto thy children 

Cain. Most assuredly: 

What should I be without her ? 
• Lucifer. What am I ? 

Cain. Dost thou love nothing? 
Lucifer. What does thy God love ? 
Cain. All things, my father s'ays; 
but I confess 311 

I see it not in their allotment here. 



CENF, II.] 



CAIN 



789 



f 



Lucifer. And, therefore, thou canst 
not see if / love 
Or no — except some vast and general 

purpose, 
To which particular things must melt 
like snows. 
Cain. Snows ! what are they ? 
Lucifer. Be happier in not knowing 
What thy remoter offspring must 

encounter; 
But bask beneath the clime which 
knows no winter. 
Cain. But dost thou not love some- 
thing hke thyself? 
Lucifer. And dost thou love thyself? 
Cain. Yes, but love more 320 

^hat makes myfeelings more endurable, 
nd is more than myself, because I 

love it ! 

Lucifer. Thou lovest it, because 'tis 
beautiful, 
As was the apple in thy mother's eye; 
And when it ceases to be so, thy love 
Will cease, like any other appetite. 
Cain. Cease to be beautiful ! how 

can that be? 
Lucifer. With time. 
Cain. But time has 

passed, and hitherto 
Even Adam and my mother both are 
fair: 329 

Not fair like Adah and the Seraphim — 
But very fair. 

Lucifer. All that must pass away 

In them and her. 

Cain. I'm sorry for it; but 

Cannot conceive my love for her the less: 
And when her beauty disappears, 

methinks 
He who creates all beauty will lose 

more 

Than me in seeing perish such a work. 
Lucifer. I pity thee who lovest what 

must perish. 
Cain. And I thee who lov'st nothing. 
Lucifer. And thy brother — 

Sits he not near thy heart ? 

Cain. Why should he not? 

Lucifer. Thy father loves him well — 
so does thy God. 340 

Cain. And so do I. 
Lucifer. 'Tis well and meekly done. 
Cain. Meekly ! 



Lucifer. He is the second 

born of flesh, 
And is his mother's favourite. • 

Cain. Let him keep 

Her favour, since the Serpent was the 

first 
To win it. 

Lucifer. And his father's? 
Cain. What is that 

To me? should I not love that which 
all love? 
Lucifer. And the Jehovah — the in- 
dulgent Lord, 
And bounteous planter of barred 

Paradise — 
He, too, looks smilingly on Abel. 

Cain. I 

Ne'er saw him, and I know not if he 

smiles. 350 

Lucifer. But you have seen his angels. 

Cain. Rarely. 

Lucifer. But 

Sufficiently to see they love your brother: 

His sacrifices are acceptable. 

Cain. So be they ! wherefore speak 

to me of this? 
Lucifer. Because thou hast thought 

of this ere now. 
Cain. And if 

I have thought, why recall a thought 

that (fie pauses as agitated) — 

Spirit ! 
Here we are in thy world; speak not 

of mine. 
Thou hast shown me wonders: thou 

hast shown me those 
Mighty Pre-Adamites who walked the 

earth 
Of which ours is the wreck:, thou hast 
pointed out 360 

Myriads of starry worlds, of which our 

own 
Is the dim and remote companion, in 
Infinity of life: thou hast shown me 

shadows 
Of that existence with the dreaded name 
Which my sire brought us — Death; 

thou hast shown me much 
But not all: show me where Jehovah 

dwells. 
In his especial Paradise — or thine : 
Where is it ? 

Lucifer. Here, and o'er all space. 



790 



CAIN 



[Act II. 



Cain. But ye 

Have some allotted dwelling — as all 

things; 

Clay has its earth, and other worlds 

their tenants; 37° 

All temporary breathing creatures their 

Peculiar element; and things which 

have 
Long ceased to breath our breath, have 

theirs, thou say'st; 
And the Jehovah and thyself have 

thine — 
Ye do not dwell together ? 

Lucifer. No, we reign 

Together ; but our dwellings are asunder. 

Cain. Would there were only one of 

ye ! perchance 

An unity of purpose might make union 

In elements which seem now jarred in 

storms. 

How came ye, being Spirits wise and 

infinite, 380 

To separate ? Are ye not as brethren in 

Your essence — and your nature, and 

your glory ? 

Lucifer. Art not thou Abel's brother ? 

Cain. We are brethren, 

And so we shall remain; but were it not 

so, 
Is spirit like to flesh ? can it fall out — 
Infinity with immortality ? 
Jarring and turning space to misery — 
For what? 

Lucifer. To reign. 
Cain. Did ye not tell me that 

Ye are both eternal? 

Lucifer. Yea ! 

Cain. And what I have seen — 

Yon blue immensity, is boundless? 
Lucifer. Aye. 390 

Cain. And cannot ye both reign, 
then ? — is there not 
Enough ? — why should ye differ ? 
Lucifer. We both reign. 

Cain. But one of you makes evil. 
Lucifer. Which ? 

Cain. Thou ! for 

If thou canst do man good, why dost 
thou not? 
. Lucifer. And why not he who made ? 
I made ye not; 
Ye are his creatures, and not mine. 
Cain. Then leave us 



His creatures, as thou say'st we are, or 

show me 
Thy dwelling, or his dwelling. 

Lucifer. I could show thee 

Both; but the time will come thou 

shalt see one 
Of them for evermore.^ 

Cain. And why not now ? 400 

Lucifer. Thy human mind hath 

scarcely grasp to gather 

The little I have shown thee into calm 

And clear thought: and thou wouldst 

go on aspiring 
To the great double Mysteries! the 

two Principles ! 
And gaze upon them on their secret 

thrones! ,^, 

Dust ! limit thy ambition ; for to see i 

Either of these would be for thee to k 

perish ! ? 

Cain. And let me perish, so I see 

them! 
Lucifer. There 

The son of her who snatched the apple 

spake ! 
But thou wouldst only perish, and not 
see them; 410 

That sight is for the other state. 

Cain. Of Death ? 

Lucifer. That is the prelude, 
Cain. Then I dread it less. 

Now that I know it leads to something 
definite. 
Lucifer. And now I will convey thee 
to thy world, 
Where thou shalt multiply the race of 

Adam, 
Eat, drink, toil, tremble, laugh, weep, 
sleep — and die ! 
Cain. And to what end have I beheld 
these things 
Which thou hast shown me? 

Lucifer. Didst thou not require 

Knowledge? And have I not, in what 

I showed, 
Taught thee to know thyself? 

' [In Byron's Diary for January 28, 1821, we 
find the following entry — 

" Thought for a speech of Lucifer, in the Tragedy 
of Cain." 
"Were Death an evil, would I let thee live? 
Fool ! live as I live — as thy father lives, 
And thy sons' sons shall live for evermore!" 
Letters- 1901, v. 191.] 



)CENE 11. 



CAIN 



791 



Cain. Alas ! I seem 420 

>Tothing.^ 
Lucifer. And this should be the 
human sum 

Of knowledge, to know mortal nature's 
nothingness; 

Bequeath that science to thy children, 

and 
Twill spare them many tortures. 
Cain. Haughty spirit ! 

Thou speak'st it proudly; but thyself, 
though proud, 

I Hast a superior. 

I Lucifer. No ! By heaven, which he 

Holds, and the abyss, and the immeri- 
_sity 

I Oi. worlds and life, which I hold with 
.him.— NqI. 

IJbay.eaA^ic tor — true; but no superior. 

' Homage, he" has from 'air=^"but none 
froni me : 430 

I battle it against him, as I battled 

In highest heaven — through all Eter- 
nity, 

And the unfathomable gulfs of Hades, 

And the interminable realms of space, 

And the infinity of endless ages. 

All, all, will I, dispute! And world by 
world. 

And star by star, and universe by uni- 
verse. 

Shall tremble in the balance, till the 
great 

Conflict shall cease, if ever it shall 
cease. 

Which it ne'er shall, till he or I be 
quenched ! 440 

And what can quench our immortality. 

Or mutual and irrevocable hate ? 

He as a conqueror will call the con- 
quered 

' ["Cain is a proud man: if Lucifer promised 
him kingdoms, etc., it would elate him: the 
object of the Demon is to depress him still fm-ther 
in his own estimation than he was before, by 
.showing him infinite things and his own abase- 
ment, till he falls into the frame of mind that 
leads to the catastrophe, from mere internal 
irritation, not premeditation, or envy of Abel 
(which would have made him contemptible), 
but from the rage and fury against the inade- 
quacy of his state to his conceptions, and which 
discharges itself rather against Life, and the 
author of Life, than the mere living." — Letter 
to Moore, November 3, 182 1, Letters, 1901, v. 
470.] 



Evil; but what will be the Good he gives ? 
Were I the victor, his works would be 

deemed 
The only evil ones. And you, ye new 
And scarce-born mortals, what have 

been his gifts 
To you already, in your little world ? 
Cain. But few; and some of those 

but bitter. 
Lucifer. Back 

With me, then, to thine earth, and try 

the rest 450 

Of his celestial boons to you and yours. 
Evil and Good are things in their own 

essence. 
And not made good or evil by the Giver; 
But if he gives you good — so call him ; 

if 
Evil springs from him, do not name 

it mine, 
Till ye know better its true fount; and 

judge 
Not by words, though of Spirits, but 

the fruits 
Of your existence, such as it must be. 
One good gift has the fatal apple given, — 
Your reason: — let it not be overswayed 
By tyrannous threats to force you into 

faith 461 

'Gainst all external sense and inward 

feeling: 
Think and endure, — and form an 

inner world 
In your own bosom — where the out- 
ward fails; 
So shall you nearer be the spiritual 
Nature, and war triumphant with your 

own. [They disappear. 

ACT III. 

Scene I. — The Earth, near Eden, as in 
Act L 

Enter Cain and Adah. 

Adah. Hush! tread softly, Cain! 
Cain. I will — but wherefore ? 

Adah. Our little Enoch sleeps upon 
yon bed 
Of leaves, beneath the cypress. 

Cain. Cypress ! 'tis 

A gloomy tree, which looks as if it 
mourned 



792 



CAIN 



[Act III. 



O'er what it shadows; wherefore didst 

thou choose it 
For our child's canopy? 

Adah. Because its branches 

Shut out the sun like night, and there- 
fore seemed 
Fitting to shadow slumber. 

Cain. Aye, the last — 

And longest; but no matter — lead 

me to him. 

[They go up to the child. 
How lovely he appears ! his little cheeks, 
In their pure incarnation,^ vying with 1 1 
The rose leaves strewn beneath them. 
Adah. And his Hps, too, 

How beautifully parted! No; you shall 

not 
Kiss him, at least not now: he will 

awake soon — 
His hour of mid-day rest is nearly over; 
But it were pity to disturb him till 
'Tis closed. 

Cain. You have said well; I will 

contain 
My heart till then. He smiles, and 

sleeps ! — sleep on. 
And smile, thou little, young inheritor 
Of a world scarce less young: sleep on, 

and smile ! 20 

Thine are the hours and days when 

both are cheering 
And innocent ! thou hast not plucked 

the fruit — 
Thou know' St not thou art naked ! 

Must the time 
Come thou shalt be amerced for sins 

unknown, 
Which were not thine nor mine? But 

now sleep on ! 
His cheeks are reddening into deeper 

smiles. 
And shining lids are trembUng o'er 

his long 
Lashes, dark as the cypress which 

waves o'er them; 
Half open, from beneath them the clear 

blue 
Laughs out, although in slumber. He 

must dream — 30 

Of what ? Of Paradise ! — Aye ! dream 

of it, 

' [An obsolete form of carnation, the colour of 
"flesh."] 



My disinherited boy ! 'Tis but a dream 
For never more thyself, thy sons, noi- 

fathers, 
vShall walk in that forbidden place of joy 1 
Adah. Dear Cain ! Nay, do not 

whisper o'er our son 
Such melancholy yearnings o'er the 

past: 
Why wilt thou always mourn for Para- 
dise? 
Can we not make another? 

Cain. Where ? 

Adah. Here, or 

Where'er thou wilt: where'er thou art, 

I feel not 
The want of this so much regretted 

Eden. 40 

Have I not thee — our boy — our sire, 

and brother. 
And Zillah, our sweet sister — anc 

our Eve, 
To whom we owe so much beside; 

our birth ? 
Cain. Yes — - Death, too, is amongs 

the debts we owe her. \ 

Adah. Cain! that proud Spirit, who 

withdrew thee hence. 
Hath saddened thine , still deeper. I 

had hoped 
The promised wonders which thou hast 

beheld. 
Visions, thou say'st, of past and present 

worlds. 
Would have composed thy mind into 

the calm 
Of a contented knowledge; but I see 50 
Thy guide hath done thee evil: still 

I thank him. 
And can forgive him all, that he so 

soon 
Hath given thee back to us. 
Cain. So soon ? 

Adah. 'Tis scarcely 

Two hours since ye departed: two 

long hours 
To me, but only hours upon the sun. • 
Cain. And yet I have approached 

that sun, and seen 
Worlds which he once shone on, and 

never more 
Shall Hght; and worlds he never lit: 

methought 
Years had rolled o'er my absence. 



Scene i.] 



CAIN 



793 



Adah. Hardly hours. 

Cain. The mind then hath capacity 

of time, 60 

And measures it by that which it be- 
holds, 
Pleasing or painful; little or almighty. 
I had beheld the immemorial works 
Of endless beings; skirred extinguished 

worlds ; 
And, gazing on eternity, methought 
I had borrowed more by a few drops 

of ages 
From its immensity; but now I feel 
My littleness again. Well said the 

Spirit, 
That I was nothing ! 

Adah. Wherefore said he so? 
Jehovah said not that. 

Cain. No: /^^ contents him 70 

With making us the nothing which we 

are; 
And after flattering dust with gUmpses of 
Eden and immortality, resolves 
It back to dust again — for what ? 

A^dah. Thou know'st — 

Even for our parents' error. 

Cain. What is that 

To us ? they sinned, then let them die ! 

Adah. Thou hast not spoken well, 

nor is that thought 
Thy own, but of the Spirit who was 

with thee. 
Would I could die for them, so they 

might live i 
Cain. Why, so say I — provided 

that one victim 80 

Might satiate the Insatiable of life. 
And that our little rosy sleeper there 
Might never taste of death nor human 

sorrow. 
Nor hand it down to those who spring 

from him. 
Adah. How know we that some 

such atonement one day 
May not redeem our race ! 

Cain. By sacrificing 

The harmless for the guilty? what 

atonement 
Were there? why, we are innocent: 

what have v/e 
Done, that we must be victims for a 

deed 
Before our birth, or need have victims to 



Atone for this mysterious, nameless 
sin — 91 

If it be such a sin to seek for knowledge ? 
Adah. Alas! thou sinnest now, my 
Cain: thy words 
Sound impious in mine ears 
Cain. Then leave me ! 

Adah. Never, 

Though thy God left thee. 

Cain. Say, what have we here ? 

Adah. Two altars, which our brother 
Abel made 
During thine absence, whereupon to 

offer 
A sacrifice to God on thy return. 

Cain. And how knew Jie, that I 

would be so ready 

With the burnt offerings, which he 

daily brings 100 

With a meek brow, whose base humiUty 

Shows more of fear than worship — as 

a bribe 
To the Creator? 

Adah. Surely, 'tis well done. 
Cain. One altar may suffice; /have 

no offering. 
Adah. The fruits of the earth, ^ the 
early, beautiful, 
Blossom and bud — and bloom of 

flowers and fruits — 
These are a goodly offering to the Lord, 
Given with a gentle and a contrite 
spirit. 
Cain. I have toiled, and tilled, and 
sweaten in the sun. 
According to the curse : — must I do 
more? no 

For what should I be gentle ? for a war 
With all the elements ere they will yield 
The bread we eat? For what must 

I be grateful? 
For being dust, and groveUing in the 

dust, 
Till I return to dust ? If I am nothing — 
For nothing shall I be an hypocrite. 
And seem well-pleased with pain? For 
what should I 

' [It is Adah, Cain's wife, who suggests the 
disastrous compromise, not a "burnt-offering," 
but the "fruits of the earth," which would cost 
the giver Httle or nothing — an instance in point 
of Lucifer's cynical reminder {vide anie. act ii. 
sc. 2. line 210) "that there are some things still 
which woman may tempt man to."] 



794 



CAIN 



[Act III. 



Be contrite ? for my father's sin, already 
Expiate with what we all have under- 
gone, 
And to be more than expiated by 120 
The ages prophesied, upon our seed. 
Little deems our young blooming 

sleeper, there, 
The germs of an eternal misery 
To myriads is within him ! better 'twere 
I snatched him in his sleep, and dashed 

him 'gainst 

The rocks, than let him live to 

Adah. Oh, my God! 

Touch not the child — my child — thy 

child ! Oh, Cain ! 
Cain. Fear not! for all the stars, 

and all the power 
Which sways them, I would not accost 

yon infant 
With ruder greeting than a father's 

kiss. 130 

Adah. Then, why so awful in thy 

speech ? 
Cain. I said, 

'Twere better that he ceased to live, 

than give 
Life to so much of sorrow as he must 
Endure, and, harder still, bequeath; 

but since 
That saying jars you, let us only say — 
'Twere better that he never had been 

born. 
Adah. Oh, do not say so ! Where 

were then the joys. 
The mother's joys of watching, nourish- 
ing, 
And loving him? Soft! he awakes. 

Sweet Enoch ! {She goes to the child. 
Oh, Cain! look on him; see how full 

of life, 140 

Of strength, of bloom, of beauty, and 

of joy — 
How like to me — how like to thee, 

when gentle — 
For then we are all alike; is't not so, 

Cain? 
Mother, and sire, and son, our features 

are 
Reflected in each other; as they are 
In the clear waters, when they are gentle, 

and 
When thou art gentle. Love us, then, 

my Cain ! 



And love thyself for our sakes, for we 

love thee. 
Look! how he laughs and stretches 

out his arms, 149! 

And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine,! 
To hail his father; while his little form! 
Flutters as winged with joy. Talk not! 

of pain ! 1 

The childless cherubs well might envy! 

thee ! 

The pleasures of a parent ! Bless him, 

Cain! 
As yet he hath no words to thank thee, 

but 
His heart will, and thine own too. 

Cain. Bless thee, boy I 

If that a mortal blessing may avail thee, 
To save thee from the Serpent's curse! 
Adah. It shall. 

Surely a father's blessing may avert 
A reptile's subtlety. 

Cain. Of that I doubt; 160 1 

But bless him ne'er the less. | 

Adah. Our brother comes. 

Cain. Thy brother Abel. 

Enter Abel, 

Ahel. Welcome, Cain! My brother. 
The peace of God be on thee ! 

Cain. Abel, hail ! 

Ahel. Our sister tells me that thou 
hast been wandering. 
In high communion with a Spirit, far 
Beyond our wonted range. Was he of 

those 
We have seen and spoken with, like 
to our father? 
Cain. No. 
Ahel. Why then commune with 

him? he may be 
A foe to the Most High. 

Cain. And friend to man. 

Has the Most High been so — if so you 

term him? 170 

Ahel. Term him! your words are 

strange to-day, my brother. 

My sister Adah, leave us for a while — 

We mean to sacrifice.^ 

' ["From the beginning" the woman is ineli- 
gible for the priesthood — " He for God only, 
she for God in him" {Paradise Lost, iv. 299). 
"Let the women keep silence in the churches" 
(Corinthians, i. xiv. 34).] 



Scene i.] 



CAIN 



795 



Adah. Farewell, my Cain ; 

But first embrace thy son. May his 

soft spirit, 
And Abel's pious ministry, recall thee 
To peace and holiness ! 

[Exit Adah, with her child. 
Abel. Where hast thou been? 

Cain. I know not. 
Abel. Nor what thou hast seen ? 

Cain. The dead — 

The Immortal — the Unbounded — 

the Omnipotent — 

The overpowering mysteries of space — 

The innumerable worlds that were and 

are — i8o 

A whirlwind of such overwhelming 

things, 
Suns, moons, and earths, upon their 
' loud-voiced spheres 

Singing in thunder round me, as have 

made me 
Unfit for mortal converse: leave me, 
Abel. 
Abel. Thine eyes are flashing with 
unnatural light — 
Thy cheek is flushed with an unnatural 

hue — 
Thy words are fraught with an unnatural 

sound — 
What may this mean? 

Cain. It means — I pray thee, 

leave me. 
Abel. Not till we have prayed and 

sacrificed together. 
Cain. Abel, I pray thee, sacrifice 
alone — 190 

Jehovah loves thee well. 
Abel. Both well, I hope. 

Cain. But thee the better: I care not 
for that; 
Thou art fitter for his worship than I 

am; 
Revere him, then — but let it be alone — 
At least, without me. 

Abel. Brother, I should ill 

Deserve the name of our great father's 

son. 
If, as my elder, I revered thee not. 
And in the worship of our God, called 

not 
On thee to join me, and precede me 

in 
Our priesthood — 'tis thy place. 



Cain. But I have ne'er 

Asserted it. 

Abel. The more my grief; I pray 
thee 201 

To do so now: thy soul seems labour- 
ing in 
Some strong delusion; it will calm thee. 
Cain. No ; 

Nothing can calm me more. Calm! 

say I ? Never 
Knew I what calm was in the soul, 

although 
I have seen the elements stilled. My 

Abel, leave me ! 
Or let me leave thee to thy pious pur- 
pose. 
Abel. Neither; we must perform 
our task together. 
Spurn me not. 

Cain. If it must be so 

well, then, 209 

What shall I do ? 

Abel. Choose one of those two altars. 
Cain. Choose for me: they to me 
are so much turf 
And stone. 

Abel. Choose thou ! 

Cain. 1 have chosen. 

Abel. 'Tis the highest. 

And suits thee, as the elder. Now 

prepare 
Thine offerings. 

Cain. Where are thine? 

Abel. Behold them here — 

The firstlings of the flock, and fat 

thereof — 
A shepherd's humble offering. 

Cain. I have no flocks; 

I am a tiller of the ground, and must 
Yield what it yieldeth to my toil — its 
fruit: 

[He gathers fruits. 
Behold them in their various bloom 
and ripeness. 
[They dress their altars, and kindle 

a flame upon them. 
Abel. My brother, as the elder, 
offer first 220 

Thy prayer and thanksgiving with 
sacrifice. 
Cain. No — I am new to this; 
lead thou the way, 
And I will follow — as I may. 



796 



CAIN 



[Act III. 



Abel (kneeling). Oh, God ! 

Who made us, and who breathed the 

breath of life 
Within our nostrils, who hath blessed us, 
And spared, despite our father's sin, to 

make 
His children all lost, as they might have 

been. 
Had not thy justice been so tempered 

with 
The mercy which is thy delight, as to 
Accord a pardon like a Paradise, 230 
Compared with our great crimes: — 

Sole Lord of light ! 
Of good, and glory, and eternity ! 
Without whom all were evil, and with 

whom 
Nothing can err, except to some good 

end 
Of thine omnipotent benevolence ! 
Inscrutable, but still to be fulfilled ! 
Accept from out thy humble first of 

shepherds' 
First of the first-born flocks — an 

offering. 
In itself nothing — as what offering 

can be 
Aught unto thee ? — but yet accept it 

for 240 

The thanksgiving of him who spreads 

it in 
The face of thy high heaven — bowing 

his own 
Even to the dust, of which he is — 

in honour 
Of thee, and of thy name, for evermore ! 
Cain (standing erect during tliis 

speech). Spirit whate'er or who- 
soe'er thou art. 
Omnipotent, it may be — and, if good. 
Shown in the exemption of thy deeds 

from evil; 
Jehovah upon earth ! and God in 

heaven ! 
And it may be with other names, be- 
cause 
Thine attributes seem many, as thy 

works: — 250 

If thou must be propitiated with prayers, 
Take them ! If thou must be induced 

with altars. 
And softened with a sacrifice, receive 

them; 



Two beings here erect them unto thee. 
If thou lov'st blood, the shepherd's 

shrine, which smokes 
On my right hand, hath shed it for thy 

service 
In the first of his flock, whose Hmbs 

now reek 
In sanguinary incense to thy skies; 
Or, if the sweet and blooming fruits of 

earth. 
And milder seasons, which the un- 
stained turf 260 
I spread them on now offers in the face 
Of the broad sun which ripened them, 

may seem 
Good to thee — inasmuch as they have 

not 
Suffered in Hmb or life — and rather 

form 
A sample of thy works, than supplica- 
tion 
To look on ours ! If a shrine without 

victim, 
And altar without gore, may win thy 

favour. 
Look on it ! and for him who dresseth it, 
He is — such as thou mad'st him; and 

seeks nothing 
Which must be won by kneeling: if 

he's evil, 270 

Strike him ! thou art omnipotent, and 

may'st — 
For what can he oppose ? If he be good. 
Strike him, or spare him, as thou wilt ! 

since all 
Rests upon thee; and Good and Evil 

seem 
To have no power themselves, save in 

thy will — 
And whether that be good or ill I know 

not, 
Not being omnipotent, nor fit to judge 
Omnipotence — but merely to endure 
Its mandate; which thus far I have 

endured. 
[The fire upon the altar o/" Abel kindles 
into a column of the brightest 
flame, and ascends to heaven; 
while a whirlwind throws down 
the altar of Cain, and scatters the 
fruits abroad npon the earth} 

' [See Gessner's Death of Abel.] 



Scene i.] 



CAIN 



797 



Abel {kneeling). Oh, brother, pray! 
Jehovah's wroth with thee. 280 

Cain. Why so? 
Abel. Thy fruits are scattered on the 

earth. 
Cain. From earth they came, to 
earth let them return; 
Their seed will bear fresh fruit there 

ere the summer: 
Thy burnt fiesh-offering prospers better; 

see 
How Heaven licks up the flames, when 
thick with blood ! 
Abel. Think not upon my offering's 
• acceptance, 
But make another of thine own — before 
It is too late. 

Cain. I will build no more altars, 

Nor suffer any 

Abel {rising). Cain! what meanest 

thou? 
Cain. To cast down yon vile flatterer 
of the clouds, 290 

The smoky harbinger of thy dull 

prayers — 
Thine altar, with its blood of lambs and 

kids, 
Which fed on milk, to be destroyed in 
blood. 
Abel {opposing him). Thou shalt not : 
— add not impious works to im- 
pious 
Words ! let that altar stand — 'tis 

hallowed now 
By the immortal pleasure of Jehovah, 
In his acceptance of the victims. 

Cain. His! 

His pleasure! what was his high pleas- 
ure in 
The fumes of scorching flesh and smok- 
ing blood. 
To the pain of the bleating mothers, 
which 300 

Still yearn for the dead offspring? or 

the pangs 
Of the sad ignorant victims underneath 
Thy pious knife ? Give way ! this 

bloody record 
Shall not stand in the sun, to shame 
creation ! 
Abel. Brother, give back ! thou shalt 
not touch my altar 
With violence : if that thou wilt adopt it. 



To try another sacrifice, 'tis thine. 
Cain. Another sacrifice ! Give way, 
or else 

That sacrifice may be 

Abel. What mean'st thou? 

Cain. Give — 

Give way ! — thy God loves blood ! — 
then look to it: — 310 

Give way, ere he hath more! 

Abel. In his great name, 

I stand between thee and the shrine 

which hath 
Had his acceptance. 

Cain. If thou lov'st thyself, 

Stand back till I have strewed this turf 
along 

Its native soil : — else 

Abel {opposing him). I love God far 
more 
Than life. 

Cain {striking him with a brand, on 
the temples, which he snatches from 
the altar) . Then take thy life unto 
thy God, 
Since he loves lives. 

Abel {falls). What hast thou done — 

my brother? 
Cain. Brother ! 

Abel. Oh, God ! receive thy servant ! 

and 

Forgive his slayer, for he knew not what 

He did — Cain, give me — give me thy 

hand and tell 320 

Poor Zillah — • 

Cain {after a moment's stupefaction). 

My hand ! 'tis all red, and with ■ 

What ? [A long pause. — Looking slowly 
round. 
Where am I ? alone ! Where's Abel ? 
where 
Cain? Can it be that I am he? My 

brother. 
Awake ! — why liest thou so long on the 

green earth? 
'Tis not the hour of slumber : — why so 
pale? 

What hast thou ! thou wert full of 

life this morn ! 
Abel ! I pray thee, mock me not ! I 

smote 
Too fiercely, but not fatally. Ah, why 
Wouldst thou oppose me? This is 
mockery; 



798 



CAIN 



[Act lit. 



And only done to daunt me : — 'twas a 

blow — 330 

And but a blow. Stir — stir — nay, 

only stir! 
Why, so — that's well ! — thou breathest ! 

Breathe upon me ! 
Oh God ! Oh God ! 

Ahel {very faintly). What's he who 

speaks of God? 
Cain. Thy murderer. 
Abel. Then may God forgive him ! 

Cain, 
Comfort poor Zillah : — she has but one 

brother 
Now. [Abel dies. 

Cain. And I none ! — Who makes 

me brotherless? 
His eyes are open ! then he is not dead ! 
Death is like sleep; and sleep shuts 

down our lids. 
His lips, too, are apart; why then he 

breathes; 
And yet I feel it not. — His heart ! — 

his heart ! — 340 
Let me see, doth it beat ? methinks 

No ! — no ! 
This is a vision, else I am become 
The native of another and worse world. 
The earth swims round me : — what is 

this? — 'tis wet; 
[Puts his hand to his brow, and then looks 

at it. 
And yet there are no dews ! 'Tis blood 

— my blood — 

My brother's and my own ! and shed by 

me ! 
Then what have I further to do with life, 
Since I have taken life from my own 

flesh? 
But he cannot be dead ! — Is silence 

death ? 
No; he will wake; then let me watch 

by him. 350 

Life cannot be so slight, as to be 

quenched 
Thus quickly ! — he hath spoken to me 

since — 
What shall I say to him ? — My brother ! 

— No: 

He will not answer to that name; for 

brethren 
Smite not each other. Yet — yet — 

speak to me. 



Oh ! for a word more of that gentle 

voice. 
That I may bear to hear my own again ! 

Enter Zillah. 

Zillah. I heard a heavy sound; what 

can it be ? 
'Tis Cain; and watching by my hus- 
band. What 
Dost thou there, brother? Doth he 

sleep ? Oh, Heaven ! 360 

What means this paleness, and yon 

stream ? — No, no ! 
It is not blood ; for who would shed his 

blood ? 
Abel ! what's this ? — who hath done 

this? He moves not; 
He breathes not: and his hands drop 

down from mine 
With . stony lifelessness ! Ah ! cruel 

Cain! 
Why camest thou not in time to save 

him from 
This violence ? Whatever hath assailed 

him. 
Thou wert the stronger, and shouldst 

have stepped in 
Between him and aggression ! Father 1 

— Eve ! — 
Adah ! — come hither ! Death is in the 

world! 370 

Exit Zillah, calling on her Parents, etc. 

Cain (solus). And who hath brought 

him there ? — I — who abhor 
The name of Death so deeply, that thej 

thought 

Empoisoned all my life, before I knew 
His aspect — I have led him here, and 

given 

My brother to his cold and still embrace. 
As if he would not have asserted his 
Inexorable claim without my aid. 
I am awake at last — a dreary dream 
Had maddened me ; — but he shall ne'erl 

awake ! 

Enter Adam, Eve, Adah, and Zillah. 

Adam. A voice of woe from Zillah j 

brings me here — 380 1 

What do I see ? — 'Tis true ! — My son ij 



my son 



(Woman, behold the Serpent's work, and] 
thine ! [To Eve. 



Scene i. 



CAIN 



799 



Eve. Oh ! speak not of it now : the 

Serpent's fangs 
Are in my heart ! My best beloved, 

Abel! 
Jehovah ! this is punishment beyond 
A mother's sin, to take him from me ! 

Adam. Who, 

Or what hath done this deed ? — speak, 

Cain, since thou 
Wert present; was it some more hostile 

angel, 
Who walks not with Jehovah ? or some 

wild 
Brute of the forest? 

Eve. Ah ! a livid light 390 

Breaks through, as from a thunder- 
cloud ! yon brand 
Massy and bloody ! snatched from off 

the altar, 

And black with smoke, and red with 

Adam. Speak, my son! 

Speak, and assure us, wretched as we 

are. 
That we are not more miserable still. 
A^dah. Speak, Cain ! and say it was 

not thou! 
Eve. It was! 

I see it now — he hangs his guilty 

head, 
And covers his ferocious eye with hands 
Incarnadine ! 

Adah. Mother, thou dost him 

wrong — 
Cain ! clear thee from this horrible 

accusal, 400 

Which grief wrings from our parent. 

Eve. Hear, Jehovah ! 

May the eternal Serpent's curse be on 

him! 
For he was fitter for his seed than ours. 

Mav all his days be desolate ! May 

Adah. Hold ! 

Curse him not, mother, for he is thy 

son — 
Curse him not, mother, for he is my 

brother. 
And my betrothed. 

Eve. He hath left thee no brother — 
Zillah no husband — me no son ! for 

thus 
I curse him from my sight for evermore ! 
All bonds I break between us, as he 

broke 410 



That of his nature, in yon — Oh Death ! 

Death ! 
Why didst thou not take me, who first 

incurred thee? 
Why dost thou not so now? 

Adam. Eve! let not this, 

Thy natural grief, lead to impiety ! 
A heavy doom was long f orespoken to us ; 
And now that it begins, let it be borne 
In such sort as may show our God, that 

we 
Are faithful servants to his holy will. 
Eve {pointing to Cain). His will! 

the will of yon Incarnate Spirit 
Of Death, whom I have brought upon 

the earth 420 

To strew it with the dead. May all the 

curses 
Of life be on him ! and his agonies 
Drive him forth o'er the wilderness, like 

us 
From Eden, till his children do by him 
As he did by his brother! May the 

swords 
And wings of fiery Cherubim pursue him 
By day and night — snakes spring up in 

his path — 
Earth's fruits be ashes in his mouth — 

the leaves 
On which he lays his head to sleep be 

strewed 
With scorpions ! May his dreams be of 

his victim ! 430 

His waking a continual dread of Death ! 
May the clear rivers turn to blood as he 
Stoops down to stain them with his 

raging lip ! 
May every element shun or change to 

him! 
May he live in the pangs which others 

die with ! 
And Death itself wax something worse 

than Death 
To him who first acquainted him with 

man! 
Hence, fratricide 1 henceforth that word 

is Cain, 
Through all the coming myriads of man- 
kind. 
Who shall abhor thee, though thou wert 

their sire! 440 

May the grass wither from thy feet I 

the woods 



8oo 



CAIN 



[Act III. 



Deny thee shelter ! earth a home ! the 

dust 

A grave ! the sun his light ! and heaven 

her God ! [Exit Eve. 

Adam. Cain! get thee forth: we 

dwell no more together. 

Depart ! and leave the dead to me — I 

am 
Henceforth alone — we never must meet 
more. 
Adah. Oh, part not with him thus, 
my father: do not 
Add thy deep curse to Eve's upon his 
head ! 
Adam. I curse him not : his spirit be 
his curse. 
Come, Zillah ! 

Zillah. I must watch my husband's 

corse. 450 

Adam. We will return again, when 

he is gone 

Who hath provided for us this dread 

oflfice. 
Come, Zillah ! 

Zillah. Yet one kiss on yon pale clay. 

And those lips once so warm — my 

heart ! my heart ! 

[Exeunt Adam and Zillah weeping. 

Adah. Cain ! thou hast heard, we 

must go forth. I am ready. 

So shall our children be. I will bear 

Enoch, 
And you his sister. Ere the sun declines 
Let us depart, nor walk the wilderness 
Under the cloud of night. — Nay, speak 

to me. 
To me — thine own. 

Cain. Leave me ! 

Adah. Why, all have left thee. 460 

Cain. And wherefore lingerest thou ? 

Dost thou not fear 

To dwell with one who hath done this ? 

Adah. I fear 

Nothing except to leave thee, much 

as I 
Shrink from the deed which leaves thee 

brotherless. 
I must not speak of this — it is between 

thee 
And the great God. 

A Voice from within exclaims. Cain ! 

Cain ! 
Adah. Hear'st thou that voice? 



The Voice within. Cain ! Cain ! 
Adah. It soundeth like an angel's 
tone. 

Enter the Angel of the Lord.^ 

Angel. Where is thy brother Abel? 
Cain. Am I then 

My brother's keeper? 

Angel. Cain ! what hast thou done? 
The voice of thy slain brother's blood 

cries out, 470 

Even from the ground, unto the Lord ! 

— Now, art thou 
Cursed from the earth, which opened 

late her mouth 
To drink thy brother's blood from thy 

rash hand. 
Henceforth, when thou shalt till the 

ground, it shall not 
Yield thee her strength ; a fugitive shalt 

thou 
Be from this day, and vagabond on 

earth ! 
Adah. This punishment is more than 

he can bear. 
Behold thou drivest him from the face 

of earth, 
And from the face of God shall he be hid. 
A fugitive and vagabond on earth, 480 
'Twill come to pass, that whoso findeth 

him 
Shall slay him. 

Cain. Would they could ! but who 

are they 
Shall slay me ? Where are these on the 

lone earth 
As yet unpeopled? 

Angel. Thou hast slain thy brother, 
And who shall warrant thee against thy 

son? 
Adah. Angel of Light ! be merciful, 

nor say 

' ["I have avoided introducing the Deity, as 

in Scripture (though Milton does, and not very 
wisely either); but have adopted his angel as 
sent to Cain instead, on purpose to avoid shock- 
ing any feelings on the subject, by falling short 
of what all uninspired men must fall short in, 
viz. giving an adequate notion of the effect of 
the presence of Jehovah. The Old Mysteries 
introduced him liberally enough, and this is 
avoided in the New." — Letter to Murray, 
February 8, 1822, Letters, 1901, vi. 13. Byron 
does not seem to have known that Catholic 
divines regard "Angel of the Lord" as a name 
for the Second Person of the Trinity.] 






Scene i.] 



CAIN 



8oi 



That this poor aching breast now 

nourishes 
A murderer in my boy, and of his 

father. 
Angel. Then he would but be what 

his father is, 
Did not the milk of Eve give nutri- 
ment 490 
To him thou now seest so besmeared 

with blood ? 
The fratricide might well engender 

parricides. — 
But it shall not be so — the Lord thy 

God 
And mine commandeth me to set his 

seal 
On Cain, so that he may go forth in 

safety. 
Who slayeth Cain, a sevenfold venge- 
ance shall 
Be taken on his head. Come hither ! 

Cain. What 

Wouldst thou with me? 

Angel. To mark upon thy brow 

Exemption from such deeds as thou hast 

done. 
Cain. No, let me die! 
Angel. It must not be. 

[The Angel sets the mark on Cain's 

brow. 
Cain. It burns 500 

My brow, but nought to that which is 

within it ! 
Is there more? let me meet it as I 

may. 
Angel. Stern hast thou been and 

stubborn from the womb, 
As the ground thou must henceforth till ; 

but he 
Thou siew'st was gentle as the flocks he 

tended. 
Cain. After the fall too soon was I 

begotten ; 
Ere yet my mother's mind subsided 

from 
The Serpent, and my Sire still mourned 

for Eden. 
That which I am, I am; I did not 

seek 
For life, nor did I make myself; but 

could I 510 

With my own death redeem him from 

the dust — 



And why not so? let him return to- 
day. 
And I lie ghastly ! so shall be re- 
stored 
By God the life to him he loved; and 

taken 
From me a being I ne'er loved to 

bear. 
Angel. Who shall heal murder ? what 

is done, is done; 
Go forth ! fulfil thy days ! and be thy 

deeds 
Unlike the last ! 

[The Angel disappears. 
Adah. He's gone, let us go forth; 
I hear our little Enoch cry within 
Our bower. 

Cain. Ah ! little knows he what he 

weeps for! 520 

And I who have shed blood cannot shed 

tears ! 
But the four rivers ^ would not cleanse 

my soul. 
Think'st thou my boy will bear to look 

on me? 
Adah. If I thought that he would not, 

I would 

Cain {interrupting her). No, 

No more of threats: we have had too 

many of them : 
Go to our children — I will follow 

thee. 
Adah. I will not leave thee lonely 

with the dead — 
Let us depart together. 

Cain. Oh ! thou dead 

And everlasting witness ! whose un- 

sinking 
Blood darkens earth and heaven ! what 

thou now art 530 

I know not! but if thou seest what 

I am, 
I think thou wilt forgive him, whom his 

God 
Can ne'er forgive, nor his own soul. — 

Farewell ! 
I must not, dare not touch what I have 

made thee. 
I, who sprung from the same womb with 

thee, drained 

^ [The "four rivers" which flowed round 
Eden, and consequently the only waters with 
which Cain was acquaialed upon earth.] 



8oo 



CAIN 



[Act III. 



Deny thee shelter ! earth a home ! the 

dust 

A grave ! the sun his light ! and heaven 

her God ! [Exit Eve. 

Adam. Cain! get thee forth: we 

dwell no more together. 

Depart ! and leave the dead to me — I 

am 
Henceforth alone — we never must meet 
more. 
Adah. Oh, part not with him thus, 
my father: do not 
Add thy deep curse to Eve's upon his 
head ! 
Adam. I curse him not : his spirit be 
his curse. 
Come, Zillah ! 

Zillah. I must watch my husband's 

corse. 450 

Adam. We will return again, when 

he is gone 

Who hath provided for us this dread 

office. 
Come, Zillah ! 

Zillah. Yet one kiss on yon pale clay, 

And those lips once so warm — my 

heart ! my heart ! 

[Exeunt Adam and Zillah weeping. 

Adah. Cain ! thou hast heard, we 

must go forth. I am ready, 

So shall our children be. I will bear 

Enoch, 
And you his sister. Ere the sun declines 
Let us depart, nor walk the wilderness 
Under the cloud of night. — Nay, speak 

to me. 
To me — thine own. 

Cain. Leave me ! 

Adah. Why, all have left thee. 460 

Cain. And wherefore lingerest thou ? 

Dost thou not fear 

To dwell with one who hath done this ? 

Adah. I fear 

Nothing except to leave thee, much 

as I 
Shrink from the deed which leaves thee 

brotherless. 
I must not speak of this — it is between 

thee 
And the great God. 

A Voice from within exclaims. Cain ! 

Cain! 
Adah. Hear'st thou that voice? 



The Voice within. Cain ! Cain ! 
Adah. It soundeth like an angel's 
tone. 

Enter the Angel of the Lord.^ 

Angel. Where is thy brother Abel? 
Cain. Am I then 

My brother's keeper? 

Angel. Cain! what hast thou done? 
The voice of thy slain brother's blood 

cries out, 470 

Even from the ground, unto the Lord ! 

—Now, art thou 
Cursed from the earth, which opened 

late her mouth 
To drink thy brother's blood from thy 

rash hand. 
Henceforth, when thou shalt till the 

ground, it shall not 
Yield thee her strength ; a fugitive shalt 

thou 
Be from this day, and vagabond on 

earth ! 
Adah. This punishment is more than 

he can bear. 
Behold thou drivest him from the face 

of earth. 
And from the face of God shall he be hid. 
A fugitive and vagabond on earth, 480 
'Twill come to pass, that whoso findeth 

him 
Shall slay him. 

Cain. Would they could ! but who 

are they 
Shall slay me ? Where are these on the 

lone earth 
As yet unpeopled? 

Angel. Thou hast slain thy brother. 
And who shall warrant thee against thy 

son? 
Adah. Angel of Light ! be merciful, 

nor say 

^ ["I have avoided introducing the Deity, as 
in Scripture (though Milton does, and not very 
wisely either); but have adopted his angel as 
sent to Cain instead, on purpose to avoid shock- 
ing any feelings on the subject, by falling short 
of what all uninspired men must fall short in, 
viz. giving an adequate notion of the effect of 
the presence of Jehovah. The Old Mysteries 
introduced him liberally enough, and this is 
avoided in the New." — Letter to Murray, 
February 8, 1822, Letters, 1901, vi. 13. Byron 
does not seem to have known that Catholic 
divines regard "Angel of the Lord" as a name 
for the Second Person of the Trinity.] 



Scene i.] 



CAIN 



8oi 



That this poor aching breast now 

nourishes 
A murderer in my boy, and of his 

father. 
Angel. Then he would but be what 

his father is, 
Did not the milk of Eve give nutri- 
ment 490 
To him thou now seest so besmeared 

with blood ? 
The fratricide might wxll engender 

parricides. — 
But it shall not be so — ■ the Lord thy 

God 
And mine commandeth me to set his 

seal 
On Cain, so that he may go forth in 

safety. 
Who slayeth Cain, a sevenfold venge- 
ance shall 
Be taken on his head. Come hither ! 

Cain. What 

Wouldst thou with me? 

Angel. To mark upon thy brow 

Exemption from such deeds as thou hast 

done. 
Cain. No, let me die ! 
Angel. It must not be. 

[The Angel sets the mark on Cain's 

brow. 
Cain. It burns 500 

My brow, but nought to that which is 

within it ! 
Is there more ? let me meet it as I 

may. 
Angel. Stern hast thou been and 

stubborn from the womb. 
As the ground thou must henceforth till ; 

but he 
Thou slew'st was gentle as the flocks he 

tended. 
Cain. After the fall too soon was I 

begotten ; 
Ere yet my mother's mind subsided 

from 
The Serpent, and my Sire still mourned 

for Eden. 
That which I am, I am; I did not 

seek 
For life, nor did I make myself; but 

could I 510 

With my own death redeem him from 

the dust — • 



And why not so? let him return to- 
day. 
And I lie ghastly ! so shall be re- 
stored 
By God the life to him he loved; and 

taken 
From me a being I ne'er loved to 

bear. 
Angel. Who shall heal murder ? what 

is done, is done; 
Go forth ! fulfil thy days ! and be thy 

deeds 
Unlike the last ! 

[The Angel disappears. 
Adah. He's gone, let us go forth; 
I hear our little Enoch cry within 
Our bower. 

Cain. Ah ! little knows he what he 

weeps for! 520 

And I who have shed blood cannot shed 

tears ! 
But the four rivers ^ would not cleanse 

my soul. 
Think'st thou my boy will bear to look 

on me? 
A dah. If I thought that he would not, 

I would 

Cain {interrupting her). No, 

No more of threats: we have had too 

many of them: 
Go to our children — I will follow 

thee. 
Adah. I will not leave thee lonely 

with the dead — 
Let us depart together. 

Cain. Oh ! thou dead 

And everlasting witness ! whose un- 

sinking 
Blood darkens earth and heaven ! what 

thou now art 530 

I know not ! but if thou seest what 

I am, 
I think thou wilt forgive him, whom his 

God 
Can ne'er forgive, nor his own soul. — 

Farewell ! 
I must not, dare not touch what I have 

made thee. 
I, who sprung from the same womb with 

thee, drained 

' [The "four rivers" which flowed round 
Eden, and consequently the only waters with 
which Cain was acqugi^iij^d upon earth.] 



8o4 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



[Part if 



And such, I feel, are waging in my 

heart 
A war unworthy: to an Adamite 
Forgive, my Seraph ! that such 
thoughts appear, 70 

For sorrow is our element; 
Delight 
An Eden kept afar from sight, 

Though sometimes with our 
visions blent. 
The hour is near 
Which tells me we are not abandoned 
quite. — 

Appear! appear! 
Seraph ! 
My own Azaziel ! be but here, 
And leave the stars to their own light ! 
Aho. Samiasa! 81 

Wheresoe'er 
Thou rulest in the upper air — 
Or warring with the spirits who 
may dare 

Dispute with him 
Who made all empires, empire; or 
recalling 
Some wandering star, which shoots 
through the abyss. 
Whose tenants dying, while their 
world is falling, 
Share the dim destiny of clay in this; 
Or joining with the inferior cherubim, 
Thou deignest to partake their 
hymn — 91 

Samiasa ! 
I call thee, I await thee, and I love thee. 
Many may worship thee, that will I 
not: 
If that thy spirit down to mine may 
move thee. 
Descend and share my lot ! 
Though I be formed of clay, 

And thou of beams 
More bright than those of day 

On Eden's streams, 100 

Thine immortality cannot repay 

With love more warm than mine 
My love. There is a ray 

In me, which, though forbidden yet 

to shine, 
I feel was lighted at thy God's and 
thine. 
It may be hidden long: death and 
decay 



Our mother Eve bequeathed us ^ 
but my heart ' 

Defies it: though this life must pass 
away. 
Is that a cause for thee and me t 
part? 
Thou art immortal — so am I : 
feel — -11 

I feel my immortality o'ersweep 
All pains, all tears, all fears, and pea 
Like the eternal thunders of thi 
deep, 
Into my ears this truth — " Thou 
liv'st for ever!" 
But if it be in joy 
I know not, nor would know; 
That secret rests with the Almighty giver, 
Who folds in clouds the fonts of bliss 
and woe. 
But thee and me he never can 
destroy ; 
Change us he may, but not o'erwhelm; 
we are 120 

Of as eternal essence, and must war 
With him if he will war with us; 

with thee 
I can share all things, even im- 
mortal sorrow; 
For thou hast ventured to share life 

with me, 
And shall / shrink from thine 
eternity ? 
No ! though the serpent's sting 
• should pierce me thorough. 
And thou thyself wert like the serpent, 
coil 
Around me still ! and I will smile, 
And curse thee not; but 
hold 
Thee in as warm a fold 130 

As but descend, and 

prove 
A mortal's love 
For an immortal. If the skies contain 
More joy than thou canst give and 

take, remain ! 
Anah. Sister! sister! I view them 
winging 
Their bright way through the parted 
night. 
Aho. The clouds from off their 
pinions flinging. 
As though they bore to-morrow's light. 



Scene ii.l 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



80s 



Anah. But if our father see the sight ! 
Aho. He would but deem it was the 
moon 140 

Rising unto some sorcerer's tune 
An hour too soon. 
Anah. They come! he comes! — 

Azaziel ! 
Aho. Haste 

To meet them ! Oh ! for wings to bear 
My spirit, while they hover there, 
To Samiasa's breast ! 
Anah. Lo ! they have kindled all the 
west. 
Like a returning sunset ; — lo ! 

On Ararat's late secret crest 
A mild and many-coloured bow, 150 
The remnant of their flashing path, 
Now shines ! and now, behold ! it hath 
Returned to night, as rippling foam, 
Which the Leviathan hath lashed 
From his unfathomable home. 
When sporting on the face of the calm 
deep. 
Subsides soon after he again hath 
dashed 
Down, down, to where the Ocean's 
fountains sleep. 
Aho. They have touched earth ! i 

Samiasa ! 
Anah. My Azaziel I 

{Exeunt. 

Scene II. — Enter Irad and Japhet. 

Irad. Despond not: wherefore wilt 
thou wander thus 
To add thy silence to the silent night, 
And lift thy tearful eye unto the stars? 
They cannot aid thee. 

Japh. But they soothe me — now 
Perhaps she looks upon them as I look. 
Methinks a being that is beautiful 
Becometh more so as it looks on beauty, 
The eternal beauty of undying things. 
Oh, Anah ! 

Irad. But she loves thee not. 

Japh. Alas 1 

Irad. And proud Aholibamah spurns 
me also. 10 

Japh. I feel for thee too. 

Irad. Let her keep her pride, 

Mine hath enabled me to bear her scorn : 
It may be, time too will avenge it. 



Japh. Canst thou 

Find joy in such a thought ? 

Irad. Nor joy nor sorrow. 

I loved her well; I would have loved 

her better, 
Had love been met with love : as 'tis, I 

leave her 
To brighter destinies, if so she deems 
them. 
Japh. What destinies? 
Irad. I have some cause to think 
She loves another. 

Japh. Anah ! 

Irad. No; her sister. 

Japh. What other? 
Irad. That I know not; but her air, 
If not her words, tells me she loves an- 
other. 21 
Japh. Aye, but not Anah: she but 

loves her God. 
Irad. Whate'er she loveth, so she 
loves thee not. 
What can it profit thee? 

Japh. True, nothing; but 

I love. 

Irad. And so did I. 
Japh. And now thou lov'st not, 

Or think'st thou lov'st not, art thou 
happier ? 
Irad. Yes 

Japh. I pity thee. 
Irad. Me ! why ? 

Japh. For being happy, 

Deprived of that which makes my 
misery. 
Irad. I take thy taunt as part of thy 
distemper. 
And would not feel as thou dost for more 
shekels 30 

Than all our father's herds would bring, 

if weighed 
Against the metal of the sons of 

Cain — 
The yellow dust they try to barter with 

us, 
As if such useless and discoloured 

trash, 
The refuse of the earth, could be 

received 
For milk, and wool, and flesh, and fruits, 

and all 
Our flocks and wilderness afford. — Go, 
Japhet, 



8o6 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



Sigh to the stars, as wolves howl to the 

moon — 
I must back to my rest. 

Japh. And so would I 

If I could rest. 

Irad. Thou wilt not to our tents then ? 

Japh. No, Irad; I will to the cavern, 

whose 41 

Mouth they say opens from the internal 

world, 
To let the inner spirits of the earth 
Forth when they walk its surface. 

Irad. Wherefore so? 

What wouldst thou there? 

Japh. Soothe further my sad spirit 
With gloom as sad : it is a hopeless spot, . 
And I am hopeless. 

Irad. But 'tis dangerous; 

Strange sounds and sights have peopled 

it with terrors. 
I must go with thee. 

Japh. Irad, no; believe me 

I feel no evil thought, and fear no evil. 

Irad. But evil things will be thy foe 

the more 51 

As not being of them: turn thy steps 

aside. 
Or let mine be with thine. 

Japh. No, neither, Irad; 

I must proceed alone. 

Irad. Then peace be with thee ! 

{Exit Irad. 

Japh. (solus). Peace! I have sought 

it where it should be found. 

In love — with love, too, which perhaps 

deserved it; 
And, in its stead, a heaviness of heart, 
A weakness of the spirit, listless days. 
And nights inexorable to sweet sleep 
Have come upon me. Peace ! what 
peace? the calm 60 

Of desolation, and the stillness of 
The untrodden forest, only broken by 
The sweeping tempest through its groan- 
ing boughs; 
Such is the sullen or the fitful state 
Of my mind overworn. The Earth's 

grown wicked. 
And many signs and portents have pro- 
claimed 
A change at hand, and an o'erwhelming 

doom 
To perishable beings. Oh, my Anah ! 



When the dread hour denounced shall 

open wide 
The fountains of the deep, how mightest 

thou 70 

Have lain within this bosom, folded from 
The elements ; this bosom, which in vain 
Hath beat for thee, and then will beat 

more vainly. 
While thine — Oh, God ! at least remit; 

to her , 

Thy wrath ! for she is pure amidst the 

failing 
As a star in the clouds, which canno: I 

quench, I 

Although they obscure it for an hour. ' 

My Anah ! 
How would I have adored thee, but thou 

wouldst not; 
And still would I redeem thee — see 

thee live 
When Ocean is earth's grave, and, un- 
opposed 80 
By rock or shallow, the Leviathan, 
Lord of the shoreless sea and watery 

world. 
Shall wonder at his boundlessness of 

realm. [Exit Japhet. 

Enter Noah and Shem. 

Noah. Where is thy brother Japhet ? 
Shem. He went forth, 

According to his wont, to meet with Irad, 

He said; but, as I fear, to bend his 
steps 

Towards Anah's tents, round which he 
hovers nightly, 

Like a dove round and round its pillaged 
nest; 

Or else he walks the wild up to the 
cavern 

Which opens to the heart of Ararat. 90 

Noah. What doth he there ? It is an 

evil spot 

Upon an earth all evil ; for things worse 

Than even wicked men resort there : he 

Still loves this daughter of a fated race. 

Although he could not wed her if she 
loved him. 

And that she doth not. Oh, the un- 
happy hearts 

Of men ! that one of my blood, know- 
ing well 

The destiny and evil of these days, 



Scene in.] 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



807 



And that the hour approacheth, should 

indulge 
In such forbidden yearnings ! Lead the 
way ; 100 

He must be sought for! 

Shem. Go not forward, father: 

I will seek Japhet. 

Noah. Do not fear for me : 

All evil things are powerless on the man 
Selected by Jehovah. — Let us on. 
Shem. To the tents of the father of 

the sisters? 
Noah. No; to the cavern of the 
Caucasus. 

[Exeunt Noah and Shem. 

Scene III. — The mountains. — A 
cavern, and the rocks of Caucasus. 

Japh. {solus). Ye wilds, that look 

eternal; and thou cave, 
Which seem' St unfathomable; and ye 

mountains. 
So varied and so terrible in beauty; 
Here, in your rugged majesty of rocks 
And toppling trees that twine their roots 

with stone 
In perpendicular places, where the foot 
Of man would tremble, could he reach 

them — yes. 
Ye look eternal ! Yet, in a few days. 
Perhaps even hours, ye will be changed, 

rent, hurled 
Before the mass of waters; and yon 

cave, 10 

Which seems to lead* into a lower world. 
Shall have its depths searched by the 

sweeping wave, 
And dolphins gambol in the lion's den ! 
And man Oh, men ! my fellow- 
beings ! Who 
Shall weep above your universal grave. 
Save I? Who shall be left to weep? 

My kinsmen, 
Alas ! what am I better than ye are, 
That I must live beyond ye? Where 

shall be 
The pleasant places where I thought of 

Anah 
While I had hope ? or the more savage 

haunts, 20 

Scarce less beloved, where I despaired 

for her? 



And can it be ! — Shall yon exulting 

peak. 
Whose glittering top is like a distant star, 
Lie low beneath the boiling of the deep ? 
No more to have the morning sun break 

forth. 
And scatter back the mists in floating 

folds 
From its tremendous brow ? no more to 

have 
Day's broad orb drop behind its head at 

even, 
Leaving it with a crown of many hues? 
No more to be the beacon of the world, 
For angels to alight on, as the spot 31 
Nearest the stars? And can those 

words "wo more" 
Be meant for thee, for all things, save 

for us, 
And the predestined creeping things 

reserved 
By my sire to Jehovah's bidding? May 
He preserve them, and I not have the 

power 
To snatch the loveliest of earth's 

daughters from 
A doom which even some serpent, with 

his mate. 
Shall 'scape to save his kind to be pro- 
longed, 
To hiss and sting through some emerg- 
ing world, 40 
Reeking and dank from out the slime, 

whose ooze 
Shall slumber o'er the wreck of this, until 
The salt morass subside into a sphere 
Beneath the sun, and be the monument, 
The sole and undistinguished sepulchre, 
Of yet quick myriads of all life? How 

much 
Breath will be stilled at once ! All 

beauteous world ! 
So young, so marked out for destruction, 

I 
With a cleft heart look on thee day by 

day. 
And night by night, thy numbered days 

and nights. 50 

I cannot save thee, cannot save even 

her 
Whose love had made me love thee 

more; but as 
A portion of thy dust, I cannot think 



8o8 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



[Part i. 



Upon thy coming doom without a feehng 

Such as — Oh God ! and canst thou — 

[He pauses. 

[A rushing sound from the cavern is 

heard, and shouts of laughter — 

afterwards a Spirit passes. 

Japh. In the name 

Of the Most High, what art thou? 

Spirit {laughs). Ha! ha! ha! 

Japh. By all that earth holds holiest, 

speak ! 
Spirit {laughs). Ha! ha! 

Japh. By the approaching deluge! 
by the earth 
Which will be strangled bv the ocean ! 

by 
The deep which will lay open all her 
fountains ! 60 

The heaven which will convert her 

clouds to seas, 
And the Omnipotent who makes and 

crushes ! 
Thou unknown, terrible, and indistinct, 
Yet awful Thing of Shadows, speak to 

me ! 
Why dost thou laugh that horrid laugh ? 
Spirit. Why weep'st thou? 

Japh. For earth and all her children. 
Spirit. Ha! ha! ha! 

[Spirit vanishes. 
Japh. How the fiend mocks the tor- 
tures of a world. 
The coming desolation of an orb. 
On which the sun shall rise and warm 

no life ! 
How the earth sleeps ! and all that in it 
is 70 

Sleep too upon the very eve of death ! 
Why should they wake to meet it? 

What are here, 
Which look like death in life, and speak 

like things 
Porn ere this dying world ? They come 
like clouds ! 
[Various Spirits pass from the cavern. 
Spirit. Rejoice ! 

The abhorred race 
Which could not keep in Eden their 
high place. 

But listened to the voice 
Of knowledge without power, 

Are nigh the hour, 80 

Of Death ! 



Not slow, not single, not by sword, nor 
sorrow. 
Nor years, nor heart-break, nor Time's 
sapping motion. 
Shall they drop oflf. Behold their 
last to-morrow ! 
Earth shall be Ocean ! 

And no breath, 
Save of the winds, be on the unbounded 
wave ! 
Angels shall tire their wings, but 
find no spot: 
Not even a rock from out the liquid 
grave, 

Shall lift its point to save, 90 
Or show the place where strong Despair 

hath died, 
After long looking o'er the ocean wide 
For the expected ebb which cometh 
not: 

All shall be void, 

Destroyed ! 

Another element shall be the lord 

Of life, and the abhorred 
Children of dust be quenched; and 

of each hue 
Of earth nought left but the unbroken 

blue; 
And of the variegated mountain 100 
Shall nought remain 1 

Unchanged, or of the level plain; | 
Cedar and pine shall lift their tops 1 
in vain: 
All merged within the universal fountain. 
]Man, earth, and fire, shall die, 
And sea and sky 
Look vast and lifeless in the eternal eye. 
Upon the foam 
Who shall erect a home? 
Japh. {coming forii'ard). My sire ! no 
Earth's seed shall not expire; 
Only the evil shall be put away \ 
From day. | 

Avaunt ! ye exulting demons of 
the waste ! 
Who howl your hideous joy 
\\'hen God destroys whom you dare 
not destroy: 

Hence ! haste ! 
Back to your inner caves! 
Until the waves 
Shall search you in your secret place. 
And drive your sullen race 121 



CENE III.] 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



809 



Forth, to be rolled upon the tossing 
winds, 
In restless wretchedness' along 
all space ! 
Spirit. Son of the saved ! 

When thou and thine have braved 

The wide and warring element; 

When the great barrier of the deep is 

rent. 
Shall thou and thine be good or 

happy ? — No ! 
Thy new world and new race shall 
be of woe — 129 

Less goodly in their aspect, in their 
years 

Less than the glorious 
giants, who 
Yet walk the world in pride. 
The sons of Heaven by many a mortal 
bride. 
Thine shall be nothing of the past, 
save tears ! 

And art thou not ashamed 

Thus to survive. 
And eat, and drink, and wive ? 
With a base heart so far subdued and 

tamed, 
As even to hear this wide destruction 

named. 

Without such grief and courage, as 
should rather 140 

Bid thee await the world-dissolving 
wave. 
Than seek a shelter with thy favoured 
father. 
And build thy city o'er the drowned 
earth's grave? 

Who would outlive their 

kind. 
Except the base and blind ? 
Mine 
Hateth thine 
As of a different order in the sphere. 
But not our own. 
There is not one who hath not left a 
throne 150 

Vacant in heaven to dwell in 
darkness here. 
Rather than see his mates endure 
alone. 

Go, wretch ! and give 
A life like thine to other wretches — 
live ! 



And when the annihilating waters 
roar 

Above what they have 

done. 

Envy the giant patriarchs then no 

more. 

And scorn thy sire as the surviving one ! 

Thyself for being his son ! 

Chorus of Spirits issuing from the cavern. 

Rejoice! 160 

No more the human voice 
Shall ve.x our joys in middle air 
With prayer; 
No more 
Shall they adore; 
And we, who ne'er for ages have adored 

The prayer-exacting Lord, 
To whom the omis.sion of a .sacrifice 

Is vice; 
W^e, we shall view the deep's salt 
sources poured 170 

Until one element shall do the work 
Of all in chaos; until they, 
The creatures proud of their 
poor clay. 
Shall perish, and their bleached bones 
shall lurk 
In caves, in dens, in clefts of 
mountains, where 
The deep shall follow to their latest lair; 
Where even the brutes, in their 
despair. 
Shall cease to prey on man and on each 
other. 
And the striped tiger shall lie down 
to die 
Beside the lamb, as though he were his 
brother; 180 

Till all things shall be as they 
were. 
Silent and uncreated, save the 
sky: 

While a brief truce 
Is made with Death, who shall 
forbear 
The little remnant of the past 
creation. 
To generate new nations for his use; 
This remnant, floating o'er the 
undulation 
Of the subsiding deluge, from 
its slime. 



8io 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



[Part i. 



When the hot sun hath baked the 

reeking soil i8g 

Into a world, shall give again to 

Time 
New beings — years, diseases, 
sorrow, crime — 
With all companionship of hate and 
toil, 

Until ^— 
Japh. {interrupting them). The 
eternal Will 
Shall deign to expound this 

dream 
Of good and evil ; and redeem 
Unto himself all times, all 

things; 
And, gathered under his 
almighty wings. 
Abolish Hell ! 
And to the expiated Earth 
Restore the beauty of her birth, 
Her Eden in an endless para- 
dise, 20 1 
Where man no more can fall 
as once he fell, 
And even the very demons shall 
do well ! 
Spirits. And when shall take effect 

this wondrous spell ? 
Japh. When the Redeemer cometh; 
first in pain, 

And then in glory. 
Spirit. Meantime still struggle in 
the mortal chain, 

Till Earth wax hoary; 
War with yourselves, and Hell, and 
Heaven, in ,vain. 

Until the clouds look gory 

With the blood reeking from each 

battle-plain; 211 

New times, new climes, new arts, 

new men; but still. 
The same old tears, old crimes, and 

oldest ill, 
Shall be amongst your race in different 
forms ; 

But the same moral storms 
Shall oversweep the future, as the 

waves 
In a few hours the glorious giants' 
graves.^ 

' " [And] there were giants in the earth in 
those days; and . . . after, . . . mighty men, 



Chorus of Spirits. 



Brethren, 



rejoice 



Mortal, farewell! 

Hark ! hark ! already we can hear the 

voice 220 

Of growing Ocean's gloomy swell; 

The winds, too, plume their piercing 

wings ; 
The clouds have nearly filled their 
springs; 
The fountains of the great deep shall be 
broken. 
And heaven set wide her windows;^ 
while mankind 
View, unacknowledged, each tremen- 
dous token — 
Still, as they were from the beginning, 
blind. 
We hear the sound they cannot hear, 
The mustering thunders of the 
threatening sphere; 
Yet a few hours their coming is 
delayed; 230 

Their flashing banners, folded still 
on high, 

Yet undisplayed, 
Save to the Spirit's all-pervading eye. 
Howl! howl! oh Earth! 
Thy death is nearer than thy recent 

birth ; 
Tremble, ye mountains, soon to shrink 
below 
The Ocean's overflow ! 
The wave shall break upon your cliffs; 
and shells, 
The little shells, of Ocean's least 
things be 
Deposed where now the eagle's offspring 
dwells — 240 

How shall he shriek o'er the remorse- 
less sea ! 
And call his nestlings up with fruitless 

yell. 
Unanswered, save by the encroaching 

swell; — 
While man shall long in vain for his 
broad wings, 
The wings which could not save : — 

which were of old, men of renown." — Genesis 
[vi. 4]. 

' " The same day were all the fotmtains of the 
great deep broken up, and the windows of 
heaven were opened." — Genesis [vii. 11]. 



Scene hi.] 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



Where could he rest them, while the 
whole space brings 
Nought to his eye beyond the deep, 
his grave? 

Brethren, rejoice ! 
And loudly lift each superhuman 
voice — 
,, All die, 250 

' Save the slight remnant of Seth's 
seed — 

The seed of Seth, 
Exempt for future sorrow's sake from 
death. 

But of the sons of Cain 
None shall remain ; 
And all his goodly daughters 
Must lie beneath the desolating 

waters ; 
Or, floating upward, with their long 

hair laid 
Along the wave, the cruel heaven 
upbraid. 

Which would not spare 260 
I; Beings even in death so fair. 

It is decreed. 
All die ! 
And to the universal human cry 
The universal silence shall succeed ! 
Fly, brethren, fly ! 
But still rejoice ! 
We fell ! 
They fall ! 

So perish all 270 

These petty foes of Heaven who shrink 
from Hell ! 

[The Spirits disappear, soaring 
upwards. 
Japh. {solus). God hath proclaimed 
the destiny of earth; 
My father's ark of safety hath announced 

it; 
The very demons shriek it from their 

caves; 
The scroll ^ of Enoch prophesied it long 

' The book of Enoch preserved by fhe Ethi- 
opians, is said by them to be anterior to the flood. 
[Some fragments of the Book of Endch, which 
I were included by Georgius Syncellus (a Byzan- 
tine writer of the eighth century a.d.) in his 
Chronographia, pp. 11, 26, were printed by J. J. 
Scaliger in 1606. In 171 5 one of the fragments 
was "made EngHsh," and published under the 
title of The History of the Angels and their Gal- 
lantry with the Daughters of Men, written by 
Enoch the Patriarch. 



In silent books, which, in their silence, 

say 
More to the mind than thunder to the 

ear: 
And yet men listened not, nor listen ; but 
Walk darkling to their doom: which, 

though so nigh. 
Shakes them no more in their dim dis- 
belief, 280 
Than their last cries shall shake the 

Almighty purpose, 
Or deaf obedient Ocean, which fulfils it. 
No sign yet hangs its banner in the 

air; 
The clouds are few, and of their wonted 

texture; 
The Sun will rise upon the Earth's last 

day 
As on the fourth day of creation, when 
God said unto him, "Shine!" and he 

broke forth 

In 1785 James Bruce, the traveller, discovered 
three MSS. of the Book of Enoch. One he con- 
veyed to the library at Paris; a second MS. he 
presented to the Bodleian Library at Oxford. In 
1821 Richard Laurence, LL.D., Archbishop of 
Cashel, published a translation "from the Ethi- 
opic MS. in the Bodleian Library." This was 
the first translation of the book as a whole. 

The following extracts, which were evidently 
within Byron's recollection w^hen he planned 
Heaven and Earth, are taken from The Book of 
Enoch, translated from Professor Dillman's Ethi- 
opic Text, by R. H. Charles, Oxford, 1892: — 

"Chap. vi. [i. And it came to pass when the 
children of men had multiplied in those days that 
beautiful and comely daughters were born unto 
them. [2. And the angels, the sons of the 
Heavens, saw and lusted after them, and spake 
one to another, ' Come now, let us choose us 
wives from among the children of men, and beget 
children.' [3. And Semjaza, who was the leader, 
spake unto them: 'I fear ye vidll not indeed 
agree to do this deed.' ... [6. And they de- 
scended in the days of Jared on the summit of 
Mount Hermon. . . . 

"Chap. viii. [i. And Azazel taught men to 
make swords, etc. 

"Chap. X. Then spake the Most High, the 
Great, the Holy One, and sent Arsjalaljur 
(=Uriel) to the son of Lamech, and said to him, 
'Tell him in My Name to hide thyself!' and 
reveal to him that the end is approaching; for 
the whole earth will be destroyed, and a deluge 
will presently cover up the whole earth, and all 
that is in it will be destroyed. [3. And now in- 
struct him that he may escape as his seed may be 
preserved for all generations. [4- And again the 
Lord spake to Rafael; Bind Azazel hand and 
foot, and place him in darkness; make an open- 
ing in the desert which is in Dudael and place 
him therein. [5. And place upon him rough 
and ragged rocks," etc.] 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



[Part i 



Into the dawn, which lighted not the yet 
Unformed forefather of mankind — 

but roused 
Before the human orison the earlier 290 
Made and far sweeter voices of the birds, 
Which in the open firmament of heaven 
Have wings like angels, and like them 

salute 
Heaven first each day before the Adam- 
ites: 
Their matins now draw nigh — the 

east is kindling — 
And they will sing ! and day will break ! 

Both near. 
So near the awful close ! For these 

must drop 
Their outworn pinions on the deep; 

and day, 
After the bright course of a few brief 

morrows, — 
Aye, day will rise ; but upon what ? — 

a chaos, 300 

Which was ere day; and which, re- 
newed, makes Time 
Nothing! for, without life, what are 

the hours? 
No more to dust than is Eternity 
Unto Jehovah, who created both. 
Without him, even Eternity would be 
A void: without man, Time, as made 

for man. 
Dies with man, and is swallowed in 

that deep 
Which has no fountain ; as his race will 

be 
Devoured by that which drowns his 

infant world. — 
What have we here? Shapes of both 

earth and air? 310 

No — ■ all of heaven, they are so beau- 
tiful. 
I cannot trace their features, but their 

forms. 
How lovelily they move along the side 
Of the grey mountain, scattering its 

mist ! 
And after the swart savage spirits, 

whose 
Infernal immortality poured forth 
Their impious hymn of triumph, they 

shall be 
Welcome as Eden. It may be they 

come 



To tell me the reprieve of our younj 

world. 
For which I have so often prayed. — • 

They come ! 320 
Anah ! oh, God ! and with her 

Enter Samiasa, Azaziel, Anah, ani 
Aholibamah. 

Anah. Japhet! 

Sam. Lo ! 

A son of Adam ! 

Aza. What doth the earth-born 

here, 
While all his race are slumbering? 

Japh. Angel ! what 

Dost thou on earth when thou shouldst 
be on high? 
Aza. Know'st thou not, or forget st 
thou that a part 
Of our great function is to guard thiie 
earth ? 
Japh. But all good angels have for- 
saken earth. 
Which is condemned; nay, even the 

evil fly 
The approaching chaos. Anah ! Anah ! 

my 

In vain, and long,and still to be, beloved ! 

Why walk'st thou with this Spirit, in 

those hours 331 

When no good Spirit longer lights below ? 

Anah. Japhet, I cannot answer thee; 

yet, yet 

Forgive me 

Japh. May the Heaven, which soon 
no more 
Will pardon, do so ! for thou art greatly 
tempted. 
Aho. Back to thy tents, insulting 
son of Noah ! 
We know thee not. 

Japh. The hour may come when 
thou 
May'st know me better; and thy sister 

^know 

Me still the same which I have ever 

been. 

Sam. Son of the patriarch, wto 

hath ever been 343 

Upright before his God, whate'er th/ 

gifts. 
And thy words seem of sorrow, mixed 
with wrath, 



Scene hi.] 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



813 



or myself, brought 



How have Azaziel, 

on thee 
Wrong ? 

Japh. Wrong! the greatest of all 
; wrongs ! but, thou 

Say'st well, though she be dust — I did 

not, could not, 
Deserve her. Farewell, Anah ! I have 

said 
That word so often ! but now say it, 

ne'er 

To be repeated. Angel ! or whate'er 

Thou art, or must be soon, hast thou 

the power 349 

To save this beautiful — these beautiful 

; Children of Cain ? 

Aza. From what? 

Japh. And is it so, 

That ye too know not ? Angels ! angels ! 

ye 
Have shared man's sin, and, it may be, 

now must 
Partake his punishment ; or, at the least. 
My sorrow. 

Sam. Sorrow ! I ne'er thought till 
now 
.To hear an Adamite speak riddles to me. 
Japh. And hath not the Most High 
expounded them ? 
Then ye are lost as they are lost. 

Aho. So be it ! 

If they love as they are loved, they will 

not shrink 
More to be mortal, than I would to dare 
An immortality of agonies 361 

With Samiasa ! 

Anah. Sister! sister! speak not 

Thus 

.42a. Fearest thou, my Anah? 
Anah. Yes, for thee: 

I would resign the greater remnant of 
This little life of mine, before one hour 
Of thine eternity should know a pang. 
Japh. It is for him, then ! for the 
Seraph thou 
Hast left me ! That is nothing, if thou 

■ hast not 
Left thy God too! for unions like to 

these, 

Between a mortal and an immortal, 

cannot 370 

Be happy or be hallowed. We are sent 

Upon the earth to toil and die; and they 



Are made to minister on high unto 
The Highest: but if he can save thee, 

soon 
The hour will come in which celestial aid 
Alone can do so. 

Anah. Ah ! he speaks of Death. 

Sam. Of death to us/ and those 

who are with us ! 
But that the man seems full of sorrow, I 
Could smile. 

Japh. I grieve not for myself, nor 

fear. 
I am safe, not for my own deserts, but 

those 380 

Of a well-doing sire, who hath been 

found 
Righteous enough to save his children. 

Would 
His power was greater of redemption ! or 
That by exchanging my own life for 

hers. 
Who could alone have made mine 

happy, she. 
The last and loveliest of Cain's race, 

could share 
The ark which shall receive a remnant 

of 
The seed of Seth ! 

Aho. And dost thou think that we, 
With Cain's, the eldest born of Adam's, 

blood 
Warm in our veins, — strong Cain ! 

who was begotten 390 

In Paradise, — would mingle with 

Seth's children ? 
Seth, the last offspring of old Adam's 

dotage ? 
No, not to save all Earth, were Earth 

in peril ! 
Our race hath always dwelt apart from 

thine 
From the beginning, and shall do so 

ever. 
Japh. I did not speak to thee, 

Aholibamah ! 
Too much of the forefather whom thou 

vauntest 
Has come down in that haughty blood 

which springs 
From him who shed the first, and 

that a brother's ! 
But thou, my Anah ! let me call thee 

mine, 400 



8i4 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



[Part i. 



Albeit thou art not ; 'tis a word I cannot 
Part with, although I must from thee. 

My Anah! 
Thou who dost rather make me dream 

that Abel 
Had left a daughter, whose pure pious 

race 
Survived in thee, so much unlike thou 

art 
The rest of the stern Cainites, save in 

beauty. 
For all of them are fairest in their 

favour 

Aho. {interrupting him) . And wouldst 

thou have her like our father's 

foe 
In mind, in soul? If I partook thy 

thought 
And dreamed that aught of Ahel was in 

her! — 410 

Get thee hence, son of Noah; thou 

makest strife. 
Japh. Offspring of Cain, thy father 

did so ! 
Aho. But 

He slew not Seth: and what hast thou 

to do 
With other deeds between his God and 

him? 
Japh. Thou speakest well: his God 

hath judged him, and 
I had not named his deed, but that thy- 
self 
Didst seem to glory in him, nor to shrink 
From what he had done. 

Aho. He was our father's father; 
The eldest born of man, the strongest, 

bravest, 
And most enduring: — ■ Shall I blush for 

him 420 

From whom we had our being? Look 

upon 
Our race; behold their stature and their 

beauty, 
Their courage, strength, and length of 

days 

Japh. They are numbered. 

Aho. Be it so! but while yet their 

hours endure, 
I glory in my brethren and our fathers. 
Japh. My sire and race but glory in 

their God, 
Anah ! and thou ? 



Anah. Whate'er our God decrees, 
The God of Seth as Cain, I must obey, ' 
And will endeavour patiently to obey. 
But could I dare to pray in his dread 

hour 430 

Of universal vengeance (if such should 

be), 
It would not be to live, alone exempt 
Of air my house. My sister! oh, my 

sister ! 
What were the world, or other worlds, 

or all 
The brightest future, without the sweet 

past — 
Thy love, my father's, all the life, and all 
The things which sprang up with me, 

like the stars, 
Making my dim existence radiant witl 
Soft lights which were not mine' 

Aholibamah ! 
Oh ! if there should be mercy — seeL 

it, find it: 440 

I abhor Death, because that thou must 

die. 
Aho. What, hath this dreamer, with 

his father's ark. 
The bugbear he hath built to scare the 

world. 
Shaken my sister ? Are we not the loved 
Of Seraphs? and if we were not, must , 

we J 

Cling to a son of Noah for our lives? 
Rather than thus But the enthu- 
siast dreams 
The worst of dreams, the fantasies en- 
gendered 
By hopeless love and heated vigils. 

Who 
Shall shake these solid mountains, this 

firm earth, 450 

And bid those clouds and waters take a 

shape 
Distinct from that which we and all our 

sires 
Have seen them wear on their eternai 

way? 
Who shall do this? 

Japh. He whose one word produced 

them. 
Aho. Who heard that word? 
Japh. The Universe, which leaped 
To hfe before it. Ah ! smilest thou still 

in scorn? 



Scene hi.]. 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



lis 



Turn to thy Seraphs : if they attest it not, 
They are none. 

Sam. Aholibamah, own thy God ! 

Aho. I have ever hailed our Maker, 

Samiasa, 

As thine and mine: a God of Love, not 

Sorrow. 460 

Japh. Alas! what else is Love but 

Sorrow ? Even 

He who made earth in love had soon to 

grieve 
Above its first and best inhabitants. 
Aho. 'Tis said so. 
Japh.' It is even so. 

Enter Noah and Shem. 

Noah. Japhet ! What 

Dost thou here with these children of 

the wicked? 
Dread'st thou not to partake their 

coming doom? 
Japh. Father, it cannot be a sin to 

seek 
To save an earth-born being; and be- 
hold, 
These are not of the sinful, since they 

have 
The fellowship of angels. 

Noah. These are they, then, 470 
Who leave the throne of God, to take 

them wives 
From out the race of Cain; the sons of 

Heaven, 
Who seek Earth's daughters for their 

beauty ? 
Aza. Patriarch, 

Thou hast said it. 

Noah. Woe, woe, woe to such com- 
munion ! 
Has not God made a barrier between 

Earth 
And Heaven, and Hmited each, kind to 

kind? 
Sam. Was not man made in high 

Jehovah's image? 
Did God not love what he had made? 

And what 
Do we but imitate and emulate 
His love unto created love? 

Noah. I am 480 

But man, and was not made to judge 

mankind. 
Far less the sons of God ; but as our God 



Has deigned to commune with me, and 

reveal 
His judgments, I reply, that the descent 
Of Seraphs from their everlasting seat 
Unto a perishable and perishing, 
Even on the very eve of perishing, world. 
Cannot be good. 

Aza. What ! though it were to save? 

Noah. Not ye in all your glory can 

redeem 

What he who made you glorious hath 

condemned. 490 

Were your immortal mission safety, 

'twould 
Be general, not for two, though beauti- 
ful; 
And beautiful they are, but not the less 
Condemned. 

Japh. Oh, father! say it not. 

Noah. Son ! son ! 

If that thou wouldst avoid their doom, 

forget 
That they exist: they soon shall cease 

to be. 
While thou shalt be the sire of a new 

world. 
And better. 

Japh. Let me die with this and them t 
Noah. Thou shouldst for such a 
thought, but shalt not: he 
Who can, redeems thee. 

Sam. And why him and thee, 500 

More than what he, thy son, prefers to 

both? 

Noah. Ask him who made thee 

greater than myself 

And mine, but not less subject to his own 

Almightiness. And lo ! his mildest and 

Least to be tempted messenger appears ! 

Enter Raphael the Archangel. 



Spirits ! 
Whose seat is near the throne, 

What do you here? 
Is thus a Seraph's duty to be 
shown, 509 

Now that the hour is near 
When Earth must be alone? 
Return ! 
Adore and burn, 
In glorious homage with the elected 
"Seven." 

Your place is Heaven. 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



[Part i. 



Sam. Raphael ! 

The first and fairest of the sons of God, 
How long hath this been 
law, 
That Earth by angel must be left un- 
trod? 

Earth! which oft saw 520 
Jehovah's footsteps not disdain her 
sod ! 
The world he loved, and made 
For love; and oft have we 
obeyed 
His frequent mission with delighted 
pinions: 
Adoring him in his least works 
displayed ; 
Watching this youngest star of his 
dominions; 
And, as the latest birth of his 

great word, 
Eager to keep it worthy of our 
Lord. 

Why is thy brow severe? 
And wherefore speak'st thou of de- 
struction near? 530 
Raph. Had Samiasa and Azaziel been 
In their true place, with the angelic 
choir, 

Written in fire 
They would have seen 
Jehovah's late decree. 
And not enquired their Maker's 
breath of me: 

But ignorance must ever 
be 
A part of sin; 
And even the Spirits' knowledge shall 
grow less 

As they wax proud within : 
For Blindness is the first-born of 
Excess. 541 

When all good angels left the world, 
ye stayed, 
Stung with strange passions, and de- 
based 
By mortal feelings for a mortal 
maid; 
But ye are pardoned thus far, and 

replaced 
With your pure equals. Hence ! 



away ! away 



Or stay, 
And lose Eternity by that delay ! 



Aza. And thou! if Earth be thus for- 
bidden 

In the decree 550 

To us until,, "iiis moment 
hidden. 

Dost thou not err as we 
In being here? 
Raph. I came to call ye back to your 
fit sphere, 
In the great name and at the word 
of God, 
Dear, dearest in themselves — and 
scarce less dear. 
That which I came to do: tHl now 
we trod 
Together the eternal space; together 
Let us still walk the stars. True, 
Earth must die ! 
Her race, returned into her womb, 
must wither, 560 

And much which she inherits: but 

oh ! why 
Cannot this Earth be made, or be 

destroyed, 
Without involving ever some vast 
void 
In the immortal ranks ? immortal still 

In their immeasurable forfeiture. 
Our brother Satan fell; his burning 
will 
Rather than longer worship dared 

endure ! 
But ye who still are pure I 
Seraphs ! less mighty than that 
mightiest one, — 
Think how he was undone ! 570 
And think if tempting man can com- 
pensate 
For Heaven desired too late? 
Long have I warred, 
Long must I war 
With him who deemed it hard 
To be created, and to acknowledge 

him 
Who midst the cherubim 

Made him as suns to a dependent 
star. 
Leaving the archangels at his right 
hand dim. 
I loved him — beautiful he was: 
oh. Heaven ! 580 

Save his who made, what beauty and 
what power 



CENE III.] 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



817 



Was ever like to Satan's ! Would the 


The deep shall rise to meet Heaven's 


hour 


overflow — 


In which he fell could ever be 


Few shall be spared. 


forgiven ! u 


It seems; and, of that few, the race 


The wish is impiv. ; but, oh ye ! 


of Cain 


Yet undestroyed, be warned ! Eternity 


Must lift their eyes to Adam's God in 


With him, or with his God, is in 


vain. 


your choice: 


Sister! since it is so, 620 


He hath not tempted you; he cannot 


And the eternal Lord 


tempt 


In vain would be implored 1 
For the remission of one hour of woe,' 


The angels, from his further snares 


1 exempt: 


Let us resign even what we have adored,; 


But man hath listened to his voice. 


And meet the wave, as we would meet 


And ye to woman's — beautiful she is. 


the sword. 


The serpent's voice less subtle than 


If not unmoved, yet undismayed, 


her kiss. 591 


And wailing less for us than those who 


The snake but vanquished dust; but 
1 she will draw 


shall 


Survive in mortal or immortal thrall. 


A second host from heaven, to break 


And, when the fatal waters are 


Heaven's law. 


allayed. 


Yet, yet, oh fly ! 


Weep for the myriads who can weep no 


Ye cannot die; 


more. 630 


But they 


Fly, Seraphs ! to your own eternal shore. 


Shall pass away. 


Where winds nor howl, nor waters roar. 


1 While ye shall fill with shrieks the 


Our portion is to die, 


upper sky 


And yours to live for ever: 


For perishable clay, 


But which is best, a dead Eternity, 


Whose memory in your immortality 


Or living, is but known to the great 


Shall long outlast the Sun which 


Giver. 


gave them day. 601 


Obey him, as we shall obey; 


'Think how your essence differeth 


I would not keep this life of mine in 


from theirs 


clay 


In all but suffering ! why partake 


An hour beyond his will; 


The agony to which they must be 


Nor see ye lose a portion of his grace, 


heirs — 


For all the mercy which Seth's race 641 


Born to be ploughed with years, and 


Find still. 


sown with cares. 


Fly! 


And reaped by Death, lord of the 


And as your pinions bear ye back to 


human soil? 


Heaven, 


Even had their days been left to toil 


Think that my love still mounts with 


their path 


thee on high, 


Through time to dust, unshortened 


Samiasa ! 


by God's wrath, 


And if I look up with a tearless eye. 


Still they are Evil's prey, and Sor- 


'Tis that an angel's bride disdains to 


row's spoil. 


weep,— 


Aho. Let them fly! 610 


Farewell ! Now rise, inexorable deep ! 


I hear the voice which says that all 


Anah. And must we die? 650 


must die. 


And must I lose thee too, 


Sooner than our white-bearded patri- 


Azaziel ? 


archs died; 


Oh, my heart ! my heart ! 


And that on high 


Thy prophecies were true ! 


An ocean is prepared, 


And yet thou wert so happy 


i While from below 


too! 



3G 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



[Part i. 



The blow, though not unlocked for, 
falls as new: 

But yet depart ! 
Ah ! why ? 
Yet let me not retain thee — fly ! 
My pangs can be but brief ; but thine 
would be 660 

Eternal, if repulsed from Heaven for 
me. 

Too much already hast thou 
deigned 

To one of Adam's race ! 
Our doom is sorrow: not to us alone, 
But to the Spirits who have not dis- 
dained 
To love us, cometh anguish with dis- 
grace. 
The first who taught us knowledge hath 
been hurled 
From his once archangelic throne 
Into some unknown world: 

And thou, Azaziel ! No — 
Thou shalt not suffer woe 671 
For me. Away ! nor weep ! 
Thou canst not weep; but yet 
May'st suffer more, not weeping: 
then forget 
Her, whom the surges of the all- 
strangling deep 
Can bring no pang like this. Fly ! fly ! 
Being gone, 'twill be less difficult to die. 
Japh. Oh say not so ! 

Father! and thou, archangel, 
thou ! 
Surely celestial mercy lurks below 680 
That pure severe serenity of brow: 
Let them not meet this sea without a 

shore. 
Save in our ark, or let me be no more ! 
Noah. Peace, child of passion, peace ! 
If not within thy heart, yet with thy 
tongue 
Do God no wrong ! 
Live as he wills it — die, when he 

ordains, 
A righteous death, unlike the seed of 
Cain's. 
Cease, or be sorrowful in silence; 
cease 
To weary Heaven's ear with thy selfish 
plaint. 690 

Would'st thou have God commit a sin 
for thee? 



Such would it be 
To alter his intent 
For a mere mortal sorrow. Be a man 1 
And bear what Adam's race must bear, 
and can. 
Japh. Aye, father! but when they 
are gone. 

And we are all alone. 
Floating upon the azure desert, and 
The depth beneath us hides our own 
dear land. 
And dearer, silent friends and 
brethren, all 700 

Buried in its immeasurable breast, 
Who, who, our tears, our shrieks, shall 
then command? 
Can we in Desolation's peace have 
rest? 
Oh God ! be thou a God, and spare 

Yet while 'tis time ! 
Renew not Adam's fall: 
Mankind were then but twain. 
But they are numerous now as are the 
waves 

And the tremendous rain. 
Whose drops shall be less thick than 
would their graves, 710 

Were graves permitted to the seed of 

Cain. 
Noah. Silence, vain boy ! each word 
of thine's a crime. 
Angel ! forgive this stripling's fond 
despair. 
Raph. Seraphs ! these mortals speak 
in passion : Ye ! 
Who are, or should be, passionless and 

pure, 
May now return with me. 

Sam. It may not be: 

We have chosen, and will endure. 
Raph. Say'st thou ? 
Aza. He hath said it, and I say. 

Amen ! 
Raph. Again ! 

Then from this hour, 720 

Shorn as ye are of all celestial power. 
And aliens from your God, 
Farewell ! 
Japh. Alas ! where shall they dwell ? 
Hark, hark ! Deep sounds, and deeper 
still. 
Are howling from the mountain's 
bosom : 



Scene hi.] 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



819 



There's not a breath of wind upon the 
hill, 
Yet quivers every leaf, and drops each 
blossom : 
Earth groans as if beneath a heavy 
load. 
Noah. Hark, hark! the sea-birds 
cry ! 730 

In clouds they overspread the lurid 
sky. 
And hover round the mountain, where 
before 
Never a white wing, wetted by the 
wave. 

Yet dared to soar, 
Even when the waters waxed too 
fierce to brave. 

Soon it shall be their only shore, 
And then, no more ! 
Japh. The sun ! the sun ! 

He riseth, but his better light is gone; 
And a black circle, bound, 740 
His glaring disk around, 
Proclaims Earth's last of summer days 
hath shone ! 
The clouds return into the hues of 
night. 
Save where their brazen-coloured edges 

streak 
The verge where brighter morns were 
wont to break. 
Noah. And lo ! yon flash of light, 
The distant thunder's harbinger, ap- 
pears ! 
It cometh ! hence, away ! 
Leave to the elements their evil prey ! 
Hence to where our all-hallowed ark 
uprears 750 

Its safe and wreckless sides ! 
Japh. Oh, father, stay! 
Leave not my Anah to the swallowing 
tides ! 
Noah. Must we not leave all life to 

such ? Begone ! 
Japh. Not I. 

Noah. Then die 

With them ! 
How darest thou look on that prophetic 

sky. 
And seek to save what all things now 
condemn. 

In overwhelming unison 760 

With just Jehovah's wrath! 



Japh. Can rage and justice join in 

the same path? 
Noah. Blasphemer! darest thou 

murmur even now ! 
Raph. Patriarch! be still a father! 
smooth thy brow: 
Thy son, despite his folly, shall not 

sink: 
He knows not what he says, yet shall 
not drink 
With sobs the salt foam of the swell- 
ing waters; 
But be, when passion passeth, good as 
thou. 
Nor perish like Heaven's children with 

man's daughters. 
Aho. The tempest cometh; heaven 
and earth unite 770 

For the annihilation of all life. 
Unequal is the strife 
Between our strength and the Eternal 
Might ! 
Sam. But ours is with thee; w^e will 

bear ye far 
To some untroubled star, 
Where thou, and Anah, shalt partake 
our lot: 
And if thou dost not weep for thy lost 
earth, 
Our forfeit Heaven shall also be forgot. 
Anah. Oh ! my dear father's tents, 
my place of birth. 
And mountains, lands, and woods? 
when ye are not, 780 

Who shall dry up my tears? 

Aza. Thy spirit-lord. 

Fear not; though we are shut from 

Heaven, 
Yet much is ours, whence we cannot be 
driven. 
Raph. Rebel ! thy words are wicked, 
as thy deeds 
Shall henceforth be but weak: the 

flaming sword. 
Which chased the first-born out of 

Paradise, 
Still flashes in the angelic hands. 

Aza. It cannot slay us : threaten dust 
with death. 
And talk of weapons unto that which 

bleeds. 
What are thy swords in our immortal 
eyes ? 79° 



820 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



[Part i. 



Raph. The moment cometh to ap- 
prove thy strength; 

And learn at length 
How vain to war with what thy God 

commands : 
Thy former force was in thy faith. 



Enter Mortals 



for refuge. 



Chorus of Mortals. 

The heavens and earth are mingling — 

God ! oh God ! 
What have we done ? Yet spare ! 
Hark ! even the forest beasts howl forth 

their prayer ! 
The dragon crawls from out his den, 
To herd, in terror, innocent with men ; 
And the birds scream their agony 

through air. 800 

Yet, yet, Jehovah ! yet withdraw thy rod 
Of wrath, and pity thine own world's 

despair ! 
Hear not man only but all nature plead ! 
Raph. Farewell, thou earth ! ye 

wretched sons of clay, 
I cannot, must not, aid you. 'Tis 

decreed ! [Exit Raphael. 

Japh. Some clouds sweep on as 

vultures for their prey, 
While others, fixed as rocks, await the 

word 
At which their wrathful vials shall be 

poured. 
No azure more shall robe the firma- 
ment, 
Nor spangled stars be glorious: 

Death hath risen: 810 

In the Sun's place a pale and ghastly 

glare 
Hath wound itself around the dying air. 
Aza. Come, Anah ! quit this chaos- 
founded prison. 
To which the elements again repair. 
To turn it into what it was; beneath 
The shelter of these wings thou shalt be 

safe. 
As was the eagle's nestling once within 
Its mother's. — Let the coming chaos 

chafe 
With all its elements ! Heed not their 

din! 
A brighter world than this, where thou 

shalt breathe 820 



Ethereal life, will we explore: 
These da:kened clouds are not the only 
skies. 
[AzAziEL and Samiasa fty off, and 
disappear with Anah and 
Aholibamah. 
Japh. They are gone ! They have 

disappeared amidst the roar 
Of the forsaken world; and never 

more 
Whether they live, or die with all Earth's 

life. 
Now near its last, can aught restore 
Anah unto these eyes. 

Chorus of Mortals. 

Oh son of Noah! mercy on thy kind! 

What ! wilt thou leave us all — all — 

all behind ? 829 

While safe amidst the elemental strife, 

Thou sitt'st within thy guarded ark? 

A Mother {offering her infant to 

Japhet). Oh, let this child 

embark ! 
I brought him forth in woe, 

But thought it joy 
To see him to my bosom clinging 
so. 
Why was he born? 
What hath he done — 
My unweaned son — 
To move Jehovah's wrath or scorn? 
What is there in this milk of mine, that 
Death 840 

Should stir all Heaven and Earth 
up to destroy 

My boy. 
And roll the waters o'er his placid 

breath ? 
Save him, thou seed of Seth ! 
Or cursed be — with him who made 
Thee and thy race, for which we are 
betrayed ! 
Japh. Peace ! 'tis no hour for curses, 
but for prayer ! 

Chorus of Mortals. 

For prayer! ! ! 
And where 
Shall prayer ascend 850 
When the swoln clouds unto the moun- 
tains bend 

And burst. 



Scene hi.] 



HEAVEN AND EARTH 



82] 



And gushing oceans every barrier rend, 
Until the very deserts know no 
thirst ? 

Accursed 
Be he who made thee and thy sire ! 
We deem our curses vain; we must 
expire ; 

But as we know the worst, 
Why should our hymns be raised, our 

knees be bent 
Before the implacable Omnipotent, 860 
Since we must fall the same? 
If he hath made Earth, let it be his 
shame. 
To make a world for torture. — Lo ! 
they come. 
The loathsome waters, in their rage ! 
And with their roar make whole- 
some nature dumb ! 
The forest's " trees (coeval with the 
hour 
When Paradise upsprung, 

Ere Eve gave Adam knowledge for 
her dower. 
Or Adam his first hymn of slavery 
sung), 
So massy, vast, yet green in their old 
age, 870 

Are overtopped, 
Their summer blossoms by the surges 

lopped. 
Which rise, and rise, and rise. 
Vainly we look up to the lowering 
skies — 
They meet the seas. 
And shut out God from our beseeching 
eyes. 
Fly, son of Noah, fly ! and take thine 
ease, 
In thine allotted ocean-tent; 
And view, all floating o'er the element, 
The corpses of the world of thy young 
days: 880 

Then to Jehovah raise 
Thy song of praise ! 
A Mortal. Blessed are the dead 
Who die in the Lord ! 
And though the waters be o'er earth 
outspread, 

Yet, as his word, 
Be the decree adored ! 
He gave me life — he taketh but 
The breath which is his own: 



And though these eyes should be for 

ever shut, 890 

Nor longer this weak voice before his 

throne 
Be heard in supplicating tone. 

Still blessed be the Lord, 
For what is past, 
For that which is: 
For all are his, 
F om first to last — 
Time — Space — Eternity — Life — 
Death — 
The vast known and immeasurable 
unknown. 
He made, and can unmake; 900 

x\nd shall 7, for a little gasp of breath, 
Blaspheme and groan ? 

No; let me die, as I have lived, in 
faith. 
Nor quiver, though the Universe may 
quake ! 

Chorus of Mortals. 

Where shall we fly? 
Not to the mountains high; 
For now their torrents rush, with 
double roar, 
To meet the Ocean, which, advanc- 
ing still, 
Already grasps each drowning hill, 
Nor leaves an unsearched cave. 910 

Enter a Woman. 

Woman. Oh, save me, save ! 
Our valley is no more: 

My father and my father's tent, 
My brethren and my brethren's herds, 
The pleasant trees that o'er our noon- 
day bent, 
And sent forth evening songs from 

sweetest birds. 
The little rivulet which freshened all 
Our pastures green, 
No more are to be seen. 
When to the mountain clifi' I climbed 
this morn, 920 

I turned to bless the spot. 
And not a leaf appeared about to 

fall; — 
And now they are not ! — 
Why was I born? 

Japh. To die! in youth to die! 

And happier in that doom. 



822 



WERNER 



Than to behold the universal tomb, 

Which I 
Am thus condemned to weep above in 

vain. 

Why, when all perish, why must I 

remain ? 

\The waters rise; Men fly in every ^ 

direction; many are overtaken 

by the waves: the Chorus of 

Mortals disperses in search of 

safety up the mountains: 

Japhet remains upon a 

rock, while the Ark floats 

towards him in the distance. 



WERNER;^ 

OR, 

THE INHERITANCE; 
A TRAGEDY. 



THE ILLUSTRIOUS GOETHE 

BY ONE OF HIS HUMBLEST ADMIRERS, 

THIS TRAGEDY 

IS DEDICATED. 



PREFACE. 

The following drama is taken entirely 
from the German's Tale, Kruitzner, 
published many years ago in "Lee's 
Canterbury Tales,'" written (I believe) 
by two sisters, of whom one furnished 
only this story and another, both of 
which are considered superior to the 
remainder of the collection.^ I have 

' [Werner was begun at Pisa, December i8, 
1821, and finished January 20, 1822. It was 
published November 23, 1822.] 

■' [This is not correct. The Young Lady's 
Tale, or the Two Emilys and The Clergyman's 
Tale, or Pembroke, were contributed by Sophia 
Lee. Kruitzner, or the German's Tale, was 
written by Harriet Lee (1757-1851), the younger 
of the sisters. 

The first volume of the Canterbury Tales, by 
Harriet Lee, was published in 1797; the second 
volume, by Sophia Lee, in 1798; a third volume. 



adopted the characters, plan, and even 
the language of many parts of this story. 
Some of the characters are modified 
or altered, a few of the names changed, 
and one character (Ida of Stralenheim) 
added by myself: but in the rest the 
original is chiefly followed. When I 
was young (about fourteen, I think,) 
I first read this tale, which made a deep 
impression upon me; and may, indeed, 
be said to contain the germ of much that 
I have since written. I am not sure 
that it ever was very popular; or, at 
any rate, its popularity has since been 
eclipsed by that of other great writers 
in the same department. But I have 
generally found that those who had read 
it, agreed with me in their estimate of 
the singular power of mind and con-, 
ception which it develops. I should 
also add conception, rather than execu- 
tion ; for the story might, perhaps, have 
been developed with greater advantage. 
Amongst those whose opinions agreed 
with mine upon this story, I could 
mention some very high names: but it 
is not necessary, nor indeed of any use; 
for every one must judge according 
to his own feelings. I merely refer 
the reader to the original story, that 
he may see to what extent I have bor- 
rowed from it; and am not unwilling 
that he should find much greater 
pleasure in perusing it than the drama 
which is founded upon its contents. 

I had begun a drama upon this tale 
so far back as 18 15, (the first I ever 
attempted, except one at thirteen years 
old, called "Ulric and Ilvina," which 
I had sense enough to burn,) and had 
nearly completed an act, when I was 
interrupted by circumstances. This 
is somewhere amongst my papers in 
England; but as it has not been found, 
I have re-written the first, and added 
the subsequent acts. 

The whole is neither intended, nor 
in any shape adapted, for the stage. 

by Sophia and Harriet Lee, appeared in 1800: 
the fourth volume, by Harriet Lee (which con- 
tains The German's Tale, pp. 3-368) was pub- 
lished in 1 801; and the fifth volume, by Harriet 
Lee, in 1805.] 



WERNER 



823 



[Werner was produced, for the first 
time, at the Park Theatre, New York, 
in 1826. Mr Barry played "Werner." 

Werner was brought out at Drury 
Lane Theatre, and played, for the first 
time, December 15, 1830. Macready 
appeared as "Werner," J. W. Wallack 
as " Ulric," Mrs Faucit as " Josephine," 
and Miss Mordaunt as "Ida." Ac- 
cording to the Times, December 16, 
1830, "Mr Macready appeared to 
very great advantage. We have never 
seen him exert himself more — we have 
never known him to exert himself 
with more powerful effect. Three of 
his scenes were masterpieces." Genest 
says that Werner was acted seventeen 
times in 1830-31. 

There was a revival in 1833. Ma- 
cready says {Diary, March 20) that he 
acted " 'Werner ' with unusual force, 
truth, and collectedness . . . finished 
off each burst of passion, and, in con- 
sequence, entered on the following 
emotion with clearness and earnestness " 
(Macready's Reminiscences, 1875, i. 3^6). 

Werner was played in 1834, 5, 6, 7, 9; 
in 1841; in 1843-4 (New York, Boston, 
Baltimore, New Orleans, Cincinnati, 
Montreal) ; in 1845 (Paris, London, 
Glascow, Belfast, Dublin) ; in 1846, 
1847 ; i^ America in 1848 ; in the prov- 
inces in 1849; ii^ 1850; and, for the last 
time, at the Theatre Royal, Hay- 
market, January 14, 185 1. At the 
farewell performance Macready ap- 
peared as "Werner," Mr Davenport 
as "Ulric," Mrs Warner as "Jose- 
phine," Mrs Ryder as "Ida." In 
the same year (185 1) a portrait of 
Macready as "Werner," by Daniel 
Maclise, R.A., was on view at the 
Exhibition at the Royal Academy. 
The motto was taken from Werner, 
act i. sc. I, lines 114, sq. (See, for a de- 
tailed criticism of Macready's "Werner," 
Our Recent Actors, by Westland Mars- 
ton, 1881, i. 89-98; and for the famous 
"Macready hurst," in act ii. sc. 2, and 
act V. sc. I, vide ibid., i. 97.) 

Werner was brought out at Sadler's 
Wells Theatre, • November 21, i860, 
and repeated November 22, 23, 24, 28, 



29; December 3, 4, 11, 13, 14, i860. 
Phelps appeared as "Werner," Mr 
Edmund Phelps as "Uric," Miss 
Atkinson as "Josephine." Perhaps 
the old actor never performed the part 
so finely as he did on that night. The 
identity between the real and ideal 
relations of the characters was as vivid 
to him as to the audience, and gave a 
deeper intensity, on both sides, to the 
scenes between father and son." (See 
The London Stage, by H. Barton Baker, 
1889, ii. 217.) 

On the afternoon of June i, 1887, 
Werner (four acts, arranged by Frank 
Marshall) was performed at the Ly- 
ceum Theatre for the benefit of West- 
land Marston. [Sir] Henry Irving ap- 
peared as "Werner," Miss Ellen Terry 
as "Josephine," Mr Alexander as 
"Ulric." (See for an appreciation of 
Sir Henry Irving's presentation of 
Werner, the Athenceum, June 4, T887.)] 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 

MEN. 
Werner. 
Ulric. 

Stralenheim. 
Idenstein. 
Gabor. 
Fritz. 
Henrick. 
Eric. 
Arnheim. 
Meister. 

RODOLPH. 
LUDWIG. 

WOMEN. 
Josephine. 
Ida Stralenheim. 



Scene — Partly on . the Frontier of 
Silesia, and partly in Siegendorf 
Castle, near Prague. 



Time — The Close of the Thirty Years' 
War} 

' [The Thirty Years' War dates from the 
capture of Pilsen by Mansfeld, November 21, 



824 



WERNER 



[Act I. 



ACT I. 

Scene I. — The Hall of a decayed 
Palace near a small Town on the 
Northern Frontier of Silesia — 
the Night tempestuous. 

Werner and Josephine, his Wife. 

Jos. My love, be calmer ! 
Wer. I am calm. 

Jos. To me — 

Yes, but not to thyself: thy pace is 

hurried. 
And no one walks a chamber like to 

ours. 
With steps like thine, when his heart is 

at rest. 
Were it a garden, I should deem thee 

happy. 
And stepping with the bee from flower 

to flower; 
But here/ 

Wer. 'Tis chill; the tapestry lets 

through 
The wind to which it waves: my blood 
is frozen. 
Jos. Ah, no ! 
Wer. (smiling). Why! wouldstthou 

have it so? 
Jos. I would 

Have it a healthful current. 

Wer. Let it flow lo 

Until 'tis spilt or checked — how soon, 
I care not. 
Jos. And am I nothing in thy heart? 
Wer. All — all. 

Jos. Then canst thou wish for that 

which must break mine? 
Wer. (approaching her slowly). But 
for thee had been — no matter 
what — 
But much of good and evil; what 

I am, 
Thouknowest; what I might or should 

have been, • 
Thou knowest not: but still I love thee, 
nor 

1618, and did not end till the Peace of West- 
phalia, October 24, 1648. The incident re- 
corded in act v., a solemn commemoration of 
the Treaty of Prague, must have taken place in 
1635. But in Werner there is little or no attempt 
"to follow history."] 



vShall aught divide us. 

[Werner walks on abruptly, and 
then approaches Josephine. 

The storm of the night, 
Perhaps affects me; I'm a thing of 

feelings. 
And have of late been sickly, as, alas ! 20 
Thou know'st by sufferings more than 

mine, my Love ! 
In watching me. 

Jos. To see thee well is 

much — 

To see thee happy 

Wer. Where hast 

thou seen such? 
Let me be wretched with the rest ! 

Jos. But think 

How many in this hour of tempest i 

shiver 
Beneath the biting wind and heavy rain, 
Whose every drop bows them down 

nearer earth, 
Which hath no chamber for them save 

beneath 
Her surface. 

Wer. And that's not the worst: 

who cares 

For chambers! rest is all. The 

wretches whom 3< 

Thou namest — aye, the wind howli 

round them, and 
The dull and dropping rain saps ii 

their bones 
The creeping marrow. I have been i 

soldier, 

A hunter, and a traveller, and am 

A beggar, and should know the thing 

thou talk'st of. 

Jos. And art thou not now sheltered 

from them all? 
Wer. Yes. And from these alone. 
Jos. And that is something, 

Wer. True — to a peasant. 
Jos. Should the nobly born 

Be thankless for that refuge which 

their habits 
Of early delicacy render more 40 

Needful than to the peasant, when the 

ebb 
Of fortune leaves them on the shoals of 
life? 
Wer. It is not that, thou know'st 
it is not: we 



WERNER 



825 



Have borne all this, I'll not say pa- 
tiently, 

Except in thee — but we have borne it. 
Jos. Well ? 

Wer. Something beyond our out- 
ward sufferings (though 

These were enough to gnaw into our 
souls) 

Hath stung me oft, and, more than ever, 
now. 

When, but for this untoward sickness, 
which 

Seized me upon this desolate frontier, 
and 50 

Hath wasted, not alone my strength, 
but means. 

And leaves us — no ! this is beyond me ! 

— but 

For this I had been happy — tJiou 

been happy — 
The splendour of my rank sustained — 

my name — 
My father's name — been still upheld ; 

and, more 

Than those 

Jos. {abruptly). My son — our son 

— our Ulric, 

Been clasped again in these long-empty 

arms. 

And all a mother's hunger satisfied. 
Twelve years ! he was but eight then : — 
I beautiful 

He w^as, and beautiful he must be now, 
My Ulric ! my adored ! 61 

Wer. I have been full oft 

The chase of Fortune; now she hath 

o'ertaken 

My spirit where it cannot turn at bay, — 
Sick, poor, and lonely. 

Jos. Lonely ! my dear husband ? 

Wer. Or worse — involving all I 

love, in this 
Far worse than solitude. Alone, I 

had died. 
And all been over in a nameless grave. 
Jos. And I had not outlived thee; 

but pray take 
Comfort ! We have struggled long ; 

and they who strive 
With Fortune win or wxary her at 

last, 70 

5o that they find the goal or cease to 

feel 



Further. Take comfort, — we shall 

find our boy. 
Wer. We were in sight of him, of 

everything 
Which, could bring compensation for 

past sorrow — 
And to be bafiEled thus! 

Jos. We are not baffled. 

Wer. Are we not penniless? 
Jos. We ne'er were wealthy. 

Wer. But I was born to wealth, and 

rank, and power; 
Enjoyed them, loved them, and, alas! 

abused them. 
And forfeited them by my father's 

wrath. 
In my o'er-fervent youth: but for the 

abuse 80 

Long-sufferings have atoned. My 

father's death 
Left the path open, yet not without 

snares. 
This cold and creeping kinsman, who 

so long 
Kept his eye on me, as the snake upon 
The fluttering bird, hath ere this time 

outstept me, 
Become the master of my rights, and 

lord 
Of that which lifts him up to princes in 
Dominion and domain. 

Jos. Who knows ? our son 

May have returned back to his grand- 
sire, and 
Even now uphold thy rights for thee? 
Wer. T'is hopeless, go 

Since his strange disappearance from 

my father's, 
Entaihng, as it were, my sins upon 
Himself, no tidings have revealed his 

course. 
I parted with him to his grandsire, on 
The promise that his anger would stop 

short 
Of the third generation; but Heaven 

seems 
To claim her stern prerogative, and visit 
Upon my boy his father's faults and 

follies. 
Jos. I must hope better still, — at 

least we have yet 
Baffled the long pursuit of Stralen- 

heim. 100 



826 



WERNER 



[Act I. 



Wer. We should have done, but for 

this fatal sickness; — 
More fatal than a mortal malady, 
Because it takes not life, but life's 

sole solace : 
Even now I feel my spirit girt about 
By the snares of this avaricious fiend: — 
How do I know he hath not tracked us 

here? 
Jos. He does not know thy person; 

and his spies, 
Who so long watched thee, have been 

■ left at Hamburgh. 
Our unexpected journey, and this 

change 
Of name, leaves all discovery far 

behind; no 

None hold us here for aught save what 

we seem. 
Wer. Save what we seem ! — save 

what we are — sick beggars. 
Even to our very hopes. — Ha ! ha ! 
Jos. Alas ! 

That bitter laugh! 

Wer. Who would read in this form 
The high soul of the son of a long 

line? 
Who, in this garb, the heir of princely 

lands ? 
Who, in this sunken, sickly eye, the 

pride 
Of rank and ancestry? In this worn 

cheek 
And famine-hollowed brow, the Lord 

of halls 
Which daily feast a thousand vassals? 
Jos. You 1 20 

Pondered not thus upon these worldly 

things, 
My Werner! when you deigned to 

choose for bride 
The foreign daughter of a wandering 

exile. 
Wer. An exile's daughter with an out- 
cast son, 
Were a fit marriage: but I still had 

hopes 
To lift thee to the state we both were 

born for. 
Your father's house was noble, though 

decayed ; 
And worthy by its birth to match with 

ours, 



Jos. Your father did not think so, 

though 'twas noble; 
But had my birth been all my claim to 

match 130 

With thee, I should have deemed it 

what it is. 
Wer. And what is that in thine eyes ! 
Jos. All which it 

Has done in our behalf, — nothing. 

Wer. How, — nothing ? " 

Jos. Or worse; for it has been a 

canker in 
Thy heart from the beginning: but 

for this. 
We had not felt our poverty but as 
Millions of myriads feel it — cheer- 
fully; 
But for these phantoms of thy feudal 

fathers, 
Thou mightst have earned thy bread, 

as thousands earn it; 
Or, if that seem too humble, tried by 

commerce, 140 

Or other civic means, to amend thy 

fortunes. 
Wer. (ironically). And been an 

Hanseatic burgher ? Excellent ! 
Jos. Whate'er thou mightest have 

been, to me thou art 
What no state high or low can ever 

change. 
My heart's first choice; — which chose 

thee, knowing neither 
Thy birth, thy hopes, thy pride; nought, 

save thy sorrows: 
While they last, let me comfort or 

divide them : 
When they end — let mine end with 

them, or thee ! 
Wer. My better angel ! Such I have 

ever found thee; 
This rashness, or this weakness of my 

temper, 150 

Ne'er raised a thought to injure thee 

or thine. 
Thou didst not mar my fortunes: my 

own nature 
In youth was such as to unmake an 

empire. 
Had such been my inheritance; but 

now, 
Chastened, subdued, out-worn, and 

taught to know 



k 



Scene i.] 



WERNER 



827 



Myself, — to lose this for our son and 

thee! 
Trust me, when, in my two-and- 

twentieth spring. 
My father barred me from my father's 

house, 
The last sole scion of a thousand 

sires 
(For I was then the last), it hurt me 
less 160 

\ Than to behold my boy and my boy's 
mother 
Excluded in their innocence from what 
My faults deserved — exclusion; al- 
though then 
My passions were all living serpents, 

and 
Twined like the Gorgon's round me. 
[A loud knocking is heard. 
Jos. Hark ! 

Wer. A knocking ! 

Jos. Who can it be at this lone hour ? 
We have 
Few visitors. 

Wer. And poverty hath none. 

Save those who come to make it poorer 

still. 
Well — I am prepared. 

[Werner puts his hand into his 
bosom, as if to search for some 
weapon. 
Jos. Oh ! do not look so. I 

Will to the door. It cannot be of 
import 170 

In this lone spot of wintry desolation : — 
The very desert saves man from man- 
kind. [She goes to the door. 

Enter Idenstein 

Iden. A fair good evening to my fair 
hostess 

And worthy What's your name, 

my friend? 
Wer. Are you 

Not afraid to demand it? 

Iden. Not afraid ? 

Egad ! I am afraid. You look as if 
I asked for something better than your 

name 
By the face you put on it. 

Wer. Better, sir! 

Iden. Better or worse, like matri- 
mony : what 



Shall I say more? You have been a 

guest this month 180 

Here in the prince's palace — (to be 

sure 
His Highness had resigned it to the 

ghosts 
And rats these twelve years — but 'tis 

still a palace) — 
I say you have been our lodger, and as 

yet 
We do not know your name. 

Wer. My name is Werner. 

Iden. A goodly name, a very worthy 

name. 
As e'er was gilt upon a trader's 

board : 
I have a cousin in the lazaretto 
Of Hamburgh, who has got a wife who 

bore 
The same. He is an officer of trust, 190 
Surgeon's assistant (hoping to be 

surgeon), 
And has done miracles i' the way of 

business. 
Perhaps you are related to my relative ? 
Wer. To yours? 

Jos. Oh, yes; we are, but distantly. 
{Aside to Werner.) Cannot you hu- 
mour the dull gossip till 
We learn his purpose ? 

Iden. Well, I'm glad of that; 

I thought so all along, such natural 

yearnings 
Played round my heart: — blood is not 

water, cousin; 
And so let's have some wine and drink 

unto 
Our better acquaintance: relatives 

should be 200 

Friends. 

Wer. You appear to have drunk 

enough already; 
And if you have not, I've no wine to 

offer. 
Else it were yours: but this you know,^ 

or should know: 
You see I am poor, and sick, and will 

not see 
That I would be alone; but to your 

business ! 
What brings you here? 

Iden. Why, what should bring me 

here? 



828 



WERNER 



[Act I. 



Wer. I know not, though I think that 
I could guess 
That which will send you hence. 

Jos. {aside). Patience, dear Werner! 
Iden. You don't know what has 

happened, then? 
Jos. How should we ? 

Iden. The river has o'erflowed. 
Jos. Alas ! we have known 

That to our sorrow for these five days; 
since 211 

It keeps us here. 

Iden. But what you don't know is, 
That a great personage, who fain would 

cross 
Against the stream and three postil- 
lions' wishes. 
Is drowned below the ford, with five 

posthorses, 

A monkey, and a mastiff — and a 

valet. ^ 

Jos. Poor creatures ! are you sure ? 

Iden. Yes, of the monkey. 

And the valet, and the cattle; but as 

yet 

We know not if his Excellency's dead 

Or no; your noblemen are hard to 

drown, 220 

As it is fit that men in office should 

be; 
But what is certain is, that he has 

swallowed 
Enough of the Oder to have burst two 

peasants; 
And now a Saxon and Hungarian 

traveller. 
Who, at their proper peril, snatched 

him from 
The whirling river, have sent on to 

crave 
A lodging, or a grave, according as 
It may turn out with the five or dead 
body. 
Jos. And where will you receive 
him? here, I hope. 
If we csxn be of service — say the 
word. _ 230 

'["Lord Byron's establishment at Pisa was, 
like everything e'.se about him, somewhat singular; 
it consisted cA a monkey, a mastiff, a bull-dog, 
two cats . . . several servants in livery, and 
the trusty Fletche.r as Major Domo, or super- 
intendent of the Me.vagerie." — Life, Writings, 
Opinions, etc., 1825, ii. 203, 204.] 



Iden. Here? no; but in the Prince's 

own apartment. 
As fits a noble guest: — 'tis damp, no 

doubt. 
Not having been inhabited these twelve 

years; 
But then he comes from a much 

damper place. 
So scarcely will catch cold in't, if he be 
Still liable to cold — and if not, why 
He'll be worse lodged to-morrow: 

ne'ertheless, 
I have ordered fire and all appHances 
To be got ready for the worst — that is, 
In case he should survive. 



Jos. 



Poor gentleman ! 240 



I hope he will, with all my heart. 

Wer. Intendant, 

Have you not learned his name? 

(Aside to his wife.) | 
My Josephine, 
Retire:' I'll sift this fool. 

[Exit Josephine. 
Iden. His name ? oh Lord ! 

Who knows if he has now a name or ! 

no? 
'Tis time enough to ask it when he's ( 
able ! 

To give an answer; or if not, to put 
His heir's upon his epitaph. Me- 

thought 
Just now you chid me for demanding 
names ? 
Wer. True, true, I did so: you say 
well and wisely. 

Enter Gabor.^ 

Gab. If I intrude, I crave 

Iden. Oh, no intrusion ! 250 

This is the palace; this a stranger like 
Yourself ; I pray you make yourself at 

home : 
But where's his Excellency? and how 
fares he? 
Gab. Wetly and wearily, but out of 
peril: 
He paused to change his garments in a 
cottage 

' [In Miss Lee's Kruitzner Gabor is always 
spoken of as "The Hungarian." He is no doubt 
named after Bethlen Gabor, Prince of Tran- 
sylvania, who was elected King of Hungary, 
August, 1620.] 



Scene i.] 



WERNER 



829 



(Where I doffed mine for these, and 

came on hither), 
And has almost recovered from his 

drenching. 
He will be here anon. 

Iden. What ho, there ! bustle ! 

Without there, Herman, Weilburg, Pe- 
ter, Conrad ! 
[Gives directions to different servants 
who enter. 
A nobleman sleeps here to-night — 

see that 
All is in order in the damask cham- 
ber — 261 
Keep up the stove — I will myself to 

the cellar — 
And Madame Idenstein (my consort, 

stranger,) 
Shall furnish forth the bed-apparel; 

for, 
To say the truth, they are marvellous 

scant of this 
Within the palace precincts, since his 

Highness 
Left it some dozen years ago. And 

then 
His Excellency will sup, doubtless? 
Gab. Faith ! 

I cannot tell; but I should think the 

pillow 

Would please him better than the table, 
after 270 

His soaking in your river: but for 

fear 
Vour viands should be thrown away, I 

mean 
To sup myself, and have a friend 

without 
Who will do honour to your good cheer 

with 

\ traveller's appetite. 
Iden. But are you sure 

iis Excellency ^ But his name: what 

is it? 
Gab. I do not know. 
Iden. And yet you saved his life. 

. Gab. I helped my friend to do so. 
Iden. Well, that's strange, 

To save a man's life whom you do not 
know. 
Gab. Not so; for there are some I 
know so well, 280 

scarce should give myself the trouble. 



Iden. Pray, 

Good friend, and who may you be? 
Gab. By my family, 

Hungarian. 

Iden. Which is called? 

Gab. It matters little. 

Iden. {aside). I think that all the 
world are grown anonymous. 
Since no one cares to tell me what he's 

called ! 
Pray, has his Excellency a large suite? 
Gab. Sufficient. 

Iden. How many? 
Gab. I did not count them. 

We came up by mere accident, and just 
In time to drag him through his car- 
riage window. 
Iden. Well, what would I give to 
save a great man ! 290 

No doubt you'll have a swingeing sum 
as recompense. 
Gab. Perhaps. 
Iden. Now, how much do you reckon 

on? 
Gab. I have not yet put up myself to 
sale: 
In the mean time, my best reward would 

be 
A glass of your Hochheimer — a 

green glass. 
Wreathed with rich grapes and Bac- 
chanal devices, 
O'erflowing with the oldest of your 

vintage: 
For which I promise you, in case you e'er 
Run hazard of being drowned, (al- 
though I own 
It seems, of all deaths, the least likely 
for you,) 300 

I'll pull you out for nothing. Quick, 

my friend. 
And think, for every bumper I shall 

quaff, 
A wave the less may roll above your 
head. 
Iden. {aside). I don't much like this 
fellow — close and dry 
He seems, — two things which suit 

me not ; however, 
Wine he shall have; if that unlock him 

not, 
I shall not sleep to-night for curiosity. 
[Exit Idenstein. 



WERNER 



[Ac 



Gab. {to Werner). This master 
of the ceremonies is 
The intendant of the palace, I presume: 
"Tis a fine building, but decayed. 

Wcr. The apartment 310 

Deigned for him you rescued will be 

found 
In fitter order for a sickly guest. 
Gtjh. I wonder then you occupied it 
not. 
For you seem delicate in health. 
irVr. {qui4:kJy^, Sir! 

Gob. Pray 

Excuse me: have I said aught to otTend 
you? 
Wcr. Nothing; but we are strangers 

to each other. 
Gab. And that's the reason I would 
have us less so: 
I thought our bustling host without had 

Sivid 
You were a chance and passing guest, 

the counterpart 
Of me and my companions. 

Wcr. \"ery true. 320 

Gab. Then, as we never met before, 

and never, 

It may be. may again encounter, why, 

I thought to cheer up this old dungeon 

here 
(At least to me) by asking you to share 
The fare of my companions and myself. 

Wcr. Pray, pardon me; my health 

Gab. Even as you please. 

I have been a soldier, and perhaps am 

blunt 
In bearing. 

Wcr. I have also served, and can 
Requite a soldier's greeting. 

Gab. In what service? 

The Imperial ? 

Wcr. {quickly, attd then interrupting 
himself). I commanded — no — I 
mean 330 

I served; but it is many years ago. 
When first Bohemia ^ raised her ban- 
ner 'gainst 
The Austrian. 

» [On the iSth of .\ugust. 1610. Bethlen Gabor 
threw in his lot with the Bohemians, and "wTOte 
the Directors at Pnigue that he would march 
with his troops, and in September would, in their 
defence, enter Moni\ia." — History of the 
Thirty Years' War, by A. Gindcly, 1SS5, i. 166.] 



Gab. Well, that's over now, and peace 
Has turneii some thousand gallant j 

hearts adrift 
To lix-e as they best may: and, to say 

truth. 
Some take the shortest. 

11 Vr. What is that? 

C^j^. Whate'er 

They lay their hands on. All Silesia 

and 
Lus;itia's woods are tenanted by Ixmds 
Of the late troops, who levy on the 

country 
Their maintenance: the Chatelair,< 

must keep 
Their castle walls — beyond them 'tis 
but doubtful 341 

Travel for your rich Count or fui 

blown Baron. 
My comfort is that, wander where 1 

may, 
I've little left to lose now. 

Wcr. .\nd I — nothing. 

Gab. That's harder still. You s;iy 

you were a soldier. 

Wcr. I was. 

Gab. You Kx-»k one still. All 

soldiers are 

Or should be comrades, even though 

enemies. 
Our swords when drawn must cross, out 

engines aim 
(While levelled) at each other's hearts; 

but whei\ 

.\ truce, a peace or what you willj 

remits 35c 

The steel into its scabbard, and let 

sleep 
The spark which lights the matchlockj 

we are brethren. 
You are poor and sickly — I am nc 

rich, but healthy; 
I want for nothing which I cannot war; 
You seem devoid of this — wilt shai 
it? 

[Gabor puUs out his purs 
Wcr. WIH 

Told you I was a beggar? 

Gab. You yourselfjr 

In saying you were a soldier during 
peace-time. 
Wcr. {looking at hini with suspicion^. 
Y'ou know me not. 



SCKNE I.] 



WERNER 



831 



Gah. I know no man, not even 
Myself: how should I then know one 

I ne'er 
Beheld till half an hour since? 

Wer. Sir, I thank you. 360 

Your offer's noble were it to a friend, 
And not unkind as to an unknown 

stranger, 
Though scarcely prudent; but no less 

I thank you. 
I am a beggar in all save his trade; 
And when I beg of any one, it shall fx; 
Of him who was the first to offer what 
Few can obtain by asking. Pardon 

me. 

\Rxit Werner. 
Cah. (solus). A gr>odly fellow by his 

kxjks, though worn, 
A.S most grxxJ fellows are, by pain or 

pleasure, 
Which tear life out of us before our 

time, 370 

I .scarce know which most quickly: 

but he seems 
To have .seen better days, as who has 

not 
Whf> has «seen yesterday ? — But here 

approaches 
Our sage intendant, with the wine: 

however, 
For the cup's .sake I'll bear the cuf>- 

bearer. 

Enter Idenstein. 

J den. 'Tishere! Xha supernaculum I ^ 

twenty years 
Of age, if 'tis a day. 

Gah. Which efX)ch makes 

Young women and old wine; and 'tis 

great pity. 
Of two such excellent things, increase 

of years. 
Which still improves the one, should 

s[x>il the other. 380 

Fill full — Here's to our hostess! — 

your fair wife ! [Takes the glass. 

' [From ^uper, and nagd, "a nail." To drink 
upernaculum is to empty the cup so thoroughly 
hat the last drop or "jjearl," drained on to the 
lail, retaias its shape, and dcxjs not run. If 
the j«arl" broke and J-Hrgan to slide, the drinker 
ivas "scoru:ed." Hente, grxxl liquor. See 
^aWais' Life of Garganlua, etc., Urquhart's 
rranslation, 1863, lib. i. ch. 5.) 



Iden. Fair ! — Well, I trust your 
taste in wine is equal 
To that you show for beauty; hul I 

pledge you 
Nevertheless. 

Gah. Is not the lovely woman 

I met in the adjacent hall, who, with 
An air, and px^rt, and eye, which would 

have better 
Beseemed this palace in its brightest 

days 
rrhough in a garb adapted to its 

present 
Abandonment), returned my saluta- 
tion — 
Is not the same your spouse? 

Iden. I would she were! 390 

But you're mistaken: — that's the 

stranger's wife. 

Gah. And by her aspect she might be 

a Prince's; 

Though time hath touched her too, 

she still retains 
Much beauty, and more majesty. 
Iden. And that 

Is more than I can say for Madame 

Idenstein, 
At least in beauty: as for majesty. 
She has some of its properties which 

might 
Be spared — but never mind ! 

Gah. I don't. But who 

May be this stranger? He too hath a 

bearing 
Above his outward fortunes. 

Iden. There I differ. 400 

He's poor as Job, and not so patient; 

but 
Who he may be, or what, or aught of 

him. 
Except his name (and that I only 

learned 
To-night), I know not. 

Gah. But how came he here? 

Iden. In a most miserable old 
cal'eche, 
.\bout a month since, and immediately 
Fell sick, almost to death. He should 
have died. 
Gah. Tender and true ! — but why? 
Iden. Why, what is life 

Without a living? He has not a 
stiver. 



832 



WERNER 



[Act I. 



Gab. In that case, I much wonder 

that a person 410 

Of your apparent prudence should 

admit 
Guests so forlorn into this noble man- 
sion. 
Iden. That's true ; but pity, as you 

know, does make 
One's heart commit these follies; and 

besides. 
They had some valuables left at that 

time, 
Which paid their way up to the present 

hour; 
And so I thought they might as well be 

lodged 
Here as at the small tavern, and I gave 

them 
The run of some of the oldest palace 

rooms. 
They served to air them, at the least as 

long 420 

As they could pay for firewood. 

Gah. Poor souls ! 

Iden. Aye, 

Exceeding poor. 

Gah. And yet unused to poverty. 

If I mistake not. Whither were they 

going? 
Iden. Oh ! Heaven knows where, 

unless to Heaven itself. 
Some days ago that looked the likeliest 

journey 
For Werner. 

Gab. Werner ! I have heard the name. 
But it may be a feigned one. 

Iden. Like enough ! 

But hark ! a noise of wheels and voices, 

and 
A blaze of torches from without. As 

sure 
As destiny, his Excellency's come. 
I must be at my post; will you not join 

me, _ _ 431 

To help him from his carriage, and 

present 
Your humble duty at the door? 

Gah. I dragged him 

From out that carriage when he would 

have given 
His barony or county to repel 
The rushing river from his gurgling 

throat. 



He has valets now enough: they stood 

aloof then, 
Shaking their dripping ears upon the 

shore. 
All roaring "Help !" but offering none; 

and as 
For duty (as you call it) — I did mine 

then, 440 

Now do yours. Hence, and bow and 

cringe him here ! 



Iden. I 



but I shall lose 



the opportunity — 
Plague take it ! he'll be here, and I not 
there! [Exit Idenstein hastily. 

Re-enter Werner. i 

Wer. {to himself). I heard a noise 
of wheels and voices. How 

All sounds now jar me ! [Perceiv- 
ing Gabor. 

Still here ! Is he not 

A spy of my pursuer's? His frank 
offer 

So suddenly, and to a stranger, wore 

The aspect of a secret enemy; 

For friends are slow at such. 

Gah. Sir, you eeem rapt; 

And yet the time is not akin to thought. 

These old walls will be noisy soon. 
The baron 45 1 

Or count (or whatsoe'er this half 
drowned noble 

May be), for whom this desolate 
village and 

Its lone inhabitants show more respect 

Than did the elements, is come. 
Iden. (without). This way — 

This way, your Excellency : — have a 
care, 

The staircase is a little gloomy, and 

Somewhat decayed; but if we had 
expected 

So high a guest — Pray take my arm, 
my Lord ! 

Enter Stralenheim, Idenstein, and 
Attendants — partly his own, and 
partly Retainers of the Domain 
of which Idenstein is In- 
tendant. 

Stral. I'll rest me here a moment. 

Iden. {to the servants). Ho! a 

chair ! 460 



Scene i.] 



WERNER 



^33 



Instantly, knaves. [Stralenheim sits 
down. 
Wer. (aside). 'Tis he! 

Stral. I'm better now. 

Who are these strangers? 

Iden. Please you, my good Lord, 
One says he is no stranger. 

Wer. (aloud and hastily). Who says 

that? 

[They look at him with surprise. 

Iden. Why, no one spoke of you or 

to you ! — but 

Here's one his Excellency may be 

pleased 
To recognise. [Pointing to Gabor. 

Gab. I seek not to disturb 

His noble memory. 

Stral. I apprehend 

This is one of the strangers to whose 

aid 
I owe my rescue. Is not that the other ? 
[Pointing to Werner. 
My state when I was succoured must 
excuse 470 

My uncertainty to whom I owe so 
much. 
Iden. He ! — no, my Lord ! he 
rather wants for rescue 
Than can afford it. 'Tis a poor sick 

man. 
Travel-tired, and lately risen from a 

bed 

From whence he never dreamed to 
rise. 
Stral. Methought 
That there were two. 

Gah. These were, in company; 

But, in the service rendered to your 

Lordship, 
I needs must say but one, and he is 

absent. 
The chief part of whatever aid was 

rendered 

Was his: it was his fortune to be 
first. 480 

My will was not inferior, but his 

strength 
And youth outstripped me; therefore 

do not waste 
Your thanks on me. I was but a glad 

second 
Unto a nobler principal. 

Stral. Where is he? 



An Attest. My Lord, he tarried in the 

cottage where 

Your Excellency rested for an hour, 

And said he would be here to-morrow. 

Stral. Till 

That hour arrives, I can but offer thanks, 

And then 

Gab. I seek no more, and 

scarce deserve 

So much. My comrade may speak for 

himself. 490 

Stral. (fixing his eyes upon Werner: 

then aside). It cannot be! and 

yet he must be looked to. 

'Tis twenty years since I beheld him 

with 
These eyes; and, though my agents 

still have kept 
Theirs on him, policy has held aloof 
My own from his, not to alarm him 

into 
Suspicion of my plan. Why did I leave 
At Hamburgh those who would have 

made assurance 
If this be he or no ? I thought, ere now. 
To have been lord of Siegendorf, and 

parted 
In haste, though even the elements 
appear 500 

To fight against me, and this sudden 
flood 

May keep me prisoner here till 

[He pauses and looks at Werner: 
then resumes. 

This man must 
Be watched. If it is he, he is so changed. 
His father, rising from his grave 

again, 
Would pass by him unknown. I must 

be wary: 
An error would spoil all. 

Iden. Your Lordship seems 

Pensive. Will it not please you to pass 
on? 
Stral. 'Tis past fatigue which gives 
my weighed-down spirit 
An outward show of thought. I will 
to rest. 
Iden. The Prince's chamber is pre- 
pared, with all 510 
The very furniture the Prince used when 
Last here, in its full splendour. 

(Aside). Somewhat tattered, 



S34 



WERXER 



[Act I. 



And devilish damp, but tine enough by 

torchlight ; 
And that's enough for your right noble 

blixul 
Of twenty quarterings upon a hatch- 
ment ; 
So let their bearer sleep 'ncath some- 
thing like one 
Now, as he one day will for ever lie. 
StraJ. [rising and turning fo Gabor). 
Good night, good people! Sir, 
I trust to-morrow 
Will tind me apter to requite your 
service. 511) 

In the meantime I cra\-e your company 
A moment in n\y chamber. 

Gab. I attend you. 

StraJ. {afttr a fnc st('f>s, pauses and 

ai//^ Werner). Friend! 
Wcr] Sir! 
. hh-n. Sir: Lord — O Lord! Why 

don't you s;\y 
His Lordship, or his Excellency ? Pray, 
My Lord, excuse this poor man's want 

of breeding: 
He hath not been accustomed to admis- 
sion 
To such a presence. 

Stral. {to Idenstein). Peace, Intend- 

ant ! 
Idcn. Oh! 

I am dumb. 

Sfral. (/() Werner). Have you been 

long here? 
Wcr. Long ? 

Stral. I sought 

An answer, not an echo. 

Wcr. You may seek 

Both from the walls. I am not used 

to answer 
Those whom I know not. 

Stral. Indeed ! Ne'er the less. 

You might reply with courtesy to what 
Is asked in kindness. 

Wcr. When I know it such 5^^ 2 

I will requite — that is, reply — in 
unison. 
Stral. The intendant said, you had 
been detained by sickness — 
If I could aid you — journeying the 
same way? 
Wcr. (quickly). I am not journeying 
the same wav ! 



Stral. How know ye 

That, ere you know my roiue? 

Wer. Uecause tiiere is 

lUU one way that the rich and poor 

nuist tread 
Togetlier. You diverged from that 

dread path 
Son^e lunirs ago, and I some davs: 
henceforth 540 

Our roads must lie asunder, though 

they tend 
All to one home. 

Stral. Your language is above 

Your station. 

Wcr. {bitterly). Is it? 
Stral. ' Or, at least, beyond 

Your garb. " 

Wcr. 'Tis well that it is not be- 

neath it. 
As sometimes happens to the better clad. 
But, in a word, what would you with 
me? 
Stral. (startled). I? 

Wcr. Yes — you! You know me 
not, and question me, 
And wonder that I answer not — not 

knowing 
My ini]uisitor. Explain what you 

would have, 
.\nd then I'll satisfy yourself, or me. 550 
Stral. I knew not that you had 

reasons for reserve. 
Wcr. Many have such: — Have you 

none? 
Stral. None which can 

Interest a mere stranger. 

Wcr. Then forgive 

The same unknown and humble 

stranger, if 
He wishes to remain so to the man 
Who can have nought in common with 
him. 
Stral. Sir, 

I will not balk your humour, though 

vmtoward : 
I only meant you service — but good 

night ! 
Intendant, show the way ! (To Gabor). ^ 
Sir, you will with me? 
[£.vf;/;;/ Stralexheim and Alter 
ants; Idenstein and Gaboi 
Wcr. (solus). 'Tis he ! I am taken ii 
the toils. Before ^( 



SCKNE I.] 



WERNER 



^3S 



I quitted Hamburgh, Giulio, his late 

steward, 
Informcfi me, that he had obtained 

an order 
From Brandenburg's elector, for the 

arrest 
Of Kruitzner Csuch the name I then 

Ixjre; when 
I came ufx^n the frontier; the free city 
Alone preserved my freedom — till 1 

left 
Its walls — f^xjl that I was to quit them ! 

But 
I deemed this humble garb, and route 

obscure. 
Had baffled the slow hounds in their 

pursuit. 
What's to be done? He knows me not 

by pers^jn; 570 

Nor could aught, save the eye of appre- 
hension, 
Have recognised him, after twenty 

years — 

We met so rarely and so coldly in 
Our youth. But those about him ! 

Now I can 
Divine the frankness of the Hungarian, 

who 
No doubt is a mere iocA and spy of 

Stralenheim's, 
To sound and to secure me. Without 

means! 
Sick, ixjor — begirt too with the flo<^>d- 

ing rivers, 
[m passable even to the wealthy, with 
A.1I the appliances which purchase 

modes 580 

Df overpfjwering peril, with men's 

lives, — 
Flow can I hope ! An hour ago me- 

thought 
My state beyond despair; and now, 

'tis such. 

The past seems paradise. Another day, 
\nd I'm detected, — on the very eve 
')i honours, rights, and my inheritance, 
kVhen a few drops of gold might save 

me still 
n favouring an escape. 

Inter Idenstein and Fritz in con- 
versation. 

Fritz. Immediately. 



Iden. I tell you, 'tis impossible. 
Fritz. It must 

Be tried however; and if one txpresfi 
Fail, you must send on others, till the 
answer 591 

Arrives from Frankfort, from the 
Commandant. 
Ifkn. I will do what I can. 
Fritz. And recollect 

To spare no trouble; you will be repaid 
Tenfold. 

Irien. The Baron is retired to rest? 
Fritz. He hath thrown himself into 
an easy chair 
Beside the fire, and slumbers; and has 

ordered 
He may not \je disturbed until eleven, 
When he will take himself to \x:6. 

Iden. Before 

An hour is past I'll do my best to serve 

him. 600 

Fritz. Remember ! [Exit Fbitz. 

Iden. The devil take these great 

men ! they 

Think all things made for them. Now 

here must I 
Rouse up some half a dozen shivering 

vassals 
From their scant pallets, and, at peril of 
Their lives, despatch them o'er the 

river towards 
Frankfort. Methinks the Baron's own 

experience 
Some hr/urs ago might teach him fellow- 
feeling: 
But no, "it must," and there's an end. 

How now? 
Are you there, Mynheer Werner? 

Wer. You have left 

Your noble guest right quickly. 

Iden. Yc*s — he's dozing, 610 

And seems to like that none should 

sleep V>esides. 
Here Is a packet for the Commandant 
Of Frankfort, at all risks and all ex- 

yjenses; 
But I must not lose time : Good Night ! 
[Exit Iden. 
Wer. "To Frankfort!" 

So, sfj, it thickens! Aye, "the Com- 
mandant!" 
This tallies well with all the prior 
steps 



836 



WERNER 



[Act I, 



Of this cool, calculating fiend, who 

walks 
Between me and my father's house. 

No doubt 
He writes for a detachment to convey me 
Into some secret fortress. — Sooner than 

This 621 

[Werner looks around, and snatches 
up a knife lying on a table in a 
recess. 

Now I am master of myself at least. 
Hark, — footsteps ! How do I know 

that Stralenheim 
Will wait for even the show of that 

authority 
Which is to overshadow usurpation? 
That he suspects me's certain. I'm 

alone — 
He with a numerous train : I weak — 

he strong 
In gold, in numbers, rank, authority. 
I nameless, or involving in my name 
Destruction, till I reach my own domain ; 
He full-blown with his titles, which 

impose 630 

Still further on these obscure petty 

burghers 
Than they could do elsewhere. Hark ! 

nearer still ! 
I'll to the secret passage, which com- 
municates 
With the — • — No ! all is silent — 'twas 

my fancy ! — 
Still as the breathless interval between 
The flash and thunder : — I must hush 

my soul 
Amidst its perils. Yet I will retire, 
To see if still be unexplored the passage 
I wot of: it will serve me as a den 639 
Of secrecy for some hours, at the worst. 
[Werner draws a panel, and exit, 
closing it after him. 

Enter Gabor and Josephine. 

Gab. Where is your husband ? 
Jos. Here, I thought: I left him 
Not long since in his chamber. But 

these rooms 
Have many outlets, and he may be 

gone 
To accompany the Intendant. 

Gab. Baron Stralenheim 

Put many questions to the Intendant on 



The subject of your lord, and, to be 

plain, 
I have my doubts if he means well. 

Jos. Alas ! 

What can there be in common with the 

proud 
And wealthy Baron, and the unknown 

Werner ? 
Gab. That you know best. 
Jos. Or, if it were so, how 650 

Come you to stir yourself in his 

behalf, 
Rather than that of him whose life you 

saved ? 
Gab. I helped to save him, as in 

peril ; but 
I did not pledge myself to serve him in 
Oppression. I know well these nobles, 

and 
Their thousand modes of trampling on 

the poor. 
I have proved them; and my spirit 

boils up when 
I find them practising against the 

weak : — 
This is my only motive. 

Jos. It would be 

Not easy to persuade my consort of 660 
Your good intentions. 



Gab. 



Is he 



so suspicious , 



Jos. He was not once; but time and 
troubles have 
Made him what you beheld. 

Gab. I'm sorry for it. 

Suspicion is a heavy armour, and 
With its own weight impedes more 

than protects. 
Good night ! I trust to meet with him 
at day-break. [Exit Gabor. 

Re-enter Idenstein and some Peasants. 
Josephine retires up the Hall. 

First Peasant. But if I'm drowned ? 
Iden. Why, you will be well paid 
for 't. 
And have risked more than drowning 

for as much, 
I doubt not. 

Second Peasant. But our wives and 

families ? 
Iden. Cannot be worse off than 
they are, and may 670 

Be better. 



I 



Scene i.] 



WERNER 



837 



Third Peasant. I have neither, and 

will venture. 
Men. That's right. A gallant carle, 
and fit to be 
A soldier. I'll promote you to the 

ranks 
In the Prince's body-guard — if you 

succeed : 
And you shall have besides, in sparkling 

coin, 
Two thalers. 

Third Peasant. No more ! 
I den. Out upon your avarice ! 

Can that low vice alloy so much ambi- 
tion ? 

I tell thee, fellow, that two thalers in 
Small change will subdivide into a 

treasure. 

Do not five hundred thousand heroes 
daily 680 

Risk lives and souls for the tithe of one 

thaler? 
When had you half the sum? 

Third Peasant. Never — but ne'er 
The less I must have three. 

Iden. Have you forgot 

Whose vassal you were born, knave? 
Third Peasant. No — the 

Prince's, 
A.nd not the stranger's. 

Iden. Sirrah ! in the Prince's 

\bsence, I am sovereign; and the 

Baron is 
VEy intimate connection; — ''Cousin 

Idenstein ! 
^Quoth he) you'll order out a dozen 

villains." 

\nd so, you villains ! troop — march — 
march, I say; 689 

\nd if a single dog's ear of this packet 
Be sprinkled by the Oder — look to it ! 

or every page of paper, shall a hide 
3f yours be stretched as parchment on 

a drum, 

L,ike Ziska's skin, to beat alarm to all 
Refractory vassals, who cannot effect 
mpossibilities. — Away, ye earth- 
worms ! {Exit, driving them out. 
Jos. {coming forward). I fain would 
shun these scenes, too oft repeated, 
)f feudal tyranny o'er petty victims; 
cannot aid, and will not witness 
such. 



Even here, in this remote, unnamed, 

dull spot, 700 

The dimmest in the district's map, 

exist 
The insolence of wealth in poverty 
O'er something poorer still — the pride 

of rank 
In servitude, o'er something still more 

servile ; 
And vice in misery affecting still 
A tattered splendour. What a state 

of being ! 
In Tuscany, my own dear sunny 

land, 
Our nobles were but citizens and mer- 
chants. 
Like Cosmo. We had evils, but not 

such 
As these; and our all-ripe and gushing 

valleys 710 

Made poverty more cheerful, where 

each herb 
Was in itself a meal, and every vine 
Rained, as it were, the beverage which 

makes glad 
The heart of man ; and the ne'er unfelt 

sun 
(But rarely clouded, and when clouded, 

leaving 
His warmth behind in memory of his 

beams) 
Makes the worn mantle, and the thin 

robe, less 
Oppressive than an emperor's jewelled 

purple. 
But, here ! the despots of the north 

appear 
To imitate the ice-wind of their clime, 
Searching the shivering vassal through 

his rags, 721 

To wring his soul — as the bleak ele- 
ments 
His form. And 'tis to be amongst 

these sovereigns 
My husband pants ! and such his pride 

of birth — 
That twenty years of usage, such as no 
Father born in a humble state could 

nerve 
His soul to persecute a son withal, 
Hath changed no atom of his early 

nature; 
But I, born nobly also, from my father's 



WERNER 



[Act n. 



Kindness was taught a different lesson. 

Father ! 730 

May thy long-tried and now rewarded 

spirit 
Look down on us and our so long 

desired 
Ulric ! I love my son, as thou didst me ! 
What's that? Thou, Werner ! can it be? 

and thus? 

Enter Werner hastily, with the knife 

in his hand, by the secret panel, 

which he closes hurriedly after 

him. 

Wer. (not at first recognising her). 

Discovered ! then I'll stab 

(recognising her) . 

Ah ! Josephine, 
Why art thou not at rest ? 

Jos. What rest ? My God ! 

What doth this mean? 

Wer. (showing a rouleau). Here's 
gold — gold, Josephine, 
Will rescue us from this detested dun- 
geon. 
Jos. And how obtained? — that 

knife ! 
Wer. 'Tis bloodless — yet. 

Away — we must to our chamber. 
Jos. But whence comest thou ? 740 
Wer. Ask not ! but let us think where 
we shall go — 
This — this will make us way — (show- 
ing the gold) — I'll fit them now. 
Jos. I dare not think thee guilty of 

dishonour. 
Wer. Dishonour ! 
Jos. I have said it. 

Wer. Let us hence : 

'Tis the last night, I trust, that we need 
pass here. 
Jos. And not the worst, I hope. 
Wer. Hope ! I make sure. 

But let us to our chamber. 

Jos. Yet one question — 

What hast thou done ? 

Wer. (fiercely). Left one thing wwc^owe, 

which 

Had made all well: let me not think 

of it ! 749 

Away ! 

Jos. Alas that I should doubt of thee ! 

\Exeunt, 



ACT II. 

Scene I. — A Hall in the same 
Palace. 

Enter Idenstein and Others. 

I den. Fine doings ! goodly doings ! 
honest doings ! 
A Baron pillaged in a Prince's palace ! 
Where, till this hour, such a sin ne'er 
was heard of. 
Fritz. It hardly could, unless the 
rats despoiled 
The mice of a few shreds of tapestry. 
Iden. Oh ! that I e'er should live to 
see this day ! 
The honour of our city's gone for ever. 
Fritz. Well, but now to discover the 
delinquent: 
The Baron is determined not to lose 
This sum without a search. 

Iden. And so am I. 10 

Fritz. But whom do you suspect ? 
Iden. Suspect ! all people 

Without — within — above — below — 
Heaven help me ! 
Fritz. Is there no other entrance to 

the chamber ? 
Iden. None whatsoever. 
Fritz. Are you sure of that ? 

Iden. Certain. I have lived and 
served here since my birth, 
And if there were such,' must have heard 

of such, 
Or seen it. 
Fritz. Then it must be some one 

who 
Had access to the antechamber. 

Iden. Doubtless. 

Fritz. The man called Werner's 

poor! 

Iden. Poor as a miser. 

But lodged so far off, in the other wing, 

By which there's no communication 

with 21 

The Baron's chamber, that it can't be 

he. 
Besides, I bade him "good night" in 

the hall. 
Almost a mile off, and which only leads 
To his own apartment, about the same 
time 






Scene i.] 



WERNER 



839 



When this burglarious, larcenous felony 
Appears to have been committed. 

Fritz. There's another, 

The stranger 

I den. The Hungarian ? 

Fritz. He who helped 

To fish the Baron from the Oder. 

I den. Not 

Unlikely. But, hold — might it not 

have been 30 

One of the suite? 

Fritz. How? We, Sir! 

I den. No — not you, 

But some of the inferior knaves. You 

say 
The' Baron was asleep in the great 

chair — 
The velvet chair — in his embroidered 

night-gown ; 
His toilet spread before him, and upon it 
A cabinet wath letters, papers, and 
Several rouleaux of gold; of which one 

only 
Has disappeared : — the door unbolted, 

with 
No difficult access to any. 

Fritz. Good Sir, 

Be not so quick; the honour of the 

corps 40 

Which forms the Baron's household's 

unimpeached 
From steward to scullion, save in the 

fair way 
Of peculation; such as in accompts. 
Weights, measures, larder, cellar, but- 
tery, 
Where all men take their prey; as 

also in 
Postage of letters, gathering of rents. 
Purveying feasts, and understanding 

with 
The honest trades who furnish noble 

masters; 
But for your petty, picking, downright 

thievery, 49 

We scorn it as we do board wages. Then 
Had one of our folks done it, he would 

not 
Have been so poor a spirit as to hazard 
His neck for one rouleau, but have 

swooped all; 
Also the cabinet, if portable. 

Iden. There is some sense in that 



Fritz. No, Sir, be sure 

'Twas none of our corps; but some 

petty, trivial 
Picker and stealer, without art or genius. 
The only question is — Who else could 

have 
Access, save the Hungarian and your- 
self? 
Iden. You don't mean me? 
Fritz. No, Sir; I honour 

more 60 

Your talents 

Iden. And my principles, I hope. 

Fritz. Of course. But to the point : 

What's to be done? 
Iden. Nothing — but there's a good 
deal to be said. 
We'll offer a reward; move heaven and 

earth. 
And the police (though there's none 

nearer than 
Frankfort), post notices in manuscript 
(For we've no printer), and set by my 

clerk 
To read them (for few can, save he and 

I)- 
We'll send out villains to strip beggars, 

and 
Search empty pockets ; also, to arrest 70 
All gipsies, and ill-clothed and sallow 

people. 
Prisoners we'll have at least, if not the 

culprit ; 
And for the Baron's gold — if 'tis not 

found. 
At least he shall have the full satisfaction 
Of melting twice its substance in the 

raising 
The ghost of this rouleau. Here's 

alchemy 
For your Lord's losses ! 

Fritz. He hath found a better. 

Iden. Where? 

Fritz. In a most immense inheritance 
The late Count Siegendorf, his distant 

kinsman. 
Is dead near Prague, in his castle, and 

my Lord 80 

Is on his way to take possession. 

Iden. Was there 

No heir? 

Fritz. Oh, yes; but he has disap- 
peared 



840 



WERNER 



[Act II. 



Long from the world's eye, and, perhaps^ 

the world. 
A prodigal son, beneath his father's 

ban 
For the last twenty years ; for whom his 

sire 
Refused to kill the fatted calf; and, 

therefore, 
If living, he must chew the husks still. 

But 
The Baron would find means to silence 

him, 
Were he to re-appear: he's politic. 
And has much influence with a certain 

court. 90 

Iden. He's fortunate. 
Fritz. 'Tis true, there is a grandson. 
Whom the late Count reclaimed from 

his son's hands. 
And educated as his heir; but, then, 
His birth is doubtful. 

Iden. How so? 

Fritz. His sire made 

A left-hand, love, imprudent sort of 

marriage, 
With an Italian exile's dark-eyed 

daughter : 
Noble, they say, too; but no match for 

such 
A house as Siegendorf's. The grandsire 

ill 
Could brook the alliance; and could 

ne'er be brought 
To see the parents, though he took the 

son. 100 

Iden. If he's a lad of mettle, he may 

yet 
Dispute your claim, and weave a web 

that may 
Puzzle your Baron to unravel. 

Fritz. Why, 

For mettle, he has quite enough: they 

say, 
He forms a happy mixture of his sire 
And grandsire's qualities, — impetuous 

as 
The former, and deep as the latter; but 
The strangest is, that he too disappeared 
Some months ago. 

Iden. The devil he did ! 

Fritz. Why, yes: 

It must have been at his suggestion, at 
An hour so critical as was the eve iii 



Of the old man's death, whose heart was 

broken by it. 
Iden. Was there no cause assigned? 
Fritz. Plenty, no doubt, 

And none, perhaps, the true one. Some 

averred 
It was to seek his parents ; some because 
The old man held his spirit in so strictly 
(But that could scarce be, for he doted 

on him) ; 
A third believed he washed to serve in 

war, 
But, peace being made soon after his 

departure. 
He might have since returned, were that 

the motive; 120 

A fourth set charitably have surmised. 
As there was something strange and 

mystic in him, 
That in the wild exuberance of his nature 
He had joined the black bands,^ who lay 

waste Lusatia, 
The mountains of Bohemia and Silesia, 
Since the last years of war had dwindled 

into 
A kind of general condottiero system 
Of bandit-warf are ; each troop with its 

chief. 
And all against mankind. 

Iden. That cannot be. 

A young heir, bred to wealth and luxury, 
To risk his life and honours with dis- 
banded 131 
Soldiers and desperadoes! 

Fritz. Heaven best knows ! 

But there are human natures so allied 
Unto the savage love of enterprise, 
That they will seek for peril as a pleas- 
ure. 
I've heard that nothing can reclaim your 

Indian, 
Or tame the tiger, though their infancy 



' [The Swedish garrisons did not evacuate 
Bohemia till 1649, and then, as their occupation 
was gone, with considerable reluctance. "It, 
need not, therefore, be a matter of wonder tha| 
from the discharged soldiers numerous bands 
robbers ['hande nere' or 'black bands' 
Deformed Transformed, Part II. sc. i. line 6ji 
were formed; that these pursued on their c 
account the trade that they had formerly carrie 
on under the cover of military law, and that com| 
merce became again unsafe on the highways.' 
— History of the Thirty Years' War, by 
Gindely, 1885, ii. 382, 38.3-] 



Scene i.] 



WERNER 



841 



Were fed on milk and honey. After all, 
Your Wallenstein, your Tilly and 

Gustavus, 
Your Bannier, and your Torstenson and 

Weimar, 140 

Were but the same thing upon a grand 

scale ; 
And now that they are gone, and peace 

proclaimed, 
They who would follow the same pas- 
time must 
Pursue it on their own account. Here 

comes 

The Baron, and the Saxon stranger, who 
Was his chief aid in yesterday's escape. 
But did not leave the cottage by the 

Oder 
Until this morning. 

Enter Stralenheim and Ulric. 

Stral. Since you have refused 

All compensation, gentle stranger, save 
Inadequate thanks, you almost check 
even them, 150 

Making me feel the worth lessness of 

words, 

And blush at my own barren gratitude, 
They seem so niggardly, compared with 

what 

Your courteous courage did in my be- 
half 

Ulr. I pray you press the theme no 

further. 
Stral. But 

Can I not serve you? You are young, 

and of 
That mould which throws out heroes; 

fair in favour — 
Brave, I know, by my living now to say 

so; 

\nd, doubtlessly, with such a form and 
heart, 159 

Vould look into the fiery eyes of War, 
s ardently for glory as you dared 
in obscure death to save an unknown 

stranger, 
n an as perilous, but opposite, element. 
ou are made for the service: I have 

served ; 
iave rank by birth and soldiership, and 

friends, 
[Vho shall be yours. 'Tis true this 
pause of peace 



Favours such views at present scantily; 
But 'twill not last, men's spirits are too 

stirring ; 
And, after thirty years of conflict, peace 
Is but a petty war, as the time shows 
us 170 

In every forest, or a mere armed truce. 
War will reclaim his own; and, in the 

meantime, 
You might obtain a post, which would 

ensure 
A higher soon, and, by my influence, fail 

not 
To rise. I speak of Brandenburgh, 

wherein 
I stand well with the Elector; ^ in 

Bohemia, 
Like you, I am a stranger, and we are 

now 
Upon its frontier. 

Ulr. You perceive my garb 

Is Saxon, and, of course, my service due 

To my own Sovereign. If I must 

decline 180 

Your offer, 'tis with the same feeling 

which 
Induced it. 

Stral. Why, this is mere usury ! 

I owe my life to you, and you refuse 
The acquittance of the interest of the 

debt, 
To heap more obligations on me, till 
I bow beneath them. 

Ulr. You shall say so when 

I claim the payment. 

Stral. Well, Sir, since you will not — 
You are nobly born ? 

Ulr. I have heard my kinsman say so. 
Stral. Your actions show it. Might 

I ask vour name? 
Ulr. Ulric. 

Stral. Your house's? 

Ulr. When I'm worthy of it, 

I'll answer you. 

Stral. (aside). Most probably an Aus- 
trian, 191 
Whom these unsettled times forbid to 
boast 



' [George William, Elector of Brandenburgh 
(1595-1640), was in alliance with Gustavus 
Adolphus; John George, Elector of Saxony 
(1585-1656) {vide supra, line 179), was on the 
side of the Imperialists.] 



842 



WERNER 



TAcT II. 



His lineage on these wild and dangerous 

frontiers, 
Where the name of his country is 
abhorred. 

[Aloud to Fritz and Idenstein. 
So, Sirs! how have ye sped in your re- 
searches ? 
Iden. Indifferent well, your Excel- 
lency. 
Stral. Then 
I am to deem the plunderer is caught ? 
Iden. Humph ! — not exactly. 
Strnl. Or, at least, suspected? 

Iden. Oh ! for that matter, very 

much suspected. 
Stral. Who may he be? 
Iden. Why, don't you know, my 
Lord ? 200 

Stral. How should I? I was fast 

asleep. 
Iden. And so 

Was I — and that's the cause I know 

no more 
Than does your Excellency. 
Stral. Dolt ! 

Iden. Why, if 

Your Lordship, being robbed, don't 

recognise 
The rogue; how should I, not being 

robbed, identify 
The thief among so many? In the 

crowd, 
May it please your Excellency, your 

thief looks 
Exactly like the rest, or rather better: 
'Tis only at the bar and in the dungeon 
That wise men know your felon by his 
features; 210 

But I'll engage, that if seen there but 

once. 
Whether he be found criminal or no. 
His face shall be so. 

Stral. {to Fritz). Prithee, Fritz, in- 
form me 
What hath been done to trace the 
fellow ? 
Fritz. Faith ! 

My Lord, not much as yet, except con- 
jecture. 
Stral. Besides the loss (which, I 
must own, affects me 
Just now materially), I needs would find 
The villain out of public motives; for 



So dexterous a spoiler, who could creep 
Through my attendants, and so many 

peopled 220 

And lighted chambers, on my rest, and 

snatch 
The gold before my scarce-closed eyes 

would soon 
Leave bare your borough, Sir Intendant ! 
Iden. True; 

If there were aught to carry off, my 

Lord. 
Ulr. What is all this? 
Stral. You joined us but this morning. 
And have not heard that I was robbed 

last night. 
Ulr. Some rumour of it reached me 

as I passed 
The outer chambers of the palace, but 
I know no further. 

Stral. It is a strange business: 

The Intendant can inform you of the 

facts. 230 

Iden. Most willingly. You see 

Stral. {impatiently). Defer your tale. 
Till certain of the hearer's patience. 

Iden. That 

Can only be approved by proofs. You 

see 

Stral. {again interrupting him, and 

addressing Ulric). 
In short, I was asleep upon a chair. 
My cabinet before me, with some gold 
Upon it (more than I much Uke to lose. 
Though in part only): some ingenious 

person 
Contrived to glide through all my own 

attendants, 
Besides those of the place, and bore 

away 
A hundred golden ducats, which to find 
I would be fain, and there's an end. 

Perhaps 241 

You (as I still am rather faint) would 

add 
To yesterday's great obligation, this. 
Though slighter, yet not slight, to aid 

these men 
(Who seem but lukewarm) in recovering 

it? 
Ulr. Most willingly, and without loss 

of time — 
{To Idenstein.) Come hither, myn 

heer ! 



Scene i.] 



WERNER 



843 



I den. But so much haste bodes 

Right little speed, and 

Ulr. Standing motionless 

None; so let's march: we'll talk as we 
go on. 

I den. But 

Ulr. Show the spot, and then I'll 
answer you. 250 

Fritz. I will, Sir, with his Excel- 
lency's leave, 
Stral. Do so, and take yon old ass 

with you. 
Fritz. Hence ! 

- Ulr. Come on, old oracle, expound 
thy riddle ! 
[Exit with Idenstein and Fritz. 
Stral. (solus). A stalwart, active, 
soldier-looking stripling, 

Handsome as Hercules ere his first 
labour. 

And with a brow of thought beyond his 
years 

When in repose, till his eye kindles up 

In answering yours ! I wish I could 
engage him: 

I have need of some such spirits near 
me now, 

For this inheritance is worth a struggle. 

And though I am not the man to yield 
without one, 261 

Neither are they who now rise up be- 
tween me 

And my desire. The boy, they say, 's a 
bold one; 

But he hath played the truant in some 
hour 

Of freakish folly, leaving Fortune to 

Champion his claims. That's well. 
The father, whom 

For years I've tracked, as does the 
bloodhound, never 

In sight, but constantly in scent, had 
put me 

To fault; but here I have him, and 
that's better. 

It must be he/ All circumstance pro- 
claims it; 270 

And careless voices, knowing not the 
cause 

Of my enquiries, still confirm it. — Yes ! 

The man, his bearing, and the mystery 

Of his arrival, and the time; the ac- 
count, too, 



The Intendant gave (for I have not 

beheld her) 
Of his wife's dignified but foreign aspect ; 
Besides the antipathy with which we 

met. 
As snakes and lions shrink back from 

each other 
By secret instinct that both must be foes 
Deadly, without being natural prey to 

either; 280 

All — all — confirm it to my mind. 

However, 
We'll grapple, ne'ertheless. In a few 

hours 
The order comes from Frankfort, if 

these waters 
Rise not the higher (and the weather 

favours 
Their quick abatement), and I'll have 

him safe 
Within a dungeon, where he may 

avouch 
His real estate and name; and there's 

no harm done, 
Should he prove other than I deem. 

This robbery 
(Save for the actual loss) is lucky also; 
He's poor, and that's suspicious — he's 

unknown, 290 

And that's defenceless. — True, we 

have no proofs 
Of guilt — but what hath he of inno- 
cence ? 
Were he a man indifferent to my 

prospects. 
In other bearings, I should rather lay 
The inculpation on the Hungarian, who 
Hath something which I Hke not; and 

alone 
Of all around, except the Intendant, and 
The Prince's household and my own, 

had ingress 
Familiar to the chamber. 

Enter Gabor. 

Friend, how fare you? 
Gab. As those who fare well every- 
where, when they 300 
Have supped and slumbered, no great 

matter how — 
And you, my Lord? 

Stral. Better in rest than purse: 

Mine inn is like to cost me dear. 



844 



WERNER 



[Act II. 



Gab. I heard 

Of your late loss; but 'tis a trifle to 
One of your order. 

Stral.' You would hardly think so, 
Were the loss yours. 

Gab. I never had so much 

(At once) in my whole life, and there- 
fore am not 
Fit to decide. But I came here to seek 

you. 
Your couriers are turned back — I have 

outstripped them. 
In my return. 

Stral. You! — Why? 

Gah. I went at daybreak, 310 

To watch for the abatement of the river, 

As being anxious to resume my journey. 

Your messengers were all checked like 

myself; 
And, seeing the case hopeless, I await 
The current's pleasure. 

Stral. Would the dogs were in it ! 
Why did they not, at least, attempt the 

passage ? 
I ordered this at all risks. 

Gah. Could you order 

The Oder to divide, as Moses did 
The Red Sea (scarcely redder than the 

flood 
Of the swoln stream), and be obeyed, 

perhaps 320 

They might have ventured. 

Stral. I must see to it : 

The knaves ! the slaves ! — but they 

shall smart for this. 

[Exit Stralenheim. 
Gah. (solus). There goes my noble, 

feudal, self-willed Baron ! 
Epitome of what brave chivalry 
The preux ChevaUers of the good old 

times 
Have left us. Yesterday he would have 

given 
His lands (if he hath any), and, still 

dearer, 
His sixteen quarterings, for as much 

fresh air 
As would have filled a bladder, while he 

lay 
Gurgling and foaming half way through 

the window 330 

Of his o'erset and water-logged con- 
veyance; 



And now he storms at half a dozen 

wretches 
Because they love their lives too ! Yet, 

he's right: 
'Tis strange they should, when such as 

he may put them 
To hazard at his pleasure. Oh, thou 

world ! 
Thou art indeed a melancholy jest ! 

[Exit Gabor. 

Scene II. — The Apartment 0/ Werner 
in the Palace. 

Enter Josephine and Ulric. 

Jos. Stand back, and let me look on 
thee again ! 

My Ulric ! — my beloved ! — can it be — • 

After twelve years? 

Ulr. My dearest mother ! 

Jos. Yes ! 

My dream is realised — how beauti- 
ful ! — 

How more than all I sighed for! 
Heaven receive 

A mother's thanks I a mother's tears of 
joy ! 

This is indeed thy work ! — At such an 
hour, too, 

He comes not only as a son, but saviour. 
Ulr. If such a joy await me, it must 
double 

What I now feel, and Hghten from my 
heart 10 

A part of the long debt of duty, not 

Of love (for that was ne'er withheld) — 
forgive me ! 

This long delay was not m^ fault. 
Jos. I know it. 

But cannot think of sorrow now, and 
doubt 

If I e'er felt it, 'tis so dazzled from 

My memory by this oblivious trans- 
port ! — 

My son ! 

Enter Werner, 

Wer. What have we here, — more 

strangers ? — 
Jos. No ! 

Look upon him ! What do you see ? 
Wer. A stripling, 

I For the first time — 



I 



Scene ii. 



WERNER 



845 



Ulr. {kneeling). For twelve long years 

my father ! 
Wer. Oh, God! 

Jos. He faints! 19 

Wer. No — I am better now — 

Ulric ! {Embraces him.) 

Ulr. My father, Siegendorf ! 
Wer. {starting). Hush! boy — 

The walls may hear that name ! 
Ulr, What then ? 

Wer. Why, then — 

But we will talk of that anon. Remem- 
ber, 
I must be known here but as Werner. 

Come ! 
Come to my arms again ! Why, thou 

look'st all 
I should have been, and was not. 

Josephine ! 
Sure 'tis no father's fondness dazzles 

me; 
But, had I seen that form amid ten 

thousand 
Youth of the choicest, my heart would 

have chosen 
This for my son ! 

Ulr. And yet you knew me not ! 

Wer. Alas! I have had that upon 

my soul 31 

Which makes me look on all men with 

an eye ■ 
That only knows the evil at first 
glance. 
Ulr. My memory served me far more 
fondly: I 
Have not forgotten aught; and oft- 
times in 
The proud and princely halls of — (I'll 

not name them. 
As you say that 'tis perilous) — but i' 

the pomp 
Of your sire's feudal mansion, I looked 

back 
To the Bohemian mountains many a 

sunset. 
And wept to see another day go down 40 
O'er thee and me, with those huge hills 

between us. 
They shall not part us more. 

Wer. I know not that. 

Are you aware my father is no more? 
Ulr. Oh, Heavens ! I left him in a 
green old age. 



And looking like the oak, worn, but still 

steady 
Amidst the elements, whilst younger 

trees 
Fell fast around him. 'Twas scarce 
three months since. 
Wer. Why did you leave him? 
Jos. {embracing Ulric). Can you ask 
that question? 
Is he not here? 

Wer. True; he hath sought his 

parents, 

And found them ; but, oh ! how, and in 

what state ! 50 

Ulr. All shall be bettered. What we 

have to do 

Is to proceed, and to assert our rights, 

Or rather yours; for I waive all, unless 

Your father has disposed in such a 

sort 
Of his broad lands as to make mine the 

foremost, 
So that I must prefer my claim for form : 
But I trust better, and that all is yours. 
Wer. Have you not heard of Stralen- 

heim? 
Ulr. I saved 

His life but yesterday: he's here. 

Wer. You saved 

The serpent who wall sting us all ! 

Ulr. You speak 60 

Riddles : what is this Stralenheim to us ? 
Wer. Everything. One who claims 
our father's lands: 
Our distant kinsman, and our nearest 
foe. 
Ulr. I never heard his name till now. 
The Count, 
Indeed, spoke sometimes of a kinsman, 

who, 
If his own line should fail, might be 

remotely 
Involved in the succession; but his titles 
Were never named before me — and 

what then? 
His right must yield to ours. 

Wer. Aye, if at Prague : 

But here he is all-powerful; and has 
spread 70 

Snares for thy father, which, if hitherto 
He hath escaped them, is by fortune, not 
By favour. 

Ulr. Doth he personally know you? 



846 



WERNER 



[Act II. 



Wer. No; but he guesses shrewdly 
at my person, 
As he betrayed last night; and I, per- 
haps, 
But owe my temporary liberty 
To his uncertainty. 

Ulr. I think you wrong him 

(Excuse me for the phrase); but 

Stralenheim 
Is not what you prejudge him, or, if so. 
He owes me something both for past and 
present. 80 

I saved his life, he therefore trusts in me. 
He hath been plundered too, since he 

came hither: 
Is sick, a stranger, and as such not now 
Able to trace the villain who hath 

robbed him: 
I have pledged myself to do so; and the 

business 
Which brought me here was chiefly 

that: but I 
Have found, in searching for another's 

dross. 
My own whole treasure — you, my 
parents ! 
Wer. {agitatedly). Who 

Taught you to mouth that name of 
"villain" ? 
Ulr. What 

More noble name belongs to common 
thieves ? 90 

Wer. Who taught you thus to brand 
an unknown being 
With an infernal stigma? 

Ulr. My own feelings 

Taught me to name a ruffian from his 
deeds. 
Wer. Who taught you, long-sought 
and ill-found boy ! that 
It would be safe for my own son to 
insult me? 
Ulr. I named a villain. What is 
there in common 
With such a being and my father? 

Wer. Everything ! 

That ruffian is thy father! 

Jos. Oh, my son ! 

Believe him not — and yet ! {her 

voice falters). 
Ulr. {starts, looks earnestly at Werner 
and then says slowly). And you 
avow it? 



Wer. Ulric, before you dare despise 

your father, 100 

Learn to divine and judge his actions. 

Young, 
Rash, new to life, and reared in Luxury's 

lap. 
Is it for you to measure Passion's force., 
Or Misery's temptation ? Wait — (not 

long. 
It Cometh like the night, and quickly) — 

Wait ! — 
Wait till, like me, your hopes are 

blighted — till 
Sorrow and Shame are handmaids of 

your cabin — 
Famine and Poverty your guests at 

table; 
Despair your bed-fellow — then rise, but 

not 
From sleep, and judge ! Should that 

day e'er arrive — no 

Should you see then the Serpent, who 

hath coiled 
Himself around all that is dear and 

noble 
Of you and yours, lie slumbering in your 

path. 
With but his folds between your steps 

and happiness. 
When he, who lives but to tear from you 

name, 
Lands, life itself, lies at your mercy, with 
Chance your conductor — midnight for 

your mantle — 
The bare knife in your hand, and earth 

asleep. 
Even to your deadliest foe; and he as 

'twere 
Inviting death, by looking like it, while 
His death alone can save you : — Thank 

your God ! 121 

If then, like me, content with petty 

plunder. 

You turn aside I did so. 

Ulr. But 

Wer. {abruptly). Hear me! 

I will not brook a human voice — scarce 

dare 
Listen to my own (if that be human 

still) — 
Hear me ! you do not know this man — ■ 

I do. 
He's mean, deceitful, avaricious. You 



Scene ii.] 



WERNER 



847 



Deem yourself safe, as young and brave ; 

but learn 

None are secure from desperation, few 

From subtilty. My worst foe, Stralen- 

heim, 130 

Housed in a Prince's palace, couched 

within 
A Prince's chamber, lay below my knife ! 
An instant — a mere motion — the 

least impulse — 
Had swept him and all fears of mine 

from earth. 
He. was within my power — my knife 

was raised — 
Withdrawn — and I'm in his : — are 

you not so? 
Who tells you that he knows you not? 

Who says 
He hath not lured you here to end you ? 

or 
To plunge you, with your parents, in a 
dungeon? [He pauses. 

Ulr. Proceed — proceed ! 
Wer. Me he hath ever known, 140 
And hunted through each change of 
V time — name — fortune — 

I And why not you? Are you more 
I versed in men? 

He wound snares round me; flung along 

my path 
Reptiles, whom, in my youth, I would 

have spurned 
Even from my presence; but, in spurn- 
ing now. 
Fill only with fresh venom. Will you be 
More patient ? Ulric ! — Ulric ! — 

there are crimes 
I Made venial by the occasion, and 
' temptations 

Which Nature cannot master or forbear. 
Ulr. {who looks first at him and then 

at Josephine). My mother! 
Wer. Ah! I thought so: you have 
now 150 

Only one parent. I have lost alike 
Father and son, and stand alone. 

Ulr. But stay ! 

[Werner rushes out of the chamber. 

Jos. {to Ulric). Follow him not, until 

this storm of passion 

Abates. Think'st thou, that were it 

well for him, 
I had not followed? 



Ulr. I obey you, mother. 

Although reluctantly. My first act 

shall not 
Be one of disobedience. 

Jos. Oh ! he is good ! 

Condemn him not from his own mouth, 

but trust 
To me, who have borne so much with 

him, and for him. 
That this is but the surface of his soul, 
And that the depth is rich in better 

things. 161 

Ulr. These then are but my father's 

principles ? 
My mother thinks not with him? 

Jos. Nor doth he 

Think as he speaks. Alas ! long years 

of grief 
Have made him sometimes thus. 

Ulr. Explain to me 

More clearly, then, these claims of 

Stralenheim, 
That, when I see the subject in its 

bearings, 
I may prepare to face him, or at least 
To extricate you from your present 

perils. 
I pledge myself to accomplish this — 

but would 170 

I had arrived a few hours sooner ! 

Jos. Aye ! 

Hadst thou but done so! 

Enter Gabor and Idenstein, with 
Attendants. 

Gab. {to Ulric). I have sought 

you, comrade. 
So this is my reward ! 

Ulr. What do you mean? 

Gab. 'Sdeath ! have I lived to these 
years, and for this ! 
{To Idenstein.) But for your age and 

folly, I would 

I den. Help ! 

Hands off ! Touch an Intendant ! 

Gab. Do not think 

I'll honour you so much as save your 

throat 
From the Ravenstone ^ by choking you 
myself. 

• The Ravenstone, "Rabenstein," is the stone 
gibbet of Germany, and so called from the ravens 
perching on it. 



WERNER 



[Act II. 



Iden. I thank you for the respite: 

but there are 

Those who have greater need of it than 

me. i8o 

Ulr. Unriddle this vile wrangling, 

or 

Gah. At once, then. 

The Baron has been robbed, and upon 

me 
This worthy personage has deigned to 

fix 
His kind suspicions — me ! whom he 

ne'er saw 
Till yester evening. 

Iden. Wouldst have me suspect 

My own acquaintances? You have to 

learn 
That I keep better company. 

Gab. You shall 

Keep the best shortly, and the last for 

all men, 
The worms ! You hound of malice ! 

[Gabor seizes on him. 
Ulr. {interjering). Nay, no violence: 
He's old, unarmed — be temperate, 
Gabor ! 
Gah. {letting go Idenstein). True: 
I am a fool to lose myself because igi 
Fools deem me knave: it is their 
homage. 
Ulr. {to Idenstein). How 
Fare you? 

Iden. Help ! 

Ulr. I have helped you. 

Iden. Kill him! then 

I'll say so. 

Gah. I am calm — live on ! 

Iden. That's more 

Than you shall do, if there be judge or 

judgment 
In Germany. The Baron shall decide ! 
Gah. Does he abet you in your 

accusation ? 
Iden. Does he not? 
Gah. Then next time let him go sink 
Ere I go hang for snatching him from 

drowning. 
But here he comes! 

Enter Stralenheim. 

Gah. {goes up to him). My noble 
Lord, I'm here ! 200 

Stral. Well, Sir ! 



Gah. Have you aught with me? 

Stral. What should I 

Have with you? 

Gah. You know best, if yesterday's 
Flood has not washed away your 

memory ; 
But that's a trifle. I stand here ac- 
cused, 
In phrases not equivocal, by yon 
Intendant, of the pillage of your person 
Or chamber : — is the charge your own 

or his? 
Stral. I accuse no man. 
Gah. Then you acquit me. Baron? 
Stral. I know not whom to accuse, 

or to acquit. 
Or scarcely to suspect. 

Gah. But you at least 210 

Should know whom not to suspect. I 

am insulted — 
Oppressed here by these menials, and I 

look 
To you for remedy — teach them their 

duty! 
To look for thieves at home were part 

of it, 
If duly taught; but, in one word, if I 
Have an accuser, let it be a man 
Worthy to be so of a man like me. 
I am your equal. 
Stral. You ! 

Gah. Aye, Sir; and, for 

Aught that you know, superior; but 

proceed — 
I do not ask for hints, and surmises, 220 
And circumstance, and proof: I know 

enough 
Of what I have done for you, and what 

you owe me. 
To have at least waited your payment 

rather 
Than paid myself, had I been eager of 
Your gold. I also know, that were I 

even 
The villain I am deemed, the service 

rendered 
So recently would not permit you to 
Pursue me to the death, except through 

shame, 
Such as would leave your scutcheon but 

a blank. 229 

But this is nothing: I demand of you 
Justice upon your unjust servants, and 



Scene ii.] 



WERNER 



849 



From your own lips a disavowal of 
All sanction of their insolence: thus 

much 
You owe to the unknown, who asks no 

more, 
And never thought to have asked so 
much. 
Stral. This tone 

May be of innocence. 

Gab. 'Sdeath ! who dare doubt it. 
Except such villains as ne'er had it ? 

Stral. You 

Are hot, Sir. 

Gab. Must I turn an icicle 

Before the breath of menials, and their 
master? 
Stral. Ulric ! you know this man ; I 
found him in 240 

Your company. 

Gab. We found you in the Oder; 
Would we had left you there ! 

Stral. I give you thanks. Sir. 

Gab. I've earned them; but might 
have earned more from others, 
Perchance, if I had left you to your 
fate. 
Stral. TJlric ! you know this man ? 
Gab. No more than you do 

If he avouches not my honour. 

Ulr. I 

Can vouch your courage, and, as far as 

my 
Own brief connection led me, honour. 

Stral. Then 

['m satisfied. 
Gab. {ironically). Right easily, me- 
thinks. 
,Vhat is the spell in his asseveration 250 
VIore than in mine? 

Stral. I merely said that I 

Vas satisfied — not that you are ab- 
solveci, 
Gab. Again ! Am I accused or no ? 
Stral. Go to ! 

^ou wax too insolent. If circumstance 
^nd general suspicion be against you, 
s the fault mine? Is't not enough 

that I 

)ecline all question of your guilt or 
innocence? 
Gab. My Lord, my Lord, this is 

mere cozenage, 
vile equivocation ; you well know 

31 



Your doubts are certainties to all around 

you — 260 

Your looks a voice — your frowns a 

sentence; you 
Are practising your power on me — 

because 
You have it ; but beware 1 you know not 

whom 
You strive to tread on. 

Stral. Threat'st thou? 

Gab. Not so much 

As you accuse. You hint the basest 

injury. 
And I retort it wdth an open warning. 
Stral. As you have said, 'tis true I 
owe you something. 
For which you seem disposed to pay 
yourself. 
Gab. Not with your gold. 
Stral. With bootless insolence. 

[To his Attendants and Idenstein. 
You need not further to molest this man, 
But let him go his way. Ulric, good 
morrow! 271 

[Exit Stralenheim, Idenstein, 
and Attendants. 
Gab. {following). I'll after him 

and 

Ulr. {stopping him). Not a step. 
Gab. Who shall 

Oppose me? 

Ulr. Your own reason, with a 
moment's 
Thought. 

Gab. Must I bear this? 
Ulr. Pshaw ! we all must bear 

The arrogance of something higher than 
Ourselves — the highest cannot temper 

Satan, 
Nor the lowest his vicegerents upon 

earth. 
I've seen you brave the elements, and 

bear 
Things which had made this silkworm ^ 

cast his skin — 
And shrink you from a few sharp sneers 
and words? 280 

Gab. Must I bear to be deemed a 
thief? If 'twere 

' [Compare Marino F alter 0, act ii. sc. 2, line 
T15 — 

"These swoln silkworms masters." 
Silkworm ("mal bigatto ') is an Italianism.] 



850 



WERNER 



[Act II. 



A bandit of the woods, I could have 

borne it — 
There's something daring in it : — but 

to steal 
The moneys of a slumbering man ! — 

Ulr. It seems, then, 

You are not guilty. 

Gab. Do I hear aright? 

You too! 

Ulr. I merely asked a simple ques- 
tion. 
Gab. If the judge asked me, I would 
answer "No" — 
To you I answer thus. [He draws. 

Ulr. {drawing). With all my heart! 
Jos. Without .there! Ho! help! 
help ! — Oh, God ! here's murder ! 
[Exit Josephine, shrieking. 
Gabor and Ulric fght. Gabor is dis- 
armed just as Stralenheim, Jose- 
phine, Idenstein, etc., re-enter. 
Jos. Oh ! glorious Heaven ! He's 

safe ! 
Stral. {to Josephine). Who's safe? 

Jos. My 

Ulr. {interrupting her with a stern look, 
and turning afterwards to Stralen- 
heim). Both! 290 
Here's no great harm done. 

Stral. What hath caused all this? 
Ulr. You, Baron, I believe; but as 
the effect 
Is harmless, let it not disturb you. — 

Gabor ! 
There is your sword; and when you 

bare it next, 
Let it not be against your friends. 
Ulric pronounces the last words slowly 
and emphatically in a low voice to 
Gabor. 
Gab. I thank you 

Less for my life than for your counsel. 

Stral. These 

Brawls must end here. 

Gab. {taking his sword). They shall. 
You've wronged me, Ulric, 
More with your unkind thoughts than 

sword: I would 
The last were in my bosom rather than 
The first in yours. I could have borne 
yon noble's 300 

Absurd insinuations — ignorance 
And dull suspicion are a part of his 



Entail will last him longer than his 

lands — 
But I may fit him yet : — you have van- 
quished me. 
I was the fool of passion to conceive 
That I could cope with you, whom I 

had seen 
Already proved by greater perils than 
Rest in this arm. We may meet by and 

by, 

However — but in friendship. 

[Exit Gabor. 

Stral. I will brook 

No more ! This outrage following upon 

his insults, 310 

Perhaps his guilt, has cancelled all the 

little 
I owed him heretofore for the so- 
vaunted 
Aid which he added to your abler 

succour. 
Ulric, you are not hurt ? — 

Ulr. Not even by a scratch. 

Stral. {to Idenstein). Intendant! 
take your measures to secure 
Yon fellow: I revoke my former 

lenity. 
He shall be sent to Frankfort with an 

escort, 
The instant that the waters have abated. 
Iden. Secure him ! He hath got his 
sword again — 
And seems to know the use on't ; 'tis his 
trade, 320 

Belike; — Pm a civilian. 

Stral. Fool ! are not 

Yon score of vassals dogging at your 

heels 
Enough to seize a dozen such ? Hence I 
after him ! 
Ulr. Baron, I do beseech you ! 
Stral. I must be 

Obeyed. No words! 

Iden. Well, if it must be so — 

March, vassals! I'm your leader, and 

will bring 
The rear up: a wise general never 

should 
Expose his precious life — on which all 

rests. 
I like that article of war. 

[Exit Idenstein and Attendants. 
Stral. Come hither 



CENE II.] 



WERNER 



851 



Jlric; what docs that woman here? 



Oh ! now 



2>3<^ 



recognise her, 'tis the stranger's wife 
Vhom they name "Werner." 
Ulr. 'Tis his name. 

Stral. Indeed! 

s not your husband visible, fair 
dame ? — 
Jos. Who seeks him? 
Stral. No one — for the present : but 
fain would parley, Ulric, with yourself 
Vlone. 
Ulr. I will retire with you. 
Jos. Not so: 

Von are the latest stranger, and com- 
mand 
All places here. 
{Aside to Ulric, as she goes out.) O 

Ulric ! have a care — 

Remember what depends on a rash 

word ! 

Z7/r. (to Josephine). Fear not! — 

[Exit Josephine. 

Stral. Ulric, I think that I may trust 

you ; 340 

You saved my life — and acts like these 

beget 
Unbounded confidence. 

Ulr. Say on. 

Stral. Mysterious 

And long-engendered circumstances (not 
To be now fully entered on) have made 
This man obnoxious — perhaps fatal to 
me. 
Ulr. Who ? Gabor, the Hungarian ? 
Stral. No — this "Werner" — 

With the false name and habit. 

Ulr. How can this be ? 

He is the poorest of the poor — and 

yellow 
Sickness sits caverned in his hollow eye : 
The man is helpless. 

Stral. He is — 'tis no matter; — 

But if he be the man I deem (and 

that 351 

He is so, all around us here — and 

much 
That is not here — confirm my ap- 
prehension) 
He must be made secure ere twelve 
hours further. 
Ulr. And what have I to do with 
this? 



Stral. I have sent 

To f>ankfort, to the Governor, my 

friend, 
(I have the authority to do so by 
An order of the house of Branden- 

burgh), 
For a fit escort — but this cursed flood 
Bars all access, and may do for some 
hours. 360 

Ulr. It is abating. 
Stral, That is well. 

Ulr. But how 

Am I concerned ? 

Stral. As one who did so much 

For me, you cannot be indifferent to 
That which is of more import to me 

than 
The life you rescued. — Keep your 

eye on him I 
The man avoids me, knows that I now 

know him. — 
Watch him ! — as you would watch 

the wild boar when 
He makes against you in the hunter's 

gap — 
Like him he must be speared. 
Ulr. Why so? 

Stral. He stands 

Between me and a brave inheritance ! 
Oh ! could you see it ! But you shall. 371 
Ulr. I hope so. 

Stral. It is the richest of the rich 
Bohemia, 
Unscathed by scorching war. It lies 

so near 
The strongest city, Prague, that fire and 

sword 
Have skimmed it lightly: so that now, 

besides 
Its own exuberance, it bears double 

value 
Confronted with whole realms far and 

near 
Made deserts. 

Ulr. You describe it faithfully. 

Stral. Aye — could you see it, you 
would say so — but, 
As I have said, you shall. 

Ulr. I accept the omen. 380 

Stral. Then claim a recompense 
from it and me. 
Such as both may make worthy your 
acceptance 



852 



WERNER 



[Act II. 



And services to me and mine for 
ever. 
Ulr. And this sole, sick, and miser- 
able v^'retch — 
This w^ay-worn stranger — stands be- 
tween you and 
This Paradise ? — (As Adam did be- 
tween 
The devil and his) — [Aside]. 
Stral. He doth. 

Ulr. Hath he no right? 

Stral. Right ! none. A disinherited 
prodigal, 
Who for these twenty years disgraced 

his lineage 
In all his acts — but chiefly by his 
marriage, 390 

And living amidst commerce-fetching 

burghers, 
And dabbling merchants, in a mart of 
Jews. 
Ulr. He has a wife, then? 
Stral. You'd be sorry to 

Call such your mother. You have 

seen the woman 
He calls his wife. 

Ulr. Is she not so? 

Stral. No more 

Than he's your father: — an Italian 

girl, 
The daughter of a banished man, who 

lives 
On love and poverty with this same 
Werner. 
Ulr. They are childless, then ? 
Stral. There is or v/as a bastard. 

Whom the old man — the grandsire 
(as old age 400 

Is ever doting) took to warm his 

bosom, 
As it went chilly downward to the 

grave: 
But the imp stands not in my path — he 

has fled, 
No one knows whither; and if he had 

not. 

His claims alone were too contemptible 

To stand. — Why do you smile? 

Ulr. At your vain fears: 

A poor man almost in his grasp — a 

child 
Of doubtful birth — can startle a 
grandee ! 



Stral. All's to be feared, where all 

is to be gained. 
Ulr. True ; and aught done to save 

or to obtain it. 410 

Stral. You have harped the very 

string next to my heart. 
I may depend upon you? 

Ulr. 'Twere too late 

To doubt it. 

Stral. Let no foolish pity shake 

Your bosom (for the appearance of 

the man 
Is pitiful) — he is a wretch, as 

likely 
To have robbed me as the fellow more 

suspected. 
Except that circumstance is less against 

him; 
He being lodged far off, and in a cham- 
ber 
Without approach to mine ; and, to say 

truth, 
I think too well of blood allied to 

mine, 420 

To deem he would descend to such an 

act: 
Besides, he was a soldier, and a brave 

one 
Once — though too rash. 

Ulr. And they, my Lord, we know 
By our experience, never plundef*. 

till 
They knock the brains out first — r' 

which makes them heirs. 
Not thieves. The dead, who feel 

nought, can lose nothing. 
Nor e'er be robbed: their spoils are a 

bequest — 
No more. 

Stral. Go to ! you are a wag. But 

say 
I may be sure you'll keep an eye on this 

man, 
And let me know his slighest move- 
ment towards 430 
Concealment or escape. 

Ulr. You may be sure 

You yourself could not watch him 

more than I 
Will be his sentinel. 

Stral. By this you make mej 

Yours, and for ever. ' 

Ulr. Such is my intention. [Exeunt 



Scene i.] 



WERNER 



853 



ACT III. 

Scene I. — A Hall in the same Palace, 
from whence the secret Passage 
leads. 

Enter Werner and Gabor. 

\ Gah. Sir, I have told my tale: if it so 
please you 
To give me refuge for a few hours, 

well — 

"f not, I'll try my fortune elsewhere. 

Wer. How 

an I, so wretched, give to Misery 

V shelter ? — wanting such myself as 

much 

Vs e'er the hunted deer a covert 

Gah. Or 

The wounded lion his cool cave. Me- 

thinks 
iTou rather look like one would turn at 

bay. 
And rip the hunter's entrails. 

Wer. Ah ! 

Gah. I care not 

If it be so, being much disposed to do 10 
The same myself. But will you shelter 

me? 

[ am oppressed like you — and poor 
like you — 

Disgraced 

Wer. (abruptly). Who told you that 

I was disgraced? 
Gab. No one; nor did I say you 
were so: with 
Your poverty my likeness ended; but 
I said / was so — and would add, with 

truth, 
A.S undeservedly as you. 

Wer. Again ! 

t\s I? 

Gah. Or any other honest man. 
What the devil would you have? You 

don't believe me 
Guilty of this base theft? 

Wer. No, no — I cannot. 20 

Gab. Why that's my heart of hon- 
our ! yon young gallant — 
Your miserly Intendant and dense 

noble — 

All — all suspected me ; and why ? 
because 



I am the worst clothed, and least 

named amongst them; 
Although, were Momus' ^ lattice in 

your breasts. 
My soul might brook to open it more 

widely 
Than theirs: but thus it is — you poor 

and helpless — 
Both still more than myself. 

Wer. How know you that? 

Gab. You're right: I ask for shelter 

at the hand 
Which I call helpless; if you now deny 

it, 30 

I were well paid. But you, who seem to 

have proved 
The wholesome bitterness of hfe, know 

well, 
By sympathy, that all the outspread gold 
Of the New World the Spaniard boasts 

about 
Could never tempt the man who knows 

its worth, 
Weighed at its proper value in the bal- 
ance. 
Save in such guise (and there I grant 

its power, 
Because I feel it,) a': may leave "no 

nightmare 
Upon his heart o' nights. 

Wer. What do you mean? 

Gab. Just what I say; I thought 

my speech was plain: 40 

You are no thief — nor I • — and, as 

true men, 
Should aid each other. 

Wer. It is a damned world, Sir, 

Gab. So is the nearest of the two next, 

as 
The priests say (and no doubt they 

should know best). 
Therefore I'll stick by this — as being 

loth 
To suffer martyrdom, at least with such 
An epitaph as larceny upon my tomb. 
It is but a night's lodging which I crave; 
To-morrow I will try the waters, 

as 

' [" Momus is the god of cruel mockery. He 
is said to have found fault with the man formed 
by HephcTStus, because a little door had not beea 
left in his breast, so as to enable his fellows to 
look into his secret thoughts." (See Lucian"s 
Hermotimiis, cap. xx.)] 



854 



WERNER 



[Act III. 



The dove did — trusting that they have 

abated. 50 

Wer. Abated? Is there hope of 

that? 
Gah. There was 

At noontide, 

Wer. Then we may be safe. 

Gah. Are you 

In peril? 

Wer. Poverty is ever so. 
Gah. That I know by long practice. 
Will you not 
Promise to make mine less? 

Wer. Your poverty ? 

Gah. No — you don't look a leech 
for that disorder; 
I meant my peril only: you've a roof, 
And I have none; I merely seek a 
covert. 
Wer. Rightly; for how should such a 
wretch as I 
Have gold? 

Gah. Scarce honestly, to say the truth 
on't, 60 

Although I almost wish you had the 
Baron's. 
Wer. Dare you insinuate? 
Gah. What ? 

Wer. Are you aware 

To whom you speak? 

Gah. No; and I am not used 

Greatly to care. {A noise heard -without.) 
But hark! they come! 
Wer. Who come ? 

Gah. The Intendant and his man- 
hounds after me: 
I'd face them — but it were in vain to 

expect 
Justice at hands like theirs. Where 

shall I go? 
But show me any place. I do assure 

you. 
If there be faith in man, I am most guilt- 
less: 
Think if it were your own case ! 

Wer. {aside). Oh, just God! 70 

Thy hell is not hereafter ! Am I dust 
still? 
Gah. I see you're moved; and it 
shows well in you: 
I may live to requite it. 

Wer. Are you not 

A spy of Stralenheim's ? 



Not I ! and if 
is there to spy in 



Gah. 

I were, what 
you? 

Although, I recollect, his frequent 
question 

About you and your spouse might lead 
to some 

Suspicion; but you best know — what 
— and why. 

I am his deadhest foe. 

Wer. You ? 

Gab. After such 

A treatment for the service which in 
part 80 

I rendered him, I arri his enemy: 

If you are not his friend you will assist 
me. 
Wer. I will. 
Gab. But ho ; ? 

Wer. (showing the panel). There is 
a secret spring: 

Remember, I discovered it by chance. 

And used it but for safety. 

Gab. Open it, 

And I will use it for the same. 

Wer. I found it, 

As I have said: it leads through wind- 
ing walls, 

(So thick as to bear paths within their 
ribs, 

Yet lose no jot of strength or stateli-» 
ness,) I 

And hollow cells, and obscure niches,] 
to 90! 

I know not whither; you must not ad- 
vance : 

Give me your word. 

Gah. It is unnecessary: 

How should I make my way in darkness 
through 

A Gothic labyrinth of unknown wind- 
ings? 
Wer. Yes, but who knows to what, 
place it may lead? 

/ know not — (mark you !) — but who 
knows it might not 

Lead even into the chamber of your 
foe? 

So strangely were contrived these gal- 
leries 

By our Teutonic fathers in old days. 

When man built less against the ele 
ments lor 



Scene i. 



WERNER 



855 



Than his next neighbour. You must 

not advance 
Beyond the two first windings; if you 

do 
(Albeit I never passed them,) I'll not 

answer 
For what you may be led to. 

Gah. ' But I will. 

A. thousand thanks ! 

Wer. You'll find the spring more 
obvious 
)n the other side; and, when you 

would return, 
t yields to the least touch. 
Gab. I'll in — farewell ! 

[Gabor goes in by the secret panel. 
Wer. (solus). What have I done? 
Alas! what had I done 
before to make this fearful ? Let it be 
)till some atonement that I save the 
man, no 

Whose sacrifice had saved perhaps my 

own — 

They come ! to seek elsewhere what is 
before them! 

Enter Idenstein and Others. 

Iden. Is he not here? He must 
have vanished then 

Through the dim Gothic glass, by 
pious aid 

3f pictured saints upon the red and 
yellow 

Casements, through which the sunset 
streams hke sunrise 

On long pearl-coloured beards and 
crimson crosses. 

And gilded crosiers, and crossed arms, 
and cowls. 

And helms, and twisted armour, and 
long swords, 

All the fantastic furniture of win- 
dows 120 

Dim with brave knights and holy her- 
mits whose 

Likeness and fame alike rest in some 
panes 

Of crystal, which each rattling wind 
proclaims 

As frail as any other life or glory. 

He's gone, however. 

Wer. Whom do you seek ? 

Iden. A villain. 



Wer. Why need you come so far, 
then? 

Iden. In the search 

Of him who robbed the Baron. 

Wer. Are you sure 

You have divined the man? 

Iden. As sure as you 

Stand there: but where's he gone? 

Wer. Who ? 

Iden. He we sought. 

Wer. You see he is not here. 

Iden. And yet we traced him 130 

Up to this hall. Are you accomplices? 
Or deal you in the black art? 

Wer. I deal plainly, 

To many men the blackest. 

Iden. It may be 

I have a question or two for yourself 
Hereafter; but we must continue now 
Our search for t'other. 

Wer. You had best begin 

Your inquisition now: I may not be 
So patient always. 

Iden. I should like to know, 

In good sooth, if you really are the man 
That Stralenheim 's in quest of. 

Wer. Insolent ! 140 

Said you not that he was not here? 

Iden. Yes, one; 

But there 's another whom he tracks 

more keenly. 
And soon, it may be, with authority 
Both paramount to his and mine. But 

come ! 
Bustle, my boys! we are at fault. 
[Exit Idenstein and Attendants. 

Wer. In what 

A maze hath my dim destiny involved 

me! 
And one base sin hath done me less ill 

than 
The leaving undone one far greater. 

Down, 
Thou busy devil, rising in my heart ! 
Thou art too late ! I'll nought to do with 
blood. 150 

Enter Ulric. 

Ulr. I sought you, father. 
Wer. Is't not dangerous? 

Ulr. No; Stralenheim is ignorant of 
all 
Or anv of the ties between us : more — 



856 



WERNER 



[Act III. 



He sends me here a spy upon your 

actions, 
Deeming me wholly his. 

Wer. I cannot think it: 

'Tis but a snare he winds about us 

both, 
To swoop the sire and son at once. 
Ulr. I cannot 

Pause in each petty fear, and stumble 

at 
The doubts that rise like briers in our 

path, 
But must break through them, as an 
unarmed carle i6o 

Would, though with naked limbs, were 

the wolf rustling 
In the same thicket where he hewed for 

bread. 
Nets are for thrushes, eagles are not 

caught so: 
We'll overfly or rend them. 

Wer. Show me how? 

Ulr. Can you not guess? 
Wer. I cannot. 

Ulr. That is strange. 

Came the thought ne'er into your mind 
last night ? 
Wer. I understand you not. 
Ulr. Then we shall never 

More understand each other. But 
to change 

The topic 

Wer. You mean to pursue it, as 

'Tis of our safety. 

Ulr. Right; I stand corrected. 170 
I'see the subject now more clearly, and 
Our general situation in its bearings. 
The waters are abating; a few hours 
Will bring his summoned myrmidons 

from Frankfort, 
When you will be a prisoner, perhaps 

worse, 
And I an outcast, bastardised by 

practice 
Of this same Baron to make way for 
him. 
Wer. And now your remedy ! I 
thought to escape 
By means of this accursed gold ; but now 
I dare not use it, show it, scarce look 
on it. iSo 

Methinks it wears upon its face my 
guilt 



For motto, not the mintage of the state; 
And, for the sovereign's head, my own 

begirt 
With hissing snakes, which curl around! 

my temples, 
And cry to all beholders, Lo ! a villain ! 
Ulr. You must not use it, at least 

now; but take 

This ring. {He gives Werner a jewel. 

Wer. A gem ! It was my father's 1 

Ulr. And 

As such is now your own. With this 

you must 
Bribe the Intendant for his old caleche 
And horses to pursue your route at sun- 
rise, 190 
Together with my mother. 

Wer. And leave you. 

So lately found, in peril too? 

Ulr. Fear nothing ! 

The only fear were if we fled together, 
For that would make our ties beyond 

all doubt. 
The waters only lie in flood between 
This burgh and Frankfort; so far's 

in our favour. 
The route on to Bohemia, though en- 
cumbered, 
Is not impassable; and when you gain 
A few hours' start, the difficulties will be 
The same to your pursuers. Once 

beyond 200 

The frontier, and you're safe. 
Wer. My noble boy ! 

Ulr. Hush ! hush ! no transports 

we'll indulge in them ■ 

In Castle Siegendorf ! Display no gold : 
Show Idenstein the gem (I know the 

man. 
And have looked through him) : it will 

answer thus 
A double purpose. Stralenheim lost 

gold — 
No jewel: therefore it could not be his; 
And then the man who was possest of 

this 

Can hardly be suspected of abstracting 
The Baron's coin, when he could thus 

convert 21c 

This ring to more than Stralenheim ha: 

lost 
By his last night's slumber. Be no 

over timid 



Scene i.] 



WERNER 



857 



In your address, nor yet too arrogant, 
And Idenstein will serve you. 

Wer. I will follow 

In all things your direction. 

Ulr. I would have 

Spared you the trouble; but had I 

appeared 
To take an interest in you, and still 

more 
By dabbling with a jewel in your favour. 
All had been known at once. 

Wer. My guardian angel ! 

This overpays the past. But how wilt 
thou 220 

Fare in our absence? 

Ulr. Stralenheim knows nothing 

Of me as aught of kindred with your- 
self. 
I will but wait a day or two with him 
To lull all doubts, and then rejoin my 
father. 
Wer. To part no more I 
Ulr. I know not that; but at 

The least we'll meet again once more. 
Wer. My boy ! 

My friend ! my only child, and sole 

preserver ! 
Oh, do not hate me ! 

Ulr. Hate my father 1 

Wer. Aye, 

My father hated me. Why not my son ? 
Ulr. Your father knew you not as 

I do. 
Wer. Scorpions 230 

Are in thy words ! Thou know me ? 

in this guise 
Thou canst not know me, I am not 

myself; 
Yet (hate me not) I will be soon. 

Ulr. VWwait! 

In the mean time be sure that all a son 
Can do for parents shall be done for 
mine. 
Wer. I see it, and I feel it; yet I feel 
Further — that you despise me. 
Ulr. Wherefore should I ? 

Vv'^er. Must I repeat my humiliation ? 
Ulr. No ! 

I have fathomed it and you. But let 

us talk 
Of this no more. Or, if it must be 
ever, 240 

Not now. Your error has redoubled all 



The present difficulties of our house 
At secret war with that of Stralenheim: 
All we have now to think of is to baffle 
Him. I have shown one way. 

Wer. The only one, 

And I embrace it, as I did my son. 
Who showed himself and father's 

safety in 
One day. 

Ulr. You shall be safe; let that 

suffice. 
Would Stralenheim's appearance in 

Bohemia 
Disturb your right, or mine, if once 

we were 250 

Admitted to our lands ? 

Wer. Assuredly, 

Situate as we are now; although the 

first 
Possessor might, as usual, prove the 

strongest — 
Especially the next in blood. 

Ulr. Blood! 'tis 

A word of many meanings; in the 

veins. 
And out of them, it is a different thing — 
And so it should be, when the same in 

blood 
(As it is called) are aliens to each other, 
Like Theban brethren: ^ when the 

part is bad, 
A few spilt ounces purify the rest. 260 
Wer. I do not apprehend you. 
Ulr. That may be — 

And should, perhaps - — and yet — ^ 

but get ye ready; 
You and my mother must away to-night. 
Here comes the Intendant: sound him 

with the gem; 
'Twill sink into his venal soul like lead 
Into the deep, and bring up slime and 

mud, 
And ooze, too, from the bottom, as the 

lead doth 
With its greased understratum ; ^ but 

no less • 



' [Eteocles and Polynices, see the Septem c. 
Thebas of ^schylus.] 

2 [A cavity at the lower end of the lead at- 
tached to a sounding-line is partially tilled with 
an arming (tallow), to which the bottom, espe- 
cially if it be sand, shells, or fine gravel, adheres. 
— Knights's American Mechanical Dictionary, 
1877, art. "Sounding-Apparatus."] 



WERNER 



[Act III. 



Will serve to warn our vessels through 

these shoals. 
The freight is rich, so heave the line in 
time! 270 

Farewell! I scarce have time, but yet 
your hand, 

My father ! 

Wer. Let me embrace thee I 

Ulr. We may be 

Observed: subdue your nature to the 

hour! 
Keep off from me as from your foe ! 

Wer. Accursed 

Be he who is the stifling cause which 

smothers 
The best and sweetest feeling of our 

hearts; 
At such an hour too ! 

Ulr. Yes, curse — it will ease you I 
Here is the Intendant. 

Enter Idenstein. 

Master Idenstein, 
How fare you in your purpose? Have 

you caught 
The rogue ? 

Iden. No, faith! 

Ulr. Well, there are plenty more: 
You may have better luck another 
chase. 281 

Where is the Baron? 

Iden. Gone back to his chamber: 
And now I think on't, asking after you 
With nobly-born impatience. 

Ulr. Your great men 

Must be answered on the instant, as the 

bound 
Of the stung steed replies unto the 

spur: 
'Tis well they have horses, too; for if 

they had not, 
I fear that men must draw their chariots, 

as 
They say kings did Sesostris. 

Men. Who was he ? 

Ulr. An old Bohemian — an imperial 
gipsy. _ 290 

Iden. A gipsy or Bohemian, 'tis the 
same, 
For they pass by both names. And 
was he one ? 
Ulr. I've heard so; but T must take 
leave. Intendant, 



Your servant ! — Werner {to Werner 

slightly), if that be your name, 
Yours. [Exit Ulric. 

Iden. A well-spoken, pretty-faced 
young man ! 
And prettily behaved ! He knows his 

station, 
You see, Sir: how he gave to each his 

due 
Precedence ! 

Wer. I perceived it, and applaud 
His just discernment and your own. 

Iden. That's well — 

That's very well. You also know 

your place, too; 300 

And yet I don't know that / know your 

place. 

Wer. {showing the ring). Would this 

assist vour knowledge? 
Iden. ' How ! — What ! — Eh ! 
A jewel ! 

Wer. 'Tis your own on one condition. 
Iden. Mine ! — Name it ! 
Wer. That hereafter you permit 

me 
At thrice its value to redeem it: 'tis 
A family ring. 

Iden. A family ! — yours ! — 



gem 



I'm breathless ! 

Wer. You must also furnish me, 

An hour ere daybreak, with all means 

to quit 
This place. 

Iden. But is it real? Let me look 
on it: 
Diamond, by all that's glorious! 

Wer. Come, I'll trust you: 

You have guessed, no doubt, that I was 
born above 311 

My present seeming. 

Iden. I can't say I did, 

Though this looks like it: this is the 

true breeding 
Of gentle blood ! 

Wer. I have important reasons 

For wishing to continue privily 
My journey hence. 

Iden. So then you are the man 

Whom Stralenheim's in quest of? 

Wer. I am not; 

But being taken for him might conduct 
So much embarrassment to me just now, 



Scene ii.] 



WERNER 



859 



And to the Baron's self hereafter — 

'tis 320 

To spare both that I would avoid all 

bustle. 
Iden. Be you the man or no, 'tis 

not my business; 
resides, I never could obtain the half 
I rem this proud, niggardly noble, who 

would raise 
I The country for some missing bits of 

coin, 
And never offer a precise reward — 
But this 1 — another look ! 

Wer. Gaze on it freely; 

At day-dawn it is yours. 

Iden. Oh, thou sweet sparkler ! 

Thou more than stone of the philos- 
opher!' 329 
Thou touch-stone of Philosophy herself ! 
Thou bright eye of the Mine ! thou 

loadstar of 
The soul ! the true magnetic Pole to 

which 
All hearts point duly north, like trem- 
bling needles ! 
Thou flaming Spirit of the Earth ! 

which, sitting 
High on the Monarch's Diadem 

attractest 
More worship than the majesty who 

sweats 
Beneath the crown which makes his 

head ache, like 
Millions of hearts which bleed to lend 

it lustre ! 
Shalt thou be mine? I am, methinks, 

already 
A little king, a lucky alchymist ! — 340 
A wise magician, who has bound the 

devil 
Without the forfeit of his soul. But 

come, 
Werner, or what else? 

Wer. Call me Werner still; 

You may yet know me by a loftier 

title. 
Iden. I do believe in thee! thou 

art the spirit 
Of whom I long have dreamed in a 

low garb. — 
But come, I'll serve thee; thou shalt be 

as free 
As air, despite the waters; let us hence: 



I'll show thee I am honest — (oh, thou 

jewel !) 
Thou shalt be furnished, Werner, with 

such means 350 

Of flight, that if thou wert a snail, not 

birds 
Should overtake thee. — Let me gaze 

again ! 
I have a foster-brother in the mart 
Of Hamburgh skilled in precious stones. 

How many 
Carats may it weigh ? — Come, Werner, 

I will wing thee. {Exeunt. 

Scene II. — Stralenheim's Chamber. 
Stralenheim and Fritz. 

Fritz. All's ready, my good Lord I 

Stral. I am not sleepy, 

And yet I must to bed: I fain would 

say 
To rest, but something heavy on my 

spirit, 
Too dull for wakefulness, too quick 

for slumber. 
Sits on me as a cloud along the sky, 
Which will not let the sunbeams through, 

nor yet 
Descend in rain and end, but spreads 

itself 
'Twixt earth and heaven, like envy 

between man 
And man, and everlasting mist: — 

I will 
Unto my pillow. 

Fritz. May you rest there well ! 10 
Stral. I feel, and fear, I shall. 
Fritz. And wherefore fear ? 

Stral. I know not why, and therefore 
do fear more. 

Because an undescribable but 'tis 

All folly. Were the locks as I desired 
Changed, to-day, of this chamber? 

for last night's 
Adventure makes it needful. 

Fritz. Certainly, 

According to your order, and beneath 
The inspection of myself and the young 

Saxon 
Who saved your life. I think they 
call him "Ulric." 
Stral. You think! you supercilious 
slave ! what right 20 



86o 



WERNER 



[Act III. 



Have you to tax your memory, which 

should be 
Quick, proud, and happy to retain the 

name 
Of him who saved your master, as a 

htany 
Whose daily repetition marks your 

duty ? — 
Get hence; " You think," indeed ! you, 

who stood still 
Howling and dripping on the bank, 

whilst I 
Lay dying, and the stranger dashed 

aside 
The roaring torrent, and restored me 

to 
Thank him — and despise you. " You 

think 1" and scarce 29 

Can recollect his name ! I will not waste 

More words on you. Call me betimes. 

Fritz. Good night ! 

I trust to-morrow will restore your 

Lordship 
To renovated strength and temper, 
[The scene closes. 

Scene III. — The secret Passage. 

Gab. (solus). Four — 

Five — six hours have I counted, Uke 

the guard 
Of outposts, on the never-merry clock. 
That hollow tongue of time, which, 

even when 
It sounds for joy, takes something 

from enjoyment 
With every clang. 'Tis a perpetual 

knell. 
Though for a marriage-feast it rings: 

each stroke 
Peals for a hope the less; the funeral 

note 
Of Love deep-buried, without resurrec- 
tion. 
In the grave of Possession; while the 

knoll ID 

Of long-lived parents finds a jovial echo 
To triple time in the son's ear. 

I'm cold — 
I'm dark; — I've blown my fingers — 

numbered o'er 
And o'er my steps — and knocked my 

head against 



Some fifty buttresses — and roused 

the rats 
And bats in general insurrection, till 
Their cursed pattering feet and whirling 

wings 
Leave me scarce hearing for another 

sound. 
A light ! It is at distance (if I can 
Measure in darkness distance) : but 

it blinks 20 

As through a crevice or a key-hole, in" 
The inhibited direction: I must on, 
Nevertheless, from curiosity. 
A distant lamp-light is an incident 
In such a den as this. Pray Heaven it 

lead me 
To nothing that may tempt me ! Else — 

Heaven aid me 
To obtain or to escape it ! Shining still ! 
Were it the star of Lucifer himself. 
Or he himself girt with its beams, I 

could 
Contain no longer. Softly: mighty 

well ! 30 

That corner's turned — so — ah! no; — 

right ! it draws 
Nearer. Here is a darksome angle — so. 
That's weathered. — Let me pause. — 

Suppose it leads 
Into some greater danger than that 

which 
I have escaped — no matter, 'tis a new 

one; 
And novel perils, like fresh mistresses, 
Wear more magnetic aspects: — I will on, 
And be it where it may — I have my 

^ dagger ^ (. 

Which may protect me at a pinch. — • '> 

Burn still. 
Thou little light! Thou art my ignis 

fatuus 40 

My stationary Will-o'-the-wisp ! — 

So ! so ! 
He hears my invocation, and fails not, 
[The scene closes. 

Scene IV. — A Garden. 
Enter Werner. 

Wer. I could not sleep — and now 
the hour's at hand ! 
All's ready. Idenstein has kept his 
word; 



Scene iv.] 



WERNER 



86] 



And stationed in the outskirts of the 

town, 
Upon the forest's edge, the vehicle 
Awaits us. Now the dwindling stars 

begin 
To pale in heaven; and for the last 

time I 
Look on these horrible walls. Oh ! 

never, never 
Shall I forget them. Here I came 

most poor, 
But not dishonoured: and I leave them 

with 
A stain, — if not upon my name, yet in 
My heart ! — a never-dying canker- 
worm, 1 1 
Which all the coming splendour of the 

lands, 
And rights, and sovereignty of Siegen- 

dorf 
Can scarcely lull a moment. I must 

find 
Some means of restitution, which would 

ease 
My soul in part: hut how, without dis- 
covery ? — 
It must be done, however; and I'll 

pause 
Upon the method the first hour of 

safety. 
The madness of my misery led to this 
Base infamy; repentance must retrieve 

it: 20 

I will have nought of Stralenheim's upon 
My spirit, though he would grasp all of 

mine; 
Lands, freedom, life, — and yet he 

sleeps as soundly 
Perhaps, as infancy, with gorgeous 

curtains 
Spread for his canopy, o'er silken 

pillows. 



Such as when 



Hark 



^hat noise 



is that? Again ! 
The branches shake; and some loose 

stones have fallen 
From yonder terrace. 

[Ulric leaps down from the terrace. 
Ulric ! ever welcome ! 

Thrice welcome now ! this filial 

Ulr. Stop ! before 

We approach, tell me 

Wer. Why look you so ? 



Ulr. Do I 30 

Behold my father, or 

Wer. What ? 

Ulr. An assassin ? 

Wer. Insane or insolent ! 
Ulr. Reply, Sir, as 

You prize your life, or mine ! 

Wer. To what must I 

Answer ? 

Ulr. Are you or are you not the 
assassin 
Of Stralenheim? 

Wer. I never was as yet 

The murderer of any man. What 
mean you? 
Ulr. Did not you this night (as the 
night before) 
Retrace the secret passage? Did you 

not 
Again revisit Stralenheim's chamber? 

and 

[Ulric pauses. 
Wer. Proceed. 

Ulr. Died he not by your hand ? 

Wer. Great God ! 40 

Ulr. You are innocent, then ! my 

father's innocent ! 

Embrace me ! Yes, - — your tone — 

your look — yes, yes, — 
Yet say so. 

Wer. If I e'er, in heart or mind. 

Conceived deliberately such a thought. 
But rather strove to trample back to 

hell 
Such thoughts — ii e'er they glared a 

moment through 
The irritation of my oppressed spirit — 
May Heaven be shut for ever from my 

hopes, 
As from mine eyes ! 

Ulr. But Stralenheim is dead. 

Wer. 'Tis horrible ! 'tis hideous, as 
'tis hateful ! — 50 

But what have I to do with this ? 

Ulr. No bolt 

Is forced; no violence can be detected, 
Save on his body. Part of his own 

household 
Have been alarmed; but as the Inten- 

dant is 
Absent, I took upon myself the care 
Of mustering the police. • His chamber 
has, 



862 



WERNER 



[Act III. 



Past doubt, been entered secretly. Ex- 
cuse me, 

If nature • 

Wer. Oh, my boy ! what unknown 
woes 
Of dark fatality, like clouds, are gather- 
ing 
Above our house ! 

Ulr. My father ! I acquit you ! 60 
But will the world do so ? will even the 
Judge, 

If but you must away this instant. 

Wer. No ! 

I'll face it. Who shall dare suspect me ? 

Ulr. Yet 

You had no guests — no visitors — no 

life 
Breathing around you, save my 
mother's? 
Wer. Ah! 

The Hungarian ? 

Ulr. He is gone ! he disappeared 

Ere sunset. 

Wer. No; I hid him in that very 

Concealed and fatal gallery. 

Ulr. There I'll find him. 

[Ulric is going. 

Wer. It is too late: he had left the 

palace ere 

I quitted it. I found the secret panel 70 

Open, and the doors which lead from 

that hall 
Which masks it: I but thought he had 

snatched the silent 
And favourable monjent to escape 
The myrmidons of Idenstein, who were 
Dogging him yester-even. 

Ulr. You reclosed 

The panel? 

Wer. Yes; and not without reproach 
(And inner trembling for the avoided 

peril) 
At his dull heedlessness, in leaving 

thus 
His shelterer's asylum to the risk 
Of a discovery. 

Ulr. You are sure you closed it ? 80 
Wer. Certain. 

Ulr. That's well; but had been 
better, if 

You ne'er had turned it to a den for 

{He pauses. 
Wer. Thieves ! 



Thou wouldst say: I must bear it, and 

deserve it; 

But not 

Ulr. No, father; do not speak of 

this: 
This is no hour to think of petty crimes, 
But to prevent the consequence of 

great ones. 
Why would you shelter this man? 

Wer. Could I shun it ? 

A man pursued by my chief foe; dis- 
graced 
For my own crime: a victim to my 

safety. 
Imploring a few hours' concealment 

from 90 

The very wretch who was the cause he 

needed 
Such refuge. Had he been a wolf, I 

could not 
Have in such circumstances thrust 

him forth. 
Ulr. And like the wolf he hath 

repaid you. But 
It is too late to ponder thus : — you must 
Set out ere dawn. I will remain here to 
Trace the murderer, if 'tis possible. 
Wer. But this my sudden flight will 

give the Moloch 
Suspicion: two new victims in the lieu 
Of one, if I remain. The fled Hun- 
garian, 100 

Who seems the culprit, and 

Ulr. Who seems ? Who else 

Can be so ? 

Wer. Not 7, though just now you 

doubted — 

You, my son ! — doubted 

Ulr. And do you doubt of him 

The fugitive? 

Wer. Boy ! since I fell into 

The abyss of crime (though not of such 

crime), I, 
Having seen the innocent oppressed 

for me. 
May doubt even of the guilty's guilt. 

Your heart 
Is free, and quick with virtuous wrath 

to accuse 
Appearances; and views a criminal 
In Innocence's shadow, it may be, no 
Because 'tis dusky. 

Ulr. And if I do so, 



Scene iv.] 



WERNER 



863 



What will mankind, who know you not, 

or knew 
But to oppress? You must not stand 

the hazard. 
Away ! — I'll make all easy. Idenstein 
Will for his own sake, and his jewel's, 

hold 
His peace — he also is a partner in 

Your flight — moreover 

Wer. Fly ! and leave my name 

Linked with the Hungarian's, or, pre- 
ferred as poorest. 
To bear the brand of bloodshed ? . 

Ulr. Pshaw ! leave anything 

Except our father's sovereignty and 

castles, 120 

For which you have so long panted, and 

in vain ! 
What name? You have no name, since 

that you bear 
Is feigned. 

Wer. Most true: but still I would 

not have it 
Engraved in crimson in men's memories. 
Though in this most obscure abode 

of men 

Besides, the search 

Ulr. I will provide against 

Aught that can touch you. No one 

knows you here 
As heir of Siegendorf: if Idenstein 
Suspects, 'tis but suspicion, and he 

is 129 

A fool: his folly shall have such em- 
ployment. 
Too, that the unknown Werner shall 

give way 
To nearer thoughts of self. The laws 

(if e'er 
Laws reached this village) are all in 

abeyance 
With the late general war of thirty 

years, 
Or crushed, or rising slowly from the 

dust, 
To which the march of armies trampled 

them. 
Stralenheim, although noble, is un- 
heeded 
Here, save as such — without lands, 

influence. 
Save what hath perished with him. 

Few prolong 



A week beyond their funeral rites their 

sway 140 

O'er men, unless by relatives, whose 

interest 
Is roused: such is not here the case; 

he died 
Alone, unknown, — a solitary grave. 
Obscure as his deserts, without a 

scutcheon. 
Is all he'll have, or wants. If / dis- 
cover 
The assassin, 'twill be well — if not, 

believe me. 
None else; though all the full-fed train 

of menials 
May howl above. his ashes (as they did 
Around him in his danger on the Oder), 
Will no more stir a finger now than 

then. 150 

Hence ! hence ! I must not hear your 

answer. — Look ! 
The stars are almost faded, and the 

grey 
Begins to grizzle the black hair of night. 
You shall not answer: — Pardon me 

that I 
Am peremptory: 'tis your son that 

speaks. 
Your long-lost, late-found son. — Let's 

call my mother ! 
Softly and swiftly step, and leave the 

rest 
To me: I'll answer for the event as far 
As regards you, and that is the chief 

point. 
As my first duty, which shall be ob- 
served. 160 
We'll meet in Castle Siegendorf — 

once more 
Our banners shall be glorious ! Think 

of that 
Alone, and leave all other thoughts to 

me, 
Whose youth may better battle with 

them — Hence ! 
And may your age be happy ! — I will 

kiss 
My mother once more, then Heaven's 

speed be with you ! 
Wer. This counsel's safe — but is it 

honourable ? 
Ulr. To save a father is a child's 

chief honour, [Exeunt. 



864 



WERNER 



[Act IV. 



ACT IV. 

Scene I. — A Gothic Hall in the Castle 
of Siegendorf, near Fragile. 

Enter Eric and Henrick, Retainers 
of the Count. 

Eric. So, better times are come at 
last; to these 
Old walls new masters and high wassail 

— both 
A long desideratum. 

Hen. Yes, for masters, 

It might be unto those who long for 

novelty, 
Though made by a new grave: but, 

as for wassail, 
Methinks the old Count Siegendorf 

maintained 
His feudal hospitality as high 
As e'er another Prince of the empire. 
Eric. Why 

For the mere cup and trencher, we no 

doubt 
Fared passing well; but as for merri- 
ment lO 
And sport, without which salt and 

sauces season 
The cheer but scantily, our sizings 

were 
Even of the narrowest. 

Hen. The old Count loved not 

The roar of revel; are you sure that 
this does? 
Eric. As yet he hath been courteous 
as he's bounteous, 
And we all love him. 

Hen. His reign is as yet 

Hardly a year o'erpast its honeymoon. 
And the first year of sovereigns is 

bridal : 
Anon, we shall perceive his real sway 
And moods of mind. 

Eric. Pray Heaven he keep the 

present ! 20 

Then his brave son, Count Ulric — 

there's a knight ! 
Pity the wars are o'er! 

Hen. Why so ? 

Eric. Look on him ! 

And answer that yourself. 

Hen. He's very youthful, 



And strong and beautiful as a young 
tiger. 
Eric. That's not a faithful vassal's 

likeness. 
Hen. But 

Perhaps a true one. 

Eric. Pity, as I said, 

The wars are over: in the hall, who like 
Count Ulric for a well-supported pride, 
Which awes, but yet offends not ? in the 

field. 
Who like him with his spear in hand, 
.when gnashing 30 

His tusks, and ripping up, from right to 

left. 
The howling hounds, the boar makes 

for the thicket ? 
Who backs a horse, or bears a hawk, or 

wears 
A sword like him ? Whose plume nods 
knightlier? 
Hen. No one's, I grant you. Do 
not fear, if war 
Be long in coming, he is of that kind 
Will make it for himself, if he hath not 
Already done as much. 

Eric. What do you mean? 

Hen. You can't deny his train of 

followers 

(But few our native fellow-vassals 

born 40 

On the domain) are such a sort of 

knaves 

As \^Pauses. 

Eric. What? 

Hen. The war (you love so much) 
leaves living. 
Like other parents, she spoils her worst 
children. 
Eric. Nonsense! they are all brave 
iron-visaged fellows. 
Such as old Tilly loved. 

Hen. And who loved Tilly? 

Ask that at Magdebourg ^ or, for that 
matter, 

' [At the siege of Magdeburg, May 19, 1631, 
"soldiers and citizens, with their wives, boys and 
girls, old and young, were all mercilessly butch- 
ered." "The city was set fire to at more than 
twelve points, and, except the cathedral and 
about fifty houses, sank into soot and ashes. It 
was not Tilly and his men, but Magdeburg's 
own people, who kindled the city to a conflagra- 
tion." — History of the Thirty Years' War, Jay 
Anton Gindeley, 1885, ii. 65, 66.] 



Scene i.] 



WERNER 



86s 



Wallenstein either; — they are gone 

to 

Eric. Rest ! 

But what beyond 'tis not ours to pro- 
nounce. 
Hen. I wish they had left us some- 
thing of their rest: 
The country (nominally now at peace) 
Is over-run with — God knows who : 
they fly 51 

By night, and disappear with sunrise; 

but 
Leave us no less desolation, nay, even 

more, 
Than the most open warfare. 

Eric. But Count Ulric — 

What has all this to do wuth him? 
Hen. With him! 

He might prevent it. As you say, 

he's fond 

Of war, why makes he it not on those 
marauders ? 
Eric. You'd better ask himself. 
Hen. I would as soon 

Ask the lion why he laps not milk. 
Eric. And here he comes! 
Hen. The devil! you'll hold 

your tongue? 60 

Eric. Why do you turn so pale? 
Hen. 'Tis nothing — but 

Be silent. 

Eric. I will, upon what you have 

said. 
Hen. I assure you I meant nothing, 
— a mere sport 
Df words, no more; besides, had it 

been otherwise, 
He is to espouse the gentle Baroness 
^da of Stralenheim, the late Baron's 

heiress ; 
\nd she, no doubt, will soften whatso- 
ever 
Df fierceness the late long intestine 

wars 
Save given all natures, and most unto 

those 

A^ho were born in them, and bred up 
upon 70 

The knees of Homicide; sprinkled, as 

it were, 
Vith blood even at their baptism. 

Prithee, peace 
)f all that I have said ! 

3K 



Enter Ulric and Rodolph. 

Good morrow, Count. 
Ulr. Good morrow, worthy Hen- 
rick. Eric, is 
All ready for the chase? 

Eric. The dogs are ordered 

Down to the forest, and the vassals 

out 
To beat the bushes, and the day looks 

promising. 
Shall I call forth your Excellency's 

suite ? 
What courser will you please to mount ? 
Ulr. The dun, 

Walstein. 

Eric. I fear he scarcely has re- 
covered 80 
The toils of Monday: 'twas a noble 

chase : 
You speared four with your own hand, 
Ulr. True, good Eric; 

I had forgotten — let it be the grey, 

then. 
Old Ziska: he has not been out this 
fortnight. 
Eric. He shall be straight capari- 
soned. How many 
Of your immediate retainers shall 
Escort you ? 

Ulr. I leave that to Weilburgh, our 
Master of the horse. [Exit Eric. 

Rodolph ! 
Rod. My Lord! 

Ulr. The news 

Is awkward from the 

[Rodolph points to Henrick. 
How" now, Henrick? why 
Loiter you here ? 

Hen. For your commands, my 

Lord. go 

Ulr. Go to my father, and present 
my duty. 
And learn if he would aught with me 

before 

I mount. [Exit Henrick. 

Rodolph, our friends have 

had a check 

Upon the frontiers of Franconia, and 

'Tis rumoured that the column sent 

against them 
Is to be strengthened. I must join 
them soon. 



866 



WERNER 



[Act IV 



Rod. Best wait for further and more 

sure advices. 
Ulr. I mean it — and indeed it 

could not well 
Have fallen out at a time more oppo- 
site 
To all my plans. 

Rod. It will be difficult 

To excuse your absence to the Count 

your father. loi 

Ulr. Yes, but the unsettled state 

of our domain 
In high Silesia will permit and cover 
My journey. In the mean time, when 

we are 
Engaged in the chase, draw off the 

eighty men 
Whom Wolffe leads — keep the forests 

on your route : 
You know it well? 

Rod. As well as on that night 

When we 

Ulr. We will not speak of that until 
We can repeat the same with like suc- 
cess: 
And when you have joined, give 

Rosenberg this letter. {Gives a 

letter. no 

Add further, that I have sent this 

slight addition 
To our force with you and Wolffe, as 

herald of 
My coming, though I could but spare 

them ill 
At this time, as my father loves to keep 
Full numbers of retainers round the 

castle, 
Until this marriage, and its feasts and 

fooleries. 
Are rung out with its peal of nuptial 

nonsense. 
Rod. I thought you loved the lady 

Ida? 
Ulr. Why, ^ 

I do so — but it follows not from that 
I would bind in my youth and glorious 

years i 20 

So brief and burning, with a lady's 

zone. 
Although 'twere that of Venus : — but 

I love her. 
As woman should be loved — fairly 

and solely. 



Rod. And constantly? 
Ulr. I think so; for I love 

Nought else. — But I have not the 

time to pause 
Upon these gewgaws of the heart. 

Great things 
We have to do ere long. Speed ! speed ! 
good Rodolph ! 
Rod. On my return, however, I 
shall find 
The Baroness Ida lost in Countess 
Siegendorf ? 
Ulr. Perhaps: my father wishes it, 
and, sooth, 130 

'Tis no bad policy: this union with 
The last bud of the rival branch at 

once 
Unites the future and destroys the 
past. 
Rod. Adieu. 

Ulr. Yet hold — we had better 

keep together 
Until the chase begins; then draw thou 

off. 
And do as I have said. 

Rod. I will. But to 

Return — 'twas a most kind act in the 

count 
Your father to send up to Konigs- 

berg 
For this fair orphan of the Baron, 

and 
To hail her as his daughter. 

Ulr. Wondrous kind ! 140 

Especially as little kindness till 
Then grew between them. 

Rod. The late Baron died 

Of a fever, did he not ? 

Ulr. How should I know? 

Rod. I have heard it whispered there 
was something strange 
About his death — and even the place 

of it 
Is scarcely known. 

Ulr. Some obscure village on 

The Saxon or Silesian frontier. 

Rod. He 

Has left no testament — no farew^ell 
words ? 
Ulr. I am neither confessor nor 
notary, 
So cannot say. 

Rod. Ah! here's the lady Ida. 150 



l> 



Scene i. 



WERNER 



867 



Enter Ida Stralenheim. 

Ulr. You are early, my sweet 

cousin ! 
Ida. Not too early, 

Dear Ulric, if I do not interrupt you. 
Why do you call me "Cousin" ? 

Utr. (smiling). Are we not so? 

Ida. Yes, but I do not like the name ; 
methinks 
It sounds so cold, as if you thought 

upon 
Our pedigree, and only weighed our 
blood. 
Ulr. (starting). Blood! 

Ida. Why does yours start from 

your cheeks? 
Ulr. Aye! doth it? 

Ida. It doth — but no ! it rushes 
like a torrent 
Even to your brow again. 

Ulr. (recover ins; himself). And if it 
fled, 

It only was because your presence sent 
it 160 

Back to my heart, which beats for you, 
sweet Cousin ! 
Ida. "Cousin " again. 
Ulr. Nay, then, I'll call you sister. 
Ida. I like that name still worse. 
Would we had ne'er 
Been aught of kindred ! 

Ulr. (gloomily). Would we never 

had! 
Ida. Oh, heavens ! and can you wish 

that ? 
Ulr. Dearest Ida ! 

Did I not echo your own wish? 

Ida. Yes, Ulric, 

But then I wished it not with such a 

glance, 
\nd scarce knew what I said; but let 

me be 
Sister, or cousin, what you will, so that 
[ still to you am something. 

Ulr. You shall be 170 

t\ll — all 

Ida. And you to me are so already ; 
3ut I can wait. 
Ulr. Dear Ida! 

Ida. Call me Ida, 

/our Ida, for I would be yours, none 
else's — 



Indeed I have none else left, since my 

poor father — [She pauses. 

Ulr. You have mine — you have 

me. 
Ida. Dear Ulric, how I wish , 

My father could but view my happiness, 
Which wants but this ! 

Ulr. Indeed ! 

Ida. You would have loved him, 

He you; for the brave ever love each 

other: 
His manner was a little cold, his 

spirit 
Proud (as is birth's prerogative) ; but 
under 180 

This grave exterior Would you had 

known each other ! 
Had such as you been near him on his 

journey. 
He had not died without a friend to 

soothe 
His last and lonely moments. 

Ulr. Who savs that 1 

Ida. What? 

Ulr. That he died alone. 

Ida. The general rumour. 

And disappearance of his servants, who 

Have ne'er returned: that fever was 

most deadly. 
Which swept them all away. 

Ulr. If they were near him, 

He could not die neglected or alone. 

Ida. Alas ! what is a menial to a 

death-bed, 190 

When the dim eye rolls vainly round for 

what 
It loves ? — They say he died of a 
fever. 
Ulr. Say I 

It ivas so. 

Ida. I sometimes dream otherwise. 

Ulr. All dreams are false. 

Ida. And jet I see him as 

I see you. 
Ulr. Where ? 

Ida. In sleep — I see him lie 

Pale, bleeding, and a man with a raised 

knife 
Beside him. 

Ulr. But you do not see his face ? 

Ida. (looking at him). No! Oh, my 

God ! do you ? 
Ulr. Why do you ask? 



868 



WERNER 



[Act IV. 



Ida. Because you look as if you saw 

a murderer ! 
Ulr. {agitatedly). Ida, this is mere 
childishness; your weakness 200 
Infects me, to my shame: but as all 

feelings 
Of yours are common to me, it affects 
me. 

Prithee, sweet child, change 

Ida. Child, indeed ! I have 

Full fifteen summers ! [A bugle sounds. 

Rod. Hark, my Lord, the bugle ! 

Ida. {peevishly to Rodolph). Why 

need you tell him that? Can he 

not hear it 

Without your echo? 

Rod. Pardon me, fair Baroness ! 

Ida. I will not pardon you, unless 

you earn it 

By aiding me in my dissuasion of 

Count Ulric from the chase to-day. 

Rod. You will not, 

Lady, need aid of mine. 

Ulr. I must not now 210 

Forego it. 
Ida. But you shall ! 

Ulr. Shall! 

Ida. Yes, or be 

No true knight. — Come, dear Ulric ! 

yield to me 
In this, for this one day: the day looks 

heavy. 
And you are turned so pale and ill. 
Ulr. You jest. 

Ida. Indeed I do not : — ask of Ro- 
dolph. 
Rod. Truly 

My Lord, within this quarter of an hour 
You have changed more than e'er I saw 

you change 
In years. 

Ulr. 'Tis nothing; but if 'twere, 

the air 
Would soon restore me. I'm the true 

cameleon, 
And live but on the atmosphere; your 
feasts 220 

In castle halls, and social banquets, 

nurse not 
My spirit — I'm a forester and breather 
Of the steep moutain-tops, where I 

love all 
The eagles loves. 



Ida. Except his prey, I hope. 

Ulr. Sweet Ida, wish me a fair chase, 
and I 
Will bring you six boars' heads for 
trophies home. 
Ida. And will you not stay, then? 
You shall not go ! 
Come ! I will sing to you. 

Ulr. Ida, you scarcely 

Will make a soldier's wife. 

Ida, I do not wish 

To be so; for I trust these wars are 
over, 230 

And you will live in peace on your do- 
mains. 

E^iter Werner as Count Siegendorf. 

Ulr. My father, I salute you, and it 

grieves me 
With such brief greeting. — You have 

heard our bugle; 
The vassals wait. 

Sieg. So let them. — You forget 

To-morrow is the appointed festival 
In Prague ^ for peace restored. You 

are apt to follow 
The chase with such an ardour as will 

scarce 
Permit you to return to-day, or if 
Returned, too much fatigued to join 

to-morrow 
The nobles in our marshalled ranks. 
Ulr. You, Count, 240 

Will well supply the place of both — I 

am not 
A lover of these pageantries. 

Sieg. No, Ulric; 

It were not well that you alone of 

all 

Our young nobility 

Ida. And far the noblest 

In aspect and demeanour. 

Sieg. {to Ida). True, dear child, 

Though somewhat frankly said for a 

fair damsel. — 
But, Ulric, recollect too our position. 
So lately reinstated in our honours. 
Believe me, 'twould be marked in any 

house. 
But most in ours, that one should be 

found wanting 250 

' [The Treaty of Prague was signed May 30, 
1635.] 



Scene i.] 



WERNER 



869 



At such a time and place. Besides, 

the Heaven 
Which gave us back our own, in the 

same moment 
It spread its peace o'er all, hath double 

• claims- 
On us for thanksgiving: first, for our 

country; 
And next, that we are here to share its 
blessings. 
Ulr. {aside). Devout, too! Well, 
Sir, I obey at once. {Then aloud 
to a servant.) 
Ludwig, dismiss the train without ! 
[Exit Ludwig. 
Ida. And so 

You yield, at once, to him what I for 

hours 
Might supplicate in vain. 

Sieg. {smiling). You are not jealous 

Of me, I trust, my pretty rebel ! who 

Would sanction disobedience against all 

Except thyself? But fear not; thou 

shalt rule him 262 

Hereafter with a fonder sway and firmer. 

Ida. But I should like to govern noiv. 

Sieg. You shall, 

Your harp, which by the way awaits 

you with 
The Countess in her chamber. She 

complains 
That you are a sad truant to your 

music: 
She attends you. 

Ida. Then good morrow, my kind 
kinsmen I 
Ulric, you'll come and hear me? 

Ulr. By and by. 

Ida. Be sure I'll sound it better than 

your bugles; 270 

Then pray you be as punctual to its 

notes: 
I'll play you King Gustavus' march. 

Ulr. And why not 

Old Tilly's? 

Ida. Not that monster's! I should 
think 
My harp-strings rang with groans, and 

not with music, 
Could aught of his sound on it: — but 

come quickly; 
Your mother will be eager to receive you. 
[Exit Ida. 



Sieg. Ulric, I wish to speak with you 

alone. 
Ulr. My time's your vassal. — 
{Aside to RoDOLPH.) Rodolph, hence! 

and do 
As I directed: and by his best speed 
And readiest means let Rosenberg reply. 
Rod. Count Siegendorf, command 
you aught? I am bound 281 

Upon a journey past the frontier. 

Sieg. {starts). Ah ! — 

Where? on what frontier? 

Rod. The Silesian, on 

My way — {Aside to Ulric.) — Where 
shall I say? 
Ulr. {aside to Rodolph). To Ham- 
burgh. 

{Aside to himself.) That 
Word will, I think, put a firm padlock 

on 
His further inquisition. 

Rod. Count, to Hamburgh. 

Sieg. {agitated). Hamburgh! No, I 
have nought to do there, nor 
Am aught connected with that city. 

Then 
God speed you ! 

Rod. Fare ye well. Count Siegendorf ! 

[Exit Rodolph. 

Sieg. Ulric, this man, vv'ho has just 

departed, is 290 

One of those strange companions whom 

I fain 
Would reason with you on. 

Ulr. My Lord, he is 

Noble by birth, of one of the first houses 
In Saxony. 

Sieg. I talk not of his birth, 

But of his bearing. Men speak lightly 
of him. 
Ulr. So they will do of most men. 
Even the monarch 
Is not fenced from his chamberlain's 

slander, or 
The sneer of the last courtier whom he 

has made 
Great and ungrateful. 

Sieg. If I must be plain. 

The world speaks more than lightly of 

this Rodolph: 300 

They say he is leagued with the "black 

bands" who still 
Ravage the frontier. 



870 



WERNjiR 



[Act IV, 



Ulr. And will you believe 

The world? 

Sieg. In this case — yes. 

Ulr. In any case, 

I thought you knew it better than to take 
An accusation for a sentence. 

Sieg. Son ! 

I understand you: you refer to but 

My destiny has so involved about me 
Her spider web, that I can only flutter 
Like the poor flv, but break it not. 

Take heed, 
Ulric; you have seen to what the pas- 
sions led me: 310 
Twenty long years of misery and famine 
Quenched them not — twenty thousand 

more, perchance. 
Hereafter (or even here in moments 

which 
Might date for years, did Anguish make 

the dial). 
May not obliterate or expiate 
The madness and dishonour of an in- 
stant. 
Ulric, be warned by a father ! — I was 

not 
Bv mine, and vou behold me ! 

'Ulr. ' I behold 

The prosperous and beloved Siegendorf, 
Lord of a Prince's appanage, and 

honoured 320 

By those he rules and those he ranks 

with. 
Sieg. Ah ! 

Why wilt thou call me prosperous, while 

I fear 
For thee? Beloved, when thou lovest 

me not ! 
All hearts but one may beat in kindness 

for me — 

But if my son's is cold ! 

Ulr. Who dare say that? 

Sieg. None else but I, who see it — 

feel it — keener 
Than would your adversary, who dared 

say so. 
Your sabre in his heart I But mine 

survives 
The wound. 

Ulr. You err. My nature is 

not given 
To outward fondUng: how should it be 

so, 330 



After twelve years' divorcement from my 

parents ? 
Sieg. And did not / too pass those 

twelve torn years 
In a hke absence ? But 'tis vain to urge 

you — 
Nature was never called back by re- 
monstrance. 
Let's change the theme. I wish you to 

consider 
That these young violent nobles of high 

name. 
But dark deeds (aye, the darkest, if all 

Rumour 
Reports be true), with whom thou 

consortest. 

Will lead thee 

Ulr. {impatiently). I'll be led by no 

man. 
Sieg. Nor 

Be leader of such, I would hope: at 

once 340 

To wean thee from the perils of thy 

youth 
And haughty spirit, I have thought it 

well 
That thou shouldst wed the lady Ida — 

more 
As thou appear' st to love her. 

Ulr. I have said 

I will obey your orders, were they to 
Unite with Hecate — can a son say 

more? 
Sieg. He says too much in saying 

this. It is not 
The nature of thine age, nor of thy 

blood. 
Nor of thy temperament, to talk so 

coolly, 
Or act so carelessly, in that which 

is 350 

The bloom or blight of all men's happi- 
ness, 
(For Glory's pillow is but restless, if 
Love lay not down his cheek there): 

some strong bias. 
Some master fiend is in thy service, to 
Misrule the mortal who beheves him 

slave. 
And makes his every thought subser- 
vient; else 
Thou'dst say at once — "I love young 
Ida, and 



Scene i.] 



WERNER 



871 



Will wed her;" or, "I love her not, and 

all 
The powers on earth shall never make 

me." — So 
Would / have answered. 

Ulr. Sir, you wed for love. 360 

Sieg. I did, and it has been my only 
refuge 
In many miseries. 

Ulr. Which miseries 

Had never been but for this love-match. 

Sieg. Still 

Against your age and nature ! Who at 

twenty 
E'er answered thus till now? 

Ulr. Did you not warn me 

Against your own example? 

Sieg. Boyish sophist ! 

In a word, do you love, or love not, Ida ? 

Ulr. What matters it, if I am ready to 
Obey you in espousing her? 

Sieg. As far 

As you feel, nothing — but all life for 



her. 



370 
adores 



She's young — all-beautiful 

you — is 

Endowed with qualities to give happi- 
ness, 
Such as rounds common Hfe into a 

dream 
Of something which your poets cannot 

paint. 
And (if it were not wisdom to love 

virtue), 
For which Philosophy might barter 

Wisdom ; 

\nd giving so much happiness, deserves 
\ little in return. I would not have her 
Break her heart with a man who has 

none to break ! 
3r wither on her stalk like some pale 

rose 380 

Deserted by the bird she thought a 

nightingale, 
\ccording to the Orient tale. She 

is 

Ulr. The daughter of dead Stralen- 

heim, your foe: 
1 wed her, ne'ertheless; though, to 

say truth. 

Just now I am not violently transported 
[n favour of such unions. 
Sieg. But she loves you. 



Ulr. And I love her, and therefore 

would think twice. 
Sieg. Alas ! Love never did so. 
Ulr. Then 'tis time 

He should begin, and take the bandage 

from 
His eyes, and look before he leaps; till 
now 3go 

He hath ta'en a jump i' the dark. 
Sieg. But you consent? 

Ulr. I did, and do. 
Sieg. Then fix the day. 

Ulr. 'Tis usual. 

And, certes, courteous, to leave that to 
the lady. 
Sieg. I will engage for her. 
Ulr. So will not I 

For any woman: and as w^hat I fix, 
I fain would see unshaken, when she 

gives 
Her answer, I'll give mine. 

Sieg. But 'tis your office 

To woo. 

Ulr. Count, 'tis a marriage of your 
making, 
So be it of your wooing; but to please 

you, 
I will now pay my duty to my mother, 
With whom, you know, the lady Ida 
is. — 401 



What would 



have ? You have for- 



bid my stirring 
For manly sports beyond the castle 

walls. 
And I obey; you bid me turn a cham- 

berer, 
To pick up gloves, and fans, and 

knitting-needles. 
And list to songs and tunes, and watch 

for smiles. 
And smile at pretty prattle, and look into 
The eyes of feminine, as though they 

were 
The stars receding early to our wish 
Upon the dawn of a w^orld-winning 

battle — 410 

What can a son or man do more? 

[Exit Ulric. 

Sieg. (solus). Too much! — 

Too much of duty, and too little love ! 

He pays me in the coin he owes me not: 

For such hath been my wayward fate I 

could not 



872 



WERNER 



[Act IV. 



Fulfil a parent's duties by his side 
Till now; but love he owes me, for my 

thoughts 
Ne'er left him, nor my eyes longed with- 
out tears 
To see my child again, — and now I 

have found him ! 
But how! obedient, but with coldness; 

duteous 
In my sight, but with carelessness; 

mysterious — ■ 420 

Abstracted — distant — much given to 

long absence, 
And where — none know — in league 

with the most riotous 
Of our young nobles; though, to do him 

justice, 
He never stoops down to their vulgar 

pleasures; 
Yet there's some tie between them which 

I cannot 
Unravel. They look up to him — con- 
sult him — 
Throng round him as a leader: but with 

me 
He hath no confidence ! Ah ! can I 

hope it 
After — what ! doth my father's curse 

descend 
Even to my child? Or is the Hun- 
garian near 430 
To shed more blood ? or — Oh ! if it 

should be ! 
Spirit of Stralenheim, dost thou walk 

these walls 
To wither him and his — who, though 

they slew not. 
Unlatched the door of Death for thee? 

'Twas not 
Our fault, nor is our sin: thou wert our 

foe. 
And yet I spared thee when my own 

destruction 
Slept with thee, to awake with thine 

awakening ! 
And only took — Accursed gold ! thou 

liest 
Like poison in my hands; I dare not 

use thee. 
Nor part from thee; thou camest in 

such a guise, 440 

Methinks thou wouldst contaminate, all 

hands 



Like mine. Yet I have done, to atone 

for thee. 
Thou villainous gold ! and thy dead 

master's doom. 
Though he died not by me or mine, as 

much 
As if he were my brother ! 1 have 

ta'en 
His orphan Ida — cherished her as 

one 
Who will be mine. 

Enter an Attendant. 

Atten. The Abbot, if it please 

Your Excellency, whom you sent for, 

waits 
Upon you. \^Exit Attendant. 

Enter the Prior Albert. 

Prior. Peace be with these walls, and 

all 
Within them! 

Sieg. Welcome, welcome, holy 

father ! 450 

And may thy prayer be heard ! — all 

men have need 

Of such, and I 

Prior. Have the first claim to all 

The prayers of our community. Our 

convent, 
Erected by your ancestors, is still 
Protected by their children. 

Sieg. Yes, good father; 

Continue daily orisons for us 
In these dim days of heresies and 

blood. 
Though the schismatic Swede, Gusta- 

vus, is 
Gone home. 

Prior. To the endless home of 

unbelievers, 
Where there is everlasting wail and woe, 
Gnashing of teeth, and tears of blood, 

and fire 461' 

Eternal and the worm which dieth not ! 

Sieg. True, father: and to avert 

those pangs from one. 
Who, though of our most faultless holy'j 

Church, 
Yet died without its last and deares 

offices. 
Which smooth the soul through purga 

torial pains, 



SCENE I. 



WERNER 



873 



1 have to offer humbly this donation 
In masses for his spirit. 

[SiEGENDORF offers the gold which 
he had taken/rout Stralenheim. 
Prior. Count, if I 

Receive it, 'tis because I know too well 
Refusal would offend you. Be assured 
The largess shall be only dealt in alms. 
And every mass no less sung for the 
dead. 472 

Our House needs no donations, thanks 

to yours. 
Which has of old endowed it; but from 

you 
And yours in all meet things 'tis fit we 

obey. 

For whom shall mass be said? 
Sieg. (faltering). For — 

for — the dead. 
Prior. His name? 

Sieg. 'Tis from a soul, 

and not a name, 
I would avert perdition. 

Prior. I meant not 

To pry into your secret. We will pray 

For one unknown, the same as for the 

proudest. 480 

Sieg. Secret ! I have none : but, 

father, he who's gone 

j Might have one; or, in short, he did 

bequeath — 
No, not bequeath — but I bestow this 

sum 
For pious purposes. 

Prior. A proper deed 

In the behalf of our departed friends. 
Sieg. But he who's gone was not my 
friend, but foe, 
The deadliest and the stanchest. 

Prior. Better still ! 

To employ our means to obtain Heaven 

for the souls 
Of our dead enemies is worthy those 
Who can forgive them living. 

Sieg. But I did not 490 

Forgive this man. I loathed him to the 

last. 
As he did me. I do not love him now. 

But ■ 

Prior. Best of all ! for this is pure 
religion ! 
You fain would rescue him you hate ' 
from hell — 



An evangelical compassion — with 
Your own gold too ! 

Sieg. Father, 'tis not my gold. 

Prior. Whose, then? You said it 

was no legacy. 
Sieg. No matter whose — of this be 
sure, that he 
Who owned it never more will need it, 

save 
In that which it may purchase from your 
altars: 500 

'Tis yours, or theirs. 

Prior. Is there no blood upon it? 
Sieg. No; but there's worse than 

blood — eternal shame ! 
Prior. Did he who owned it die in his 

bed? 
Sieg. Alas ! 
He did. 

Prior. Son ! you relapse into revenge, 
If you regret your enemy's bloodless 
death. 
Sieg. His death was fathomlessly 

deep in blood. 
Prior. You said he died in his bed, 

not battle. 
Sieg. He 

Died, I scarce know — but — he was 

stabbed i' the dark, 
And now you have it — perished on his 

pillow 
By a cut-throat ! — Aye ! — you may 
look upon me! 510 

I am not the man. I'll meet your eye 

on that point. 
As I can one day God's. 

Prior. Nor did he die 

By means, or men, or instrument of 
yours ? 
Sieg. No ! by the God who sees and 

strikes ! 
Prior. Nor know you 

Who slew him? 

Sieg. I could only guess at one, 

And he to me a stranger, unconnected, 
As unemployed. Except -by one day's 

knowledge, 

I never saw the man who was suspected. 

Prior. Then you are free from guilt. 

Sieg. (eagerly). Oh ! am I ? — say ! 

Prior. You have said so, and know 

best. 
Sieg. Father! I have spoken 



874 



WERNER 



[Act v. 






The truth, and nought but truth, if not 

the whole; 521 

Yet say I am not guilty ! for the blood 
Of this man weighs on me as if I shed it, 
Though, by the Power who abhorreth 

human blood, 
I did not ! — nay, once spared it, when 

I might 
And could — aye, perhaps, should (if 

our self-safety 
Be e'er excusable in such defences 
Against the attacks of over-potent foes) : 
But pray for him, for me, and all my 

house ; 
For, as I said, though I be innocent, 530 
I know not why, a like remorse is on me. 
As if he had fallen by me or mine. Pray 

for me. 
Father ! I have prayed myself in vain. 
Prior. I will. 

Be comforted ! You are innocent, and 

should 
Be calm as innocence. 

Sieg. But calmness is not 

Always the attribute of innocence. 
I feel it is not. 

Prior. But it will be so. 

When the mind gathers up its truth 

within it. 
Remember the great festival to-morrow. 
In which you rank amidst our chiefest 

nobles, 540 

As well as your brave son; and smooth 

your aspect, 
Nor in the general orison of thanks 
For bloodshed stopt, let blood you shed 

not rise, 
A cloud, upon your thoughts. This 

were to be 
Too sensitive. Take comfort, and forget 
Such things, and leave remorse unto the 
guilty. [Exeunt. 

ACT V. 

Scene I. — A large and magnificent 
Gothic Hnll in the Castle o/Siegen- 
DORF, decorated with Trophies, Ban- 
ners, and Arms of that Family. 

Enter Arnheim and Meister, attendants 
of Count Siegendorf. 

Am. Be quick! the Count will soon 
return: the ladies 



Already are at the portal. Have you 

sent 
The messengers in search of him he 

seeks for? 
Meis. I have, in all directions, over 

Prague 
As far as the man's dress and figure 

could 
By your description track him. The 

devil take 
These revels and processions ! All the 

pleasure 
(If such there be) must fall to the 

spectators, — 
I'm sure none doth to us who make the 

show. 
Am. Go to! my Lady Countess 

comes. 
Meis. I'd rather 10 

Ride a day's hunting on an outworn jade, 
Than follow in the train of a great man, 
In these dull pageantries. 

Am. Begone! and rail 

Within. [Exeunt. 

Enter the Countess Josephine Siegen- 
dorf and Ida Stralenheim. 

Jos. Well, Heaven be praised! the 

show is over. 
Ida. How can you say so? Never 

have I dreamt 
Of aught so beautiful. The flowers, the 

boughs. 
The banners, and the nobles, and the 

knights. 
The gems, the robes, the plumes, the 

happy faces. 
The coursers, and the incense, and the 

sun 
Streaming through the stained windows, 

even the tombs, 2C 

Which looked so calm, and the celestial 

hymns, 
Which seemed as if they rather came 

from Heaven 
Than mounted there — the bursting 

organ's peal 
Rolling on high Uke an harmonious 

thunder; 
The white robes and the lifted eyes; 

the world 
At peace ! and all at peace with one 

another ! 



Scene i.] 



WERNER 



875 



Oh, my sweet mother ! 

[Embracing Josephine. 

Jos. My beloved child ! 

For such, I trust, thou shalt be shortly. 

Ida. Oh ! " 

I am so already. Feel how my heart 
beats ! 
Jos. It does, my love; and never 
may it throb 30 

Nith aught more bitter. 

Ida. Never shall it do so ! 

low should it? What should make us 

grieve? I hate 
To hear of sorrow: how can we be 

sad, 
Vho love each other so entirely? 

You, 

The Count, and Ulric, and your daugh- 
ter Ida. 
Jos. Poor child ! 
Ida. Do you pity me? 
Jos. No: I but envy, 

f\.nd that in sorrow, not in the world's 

sense 

Of the universal vice, if one vice be 
More general than another. 

Ida. I'll not hear 

A word against a world which still con- 
tains 40 
k^ou and my Ulric. Did you ever see 
Vught like him? How he towered 
amongst them all ! 
ow all eyes followed him ! The 
flowers fell faster — 
Rained from each lattice at his feet, 

methought. 
Than before all the rest; and where 

he trod 
I dare be sworn that they grow still, 

nor e'er 
Will wither. 
Jos. You will spoil him, little flat- 
terer, 
[f he should hear you. 

Ida. But he never will. 

I dare not say so much to him — I fear 
him. 
Jos. Why so? he loves you well. 
Ida. But I can never 50 

Shape my thoughts of him into words 

to him: 

Besides, he sometimes frightens me. 
Jos. How so? 



Ida. A cloud comes o'er his blue 
eyes suddenly. 
Yet he says nothing. 

Jos. It is nothing: all men, 

Especially in these dark troublous times, 
Have much to think of. 

Ida. But I cannot think 

Of aught save him. 

Jos. Yet there are other men. 

In the world's eye, as goodly. There's 

for instance, 
The young Count Waldorf, who scarce 

once withdrew 
His eyes from yours to-day. 

Ida. I did not see him, 60 

But Ulric. Did you not see at the 

moment 
When all knelt, and I wept? and yet, 

methought, 
Through my fast tears, though they 

were thick and warm, 
I saw him smiling on me. 

Jos. I could not 

See aught save Heaven, to which my 

eyes were raised, 
Together with the people's. 

Ida. I thought too 

Of Heaven, although I looked on Ulric. 

Jos. Come, 

Let us retire ! they will be here anon, 

Expectant of the banquet. We will 

lay 
Aside these nodding plumes and drag- 
ging trains. 70 
Ida. And, above all, these stiff and 
heavy jewels. 
Which make my head and heart ache, 

as both throb 
Beneath their glitter o'er my brow and 

zone. 
Dear mother, I am with you. 
Enter Count Siegendorf, in full dress, 
from the solemnity, and Ludwig. 
Sieg. Is he not found ? 

Lud. Strict search is making every- 
where; and if 
The man be in Prague, be sure he will 
be found. 
Sieg. Where's Ulric? 
Lud. He rode round the other way 
With some young nobles; but he left 

them soon; 
And, if I err not, not a minute since 



876 



WERNER 



[Act V 



I heard his Excellency, with his train, 80 
Gallop o'er the west drawbridge. 
Enter Uleic, splendidly dressed. 
Sieg. {to Ludwig). See they cease not 
Their quest of him I have described. 

[Exit Ludwig. 
Oh, Ulric ! 
How have I longed for thee ! 

Ulr. Your wish is granted — 
Behold me ! 

Sieg. I have seen the murderer. 

Ulr. Whom? Where? 

Sieg. The Hungarian, who slew 

Stralenheim. 
Ulr. You dream. 

Sieg. I live ! and as I live, I saw 
him — 
Heard him ! he dared to utter even 
my name. 
Ulr. What name? 
Sieg. Werner ! Hwas mine. 

Ulr. It must be so 

No more: forget it. 

Sieg. Never! never! all 

My destinies were woven in that name: 

It will not be engraved upon my 

tomb, 91 

But it may lead me there. 

Ulr. To the point — the Hun- 

garian ? 
Sieg. Listen ! — The church was 
thronged : the hymn was raised ; — 
" Te Deutn" pealed from nations rather 

than 
From choirs, in one great cry of "God 

be praised" 
For one day's peace, after thrice ten 

dread years, 
Each bloodier than the former : I arose, 
With all the nobles, and as I looked 

down 
Along the lines of lifted faces, — from 
Our bannered and escutcheoned gal- 
lery, I 100 
Saw, like a flash of lightning (for I saw 
A moment and no more), what struck 

me sightless 
To all else — the Hungarian's face ! 

I grew 
Sick; and when I recovered from the 

mist 
Which curled about my senses, and 
again 



Looked down, I saw him not. The 

thanksgiving 
Was over, and we marched back in 

procession. 
Ulr. Continue. 
Sieg. When we reached the Mul- 

dau's bridge. 
The joyous crowd above, the numberless 
Barks manned with revellers in their 

best garbs, 1 10 

Which shot along the glancing tide 

below. 
The decorated street, the long array, 
The clashing music, and the thundering 
Of far artillery, which seemed to bid 
A long and loud farewell to its great 

doings, 
The standards o'er me, and the tramp- 
lings round, 
The roar of rushing thousands, — all — 

all could not 
Chase this man from my mind, although 

my senses 
No longer held him palpable. 

Ulr. You saw him 

No more, then? 

Sieg. I looked, as a dying soldier 120 
Looks at a draught of water, for this 

man; 
But still I saw him not; but in his 

stead 

Ulr. What in his stead ? 

Sieg. ■ My eye for ever fell 

Upon your dancing crest; the loftiest. 

As on the loftiest and the loveliest 

head. 
It rose the highest of the stream of 

plumes. 
Which overflowed the glittering streets 

of Prague. 
Ulr. What's this to the Hungarian? 
Sieg. Much ! for I 

Had almost then forgot him in my 

son; 
When just as the artillery ceased, and 

paused 130 

The music, and the crowd embraced 

in lieu 
Of shouting, I heard in a deep, low 

voice. 
Distinct and keener far upon my ear 
Than the late cannon's volume, this 

word — " Werner / " 



Scene i.] 



WERNER 



877 



Ulr. Uttered by 

Sieg. Him ! I turned — and saw — 

and fell. 
Ulr. And wherefore ? Were you seen ? 
Sieg. The officious care 

Of those around me dragged me from 

the spot, 
Seeing my faintness, ignorant of the 

cause : 
You, too, were too remote in the pro- 
cession 
(The old nobles being divided from their 
children) 140 

To aid me. 

Ulr. But I'll aid you now. 

Sieg. In what? 

Ulr. In searching for this man, or 

When he's found, 

What shall we do with him? 

Sieg. I know not that. 

Ulr. Then wherefore seek ? 
Sieg. Because I cannot rest 

Till he is found. His fate, and Stralen- 

heim's. 
And ours, seem intertwisted ! nor can be 

Unravelled, till 

Enter an Attendant. 
Atten. A stranger to wait on 

Your Excellency. 

Sieg. Who ? 

Atten. He gave no name. 

Sieg. Admit him, ne'ertheless. 
{The Attendant introduces Gabor, 
and afterwards exit. 
Ah! 
Gah. 'Tis then Werner ! 

Sieg. (haughtily). The same you 
knew. Sir, by that name ; and you ! 
Gah. (looking round). I recognise you 
both: father and son, • 151 

It seems. Count, I have heard that you, 

or yours. 
Have lately been in search of me : I am 
here. 
Sieg. I have sought you, and have 
found you: you are charged 
(Your own heart may inform you why) 

with such 
A crime as — — • [He pauses. 

Gab. Give it utterance, and then 

I'll meet the consequences. 

Sieg. You shall do so — 

Unless 



Gah. First, who accuses me? 
Sieg. All things, 

If not all men : the universal rumour — 
My own presence on the spot — the 
place - — the time — 160 

And every speck of circumstance unite 
To fix the blot on you. 

Gah. And on me only ? 

Pause ere you answer: is no other 

name. 
Save mine, stained in this business? 

Sieg. Trifling villain ! 

Who play'st with thine own guilt ! Of 

all that breathe 
Thou best dost know the innocence of 

him 
'Gainst whom thy breath would blow 

thy bloody slander. 
But I will talk no further with a wretch. 
Further than justice asks. Answer at 

once. 
And without quibbling, to my charge. 
Gah. 'Tis false! 170 

Sieg. Who says so ? 
Gah. I. 

Sieg. And how disprove it ? 

Gah. By 

The presence of the murderer. 
Sieg. Name him. 

Gah. He 

May have more names than one. Your 

Lordship had so 
Once on a time. 

Sieg. If you mean me, I dare 

Your utmost. 

Gah. You may do so, and in safety; 
I know the assassin. 

Sieg. Where is he? 

Gah. (pointing to Vl^ic). Beside you ! 
[U'L'RiC r us lies forward to attack Ga- 
bor ; SiEGENDORF interposes. 
Sieg. Liar and fiend ! but you shall 
not be slain; 
These walls are mine, and you are 

safe within them. 
Ulric, repel this calumny, as I 

[He turns to Ulric. 
Will do. I avow it is a growth so mon- 
strous, 180 
I could not deem it earth-born: but be 

calm; 
It will refute itself. But touch him not. 
[Ulric endeavours to compose himself. 



878 



WERNER 



[Act v. 



Gab. Look at him, Count, and then 

hear me. 
Sieg. {-first to Gabor, and then looking 
at Ulric). 

I hear thee. 

My God ! you look 

Ulr. How? 

Sieg. As on that dread night, 

When we met in the garden. 

Ulr. {composing himself). It is noth- 
ing. 
Gab. Count, you are bound to hear 
me. I came hither 
Not seeking you, but sought. When 

I knelt down 
Amidst the people in the church, I 

dreamed not 
To find the beggared Werner in the seat 
Of Senators and Princes; but you have 
called me, 190 

And we have met. 

Sieg. Go on, Sir. 

Gab. Ere I do so, 

Allow me to inquire, who profited 
By Stralenheim's death? Was't I — 

as poor as ever, 
And poorer by suspicion on my name? 
The Baron lost in that last outrage 

neither 
Jewels nor gold; his life alone was 

sought. — 
A life which stood between the claims 

of others 
To honours and estates scarce less than 
princely. 
Sieg. These hints, as vague as vain, 
attach no less 
'To me than to my son. 

Gab. I can't help that. 200 

But let the consequence alight on him 
Who feels himself the guilty one amongst 

us. 
I speak to you. Count Siegendorf, 

because 
I know you innocent, and deem you just. 
But ere I can proceed — dare you pro- 
tect me? 
Dare you command me? 

[Siegendorf first looks at the Hun- 
garian, and then at Ulric, who 
has unbuckled his sabre, and is 
drawing lines with it on the 
floor — still in its sheath. 



Ulr. {looks at his father, and says). 

Let the man go on ! 
Gab. I am unarmed. Count, bid your 

son lay down 
His sabre. 

Ulr. {offers it to him contemptuously). 

Take it. 
Gab. No, Sir, 'tis enough 

That we are both unarmed — I would 

not choose 
To wear a steel which may be stained 

with more 210 

Blood than came there in battle. 

Ulr. {casts the sabre from him in 

contempt). It — or' some 
Such other weapon in my hand — 

spared yours 
Once, when disarmed and at my mercy. 
Gab. True — 

I have not forgotten it: you spared 

me for 
Your own especial purpose — to sustain 
An ignominy not my own. 

Ulr. Proceed. 

The tale is doubtless worthy the relater. 

But is it of my father to hear further? 

[To Siegendorf. 

Sieg. {takes his son by the hand). My 

son, I know my own innocence, 

and doubt not 
Of yours — but I have promised this 

man patience; 220 

Let him continue. 

Gab. I will not detain you. 

By speaking of myself much: I began 
Life early — and am what the world 

has made me. 
At Frankfort on the Oder, where I 

passed 
A winter in obscurity, it was 
My chance at several places of resort 
(Which I frequented sometimes, but 

not often) 
To hear related a strange circumstance 
In February last. A martial force. 
Sent by the state, had, after strong 

resistance, 230 

Secured a band of desperate men, 

supposed 
Marauders from the hostile camp. — ■ 

They proved. 
However, not to be so — but banditti, 
Whom either accident or enterprise 



Scene i.] 



WERNER 



879 



Had carried from their usual haunt — 

the forests 
Which skirt Bohemia — even into 

Lusatia, 
Many amongst them were reported of 
High rank — and martial law slept for 

a time. 
At last they were escorted o'er the fron- 
tiers, 
And placed beneath the civil juris- 
diction 240 
Of the free town of Frankfort. Of 

iheir fate 
I know no more. 

Sieg. And what is this to Ulric ? 

Gab. Amongst them there was said 

to be one man 
Of wonderful endowments: — birth and 

fortune, 
Youth, strength, and beauty, almost 

superhuman. 
And courage as unrivalled, were pro- 

claim.ed 
His by the public rumour; and his svv'ay, 
Not only over his associates, but 
His judges, was attributed to witchcraft. 
Such was his influence: — I have no 

great faith 250 

In any magic save that of the mine — 
I therefore deemed him wealthy — But 

my soul 
Was roused with various feehngs to 

seek out 
This prodigy, if only to behold him. 
Sieg. And did you so ? 
Gab. You'll hear. 

Chance favoured me : 
A popular affray in the public square 
Drew crowds together — it was one of 

those 
Occasions where men's souls look out 

of them, 
And show them as they are — even in 

their faces: 
The moment my eye met his, I ex- 
claimed, 260 
"This is the man!" though he was 

then, as since. 
With the nobles of the city. I felt sure 
I had not erred, and watched him long 

and nearly; 
I noted down his form — his gesture — 

features, 



Stature, and bearing — and amidst 

them all, 
'Midst every natural and acquired dis- 
tinction, 
I could discern, methought, the assas- 
sin's eye 
And gladiator's heart. 

Ulr. (smiling). The tale sounds well. 
Gab. And may sound better. — He 

appeared to me 
One of those beings to whom Fortune 

bends, 270 

As she doth to the daring — and on 

whom 
The fates of others oft depend ; besides, 
An indescribable sensation drew me 
Near to this man, as if my point of 

fortune 
Was to be fixed by him. — There I 

was wrong. 
Sieg. And may not be right now. 
Gab. I followed him, 

Solicited his notice — and obtained it — 
Though not his friendship: — it was 

his intention 
To leave the city privately — we left it 
Together — and together we arrived 280 
In the poor town where Werner was 

concealed, 
And Stralenheim was succoured 

Now we are on 
The verge — dare you hear further ? 

Sieg. I must do so — 

Or I have heard too much. 

Gab. I saw in you 

A man above his station — and if not 
So high, as now I find you, in my then 
Conceptions, 'twas that I had rarely 

seen 
Men such as you appeared in height of 

mind. 
In the most high of worldly rank; you 

were 
Poor, even to all save rags: I would 

have shared 290 

My purse, though slender, with you — 

you refused it. 
Sieg. Doth my refusal make a debt 

to you 
That thus you urge it? 

Gab. Still you owe me something. 

Though not for that; and I owed you 

my safety. 



88o 



WERNER 



[Act v. 



At least my seeming safety, when the 

slaves 
Of Stralenheim pursued me on the 

grounds 
That / had robbed him. 

Sieg. I concealed you — I, 

Whom and whose house you arraign, 

reviving viper ! 
Gab. I accuse no man — save in my 

defence. 
You, Count, have made yourself 

accuser — judge: 300 

Your hall's my court, your heart is my 

tribunal. 
Be just, and I'll be merciful ! 

Sieg. You merciful ? — 

You ! Base calumniator ! 

Gab. I. 'Twill rest 

With me at last to be so. You con- 
cealed me — 
In secret passages known to yourself. 
You said, and to none else. At dead 

of night. 
Weary with watching in the dark, and 

dubious 
Of tracing back my way, I saw a glim- 
mer, 
Through distant crannies, of a twinkling 

light: 
I followed it, and reached a door — a 

secret 310 

Portal — which opened to the chamber, 

where. 
With cautious hand and slow, having 

first undone 
As much as made a crevice of the fasten- 
ing, 
I looked through and beheld a purple 

bed, 
And on it Stralenheim ! — 

Sieg. Asleep ! And yet 

You slew him ! — Wretch ! 

Gab. He was already slain. 

And bleeding like a sacrifice. My 

own 
Blood became ice. 

Sieg. But he was all alone ! 

You saw none else? You did not see 

the 

[He pauses from agitation. 
Gab. No, 

He, whom you dare not name, nor even 

I 320 



Scarce dare to recollect, was not then in 
The chamber. 

Sieg. (to Ulric). Then, my boy! 

thou art guiltless still — • 
Thou bad'st me say I was so once. — 

Oh! now 
Do thou as much. 

Gab. Be patient ! I cannot 

Recede now, though it shake the very 

walls 
Which frown above us. You remem- 
ber, — or 
If not, your son does, — that the locks 

were changed 
Beneath his chief inspection on the 

morn 
Which led to this same night: how he 

had entered 
He best knows — but within an ante- 
chamber 330 
The door of which was half ajar, I 

saw 
A man who washed his bloody hands, 

and oft 
With stern and anxious glance gazed 

back upon — 
The bleeding body — but it moved no 

more. 
Sieg. Oh! God of fathers ! 
Gab. I beheld his features 

As I see yours — but yours they were 

not, though 
Resembling them — behold them in 

Count Ulric's! 
Distinct as I beheld them, though the 

expression 
Is not now what it then was ! — but it 

was so 
When I first charged him with the 

crime — so lately. 340 

Sieg. This is so 

Gab. (interrupting him). Nay — but 

hear me to the end ! 
Now you must do so. — I conceived' 

myself 
Betrayed by you and hijn (for now I saw 
There was some tie between you) into 

this 
Pretended den of refuge, to become 
The victim of your guilt; and my firs 

thought 
Was vengeance: but though armec 

with a short poniard 



Scene i.] 



WERNER 



(Having left my sword without), I was 

no match 
For him at any time, as had been proved 
That morning — either in address or 

force. 350 

I turned and fled — i' the dark: chance 

rather than 
Skill made me gain the secret door of 

the hall, 
And thence the chamber where you 

slept: if I 
Had found you waking, Heaven alone 

can tell 
What vengeance and suspicion might 

have prompted; 
But ne'er slept guilt as Werner slept 

that night. 
Sieg. And yet I had horrid dreams! 

and such brief sleep, 
The stars had not gone down when 

I awoke. 
Why didst thou spare me? I dreamt 

of my father — 
And now my dream is out ! 

Gab. 'Tis not my fault, 360 

If I have read it. — Well ! I fled and 

hid me — 
Chance led me here after so many 

moons — 
And showed me Werner in Count 

Siegendorf ! 
Werner, whom I had sought in huts in 

vain. 
Inhabited the palace of a sovereign ! 
You sought me and have found me — 

now you know 
My secret, and may weigh its worth. 
Sieg. {after a pause). Indeed! 

Gah. Is it revenge or justice which 

inspires 
Your meditation? 

Sieg. Neither — I was weighing 

The value of your secret. 

Gab. You shall know it 370 

At once : — When you were poor, and I, 

I though poor, 
Rich enough to relieve such poverty 
As might have envied mine, I offered 

you 
My purse — you would not share it: — 

I'll be franker 
With you: you are wealthy, noble, 

trusted by 

3L 



The imperial powers — you understand 
me? 
Sieg. Yes. 

Gab. Not quite. You think me 
venal, and scarce true: 
'Tis no less true, however, that my 

fortunes 
Have made me both at present. You 

shall aid me: 
I would have aided you — and also 
have 380 

Been somewhat damaged in my name 

to save 
Yours and your son's. Weigh well 
what I have said. 
Sieg. Dare you await the event of 
a few minutes' 
DeUberation ? 

Gab. (casts his eyes on Ulric, who is 
leaning against a pillar). If I 
should do so? 
Sieg. I pledge my life for yours. 
Withdraw into 
This tower. [Opens a turret-door. 

Gab. {hesitatingly). This is the sec- 
ond safe asylum 
You have offered me. 

Sieg. And was not the first so? 

Gab. I know not that even now — 
but will approve 
The second. I have still a further 

shield. — 

I did not enter Prague alone; and 

should I 390 

Be put to rest with Stralenheim, there are 

Some tongues without will wag in my 

behalf. 
Be brief in your decision ! 

Sieg. I will be so. — 

My word is sacred and irrevocable 
Within these walls, but it extends no 
further. 
Gab. I'll take it for so much. 
Sieg. {points to Ulric's sabre, still 
upon the ground). 

Take also that — 
I saw you eye it eagerly, and him 
Distrustfully. 

Gab. {takes up the sabre). I will; and 
so provide 
To sell my life — not cheaply. 

[Gabor goes into the turret, which 
Siegendorf closes. 



882 



WERNER 



[Act v. 



N( 



Sieg. {advances to Ulric). 

Count Ulric ! 
For son I dare not call thee — What 

say'st thou? 400 

Ulr. His tale is true. 

Sieg. True, monster ! 

Ulr. Most true, father ! 

And you did well to listen to it: what 

We know, we can provide against. He 

must 
Be silenced. 

Sieg. Aye, with half of my domains; 
And with the other half, could he and 

thou 
Unsay this villany. 

Ulr. It is no time 

For trifling or dissembhng. I have said 
His story's true; and he too must be 

silenced. 
Sieg. How so? 
Ulr. As Stralenheim is. Are you 

so dull 
As never to hav.e hit on this before ? 410 
When we met in the garden, what except 
Discovery in the act could make me know 
His death ? Or had the Prince's house- 
hold been 
Then summoned, would the cry for the 

police 
Been left to such a stranger ? Or should I 
Have loitered on the wa,y? Or could 

you, Werner, 
The object of the Baron's hate and 

fears. 
Have fied, unless by many an hour 

before 
Suspicion woke ? I sought and fathomed 

you, 419 

Doubting if you were false or feeble: I 
Perceived you were the latter: and yet so 
Confiding have I found you, that I 

doubted 
At times your weakness. 

Sieg. Parricide ! no less 

Than common stabber ! What deed of 

my life, 
Or thought of mine, could make you 

deem me fit 
For your accomplice ? 

Ulr. Father, do not raise 

The devil you cannot lay between us. 

This 
Is time for union and for action, not 



For family disputes. While you were 

tortured, 
Could I be calm? Think you that I 

have heard 430 

This fellow's tale without some feeling? 

— You 
Have taught me feeling for you and 

myself; 
For whom or what else did you ever 

teach it? 
Sieg. Oh ! my dead father's curse ! 

'tis working now. 
Ulr. Let it work on ! the grave will 

keep it down ! 
Ashes are feeble foes: it is more easy 
To baffle such, than countermine a 

mole, 
Which winds its blind but living path 

beneath you. 
Yet hear me still ! — If you condemn 

me, yet 
Remember who hath taught me once 

too often 440 

To listen to him ! Who proclaimed to 

me 
That there were crimes made venial by 

the occasion? 
That passion was our nature ? that the 

goods 
Of Heaven waited on the goods of 

fortune ? 
Who showed me his humanity secured 
By his nerves only? Who deprived 

me of 
All power to vindicate myself and ra,ce 
In open day, by his disgrace, which 

stamped 
(It might be) bastardy on me, and on 
Himself — a felon'' s brand ? The man! 

who is 450: 

At once both warm and weak invites: 

to deeds 
He longs to do, but dare not. Is 

strange 
That I should act what you could think 

We have done 
With right and wrong; and now mu 

only ponder 
Upon effects, not causes. Stralenheim 
Whose life I saved from impulse, as 

iinknown, 
I would have saved a peasant's or • 

dog's, I slev/ 



Scene ii.] 



WERNER 



883 



Known as our foe — but not from 

vengeance. He 
Was a rock in our way which I cut 

through, 
As doth the bolt, because it stood be- 
tween us 460 
And our true destination — but not 

idly. 
As stranger I preserved him, and he 

oiued me 
His life: when due, I but resumed the 

debt. 
He, you, and I stood o'er a gulf wherein 
I have plunged our enemy. You 

kindled first 
The torch — you showed the path ; 

now trace me that 
Of safety — or let me ! 

Sieg. I have done with life ! 

Ulr. Let us have done with that 

which cankers life — 
Familiar feuds and vain recriminations 
Of things which cannot be undone. We 

have 470 

No more to learn or hide: I know no 

fear. 
And have within these very walls men 

who 
(Although you know them not) dare 

venture all things. 
You stand high with the state; what 

passes here 
Will not excite her too great curiosity: 
Keep your own secret, keep a steady 

eye. 
Stir not, and speak not; — leave the 

rest to me : 
We must have no third babblers thrust 

between us. [Exit Ulric. 

Sieg. (solus). Am I awake? are 

these my father's halls? 
And you — my son ? My son ! mine ! 

who have ever 480 

Abhorred both mystery and blood, and 

yet 
Am plunged into the deepest hell of 

both ! 
I must be speedy, or more will be 

shed — • 
The Hungarian's ! — Ulric — he hath 

partisans, 
It seems: I might have guessed as 

much. Oh fool ! 



Wolves prowl in company. He hath 

the key 
(As I too) of the opposite door which 

leads 
Into the turret. Now then ! or once 

more 
To be the father of fresh crimes, no 

less 
Than of the criminal! Ho! Gabor! 
Gabor ! 490 

[Exit into the turret, closing the 
door after him. 

Scene II. — The Interior of the Turret. 
Gabor and Siegendorf. 

Gab. Who calls? 

Sieg. I — Siegendorf ! Take these 
and fiy! 
Lose not a moment ! 

[Tears off a diamond star and other 
jewels, and thrusts them into 
Gabor's hand. 
Cab. What am I to do 

With these? 

Sieg. Whate'er you will: sell them, 
or hoard, 
And prosper; but delay not, or you are 
lost! 
Gab. You pledged your honour for 

my safety ! 
Sieg. And 

Must thus redeem it. P^ly ! I am not 

master. 
It seems, of my own castle — of my 

own 
Retainers — nay, even of these very 

walls. 
Or I would bid them fall and crush 
me ! Fly ! 

Or you will be slain by 

Gab. Is it even so? 10 

Farewell, then ! Recollect, however, 

Count, 
You sought this fatal interview! 

Sieg. I did: 

Let it not be more fatal still ! — Be- 
gone! 
Gab. By the same path I entered ? 
Sieg. Yes, that's safe still; 

But loiter not in Prague; — you do not 

know 
With whom you have to deal. 



884 



WERNER 



[Act v. 



Gab. I know too well — 

And knew it ere* vourself, unhappy 

Sire! 

Farewell ! [Exit Gabor. 

Sieg. (solus and listening). He hath 

cleared the staircase. Ah ! I 

hear 

The door sound loud behind him ! He 

is safe ! 
Safe ! — Oh, my father's spirit ! — I 

am faint 20 

[He leans down vpon a stone seat, 
near the wall of the tower, in a 
drooping posture. 

Enter Ulric with others armed, and with 
weapons drawn. 

Ulr. Despatch ! — he's there ! 
Lud. The Count, my Lord ! 

Ulr. (recognising Siegendorf). You 

here. Sir ! 
Sieg. Yes: if you want another 

victim, strike ! 
Ulr. (seeing him stripped of his 
jewels). Where is the ruffian who 
hath plundered you? 
Vassals, despatch in search of him ! 

You see 
'Twas as I said — the wretch hath 

stripped my father 
Of jewels which might form a Prince's 

heirloom ! 
Away ! I'll follow you forthwith, 

[Exeunt all but Siegendorf and 
Ulric. 

What's this? 
Where is the villain? 

Sieg. There are /•z^'o, Sir: which 

Are you in quest of ? 

Ulr. Let us hear no more 

Of this: he must be found. You have 
not let him 30 

Escape ? 

Sieg. He's gone. 
Ulr. With your connivance? 

Sieg. With 

My fullest, freest aid. 

Ulr. Then fare you well ! 

[Ulric is going. 
Sieg. Stop ! I command — entreat 
— implore ! Oh, Ulric ! 
Will you then leave me? 

Ulr. What! remain to be 



Denounced — dragged, it may be, in ' 

chains; and all 
By your inherent weakness, half- , 
humanity, ! 

Selfish remorse, and temporising pity, 
That sacrifices your whole race to save 
A wretch to profit by our ruin ! No, 

Count, 
Henceforth you have no son ! 

Sieg. I never had one; 40 

And would you ne'er had borne the 

useless name ! 
Where will you go? I would not send 

you forth 
Without protection. 

Ulr. Leave that unto me. 

I am not alone; nor merely the vain 

heir 
Of your domains; a thousand, aye, ten 

thousand 
Swords, hearts, and ha,nds are mine. 
Sieg. The foresters 

With whom the Hungarian found you 
first at Frankfort ! 
Ulr. Yes — men — who are worthy 
of the name ! Go tell 
Your Senators that they look well to 

Prague ; 
Their Feast of Peace was early for the 
times; ' 50 

There are more spirits abroad than have 

been laid 
With Wallenstein! 

Enter Josephine and Ida. 
Jos. What is't we hear? My 
Siegendorf ! 
Thank Heaven, I see you safe ! 
Sieg. Safe ! 

Ida. Yes, dear father! 

Sieg. No, no; I have no children: 
never more 
Call me by that worst name of parent. 
Jos. What 

Means my good Lord? 

Sieg. That you have given birth 

To a demon ! 

Ida. (taking Ulric's hand). Who 

shall dare say this of Ulric? 
Sieg. Ida, beware ! there's blood 
upon that hand. \ 

Ida (stooping to kiss it). I'd kiss it 

off, though it were mine. 
Sieg. It is so! 



i 



SCENK I.] 



WERNER 



Ulr. Away ! it is your father's ! 
[Exit Ulric. 
Ida. Oh, great God ! 60 

And I have loved this man ! 

[Ida falls senseless — Josephine 

stands speechless with horror. 

Sieg. The v^^retch hath slain 

Them both ! — My Josephine ! we are 

now alone! 
Would we had ever been so ! — All is 

over 
For me ! — Now open wide, my Sire, 

thy grave ; 
Thy curse hath dug it deeper for thy 

son 
In mine ! — The race of Siegendorf is 
past. 



WERNER. 

Nov. 1815. 
[First Draft.] 



ACT I. 



Scene I. — A ruinous chateau on the 
Silesian frontier of Bohemia. 

Josepha. The storm is at its height 
— how the wind howls, 

Like an unearthly voice, through these 
lone chambers ! 

And the rain patters on the flapping 
casement 

Which quivers in its frame — the night 
is starless — 

Yet cheerly Werner! still our hearts 
are warm: * 

The tem.pest is without, or should be 
so — 

For we are sheltered here where For- 
tune's clouds 
I May roll all harmless o'er us as the 

I wrath 

Of these wild elements that menace 

I now, 

Yet do not reach us. 

Werner (without attending, and zvalk- 
ing disturbedly, speaking to him- 
self). No — 'Tis past — 'tis 
blighted, 10 



The last faint hope to which my 

withered fortune 
Clung with a feeble and a fluttering 

grasp. 
Yet clung convulsively — for 'twas the 

last — 
Is broken with the rest: would that my 

heart were ! 
But there is pride, and Passion's war 

within. 
Which give my breast vitality to suffer, 
As it hath suffered through long years 

till now. 
My father's wrath extends beyond the 

grave, 
And haunts me in the shape of Stralen- 

heim ! 
He revels in my father's palace — 

I — 20 

Exiled — disherited — a nameless out- 
cast! 

[Werner pauses. 
My boy, too, where and what is he? 

— my father 
Might well have limited his curse to me. 
If that my heritage had passed to Ulric, 
I had not mourned mv own less happy 

lot. 
No — No — all's past — all torn away. 
Josepha. Dear Werner, 

Oh banish these disComfortable 

thoughts 
That thus contend within you: we are 

poor, , 3f J 
So we have ^{/er been — but I re- 
member 
The time when thy Josepha's smile 

could turn 30 

Thy heart to hers — despite of every 

ill. 
So let it now — alas ! you hear me not. 
Werner. What said you ? — let it 

pass — no matter what — 
Think me not churlish. Sweet, I am not 

•well. 
My brain is hot and busy — long 

fatigue 
And last night's watching have op- 
pressed me much. 
Josepha. Then get thee to thy 

couch. I do perceive 
In thy pale cheek and in thy bloodshot 

eye 



886 



WERNER 



[Act I. 



A strange distemperature — nay, as a 

boon, 
I do entreat thee to thy rest. 

Werner. My rest ! 40 

Well — be it so — Good Night! 

Josepha. Thy hand is burning; 

I will prepare a potion : — peace be 

with thee — 
To-morrow's dawn I trust will find thee 

healthful; 
And, then, our Ulric may perchance — 
Werner. Our Ulric — thine and 

mine — our only boy — 
Curse on his father and his father's 

Sire! 
(For, if it is so, I will render back 
A curse that Heaven will hear as well 

as his), 
Our Ulric by his father's fault or folly, 
And by my fathers unrelenting pride. 
Is at this hour, perchance, undone. 

This night 51 

That shelters us may shower its wrath 

on him — 
A homeless beggar for his parent's 

sin — 
Thy sin and mine — Thy child and 

mine atones — 
Our Ulric — Woman ! — I'll to no bed 

to-night — • 
There is rio pillow for my thoughts. 
Josepha. What words. 

What fearful words are these! what 

may they mean? 
Werner. Look on n — thou hast 

known me, hitherto. 
As an oppressed, but yet a humble 

creature; 
By birth predestined to the yoke I've 

borne. 60 

Till now I've borne it patiently, at 

least. 
In bitter silence — but the hour is come, 
That should and shall behold me as I 

was, 
And ought again to be — 

Josepha. I know not what 

Thy mystery may tend to, but my 

fate — 
My heart — my will — my love are 

linked with thine, 
And I would share thy sorrow: lay 

it open. 



Werner. Thou see'.st the son of 

Count — but let it pass — 
I forfeited the name in wedding thee: 
That fault, of many faults, a father's 

pride 70 

Proclaimed the last and worst — and, 

from that hour. 
He disavowed, disherited, debased 
A wayward son 'tis a long tale — •■ 

too long — 
And I am heartsick of the heavy thought. 
Josepha. Oh, I could weep — but 

that were little solace: 
Yet tell the rest — or, if thou wilt not, 

say — • 
Yet say — why, through long years, 

from me withheld, 
This fearful secret that hath gnawed 

thy soul? 
Werner. Why? had it not been 

base to call on thee 
For patience and for pity — to awake 80 
The thirst of grandeur in thy gentle 

spirit — 
To tell thee what thou shouldst have 

been — the wife 
Of one, in power — birth — wealth, 

preeminent — 
Then, sudden qualing in that lofty tone. 
To bid thee soothe thy husband — 

peasant Werner? 
Josepha. I would thou wert, in- 
deed, the peasant Werner; 
For then thy soul had been of calmer 

mould 

And suited to thy lot 

Werner. Was it not so?| 

Beneath a humble name and garb — 

the which 89 

My youthful riot and a'father's frown, 
Too justly fixed upon me, had com- 
pelled 
My bowed down spirit to assume too 

well — 
Since it deceived the world, myself, and 

thee: 
I linked my lot irrevocably with thine — 
And I have loved thee deeply — long 

and dearly — 
Even as I love thee still — but these 

late crosses. 
And most of all the last, — have mad- 
dened me; 



Scene i.] 



WERNER 



887 



And I am wild and wayward as in 

youth, 
Ere I beheld thee — 

Josepha. Would thou never hadst ! 
Since I have been a blight upon thy 

hope, 100 

And marred alike the present and the 

future. 
Werner. Yet say not so — for all 

that I have knov/n 
Of true and calm content — of love — 

of peace — 
Has been with thee and from thee: 

wert thou not, 
I were a lonely and self-loathing thing. 
Ulric has left us! all, save thou, have 

left me ! 
Father and son — Fortune — Fame — 

Power — Ambition — 
The ties of being — the high soul of 

man — 
All save the long remorse — the con- 
sciousness. 
The curse of living on, regretting life 1 10 
Misspent in miserably gazing upward. 
While others soared — Away, I'll think 

no more. 
Josepha. But Ulric — wherefore 

didst thou let him leave 
His home and us? 'tis now three 

weary years. 
Werner {interrupting her qtiickly). 

Since my hard father, half-relent- 
ing, sent 
The offer of a scanty stipend which 
I needs must earn by rendering up my 

son — 
Fool that I was — I thought this quick 

compliance. 
And never more assuming in myself 
The haught name of my house would 

soften him — 1 20 

And for our child secure the heritage 
Forfeit in me forever. Since that 

hour. 
Till the last year, the wretched pittance 

came — 
Then ceased with every tidings of my 

son 
And Sire — till late I heard the last 

had ceased 
To live — and unforgiving died — Oh 

God! 



Josepha. Was it for this our Ulric 

left us so? 
Thou did'st deceive me then — he 

went not forth 
To join the legions of Count Tilly's 

war ? 
Werner. I know not — he had left 

my father's castle, 130 

Some months before his death — but 

why ? — but why ? 
Left it as I did ere his birth, perchance, 
Like me an outcast. Old age had not 

made 
My father meeker — and my son, 

Alas ! 

Too much his Sire resembled 

Josepha. Yet there's comfort. 

Restrain thy wandering Spirit — Ulric 

cannot 
Have left his native land — thou dost 

not know, 
Though it looks strangely, thy Sire and 

he 
In anger parted — Hope is left us still. 
Werner. The best hope that I ever 

held in youth, 140 

When every pulse was life, each thought 

a joy, 
(Yet not irrationally sanguine, since 
My birth bespoke high thoughts,) hath 

lured and left me. 
I will not be a dreamer in mine age — 
The hunter of a shadow — let boys 

hope: 
Of Hope I now know nothing but the 

name — 
And that's a sound which jars upon my 

heart. 
I've wearied thee — Good night — my 

patient Love ! 
Josepha. I must not leave thee 

thus — my husband — friend — 
My heart is rent in twain for thee — I 

scarce 150 

Dare greet thee as I would, lest that my 

love 
Should seem officious and ill timed: 

— 'tis early — 
Yet rest were as a healing balm to 

thee — 
Then once again — Good night ! 
Voice Without. What Ho — lights 

ho! 



WERNER 



[Act I. 



Scene II. 

Josepha. What noise is that? 'tis 
nearer — hush ! they knock. 
[A knocking heard at the gate — 
Werner starts. 
Werner (aside). It may be that the 
bloodhounds of the villain, 
Who long has tracked me, have ap- 
proached at last : 
I'll not be taken tamely. 

Josepha. 'Twas the voice, 

The single voice of some lone traveller. 
I'll to the door. 

Werner. No — stay thou here — 

again ! 
[Knocking repeated. Opens the door. 
Well — Sir — your pleasure ? 

Enter Carl the Bavarian. 

Carl. Thanks, most worthy Sir! 

My pleasure, for to-night, depends on 
yours — 

I'm weary, wet, and wayworn — with- 
out shelter. 

Unless you please to grant it. 

Josepha. You shall have it, lo 

Such as this ruinous mansion may 
afford : 

'Tis spacious, but too cold and crazy 
now 

For Hospitality's more cordial welcome : 

But as it is 'tis yours. 

Werner {to his wife). Why say ye 
so? 

At once such hearty greeting to- a 
stranger ? 

At such a lonely hour, too — 

Josepha {in reply to Werner). 
Nay — he's honest. 

There is trust-worthiness in his blunt 
looks. 
Werner {to Josepha). "Trust- 
worthiness in looks!" 1 11 trust no 
looks ! 

I look into men's faces for their age. 

Not for their actions — had he Adam's 
brow, 20 

Open and goodly as before the fall, 

I've lived too long to trust the frankest 
aspect. 
{To Carl.) Whence come you, Sir? 



Carl. From Frankfort, on my way 
To my own country — I've a compan- 
ion too — 
He tarries now behind : — an hour ago, 
On reaching that same river on your 

frontier, 
We found it swoln by storms — a 

stranger's carriage. 
Despite the current, drawn by sturdy 

mules. 
Essayed to pass, and nearly reached the 

middle 
Of that which was the ford in gentler 

weather, 30 

When down came driver, carriage, 

mules, and all — 
You may suppose the worthy Lord 

within 
Fared ill enough : — worse still he 

might have suffered. 
But that my comrade and myself 

rushed in. 
And with main strength and some good 

luck beside, 
Dislodged and saved him : he'll be here 

anon. 
His equipage by this time is at Dres- 
den — ■ 
I left it floating that way. 

Werner. Where is he? 

Carl. Hitherward on his way, even 

like myself — 
We saw the light and made for the 

nearest shelter: 40 

You'll not deny us for a single night? 
You've room enough, methinks — and 

this vast ruin 
Will not be worse for three more 

guests. 
Werner. Two more: 

And thou ? — well — be it so — {aside) 

(to-night will soon . 

Be overpast: they shall not stay to- ; 

morrow) — I 

Know you the name of him you saved ? j 

Carl. Not I ! 

I think I heard him called a Baron 

Something — 
But was too chill to stay and hear his 

titles : 
You know they are sometimes tedious 

in the reckoning. 
If counted over by the noble wearer. 50 



Scene ii.] 



WERNER 



889 



Hast any wine ? I'm wet, stung to the 

marrow — 
My comrade waited to escort the Baron : 
They will be here, anon — they, too, 

want cheering: 
I'll taste for them, if it please you, 

courteous host ! 
Josepha. Such as our vintage is shall 

give you welcome: 
I'll bring you some anon. [Goes out. 
Carl (looking round). A goodly man- 
sion ! 
And has been nobly tenanted, I doubt 

not. 
This worn magnificence some day has 

shone 
On light hearts and long revels — those 

torn banners 
Have waved o'er courtly guests — and 

yon huge lamp 60 

High blazed through many a midnight 

— I could wish 

My lot had led me here in those gay 
times ! 

Your days, my host, must pass but 
heavily. 

Are you the vassal of these antient chiefs. 

Whose heir wastes elsewhere their fast 
melting hoards. 

And placed to keep their cobwebs com- 
pany ? 
Werner (who has been absorbed in 
thought till the latter part of his 
speech) . A Vassal ! — la vassal ! 

— who accosts me 

With such familiar question ? — (checks 

himself and says aside) ■ — Down, 

startled pride ! 
Have not long years of wretchedness yet 

quenched thee. 
And, suffering evil, wdlt thou start at 

scorn ? 70 

(To Carl.) Sir ! if I boast no birth 

— and, as you see. 

My state bespeaks none — still, no being 

breathes 
Who calls me slave or servant. — Like 

yourself 
I am a stranger here — a lonely guest — 
But, for a time, on sufferance. On my 

way. 
From — a far distant city — Sickness 

seized. 



And long detained me in the neighbour- 
ing hamlet. 
The Intendant of the owner of this 

castle. 
Then uninhabited, with kind intent, 
Permitted me to wait returning health 
Within these walls — more sheltered 

than the cot 81 

Of humble peasants. 

Carl. Worthy Sir, your mercy! 

I meant not to offend you — plain of 

speech, 
And blunt in apprehension, I do judge 
Men's station from their seeming — but 

themselves 
From acts alone. You bid me share 

your shelter, 
And I am bound to you; and had you 

been 
The lowliest vassal had not thanked you 

less. 
Than I do now, believing you his 

better, 
Perhaps my own superior — 

Werner. What imports it? 90 

What — who I am — or whence — you 

are welcome — sit — 
You shall have cheer anon. 

[Walks disturbedly aside. 
Carl (to himself). Here's a strange 

fellow ! 
Wild, churlish, angry — why, I know 

not, seek not. 
Would that the wine were come ! my 

doublet's wet, 
But my throat dry as Summer's drought 

in desarts. 
Ah — here it sparkles ! 

Enter Josepha with wine in flask — and 
a cup. As she pours it out a Voice 
is heard without calling at a distance. 
Werner starts — Josepha listens 
tremulously. 

Werner. That voice — that voice — 
Hark ! 
No — no — 'tis silent — Sir — I say 

— that voice — 
Whose is it — speak — 

Carl (drinking unconcernedly). Whose 
is it ? faith, I know not — 
And, yet, 'tis my companion's: he's 
like you, 



890 



WERNER 



[Act I. 



And does not care to tell his name and 

station. 100 

[The voice again and nearer. 

Josepha. 'Tis his — I knew it — 

Ulric ! — Ulric ! — Ulric ! 
[She drops the wine and rushes 

out. 
Carl. The flask's unhurt — but every 
drop is spilt. 
Confound the voice ! I say — would he 

were dumb ! 
And faith ! to me, he has been nearly 

so — 
A silent and unsocial travelling mate. 
Werner {stands in agitation gazing 
towards the door) . If it be he — I 
cannot move to meet him, 
Yes — it must be so — there is no such 

voice 
That so could sound and shake me : he 

is here, 
And I am — ■ 

Enter Stralenheim. 

Werner {turns and sees him). A curse 

upon thee, stranger ! 
Where did'st thou learn a tone so like 

my boy's? no 

Thou mock bird of my hopes — a curse 

upon thee ! 
Out! Out! I say. Thou shalt not 

harbour here. 
Stralenheim. What means the peas- 
ant ? knows he unto whom 
He dares address this language? 

Carl. Noble Sir ! 

Pray heed him not — he's Phrenzy's 

next door neighbour. 
And full of these strange starts and 

causeless jarrings. 
Werner. Oh, that long wished for 

voice ! — I dreamed of it — 
And then it did elude me — then — and 

now. 

Enter Ulric and Josepha. Werner 
jails on his neck. 

Oh God ! forgive, for thou did'st not 

forget me. 
Although I murmured — 'tis — it is my 

Son! 120 

Josepha. Aye, 'tis dear Ulric — Yet, 

methinks, he's changed, too: 



His cheek is tanned, his frame more 

firmly knit ! 
That scar, too, dearest Ulric — I do fear 

me — 
Thou hast been battling with these 

heretics. 
And that's a Swedish token on thy brow, 
Ulric. My heart is glad with yours — 

we meet like those 
Who never would have parted : — of the 

past 
You shall know more anon — but, here's 

a guest 
That asks a gentle welcome. Noble 

Baron, 
My father's silence looks discourtesy : 
Yet must I plead his pardon — 'tis his 

love 131 

Of a long truant that has rapt him, thus, 
From hospitable greeting — you'll be 

seated — 
And, Father, we will sup like famished 

hunters. [Josepha goes out here. 
Stralenheim. I have much need of 

rest : no more refreshment 1 
Were all my people housed within the 

hamlet. 
Or can they follow? 

Ulric. Not to-night I fear. 

They staid in hope the damaged 

Cabriole 
Might, with the dawn of day, have such 

repairs. 
As Circumstance admits of. 

Carl. Nay — that's hopeless. 140 

They must not only mend but draw it 

too. 
The mules are drowned — a murrain on 

them both ! 
One kicked me as I would have helped 

him on. 
Stralenheim. It is most irksome to me 

— this delay. 
I was for Prague on business of great 

moment. 
Werner. For Prague — Sir — Say 

you? — 
Stralenheim. Yes, my host ! for 

Prague 
And these vile floods and villainous cross 

roads 
Steal my time from its uses — but — • 

my people? 



Scene II.] 



WERNER 



891 



Where do they shelter? 

Ulric. In the boatman's shed, 

Near to the ferry: you mistook the 

ford — 150 

'Tis higher to the right : — their enter- 
tainment 
Will be but rough — but 'tis a single 

night, 
And they had best be guardians of the 

baggage. 
The shed will hold the weather from 

their sleep. 
The woodfire warm them — and, for 

beds, a cloak 
Is swansdown to a seasoned traveller: 
It has been mine for many a moon, and 

may 
To-night, for aught it recks me. 

Stralenheim. And to-morrow 

I must be on my journey — and betimes. 
It is not more than three days travel, 

hence, 160 

To Mansfeldt Castle. 

Werner and Ulric. Mansfeldt Cas- 
tle 1 — 
Stralenheim. Aye ! 
For thither tends my progress — so, 

betimes, 
Mine host, I would be stirring — think 

of that ! 
And let me find my couch of rest at 

present. 
Werner. You shall. Sir — but — to 

Mansfeldt ! — 
{Ulric stops his father and says aside 

to him). Silence — father — 

Whate'er it be that shakes you thus — 

tread dozvn — 
{To Stralenheim.) My father. Sir, 

was born not far from Prague, 
And knows its environs — and, when he 

hears. 
The name endeared to him by native 

thoughts, 
He would ask of it, and its habitants — 
You will excuse his plain blunt mode of 

question. 171 

Stralenheim. Indeed, perchance, 

then, he may aid my search. 
Pray, know you aught of one named 

Werner? who 
(But he no doubt has passed through 

many names), 



Lived long in Hamburgh - — • and has 
thence been traced 

Into Silesia — and not far from hence — 

But there we lost him; he who can dis- 
close 

Aught of him, or his hiding-place, will 
find. 

Advantage in revealing it. 

Ulric. Why so — Sir? 

Stralenheim. There are strong rea- 
sons to suspect this man 180 

Of crimes against the State — league 
with Swedes — 

And other evil acts of moment : — he 

Who shall deliver him, bound hand and 
foot. 

Will benefit his country and himself: 

I will reward him doubly too. 

Ulric. You know him? 

Stralenheim. He never met my eyes 
— but Circumstance 

Has led me to near knowledge of the 
man. 

He is a villain — and an enemy 

To all men — most to me 1 If earth 
contain him. 

He shall be found and fettered : I have 
hopes, 190 

By traces which to-morrow will unravel, 

A fresh clue to his lurking spot is 
nigh. 
Carl. And, if I find it, I will break 
the thread. 

What, all the world against one luckless 
wight ! 

And he a fugitive — I would I knew 
him! 
Ulric. You'd help him to escape — is 

it not so? 
Carl. I would, indeed ! 
Ulric. The greater greenhorn you ! 

I would secure him — nay — I will do 
so. 
Stralenheim. If it be so — my grati- 
tude for aid, 

And rescue of my life from the wild 
waters, 200 

Will double in its strength and its re- 
quital. 

Your father, too, perhaps can help our 
search ? 
Werner. I turn a spy — no — not for 
Mansfeldt Castle, 



WERNER 



[Act I. 



And all the broad domain it frowns upon. 



Stralcnheim. Mansfeldt 



again 



you know it then ? perchance, 
You also know the story of its lords ? 
Werner. Whate'er I know, there is no 

bribe of thine 
Can swerve me to the crooked path 

thou pointest. 
The chamber's ready, which your rest 

demands. 
Stralcnheim {aside) . 'Tis strange — 

this peasant's tone is wondrous high. 
His air imperious — and his eye shines 

out 211 

As wont to look command with a quick 

glance — 
His garb befits him not — why, he may 

be 
The man I look for ! now, I look again, 
There is the very lip — short curling 

lip- 
And the o'erjutting eye-brow dark and 

large. 
And the peculiar wild variety 
Of feature, even unto the Viper's eye. 
Of that detested race and its descendant 
Who stands alone between me and a 

power, 220 

Which Princes gaze at with unquiet 

eyes ! 
This is no peasant — but, whate'er he 

be. 
To-morrow shall secure him and unfold. 
Ulric. It will not please you, Sir, 

then to remain 
With us beyond to-morrow? 

Stralenheim. Nay — I do not say so 

— there is no haste. 
And now' I think again — I'll tarry 

here — 
Perhaps until the floods abate -»- we'll 

see — 
In the mean time — to my chamber — 

so — Good Night ! 

[Exit with Werner. 
Werner. This way, Sir. 
Carl. And I to mine: pray, where 

are we to rest? 230 

We'll sup within — 

Ulric. What matter where — there's 

room. 
Carl. I would fain see my way 

through this vast ruin; 



Come, take the lamp, and we'll explore 

together. 
Josepha (meeting them). And I will 

with my son. 
Ulric. Nay — stay — dear mother ! 
These chilly damps and the cold rush of 

winds 
Fling a rough paleness o'er thy delicate 

cheek — 
And thou seem'st lovely in thy sickliness 
Of most transparent beauty : — but it 

grieves me. 
Nay ! tarry here by the blaze of the 

bright hearth: — 
I will return anon — and we have much 
To listen and impart. Come, Carl, w'e'U 

find 241 

Some gorgeous canopy, and, thence, un- 

roost 
It's present bedfellows the bats — and 

thou 
Shalt slumber underneath a velvet cloud 
That mantles o'er the couch of some 

dead Countess. 

[Exit Carl and Ulric. 
Josepha (sola). It was my joy to see 

him — nothing more 
I should have said — which sent my 

gush of blood 
Back on my full heart with a dancing tide : 
It was my weary hope's unthought fulfil- 
ment. 
My agony of mother-feeHngs curdled 
At once in gathered rapture — which did 

change 251 

My cheek into the hue of fainting 

Nature. 
I should have answered thus — and yet 

I could not: 
For though 'twas true — it was not all 

the truth. 
I have much suffered in the thought of 

Werner's 
Late deep distemperature of mind and 

fortunes, 
Which since have almost driven him into 

phrenzy: — 
And though that I w-ould soothe, not 

share, such passions. 
And show not how they shake me — 

when alone, 259 

I feel them prey upon me by reflection, 
And want the very solace I bestowed; 



Scene i.] 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



^93 



And which, it seems, I cannot give and 

have. 
Ulric must be my comforter — his 

father's 
Hath long been the most melancholy 

soul 
That ever hovered o'er the verge of 

Madness : 
And, better, had he leapt into its gulph: 
Though to the Mad thoughts are 

realities. 
Yet they can play with sorrow — and 

live on. 
But with the mind of consciousness and 

care 
The body wears to ruin, and the strug- 
gle, 270 

However long, is deadly He is lost, 

And all around him tasteless: — in his 

mirth 
His very laughter moves me oft to tears, 
And I have turned to hide them — for, 

in him, 
As Sunshine glittering o'er unburied 

bones 

Soft — he is here. ■ 

Werner. Josepha — where is Ulric ? 
Josepha. Gone with the other 

stranger to gaze o'er 
These shattered corridors, and spread 

themselves 
A pillow with their mantles, in the least 

ruinous: 
I must replenish the diminished hearth 
In the inner chamber — the repast is 

ready, 281 

And Ulric will be here again. — 



THE DEFORMED 
TRANSFORMED:! 

A DRAMA. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

This production is founded partly on 
the story of a novel called "The Three 

' [It is probable that The Deformed Trans- 
formed was written, at Pisa, in the summer of 
1822. It was published (by John Hunt), 
' February 20, 1824.] 



Brothers," ^ published many years ago, 
from which M. G. Lewis's "Wood 
Demon" was also taken; and partly 
on the "Faust" of the great Goethe. 
The present publication contains the two 
first Parts only, and the opening chorus 
of the third. The rest may perhaps ap- 
pear hereafter. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 

Stranger, afterwards C^sar. 

Arnold. 

Bourbon. 

Philibert. 

Cellini. 

Bertha. 

Olimpia. 

Spirits, Soldiers, Citizens of Rome, 
Priests, Peasants, etc. 



PART I. 

Scene I. — A Forest. 

Enter Arnold and his mother Bertha. 
Bert. Out, Hunchback! 

' [The Three Brothers, by Joshua Pickersgill, 
junior, was published in 1803. There is no copy 
of The Three Brothers in the British Museum. 
The following extracts are taken from a copy in 
the Bodleian Library at Oxford (vol. 4, cap. xi. 
pp. 229-350): — 

Arnaud, the natural son of the Marquis de 
Sou\Ticour, was a child "extraordinary in Beauty 
and Intellect." When travelling with his 
parents to Languedoc, Arnaud being 8 years 
old, he was shot at by banditti, and forsaken by 
his parents. The Captain of the band nursed 
him. "But those perfections to which Arnaud 
owed his existence, ceased to adorn it. The 
ball had gored his shoulder, and the fall had dis- 
located it; by the latter misadventure his spine 
likewise was so fatally injured as to be irrecoverable 
to its pristine uprightness. Injuries so compound 
confounded the Captain, who sorrowed to see 
a creature so charming, at once deformed by 
a crooked back and an excrescent shoulder." 
Arnaud was found and taken back to his parents. 
"The bitterest consciousness of his deformity 
was derived from their indelicate, though, 
perhaps, insensible alteration of conduct. . . . 
Of his person he continued to speak as of an 
abhorrent enemy." . . . "Were a blessing 
submitted to my choice I would say, [said 
Arnaudj be it mv immediate dissolution." 
"I think," said his mother, . . . "that vou 



894 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



[Part i. 



Am. I was born so, Mother!^ 
Bert. Out, 

Thou incubus! Thou nightmare! Of 

seven sons, 
The sole abortion ! 

Am. Would that I had been so, 

And never seen the light ! 

Bert. I would so, too ! 

But as thou hast — hence, hence — 

and do thy best ! 
That back of thine may bear its bur- 
then; 'tis 
More high, if not so broad as that of 
others. 
Am. It hears its burthen; — but, 
my heart! Will it 
Sustain that which you lay upon it, 

Mother ? 
I love, or. at the least, I loved you: 
nothing lo 



could wish better." " Yes," adjoined Arnaud, 
"for that wish should be that I ever had re- 
mained unborn." He polishes the broken 
blade of a sword, and views himself therein; the 
sight so horrifies him that he determines to throw 
himself over a precipice, but draws back at the 
last moment. He goes to a cavern, and conjures 
up the prince of hell. "Arnaud knew himself 
to be interrogated. What he required. . . . 
What was that answer the effects explain. . . . 
There passed in liveliest portraiture the various 
men distinguished for that beauty and grace 
which Arnaud so much desired, that he was 
ambitious to purchase them with his soul. He 
felt that it was his part to chuse whom he would 
resemble, yet he remained unresolved, though 
the spectator of an hundred shades of renown, 
among which glided by Alexander, Alcibiades, 
and Hephestion: at length appeared the super- 
natural effigy of a man, whose perfections human 
artist never could depict nor insculp — Demetrius, 
the son of .A.ntigonus. Arnaud's heart heaved 
quick with preference, and strait he found 
within his hand the resemblance of a poniard, 
its point inverted towards his breast. A mere 
automaton in the hands of the Demon, he thrust 
the point through his heart, and underwent a 
painless death. During his trance, his spirit 
metempsychosed from the body of his detesta- 
tion to that of his admiration . . . Arnaud 
awoke a Julian!"] 

' [Moore {Life, p. 13) quotes these lines in 
connection with a passage in Byron's "Memo- 
randa," where, in speaking of his own sensitive- 
ness on the subject of his deformed foot, he 
described the feeling of horror and humiliation 
that came over him, when his mother, in one of 
her fits of passion, called him "o lame brat!" . . . 
"It may be questioned," he adds, "whether 
that whole drama [The Deformed Transformed] 
was not indebted for its origin to that single 
recollection."] 



Save You, in nature, can love aught 

like me. 
You nursed me — do not kill me ! 
Bert. ' Yes — I nursed thee, 

Because thou wert my first-born, and 

I knew not 
If there would be another unlike thee. 
That monstrous sport of Nature. But 

get hence. 
And gather wood ! 

Am. I will: but when I bring it. 

Speak to me kindly. Though my 

brothers are 
So beautiful and lusty, and as free 
As the free chase they follow, do not 

spurn me: 
Our milk has been the same. 

Bert. As is the hedgehog's, 20 

W^hich sucks at midnight from the 

wholesome dam 
Of the young bull, until the milkmaid 

finds 
The nipple, next day, sore, and udder 

dry. 
Call not thy brothers brethren ! Call 

me not 
Mother; for if I brought thee forth, it 

was 
As fooHsh hens at times hatch vipers, 

by 
Sitting upon strange eggs. Out, ur- 
chin, out! [Exit Bertha. 
Am. (solus). Oh, mother ! She 

is gone, and I must do 
Her bidding; — wearily but willingly 
I would fulfil it, could I only hope 30 
A kind word in return. What shall I 
do? 

[Arnold begins to cut wood: in 

doing this he wounds one of his 

hands. 

My labour for the day is over now. 

Accursed be this blood that flows so 

fast; 
For double curses will be my meed now 
At home — What home ? I have no 

home, no kin. 
No kind — not made like other crea- 
tures, or j 
To share their sports or pleasures. I 

Must I bleed, too. 
Like them? Oh, that each drop which 

falls to earth 



Scene i.] 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



895 



Would rise a snake to sting them, as 

they have stung me ! 
Or that the Devil, to whom they liken 

me, 40 

Would aid his likeness! If I must 

partake 
His form, why not his power? Is it 

because 
I have not his will too ? For one kind 

word 
From her who bore me would still 

reconcile me 
Even to this hateful aspect. Let me 

wash 
The wound. 

[Arnold goes to a spring and stoops 

to wash his hand; he starts hack. 

They are right; and Nature's mirror 

shows me, 
What she hath made me. I will not 

look on it 
Again, and scarce dare think on't. 

Hideous wretch 
That I am ! The very waters mock me 

with 50 

My horrid shadow — like a demon 

placed 
Deep in the fountain to scare back the 

cattle 
From drinking therein. [He pauses. 

And shall I live on, 
A burden to the earth, myself, and 

shame 
Unto what brought me into life ? Thou 

blood. 
Which flowest so freely from a scratch, 

let me 
Try if thou wilt not, in a fuller stream. 
Pour forth my woes for ever with thy- 
self 
On earth, to which I will restore, at 

once, 
This hateful compound of her atoms, 

and 60 

Resolve back to her elements, and take 

the shape of any reptile save 

myself. 
And make a world for myriads of new 

worms ! 
This knife! now let me prove if it will 

sever 
This withered sHp of Nature's night- 
shade — my 



Vile form — from the creation, as it 

hath 

The green bough from the forest. 

[Arnold places the knife in the 

ground, with the point upwards. 

Now 'tis set, 

And I can fall upon it. Yet one 

glance 
On the fair day, which sees no foul 

thing like 
Myself, and the sweet sun which 
warmed me, but 70 

In vain. The birds — how joyously 

they sing ! 
So let them, for I would not be la- 
mented: 
But let their merriest notes be Arnold's 

knell; 
The fallen leaves my monument; the 

murmur 
Of the near fountain my sole elegy. 
Now, knife, stand firmly, as I fain 
would fall ! 
\^As he rushes to throw himself upon 
the knife, his eye is suddenly 
caught by the fountain, which 
seems in motion. 
The fountain moves without a wind: 

but shall 
The ripple of a spring change my 

resolve ? 
No. Yet it moves again ! The waters 

stir, 
Not as with air, but by some sub- 
terrane 80 

And rocking Power of the internal 

world. 
What's here ? A mist ! No more ? — 
[.4 cloud comes from the fountain. 
He stands gazing upon it : it is 
dispelled, and a tall black man 
comes towards him. 
Am. What would you? Speak! 
Spirit or man? 

Stran. As man is both, why not 

Say both in one? 

Am. Your form is man's, and yet 

You may be devil. 

Stran. So many men are that 

Which is so called or thought, that you 

may add me 
To which you please, without much 
wrong to either. 



896 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



[Part i- 



But come: you wish to kill yourself; 
— pursue 

Your purpose. 

Am. You have interrupted me. 

Stran. What is that resolution which 

can e'er 90 

Be interrupted? If I be the devil 

You deem, a single moment would 
have made you 

Mine, and for ever, by your suicide; 

And yet my coming saves you. 

Am. I said not 

You were the Demon, but that your 
approach 

Was like one. 

Stran. Unless you keep company 

With him (and you seem scarce used to 
such high 

Society) you can't tell how he ap- 
proaches; 

And for his aspect, look upon the 
fountain. 

And then on me, and judge which of us 
twain 100 

Looks likest what the boors believe to 
be 

Their cloven-footed terror. 

Am. Do you — dare yon 

To taunt me with my born deformity ? 
Stran. Were I to taunt a buffalo 
with this 

Cloven foot of thine, or the swift 
dromedary 

With thy Sublime of Humps, the ani- 
mals 

Would revel in the compliment. And 
yet 

Both beings are more swift, more strong, 
more mighty 

In action and endurance than thy- 
self, 

And all the fierce and fair of the same 
kind no 

With thee. Thy form is natural: 'twas 
only 

Nature's mistaken largess to bestow 

The gifts which are of others upon 
man. 
Am. Give me the strength then of 
the buffalo's foot, 

When he spurns high the dust, behold- 
ing his 

Near enemy; or let me have the long 



And patient swiftness of the desert- 
ship, 
The helmless dromedary ! — and I'll 

bear 
Thy fiendish sarcasm wdth a saintly 
patience. 
Stran. I will. 

Am. {with surprise). Thou canst? 

^ Stran. Perhaps. Would you 

aught else? 120 

Am. Thou mockest me. 

Stran. Not I. Why should I mock 

What all are mocking? That's poor 

sport, methinks. 
To talk to thee in human language (for 
Thou canst not yet speak mine), the 

forester 
Hunts not the wretched coney, but the 

boar, 
Or wolf, or lion — leaving paltry game 
To petty burghers, who leave once a 

year 
Their walls, to fill their household 

cauldrons with 
Such scullion prey. The meanest gibe 

at thee, — 
Now / can mock the mightiest. 

Am. Then waste not 130 

Thy time on me: I seek thee not. 

Stran. Your thoughts 

Are not far from me. Do not send me 

back: 
I'm not so easily recalled to do 
Good service. 

Am. What wilt thou do for me? 
Stran. Change 

Shapes with you, if you will, since yours 

so irks you; 
Or form you to your wish in any shape. 
Arn. Oh! then you are indeed the 
Demon, for 
Nought else would wittingly wear 
mine. 
Stran. I'll show thee 

The brightest which the world e'er 

bore, and give thee 
Thy choice. 

Am. On what condition? 
Stran. There's a question ! 140 

An hour ago you would have given 

your sou! 
To look like other men, and now you 
pause 



Scene i.] 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



897 



To wear the form of heroes. 

Am. No; I will not. 

I must not compromise my soul. 

Stran. What soul, 

Worth naming so, would dwell in such 

a carcase? 

Am. 'Tis an aspiring one, whate'er 

the tenement 

In which it is mislodged. But name 

your compact : 
Must it be signed in blood ? 

Stran. Not in your own. 

Am. Whose blood then? 
Stran. We will talk of that here- 
after. 
But I'll be moderate with you, for I 
see 150 

Great things within you. You shall 

have no bond 
But your own wall, no contract save 

your deeds. 
Are you content ? 

Am. I take thee at thy word. 

Stran. Now, then ! — 

\The ' Stranger approaches the fountain, 
and turns to Arnold. 

A little of your blood. 
Am. For what? 

Stran. To mingle with the magic of 
the waters, 
And make the charm effective. 

Am. {holding out his wounded arm). 

Take it all. 
Stran. Not now. A few drops will 
suffice for this. 

[The Stranger takes some of Arnold's 
Mood in his hand, and casts it 
into the fountain. 



Shadows of Beauty! 

Shadows of Power! 
Rise to your duty — 160 

This is the hour ! 
Walk lovely and pliant 

From the depth of this foun- 
tain, 
As the cloud-shapen giant 

Bestrides the Hartz Mountain. 
Come as ye were, 

That our eyes may behold 



The model In air 

Of the form I will mould, 
Bright as the Iris 170 

When ether is spanned; — 
Such his desire is, 

[Pointing to ARNOLD. 

Such my command ! 
Demons heroic — 

Demons who wore 
The form of the Stoic 

Or sophist of yore — 
Or the shape of each victor — 

From Macedon's boy, 179 

To each high Roman's picture, 

Who breathed to destroy — 
Shadows of Beauty ! 

Shadows of Power! 
Up to your duty — 

This is the hour ! 



[Various phantoms arise from the 
waters, and pass in succession 
before the Stranger and Arnold. 

Arn. What do I see? 
Stran. The black-eyed Roman, 

with 
The eagle's beak between those eyes 

which ne'er 
Beheld a conqueror, or looked along 
The land he made not Rome's, while 

Rome became 
His, and all theirs who heired his very 
name. 190 

Am. The phantom's bald; my 
quest is beauty. Could I 
Inherit but his fame with his de- 
fects ! 
Stran. His brow was girt with 
laurels more than hairs. 
You see his aspect — choose it, or 

reject. 
I can but promise you his form; his 

fame 
Must be long sought and fought for. 
Arn. I will fight, too, 

But not as a mock Caesar. Let him 

pass: 
His aspect may be fair, but suits me 
not. 
Stran. Then you are far more 
difficult to please 



3M 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



[Part i. 



Than Cato's sister, or than Brutus' 

mother, 200 

Or Cleopatra at sixteen ^ — an age 

When love is not less in the eye than 

heart. 
But be it so ! Shadow, pass on ! 
[The phantom of Julius Ccesar dis- 
appears. 
Am. And can it 

Be, that the man who shook the earth 

is gone, 
And left no footstep? 

Stran. There you err. 

His substance 
Left graves enough, and woes enough, 

and fame 
More than enough to track his 

memory ; 
But for his shadow — 'tis no more 

than yours, 
Except a little longer and less crooked 
r the sun. Behold another ! 

[^ second phantom passes. 
Am. Who is he? 210 

Stran. He was the fairest and the 
bravest of 
Athenians. Look upon him well. 

Am. He is 

More lovely than the last. How 
beautiful ! 
Stran. Such was the curled son of 
Clinias; wouldst thou 
Invest thee with his form? 

Am. Would that I had 

Been born with it ! But since I may 

choose further, 

I will look further. [The shade of 

Alcihiades disappears. 

Stran. Lo! behold again! 

Am. What! that low, swarthy, 

short-nosed, round-eyed satyr, 

With the wide nostrils and Silenus' 

aspect, 
The splay feet and low stature ! I had 
better 220 

Remain that which I am. 

Stran. And yet he was 

The earth's perfection of all mental 

beauty, 
And personification of all virtue. 
But you reject him? 

' [Cleopatra, born B.C. 60, was twenty-one 
years old when she met Ca-sar, b,c. 48.] 



Am. If his form could bring me j,. 

That which redeemed it — no. || 

Stran. I have no power || 

To promise that; but you may try, and 

find it 
Easier in such a form — or in your own. 
Am. No. I was not born for 
philosophy. 
Though I have that about me which 

has need on't. 
Let him fleet on. 

Stran. Be air, thou Hemlock 

drinker ! 230 

\The shadow of Socrates disappears : 

another rises. 
Am. What's here? whose broad 
brow and whose curly beard 
And manly aspect look like Hercules,^ 
Save that his jocund eye hath more of 

Bacchus 
Than the sad purger of the infernal 

world, 
Leaning dejected on his club of con- 
quest,^ 
As if he knew the worthlessness of 

those 
For whom he had fought. 

Stran. It was the man who lost 

The ancient world for love. 

Am. I cannot blame him, 

Since I have risked my soul because I 

find not 
That which he exchanged the earth for. 
Stran. Since so far 

You seem congenial, will you wear his 
features? 241 

Am. No. As you leave me choice, 
I am difficult. 
If but to see the heroes I should ne'er 
Have seen else, on this side of the dim 

shore, 
Whence they float back before us. 

Stran. Hence, Triumvir, 

Thy Cleopatra's waiting. 

[The shade of Antony disappears : 

another rises. 
Am. Who is this? 

' ["Anthony had a noble dignity of counte- 
nance, a graceful length of beard, a large forehead, 
an aquiline nose: and, upon the whole, the same 
manly aspect that we see in the pictures and 
statues of Hercules." — Plutarch's Lives, Lang- 
home's Translation, 1838, p. 634.] 

= [As in the "Farnese" Hercules. ] 



Scene. I.] 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



899 



Who truly looketh like a demigod, 
Blooming and bright, with golden hair, 

and stature, 
If not more high than mortal, yet im- 
mortal 
In all that nameless bearing of his 
limbs, 250 

Which he wears as the Sun his rays — 

a something 
Which shines from him, and yet is but 

the flashing 
Emanation of a thing more glorious 

still. 
Was he e'er human only ? ^ 

Stran. Let the earth speak. 

If there be atoms of him left, or even 
Of the more solid gold that formed his 
urn. 
Am. Who was this glory of man- 
kind? 
Stran. The shame 

Of Greece in peace, her thunderbolt 
in war — 
' Demetrius the Macedonian, and 
Taker of cities. 

Am. Yet one shadow more. 260 
Stran. {addressing the shadow). Get 

thee to Lamia's lap ! 
\The shade of Demetrius Poliorcetes 
vanishes : another rises. 

I'll fit you still, 
Fear not, my Hunchback: if the 

shadows of 
That which existed please not your 

nice taste 
I'll animate the ideal marble, till 
Your soul be reconciled to her new 
garment. 
Am. Content ! I will fix here. 
Stran. I must commend 

Your choice. The godlike son of the 

sea-goddess. 
The unshorn boy of Peleus, with his 

locks 
As beautiful and clear as the amber 



' [The beauty and mien [of Demetrius Polior- 
cetes] were so inimitable that no statuary or 
painter could hit off a likeness. His counte- 
nance had a mixture of grace and dignity; and was 
at once amiable and awful; and the unsubdued 
and eager air of youth was blended with the 
majesty of the hero and the king. — Plutarch's 
Lives, Langhorne's Transhuion, 1S5S, p. 616.] 



Of rich Pactolus, rolled o'er sands of 

gold, 270 

Softened by intervening crystal, and 
Rippled like flowing waters by the wind. 
All vowed to Sperchius^ as they were — 

behold them ! 
And him — as he stood by Polixena, 
With sanctioned and with softened love, 

before 
The altar, gazing on his Trojan bride, 
With some remorse within for Hector 

slain 
And Priam weeping, mingled with deep 

passion 
For the sweet downcast virgin, whose 

young hand 
Trembled in his who slew her brother. 

So 280 

He stood i' the temple ! Look upon 

him as 
Greece looked her last upon her best, 

the instant 
Ere Paris' arrow flew. 

Am. I gaze upon him 

As if I were his soul, whose form shall 

soon 
Envelope mine. 

Stra?t. You have done well. The 

greatest 
Deformity should only barter with 
The extremest beauty — if the prov- 
erb's true 
Of mortals, that Extremes meet. 

Am. Come! Be quick! 

I am impatient, 

Stran. As a youthful beauty 

Before her glass. You both see what 

is not, 290 

But dream it is what must be. 

Am. Must I wait? 

Stran. No; that were a pity. But 

a word or two: 
His stature is twelve cubits; would you 

so far 
Outstep these times, and be a Titan ? Or 
(To talk canonically) wax a son 
Of Anak? 

Am. Why not? 

' [Spercheus was a river-god, the husband of 
Polydora, the daughter of Peleus. Peleus casts 
into the river the hair of his son Achilles, in the 
pious hope that his son-in-law would accept the 
votive offering, and grant the youth a safe return 
from the Trojan War. See Iliad, xxiii. 140, sqq.] 



900 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



[Part i. 



Stran. Glorious ambition ! 

I love thee most in dwarfs! A mortal 

of 
Philistine stature would have gladly 

pared 
His own Goliath down to a slight 

David: 
But thou, my manikin, wouldst soar a 

show 300 

Rather than hero. Thou shalt be 

indulged. 
If such be thy desire; and, yet, by 

being 
A little less removed from present men 
In figure, thou canst sway them more; 

for all 
Would rise against thee now, as if to 

hunt 
A new-found Mammoth; and their 

cursed engines. 
Their culverins, and so forth, would 

find way 
Through our friend's armour there, 

with greater ease 
Than the Adulterer's arrow through his 

heel 
Which Thetis had forgotten to baptize 
In Styx. 

Am. Then let it be as thou deem'st 

best. 311 

Stran. Thou shalt be beauteous as 

the thing thou seest. 
And strong as what it was, and — 

Am. I ask not 

For Valour, since Deformity is daring. 
It is its essence to o'ertake mankind 
By heart and soul, and make itself the 

equal — 
Aye, the superior of the rest. There is 
A spur in its halt movements, to become 
All that the others cannot, in such 

things 
As still are free to both, to compensate 
For stepdame Nature's avarice at 

first. 321 

They woo with fearless deeds the smiles 

of fortune, 
And oft, like Timour the lame Tartar,^ 

win them. 

• [Timur Bey, or Timur Lang, i.e. "the lame 
Timur" (a.d. 1336-1405), was the founder of the 
Mogul dynasty. He was the Tamerlane of 
history and of legend.] 



Stran. Well spoken ! And thou 

doubtless wilt remain 
Formed as thou art. I may dismiss the 

mould 
Of shadow, which must turn to flesh, 

to incase 
This daring soul, which could achieve 

no less 
Without it. 

Am. Had no power presented me 
The possibility of change, I would 
Have done the best which spirit may to 

make 330 

Its way with all Deformity's dull, deadly, 
Discouraging weight upon me, like a 

mountain. 
In feeling, on my heart as on my 

shoulders — 
An hateful and unsightly molehill to 
The eyes of happier men. I would have 

looked 
On Beauty in that sex which is the type 
Of all we know or dream of beautiful, 
Beyond the world they brighten, with a 

sigh — 
Not of love, but despair; nor sought to 

win, 
Though to a heart all love, what could 

not love me 340 

In turn, because of this vile crooked clog. 
Which makes me lonely. Nay, I could 

have borne 
It all, had not my mother spurned me 

from her. 
The she-bear licks her cubs into a sort 
Of shape; — my Dam beheld my shape 

was hopeless. 
Had she exposed me, like the Spartan, ere 
I knew the passionate part of life, I had 
Been a clod of the valley, — happier 

nothing 
Than what I am. But even thus — the 

lowest, 
Ugliest, and meanest of mankind — ■ 

what courage 350 

And perseverance could have done, per- 
chance 
Had made me something — as it has 

made heroes 
Of the same mould as mine. You lately 

saw me 
Master of my own life, and quick to 

quit it; 



Scene i.] 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



901 



And he who is so is the master of 
Whatever dreads to die. 

Stran. Decide between 

What you have been, or will be. 

Am. I have done so. 

You have opened brighter prospects to 

my eyes, 
And sweeter to my heart. As I am now, 
I might be feared — admired — re- 
spected — loved 360 
Of all save those next to me, of whom I 
Would be beloved. As thou showest 

me 
A choice of forms, I take the one I view. 
Haste ! haste ! 

Stran. And what shall / wear ? 
Am. Surely, he 

Who can command all forms will choose 

the highest, 
Something superior even to that which 

was 
Pelides now before us. Perhaps his 
Who slew him, that of Paris : or — still 

higher — 
The Poet's God, clothed in such limbs 

as are 
Themselves a poetry. 

Stran. Less will content me; 370 

For I, too, love a change. 

Am. Your aspect is 

Dusky, but not uncomely.^ 

Stran. If I chose, 

I might be whiter; but I have a pen- 
chant 
For black — it is so honest, and, besides, 
Can neither blush with shame nor pale 

with fear; 
But I have worn it long enough of late, 
And now I'll take your figure. 
Am. Mine ! 

Stran. Yes. You 

Shall change with Thetis' son, and I 

with Bertha, 
Your mother's offspring. People have 

their tastes; 
You have yours — I mine. 

Arn. Despatch ! despatch ! 

Stran. Even so. 

[The Stranger takes some earth and 

moulds it along the turf, and then 

addresses the phantom oj Achilles. 

»["I am black, but comely." — Song oj 
Solomon i. 5.] 



Beautiful shadow 381 

Of Thetis's boy ! 
Who sleeps in the meadow 

Whose grass grows o'er Troy: 
From the red earth like Adam,^ 

Thy likeness I shape. 
As the Being who made him, 

Whose actions I ape. 
Thou Clay, be all glowing, 

Till the Rose in his cheek 390 
Be as fair as, when blowing. 

It wears its first streak ! 
Ye Violets, I scatter, 

Now turn into eyes ! 
And thou, sunshiny Water, 

Of blood take the guise ! 
Let these Hyacinth boughs 

Be his long flowing hair 
And wave o'er his brows, 

As thou wavest in air ! 400 

Let his heart be this marble 

I tear from the rock ! 
But his voice as the warble 

Of birds on yon oak ! 
Let his flesh.be the purest 

Of mould, in which grew 
The Lily-root surest. 

And drank the best dew ! 
Let his limbs be the lightest 

Which clay can compound, 410 
A.nd his aspect the brightest 

On earth to be found ! 
Elements, near me. 

Be mingled and stirred, 
Know me, and hear me, 

And leap to my word ! 
Sunbeams, awaken 

This earth's animation ! 
'Tis done ! He hath taken 

His stand in creation 1 420 

[Arnold jails senseless ; his soul passes 
into the shape oj Achilles, which 
rises jrom the ground; while the 
phantom has disappeared, part by 
part, as the figure was jormed jrom 
the earth. 

Am. {in his new jorm). I love, and I 
shall be beloved ! Oh, life ! 
At last I feel thee ! Glorious Spirit ! 
Stran. Stop ! 

I Adam means "red earth,'' from which the 
first man was formed. 



932 



THF^ DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



[Part i. 



What shall become of your abandoned 

garment, 
Yon hump, and lump, and clod of ugli- 
ness, 
Which late you wore, or were? 

Am. Who cares? Let wolves 

And vultures take it, if they will 

Stran. And if 

They do, and are not scared by it, you'll 

say 
It must be peace-time, and no better fare 
Abroad i' the fields. 

Am. Let us but leave it there; 

No matter what becomes on't. 

Stran. That's ungracious; 430 

If not ungrateful. Whatsoe'er it be. 
It hath sustained your soul full many a 

day. 
Am. Aye, as the dunghill may con- 
ceal a gem 
Which is now set in gold, as jewels 

should be. 
Stran. But if I give another form, it 

must be 
By fair exchange, not robbery. For 

they ^ 
Who make men without women's aid 

have long 
Had patents for the same, and do not 

love 
Your Interlopers. The Devil may take 

men. 
Not make them, — though he reap the 

benefit 440 

Of the original workmanship : — and 

therefore 
Some one must be found to assume the 

shape 
You have quitted. 

Am. Who would do so? 

Stran. That I know not 

And therefore I must. 

' [The reference is to the honninculi of tlie 
alchyrnists. See Retzsch's illustration to Goethe's 
Faust, 1834, plates 3, 4, 5. Compare, too, The 
Second Fart of Faust, act ii. — 
"The glass rings low, the charming power that 
lives 
Within it makes the music that it gives. 
It dims ! it brightens ! it will shape itself. 
And see ! a graceful dazzling little elf. 
He lives! he moves! spruce mannikin of fire, 
What more can we? what more can earth 
desire ? " 

— Anster's Translation, 1886, p. 91.] 



You! 

I said 
your present dome 



it ere | J 
16 of 



Am. 
Stran. 
You inhabited 
beauty. 

Ar7i. True. I forget all things in the 
new joy 
Of this immortal change. 

Stran. In a few moments 

I will be as you were, and you shall see 

Yourself for ever by you, as your 

shadow. 

Am. I would be spared this. 

Stran. But it cannot be. 450 

What ! shrink already, being what you 

are, 
From seeing what you were? 

Am. Do as thou wilt. 

Stran. {to the late form of Arnold, 
extended on the earth). 
Clay ! not dead, but soul-less ! 

Though no man would choose thee, 
An Immortal no less 

Deigns not to refuse thee. 
Clay thou art; and unto spirit 
All clay is of equal merit. 
Fire ! without which nought can live; 
Fire ! but in which nought can live, 460 
Save the fabled salamander. 
Or immortal souls, which wander, 
Praying what doth not forgive, 
Howling for a drop of water. 

Burning in a quenchless lot: 
Fire ! the only element 

Where nor fish, beast, bird, nor worm. 

Save the Worm which dieth not, 
Can preserve a moment's form. 
But must with thyself be blent: 470 
Fire ! ma,n's safeguard and his slaughter : 
Fire ! Creation's first-born Daughter, 
And Destruction's threatened Son, 
When Heaven with the world hath 
done: 
Fire ! assist me to renew 
Life in what lies in my view 

Stiff and cold ! 
His resurrection rests with me and you ! 
One little, marshy spark of flame — 
And he again shall seem the same; 480 
But I his Spirit's place shall hold ! 
[An ignis-fatuus flits through the wood 
and rests on the brow of the body. 
The Stranger disappears: the 
body rises. 



Scene, i.] 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



903 



Am. {in his new form). Oh! horri- 
ble! 
Strait, (in Arnold's lale shape). 

What ! tremblest thou ? 
Am. Not so — 

I merely shudder. Where is fled the 

shape 
Thou lately worest ? 

Stran. To the world of shadows. 

But let us thread the present. Whither 
wilt thou ? 
Am. Must thou be my companion? 
Stran. Wherefore not ? 

Your betters keep worse company. 
Am. My betters ! 

Stran. Oh ! you wax proud, I see, of 
your new form: 
I'm glad of that. Ungrateful too ! 

That's well; 
You improve apace ; — two changes in 
an instant, 490 

And you are old in the World's ways 

already. 
But bear with me: indeed you'll find 

me useful 
Upon your pilgrimage. But come, pro- 
nounce 
Where shall we now be errant? 

Aril. Where the World < 

Is thickest, that I may behold it in 
Its workings. 

Stran. That's to say, where there is 
War 
And Woman in activity. Let's see ! 
Spain — Italy — the new Atlantic 

world — ^ 

Afric with all its Moors. In very truth. 

There is small choice: the whole race 

are just now 500 

Tugging as usual at each other's 

hearts. 

Am. I have heard great things of 

Rome. 
Stran. A goodly choice — 

And scarce a better to be found on earth. 
Since Sodom was put out. The field is 
wdde too; 

' [The immediate reference is to the composite 
forces, German, French, and Spanish, of the 
Imperial Army under the command of Charles de 
Bourbon: but there is in lines 498-507 a mani- 
fest allusion to the revolutionary movements in 
South America, Italy, and Spain, which were at 
their height in 1822. 1 



For now the Frank, and Hun, and 

Spanish scion 
Of the old Vandals, are at play along 
The sunny shores of the World's garden. 
Arm. How 

Shall we proceed? 

Stran. Like gallants, on good 

coursers. 
What, ho ! my chargers ! Never yet 
were better, 509 

Since Phaeton was upset into the Po.^ 
Our pages tool 

Enter two Pages, with jour coal-black 
horses. 
Am. A noble sight ! 

Stran. And of 

A nobler breed. Match me in Barbary, 
Or your Kochlini race of Araby,' 
With these ! 

Am. The mighty steam, which 

volumes high 
From their proud nostrils, burns the very 

air; 
And sparks of flame, like dancing fire- 
flies wheel 
Around their manes, as common insects 

swarm 
Round common steeds towards sunset. 

Stran. Mount, my Lord: 

They and I are your servitors. 

Am. And these 

Our dark-eyed pages — what may be 
their names? 520 

Stran. You shall baptize them. 
Am. What! in holy water? 

Stran. Why not ? The deeper sinner 

better saint. 
Am. They are beautiful, and cannot, 

sure, be demons. 
Stran. True, the Devil's always ugly : 
and your beauty 
Is never diabolical. 

Am. I'll call him 

Who bears the golden horn, and wears 

such bright 
And blooming aspect, Huon ; ^ for he 
looks 

' [See Euripides, Hippolytus, line 733.] 
^ [Kochlani horses were bred in a central 
province of Arabia.] 

3 [Byron's knowledge of Huon of Bordeaux 
was, most probably, derived from Sotheby's 
Ohcron; or, Huon dc Bourdeux. A Mask, pub- 
lished in 1802.] 



904 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



[Part i. 



Like to the lovely boy lost in the forest, 
And never found till now. And for the 

other 
And darker, and more thoughtful, who 
smiles not, 530 

But looks as serious though serene as 

night, 
He shall be Memnon,^ from the Ethiop 

king 
Whose statue turns a harper once a day. 
And you? 

Stran. I have ten thousand names, 
and twice 
As many attributes; but as I wear 
A human shape, will take a human 
name. 
Am. More human than the shape 
(though it was mine once) 
I trust. 

Stran. Then call me Caesar. 
Am. Why, that name 

Belongs to Empire, and has been but 

borne 
By the World's lords. 

Stran. And therefore fittest for 540 
The Devil in disguise — since so you 

deem me. 
Unless you call me Pope instead. 

Am. Well, then, 

Caesar thou shalt be. For myself, my 

name 
Shall be plain Arnold still. 

CcBs. We'll add a title — 

" Count Arnold :" it hath no ungracious 

sound, 
And will look well upon a billet-doux. 
Am. Or in an order for a battle-field. 
C(BS. {sings). To horse! to horse! 
my coal-black steed . 
Paws the ground and snuffs the air ! 
There's not a foal of Arab's breed 550 
More knows whom he must bear; 

' [The so-called statue of Memnon, the beauti- 
ful son of Tithonus and Eos (Dawn), is now 
known to be that of Amenhotep III., who reigned 
in the eighteenth dynasty, about 1430 b.c. 
Strabo was the first to record the musical note 
which sounded from the statue when it was 
touched by the rays of the rising sun. It used 
to be argued that the sounds were produced by 
a trick, but of late years it has been maintained 
that the Memnon's wail was due to natural 
causes, the pressure of suddenly- warmed currents 
of air through the pores and crevices of the stone. 
After the statue was restored, the phenomenon 
ceased.] 



On the hill he will not tire. 

Swifter as it waxes higher; 

In the marsh he will not slacken. 

On the plain be overtaken; 

In the wave he will not sink. 

Nor pause at the brook's side to drink ; 

In the race he will not pant. 

In the combat he'll not faint; 

On the stones he will not stumble, 560 

Time nor toil shall make him humble; 

In the stall he will not stiffen, 

But be winged as a Griffin, 

Only flying with his feet: 

And will not such a voyage be sweet ? 

Merrily ! merrily ! never unsound. 

Shall our bonny black horses skim 

over the ground I 
From the Alps to the Caucasus, ride we, 

or fly ! 
For we'll leave them behind in the 

glance of an eye. 
[They mount their horses, and disappear. 

Scene II. — A Camp before the walls of 
Rome. 

Arnold and C^sar. 

CcES. You are well entered nov/. 
Am. Aye; but my path 

Has been o'er carcasses: mine eyes are 

full 
Of blood. 

Cess. Then wipe them, and see 

clearly. Why ! 
Thou art a conqueror; the chosen knight 
And free companion of the gallant 

Bourbon, 
Late Constable of France; ^ and now 
to be 

' [Charles de Bourbon, Comte de Montpensier, 
was born, February 17, 1490. He was ap)- 
pointed Constable of France by Francis I., 
January, 1515, and fought at the battle of 
Marignano, September 13, 1515. Not long 
afterward he lost the favour of the king who was 
set against him by his mother, Louise de Savoie, 
and was recalled from his command in Italy. 
After the death of his wife (Susanne Duchesse 
de Bourbon) in 1521, he broke with Francis 
and attached himself to the Emperor, Charles V. 
After various and varying successes, both in the 
South of France and in Lombardy, he found 
himself, in the spring of 1527, not so much the 
commander-in-chief as the popular capo of 
a mixed body of German, Spanish, and Italian 
cotidolticri, unpaid and ill-disciplined, who had 



Scene ii.] 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



90s 



Lord of the city which hath been Earth's 

Lord 
Under its emperors, and — changing 

sex, 
Not sceptre, an Hermaphrodite of Em- 
pire — 
Lady of the old world. 

Am. 'Row old? What! are there 
New worlds? 

C(BS. To you. You'll find there 

are such shortly, 11 

By its rich harvests, new disease, and 

gold; 
From one half of the world named a 

whole new one. 
Because vou know no better than the 

duir 
And dubious notice of your eyes and 
ears. 
Am. I'll trust them. 
Cces. Do ! They will deceive you 
sweetly. 
And that is better than the bitter truth. 
Am. Dog! 
Cces. Man ! 

Am. Devil ! 

CcBS. Your obedient humble servant. 
Am. Say master rather. Thou hast 
lured me on. 
Through scenes of blood and lust, till I 
am. here. 20 

CcBS. And where would'st thou be? 
Am. Oh, at peace — in peace! 

CcBS. And where is that which is so ? 
From the star 
To the winding worm, all life is motion ; 

and 
In life commotion is the extremest 
point 

mutinied more than once, who could only be 
kept together by the prospect of unlimited booty, 
and a timely concession to their demands. "To 
Rome ! to Rome '" cried the hungry and tumultu- 
ous landsknechts, and on May 5, 1527, the "late 
Constable of France," at the head of an army of 
30,000 troops, appeared before the walls of the 
sacred city. On the morning of the 6th of May, 
he was killed by a shot from an arquebuse. 
His epitaph recounts his honours: "Aucto 
Imperio, Gallo victo, Superata Italia, Pontifice 
obsesso. Roma Capta, Borbonius, Hie Jacet; " 
but in Paris they painted the sill of his gate-way 
yellow, because he was a renegade and a traitor. 
He could not have said, with the dying Bayard, 
" Ne me plaignez pas — je meurs sans avoir servi 
centre ma palrie, mon roy, et mon scrment."] 



Of life. The planet wheels till it be- 
comes 
A comet, and destroying as it sweeps 
The stars, goes out. The poor worm 

winds its way, 
Living upon the death of other things, 
But still, like them, must live and die, 

the subject 
Of something which has made it live 



and die. 



30 



You must obey what all obey, the rule 
Of fixed Necessity : against her edict 
Rebellion prospers not. 

Am. And when it prospers 

Cces. 'Tis no rebellion. 
Am. Will it prosper now? 

CcBS. The Bourbon hath given orders 
for the assault. 
And by the dawn there will be work. 

Am. Alas! 

And shall the City yield ? I see the giant 
Abode of the true God, and his true 

saint, 

Saint Peter, rear its dome and cross into 

That sky whence Christ ascended from 

the cross, 40 

Which his blood made a badge of glory 

and 
Of joy (as once of torture unto him), — 
God and God's Son, man's sole and 
only refuge ! 
Cces. 'Tis there, and shall be. 
Am. What? 

Cces. The Crucifix 

Above, and many altar shrines below, 
Also some culverins upon the walls. 
And harquebusses, and what not; be- 
sides 
The men who are to kindle them to 

death 
Of other men. 

Am. And those scarce mortal 

arches, 
Pile above pile of everlasting wall, 50 
The theatre where Emperors and their 

subjects 
(Those subjects Romans) stood at gaze 

upon 
The battles of the monarchs of the wild 
And wood — the lion and his tusky 

rebels 
Of the then untamed desert, brought 
to joust 



906 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



[Part i. 



In the arena — as right well they might, 
When they had left no human foe un- 

conquered — 
Made even the forest pay its tribute of 
Life to their amphitheatre, as well 
As Dacia, men to die the eternal death 
For a sole instant's pastime, and "Pass 

on 61 

To a new gladiator ! " — Must it fall ? 

C(cs. The city, or the amphitheatre ? 
The church, or one, or all ? for you 

confound 
Both them and me. 

Am. To-morrow sounds the assault 
With the first cock-crow. 

Cces. Which, if it end with 

The evening's first nightingale, will be 
Something new in the annals of great 

sieges; 
For men must have their prey after long 

toil. 
Am. The sun goes down as calmly, 

and perhaps 70 

More beautifully, than he did on 

Rome 
On the day Remus leapt her wall. 
C(Bs. I saw him. 

Am. You ! 
CcBs. Yes, Sir ! You forget I am or 

was 
Spirit, till I took up with your cast 

shape, 
And a worse name. I'm Cassar and a 

hunchback 
Now. Well ! the first of Caesars was a 

bald-head. 
And loved his laurels better as a wig 
(So history says) than as a glory. Thus 
The world runs on, but we'll be merry 

still. 
I saw your Romulus (simple as I am) 
Slay his own twin, quick-born of the 

same womb, 81 

Because he leapt a ditch ('twas then no 

wall, 
Whate'er it now be) ; and Rome's 

earliest cement 
Was brother's blood; and if its native 

blood 
Be spilt till the choked Tiber be as red 
As e'er 'twas yellow, it will never wear 
The deep hue of the Ocean and the 

Earth, 



Which the great robber sons of frat- 
ricide 

Have made their never-ceasing scene 
of slaughter, 

For ages. 

Am. But what have these done, their 
far go 

Remote descendants, who have lived in 
peace, 

The peace of Heaven, and in her sun- 
shine of 

Piety? 

C(BS. And what had they done, 

whom the old 

Romans o'erswept ? — Hark ! 

Am. They are soldiers singing 

A reckless roundelay, upon the eve 

Of many deaths, it may be of their 
own. 
Ccps. And why should they not sing 
as well as swans? 

They are black ones, to be sure. 

Am. So, you are learned, 

I see, too? 

C<2s. In my grammar, certes. I 

Was educated for a monk of all times, 

And once I was well versed in the 
forgotten 10 1 

Etruscan letters, and — were I so 
minded — • 

Could make their hieroglyphics plainer 
than 

Your alphabet. 

Am. And wherefore do you not ? 

CcBs. It answers better to resolve the 
alphabet 

Back into hieroglyphics. Like your 
statesman, 

And prophet, pontiff, doctor, alchymist, 

Philosopher, and what not, they have 
built 

More Babels, without new dispersion, 
than 

The stammering young ones of the 
flood's dull ooze, no 

Who failed and fled each other. Why ? 
why, marry. 

Because no man could understand his 
neighbour. 

They are wiser now, and will not sepa- 
rate 

For nonsense. Nay, it is their brother- 
hood, 



Scene ii.] 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



907 



Their Shibboleth — their Koran — Tal- 
mud — their 
Cabala — their best brick-work, where- 
withal 

They build more 

Am. {interrupting him). Oh, thou 
everlasting sneerer ! 
Be silent ! How the soldier's rough 

strain seems 
Softened by distance to a hymn-like 

cadence ! 
Listen ! 

CcBs. Yes. I have heard the angels 
sing. 120 

Am. And demons howl. 
Ccps. And man, too. Let us 

listen : 
I love all music. 

Song of the Soldiers within. 

The black bands came over 

The Alps and their snow; 
With Bourbon, the rover, 

They passed the broad Po. 
We have beaten all foemen, 

We have captured a King,^ 
We have turned back on no men, 

And so let us sing ! 130 

Here's the Bourbon for ever ! 

Though penniless all. 
We'll have one more endeavour 

At yonder old wall. 
With the Bourbon we'll gather 

At day-dawn before 
The gates, and together 

Or break or climb o'er 
The wall : on the ladder. 

As mounts each firm foot, 140 

Our shout shall grow gladder, 

And Death only be mute. 
With the Bourbon we'll mount o'er 

The walls of old Rome, 
And who then shall count o'er 

The spoils of each dome? 
Up ! up with the Lily ! 

And down with the Keys! 
In old Rome, the seven-hilly. 

We'll revel at ease. 150 

Her streets shall be gory. 

Her Tiber all red, 

' [Francis the First was taken prisoner at the 
Battle of Pavia, February 24, 1525.] 



And her temples so hoary 

Shall clang with our tread. 
Oh, the Bourbon ! the Bourbon ! ^ 

The Bourbon for aye ! 
Of our song bear the burden ! 

And fire, fire away! 
With Spain for the vanguard, 

Our varied host comes; 160 

And next to the Spaniard 

Beat Germany's drums; 
And Italy's lances 

Are couched at their mother; 
But our leader from France is. 

Who warred with his brother. 
Oh, the Bourbon ! the Bourbon ! 

Sans country or home. 
We'll follow the Bourbon, 

To plunder old Rome. 170 

Cces. An indifferent song 

For those within the walls, methinks, 

to hear. 
Am. Yes, if they keep to their 

chorus. But here comes 
The general with his chiefs and men 

of trust. 
A goodly rebel ! 

Enter the Constable Bourbon "cum 
suis," etc., etc. 

Phil. How now, noble Prince, 

You are not cheerful ? 

Bourb. Why should I be so ? 

Phil. Upon the eve of conquest, 
such as ours, 
Most men would be so. 

Bourb. If I were secure ! 

Phil. Doubt not our soldiers. Were 
the walls of adamant. 
They'd crack them. Hunger is a sharp 
artillery. 180 

Bourb. That they will falter is my 
least of fears. 
That they will be repulsed, v/ith Bour- 
bon for 
Their chief, and all their kindled appe- 
tites 
To marshal them on — were those 
hoary walls 

' [Brantome {Memoires, etc., 1722, i. 215) 
quotes a "chanson" of "Les soldats Espagnols" 
as they marched Romewards. "Calla calla 
Julio Cesar, Hannibal, y Scipion ! Viva la 
fama de Bourbon."] 



9o8 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



[Part i. 



Mountains, and those who guard them 

like the gods 
Of the old fables, I would trust my 

Titans; — 

But now 

Phil. They are but men who war 

with mortals. 
Bourh. True: but those walls have 

girded in great ages, 
And set forth mighty spirits. The 

past earth 
And present phantom of imperious 

Rome 190 

Is peopled with those warriors; and, 

methinks. 
They flit along the eternal City's ram- 
part, 
And stretch their glorious, gory,shadowy 

hands, 
And beckon me away ! 

Phil. So let them ! Wilt thou 

Turn back from shadowy menaces of 

shadows ? 
Bourh. They do not menace me. 

I could have faced, 
Methinks, a Sylla's menace; but they 

clasp 
And raise, and wring their dim and 

deathlike hands, 
And with their thin aspen faces and 

fixed eyes 
Fascinate mine. Look there ! 

Phil. I look upon 200 

A lofty battlement. 

Bourh. And there ! 

Phil. Not even 

A guard in sight; they wisely keep 

below. 
Sheltered by the grey parapet from some 
Stray bullet of our lansquenets, who 

might 
Practise in the cool twilight. 

Bourh. You are blind. 

Phil. If seeing nothing more than 

may be seen 
Be so. 

Bourh. A thousand years have 

manned the walls 
With all their heroes, — the last Cato 

stands 
And tears his bowels, rather than sur- 
vive 
The liberty of that I would enslave. 210 



And the first Caesar with his triumphs 

flits 
From battlement to battlement. 

Phil. Then conquer 

The walls for which he conquered, 

and be greater ! 

Bourh. True: so I will, or perish. 

Phil. You cannot. 

In such an enterprise to die is 

rather 
The dawn of an eternal day, than 
death. 

[Count Arnold and C^sar advance. 
CcBS. And the mere men — do they, 
too, sweat beneath 
The noon of the same ever-scorching 
glorv ? 
Bourh. Ah ! 

Welcome the bitter Hunchback ! and 

his master, 
The beauty of our host, and brave as 
beauteous, 220 

And generous as lovely. We shall find 
Work for you both ere morning. 

Cces. You will find, 

So please your Highness, no less for 
yourself. 
Bourh. And if I do, there will not 
be a labourer 
More forward, Hunchback ! 

CcBs. You may well say so, 

For you have seen that back — as 

general. 
Placed in the rear in action — but your 

foes 
Have never seen it. 

Bourh. That's a fair retort, 

For I provoked it: — but the Bourbon's 

breast 
Has been, and ever shall be, far ad- 
vanced 230 
In danger's face as yours, were you the 
Devil. 
CcBS. And if I were, I might have ' 
saved myself 
The toil of coming here. 

Phil. Why so? 

Cces. One half 

Of your brave bands of their own bold 

accord 
Will go to him, the other half be sent, 
More swiftly, not less surely. 

Bourh. Arnold, your 



Scene i.] 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



909 



Slight crooked friend's as snake-like 

in his words 
As his deeds. 

Cccs. Your Highness much mistakes 

me. 
The first snake was a flatterer — I am 

none; 
And for my deeds, I only sting when 

stung. 240 

Bourh. You are brave, and that's 

enough for me; and quick 
In speech as sharp in action — and 

that's more. 
I am not alone the soldier, but the 

soldiers' 
Comrade. 

Cces. They are but bad company, 

your Highness; 
And worse even for their friends than 

foes, as being 
More permanent acquaintance. 

Phil. How now, fellow ! 

Thou waxest insolent, beyond the 

privilege 
Of a buffoon. 

Cces. You mean I speak the truth. 

I'll lie — it is as easy: then you'll praise 

me 
For calling you a hero. 

Bourh. Philibert ! 250 

Let him alone; he's brave, and ever has 
Been first, with that swart face and 

mountain shoulder. 
In field or storm, and patient in starva- 
tion; 
And for his tongue, the camp is full of 

licence. 
And the sharp stinging of a lively rogue 
Is, to my mind, far preferable to 
The gross, dull, heavy, gloomy execration 
Of a mere famished sullen grumbling 

slave. 
Whom nothing can convince save a full 

meal. 
And wine, and sleep, and a few Mara- 

vedis, 260 

With which he deems him rich. 

Cas. It would be well 

If the earth's princes asked no more. 
Bourh. Be silent ! 

CcBS. Aye, but not idle. Work 

yourself with words ! 
You have few to speak. 



Phil. What means the audacious 

prater ? 
Cces. To prate, like other prophets. 
Bourh. Philibert ! 

Why will you vex him ? Have we not 

enough 
To think on ? Arnold ! I will lead the 

attack 
To-morrow. 

Am. I have heard as much, my 

Lord. 

Bourh. And you will follow? 

Am. Since I must not lead. 

Bourh. 'Tis necessary for the further 

daring 270 

Of our too needy army, that their chief 

Plant the first foot upon the foremost 

ladder's 
First step. 

Cces. Upon its topmost, let us hope : 
So shall he have his full deserts. 

Bourh. The world's 

Great capital perchance is ours to- 
morrow. 
Through every change the seven-hilled 

city hath 
Retained her sway o'er nations, and 

the Caesars 
But yielded to the Alarics, the Alarics 
Unto the pontiffs. Roman, Goth, or 

priest. 
Still the world's masters ! Civilised, 
barbarian, 280 

Or saintly, still the walls of Romulus 
Have been the circus of an Empire. 

Well ! 
'Twas their turn — now 'tis ours; and 

let us hope 
That we will fight as well, and rule 
much better. 
Cces. No doubt, the camp's the 
school of civic rights. 
What would you make of Rome ? 

Bourh. That which it was. 

Cces. In Alaric's time ? 
Bourh. No, slave I in the first Csesar's, 
Whose name you bear like other curs — 
Cces. And kings ! 

'Tis a great name for bloodhounds. 

Bourh. There's a demon 

In that fierce rattlesnake thy tongue. 
Wilt never 290 

Be serious? 



9IO 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



[Part ii 



CcBs. On the eve of battle, no ; — 

That were not soldier-like. 'Tis for 

the general 
To be more pensive: we adventurers 
Must be more cheerful. Wherefore 

should we think ? 
Our tutelar Deity, in a leader's shape. 
Takes care of us. Keep thought aloof 

from hosts ! 
If the knaves take to thinking, you will 

have 
To crack those walls alone. 

Bourb. You may sneer, since 

'Tis lucky for you that you fight no 
worse for't. 
Cas. I thank you for the freedom; 
'tis the only 300 

Pay I have taken in your Highness' 
service. 
Bourb. Well, Sir, to-morrow you 
shall pay yourself. 
Look on those towers; they hold my 

treasury: 
But, Philibert, we'll in to council. 

Arnold, 
We would request your presence. 

Am. Prince 1 my service 

Is yours, as in the field. 

Bourb. In both we prize it. 

And yours will be a post of trust at 
daybreak. 
CcBs. And mine? 

Bourb. To follow glory with the 
Bourbon. 
Good night ! 

Am. {to C/Esar). Prepare our 

armour for the assault. 
And wait within my tent. 

[Exeunt Bourbon, Arnold, Phili- 
bert, etc. 
Cm. {solus). Within thy tent ! 310 
Think'st thou that I pass from thee with 

my presence? 
Or that this crooked coffer, which con- 
tained 
Thy principle of life, is aught to me 
Except a mask? And these are men, 

forsooth ! 
Heroes and chiefs, the flower of Adam's 

bastards ! 
This is the consequence of giving matter 
The power of thought. It is a stubborn 
substance, 



And thinks chaotically, as it acts, 
Ever relapsing into its first elements 
Well ! I must play with these poor pup 

pets: 'tis 32c 

The Spirit's pastime in his idler hours 
When I grow weary of it, I have business 
Amongst the stars, which these pooi 

creatures deem 
Were made for them to look at. 'Twere 

a jest now 
To bring one down amongst them, and 

set fire 
Unto their anthill: how the pismires 

then 
Would scamper o'er the scalding soil, 

and, ceasing 
From tearing down each other's nests, 

pipe forth 
One universal orison ! ha ! ha ! 

[Exit C^SAR. 

PART II. 

Scene I. — Before the walls of Rome. 
— The Assault: the Army in 
motion, with ladders to scale the 
walls; Bourbon with a white 
scarf over his armour, foremost. 

Chorus of Spirits in the air. 

I. 

'Tis the morn, but dim and dark. 

Whither flies the silent lark? 

Whither shrinks the clouded sun ? 

Is the day indeed begun? 

Nature's eye is melancholy 

O'er the city high and holy: 

But without there is a din 

Should arouse the saints within, 

And revive the heroic ashes 

Round which yellow Tiber dashes. 10 

Oh, ye seven hills ! awaken. 

Ere your very base be shaken ! 



Hearken to the steady stamp ! 

Mars is in their every tramp ! 

Not a step is out of tune. 

As the tides obey the moon ! 

On they march, though to self-slaughter, 

Regular as rolling water, 

Whose high-waves o'ersweep the border 

Of huge moles, but keep their order, 20 



Scene i.] 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



911 



Breaking only rank by rank. 
Hearken to the armour's clank ! 
Look down o'er each frowning warrior, 
How he glares upon the barrier: 
Look on each step of each ladder, 
As the stripes that streak an adder. 



Look upon the bristling wall, 
Manned without an interval ! 
Round and round, and tier on tier. 
Cannon's black mouth, shining spear, 30 
Lit match, bell-mouthed Musquetoon, 
Gaping to be murderous soon; 
All the warlike gear of old, 
Mixed with what we now behold. 
In this strife 'twixt old and new, 
Gather like a locusts' crew. 
Shade of Remus ! 'tis a time 
Awful as thy brother's crime ! 
Christians war against Christ's shrine : — 
Must its lot be like to thine ? 40 



Near — and near — and nearer still. 
As the Earthquake saps the hill. 
First with trembling, hollow motion. 
Like a scarce awakened ocean. 
Then with stronger shock and louder. 
Till the rocks are crushed to powder, — 
Onward sweeps the rolling host ! 
Heroes of the immortal boast ! 
Mighty Chiefs ! eternal shadows ! 
First flowers of the bloody meadows 50 
Which encompass Rome, the mother 
Of a people without brother ! 
Will you sleep when nations' quarrels 
Plough the root up of your laurels? 
Ye who weep o'er Carthage burning, 
Weep not — strike ! for Rome is mourn- 
ing! ^ 



Onward sweep the varied nations ! 
Famine long hath dealt their rations. 
To the wall, with hate and hunger. 
Numerous as wolves, and stronger, 60 
On they sweep. Oh, glorious City ! 
'Must thou be a theme for pity? 

' Scipio, the second Africanus, is said to have 
repeated a verse of Homer [Iliad, vi. 448], and 
wept over the burning of Carthage [b.c. 146]. 
He had better have granted it a capitulation. 



Fight, like your first sire, each Roman! 
Alaric was a gentle foeman. 
Matched with Bourbon's black ban- 
ditti ! 
Rouse thee, thou eternal City; 
Rouse thee ! Rather give the torch 
With thine own hand to thy porch. 
Than behold such hosts pollute 
Your worst dwelling with their foot. 70 



Ah ! behold yon bleeding spectre ! 

Ilion's children find no Hector; 

Priam's offspring loved their brother; 

Rome's great sire forgot his mother, 

When he slew his gallant twin, 

With inexpiable sin. 

See the giant shadow stride 

O'er the ramparts high and wide ! 

When the first o'erleapt thy wall. 

Its foundation mourned thy fall. 80 

Now, though towering like a Babel, 

Who to stop his steps are able? 

Stalking o'er thy highest dome, 

Remus claims his vengeance, Rome ! 

VII. 

Now they reach thee in their anger: 
Fire and smoke and hellish clangour 
Are around thee, thou world's wonder! 
Death is in thy walls and under. 
Now the meeting steel first clashes. 
Downward then the ladder crashes, 90 
With its iron load all gleaming. 
Lying at its foot blaspheming ! 
Up again ! for every warrior 
Slain, another climbs the barrier. 
Thicker grows the strife : thy ditches 
Europe's mingling gore enriches. 
Rome I although thy wall may perish. 
Such manure thy fields will cherish. 
Making gay the harvest-home; 
But thy hearths, alas ! oh, Rome ! — 100 
Yet be Rome amidst thine anguish, 
Fight as thou wast wont to vanquish I 

VIII. 

Yet once more, ye old Penates ! 
Let not your quenched hearts be Ates ! 
Yet again, ye shadowy Heroes, 
Yield not to these stranger Neros ! 
Though the son who slew his mother 
Shed Rome's blood, he was your brother: 



912 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



[Part hi 



'Twas the Roman curbed the Roman; — 
Brennus was a baflfied foeman. no 

Yet again, ye saints and martyrs, 
Rise ! for yours are hoHer charters ! 
Mighty Gods of temples falHng, 
Yet in ruin still appalling ! 
Mightier Founders of those altars. 
True and Christian, — strike the as- 
saulters ! 
Tiber ! Tiber ! let thy torrent 
Show even Nature's self abhorrent. 
Let each breathing heart dilated 
Turn, as doth the lion baited ! 120 

Rome be crushed to one wide tomb, 
But be still the Roman's Rome ! 

[Bourbon, Arnold, C^sar, and 
others, arrive at the foot of the wall. 
Arnold is about to plant his 
ladder. 
Bourh. Hold, Arnold ! I am first. 
Am. Not so, my Lord. 

Boiirb. Hold, Sir, I charge you ! 
Follow ! I am proud 
Of such a follower, but will brook no 
leader. 
[Bourbon plants his ladder, and 
begins to mount. 
Now, boys ! On ! on ! 

[A shot strikes him, and Bourbo'N falls. 
Cces. And off ! 

Am. Eternal powers! 

The host will be appalled, — but ven- 
geance ! vengeance ! 
Bourb. 'Tis nothing — lend me your 

hand. 
[Bourbon takes Arnold by the hand, 
and rises; but as he puts his 
foot on the step, falls again. 

Arnold ! I am sped. 
Conceal my fall — all will go well — 

conceal it ! 
Fling my cloak o'er what will be dust 
anon; 130 

Let not the soldier see it. 

Am. You must be 

Removed; the aid of 

Bourb. No, my gallant boy I 

Death is upon me. But w^hat is o?ie 

life? 
The Bourbon's spirit shall command 

them still. 
Keep them yet ignorant that I am but 
clay, 



Till they are conquerors — then do a; 
you may. 
CcBS. Would not your Highnes: 
choose to kiss the cross? 
We have no priest here, but the hilt o: 

sword 
May serve instead : — it did the same 
for Bayard.^ 
Bourb. Thou bitter slave ! to name 
him at this time ! 14c 

But I deserve it. 

Am. (to C^sar). Villain, hold youi 

peace ! 
Ccrs. What, when a Christian dies: 
Shall I not offer 
A Christian " Vade in pace" ? 

Am. Silence! Oh! 

Those eyes are glazing which o'erlooked 

the world, 
And saw no equal. 

Bourb. Arnold, shouldst thou see 

France But hark ! hark ! the 

assault grows warmer — Oh ! 
For but an hour, a minute more of life 
To die within the wall ! Hence, Arnold, 

hence ! 
You lose time — they will conquer 
Rome without thee. 
Am. And without thee. 
Bourb. Not so; I'll lead them still 150 
In spirit. Cover up my dust, and 

breathe not 
That I have ceased to breathe. Away I 

and be 
Victorious. 

Am. But I must not leave thee thus. 
Bourb. You must — farewell — Up ! 
up ! the world is winning. 

[Bourbon dies. 
C(2S. {to Arnold). Come, Count, to 

business. 
Am. True. I'll weep hereafter. 

[Arnold covers Bourbon's body with 
a mantle, mounts the ladder, crying 
The Bourbon ! Bourbon ! On, boys ! 
Rome is ours ! 
Cas. Good-night, Lord Constable! 
thou wert a Man. 

I ["Quand il sentit le coup, se print a cryer: 
'Jesus!' et puis il dist 'Helas! mon Dieu, je suis 
mort ! ' Si prit son espee par la poignee en signe 
de croix en disant tout hault, 'Miserere mei, 
Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.'" 
— Chronique de Bayarl, 1836, cap. Ixiv., p. 119.] 



Scene ii.] 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



913 



[C^-SAR folloxus Arnold ; they reach 
the battlement; Arnold and 
C.'ESAR are struck down. 
Cces. A precious somerset ! Is your 

countship injured? 

Am. No. [Remounts the ladder. 

Cces. A rare bloodhound, when his 

own is heated ! 

And 'tis no boy's play. Now he strikes 

them down ! 160 

His hand is on the battlement — he 

grasps it 
As though it were an altar ; now his foot 
Is on it, and — What have we here ? — 

a Roman? 
The first bird of the covey ! he has fallen 
[A man falls. 
On the outside of the nest. Why, how 
now, fellow? 
Wounded Man. A drop of water ! 
Cces. Blood's the only liquid 

Nearer than Tiber. 

Wounded Man. I have died for Rome. 

[Dies. 
Cces. And so did Bourbon, in another 
sense. 
Oh, these immortal men ! and their 

great motives ! 
But I must after my young charge. He 
is 170 

By this time i' the Forum. Charge ! 
charge ! 
[C^SAR mounts the ladder; the scene 
closes. 

Scene II. — The City. — Combats be- 
tween the Besiegers and Besieged 
in the streets. Inhabitants flying in 
confusion. 

Enter C^sar. 

Cces. I cannot find my hero; he is 
mixed 
With the heroic crowd that now pursue 
The fugitives, or battle with the desper- 
ate. 
What have we here ? A Cardinal or two 
That do not seem in love with martyr- 
dom. 
How the old red-shanks scamper ! 

Could they doff 
Their hose as they have doffed their 
hats, 'twould be 

3N 



A blessing, as a mark the less for 

plunder. 
But let them fly; the crimson kennels 

now 
Will not much stain their stockings, 

since the mire 10 

Is of the self-same purple hue. 

Enter a Party fighting — Arnold at the 
head of the Besiegers. 

He comes. 
Hand in hand with the mild twins — 

Gore and Glory. 
Holla ! hold, Count ! 

Am. Away ! they must not rally. 
Cces. I tell thee, be not rash; a 
golden bridge 
Is for a flying enemy. I gave thee 
A form of beauty, and an 
Exemption from some maladies of body, 
But not of mind, which is not mine to 

give. 
But though I gave the form of Thetis' 

son, 

I dipped thee not in Styx; and 'gainst a 

foe 20 

I would not warrant thy chivalric heart 

More than Pelides' heel; why, then, be 

cautious, 
And know thyself a mortal still. 

Am. And who 

With aught of soul would combat if he 

were 
Invulnerable ? That were pretty sport. 
Think' St thou I beat for hares when 
lions roar? 

[Arnold rushes into the combat. 

Cces. A precious sample of humanity ! 

Well, his blood's up; and, if a little's 

shed, 
'Twill serve to curb his fever, 

[Arnold engages with a Roman, who 

retires towards a portico. 
Am. Yield thee, slave! 

I promise quarter. 

Rom. That's soon said. 

Am. And done 30 

My word is known. 

Rom. So shall be my deeds. 

[They re-engage. C^sar comes for- 
ward. 
Cces. Why, Arnold! hold thine own: 
thou hast in hand 



914 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



[Part i 



A famous artisan, a cunning sculptor; 
Also a dealer in the sword and dagger. 
Not so, my musqueteer; 'twas he who 

slew 
The Bourbon from the wall. 

Am. Aye, did he so? 

Then he hath carved his monument. 

Rom. I yet 

May live to carve your better's. 

C(BS. Well said, my man of marble ! 

Benvenuto, 

Thou hast some practice in both ways; 

and he 40 

Who slays Cellini will have worked as 

hard 
As e'er thou didst upon Carrara's blocks. 
[Arnold disarms and wounds Cel- 
lini, but slightly : the latter draws 
a pistol, and fire s ; then retires, and 
disappears through the portico. 
Cces. How farest thou? Thou hast 
a taste, methinks, 
Of red Bellona's banquet. 

Am. (staggers). 'Tis a scratch. 

Lend me thy scarf. He shall not 'scape 
me thus. 
Cces. Where is it? 
Am. In the shoulder, 

not the sword arm — 
And that's enough. I am thirsty: 

would I had 
A helm of water ! 

Cces. That's a liquid now 

In requisition, but by no means easiest 
To come at. 

Am. And my thirst increases; — but 
I'll find a way to quench it. 

Cces. Or be quenched 51 

Thyself. 

Am. The chance is even; we will 
throw 
The dice thereon. But I lose time in 

prating; 
Prithee be quick. 

[C^SAR binds on the scarf. 
And what dost thou so idly? 
Why dost not strike? 

Cces. Your old philosophers 

Beheld mankind, as mere spectators of 
The Olympic games. When I behold a 

prize 
Worth wrestling for, I may be found a 
Milo. 



Ar7t. Aye, 'gainst an oak. 

CcBs. A forest, when it suits me 

I combat with a mass, or not a 

all. 6 

Meantime, pursue thy sport as I d< 

mine; 
Which is just now to gaze, since all thes^ 

labourers 
Will reap my harvest gratis. 

Am. Thou art stili 

A fiend ! 

Cces. And thou — a man. 

Am. Why, such I fain would shov 

me. 
CcFS. True — as rnen are. 

Am. And what is that? 
CcBs. Thou feelest and thou see'st. 
[Exit Arnold, joining in the combat 
which still continues between de- 
tached parties. The scene closes. 

Scene III. — St Peter's — The interior 
of the Church — The Pope at the 
Altar — Priests, etc., crowding in 
confusion, and Citizens flying for 
refuge, pursued by Soldiery. 

Enter C^SAR. 

A Spanish Soldier. Down with them, 

comrades, seize upon those lamps 1 

Cleave yon bald-pated shaveling to the 

chine ! 
His rosary's of gold ! 

Lutheran Soldier. Revenge ! revenge ! 
Plunder hereafter, but for vengeance 

now — 
Yonder stands Anti-Christ ! 

CcBs. {interposing). How now, schis- 
matic ? 
What wouldst thou? 

Ltith. Sold. In the holy name 

of Christ, 
Destroy proud Anti-Christ.^ I am a 
Christian. 

I [Among the Imperial troops which Charles 
de Bourbon led against Rome were at least six 
thousand Landsknechts, ardent converts to the 
Reformed religion, and eager to prove their zeal 
by the slaughter of Catholics and the destruction 
of altars and crucifixes. Their leader, George 
Frundsberg, had set out for Rome with the pious 
intention of hanging the Pope (see The Popes 0} 
Rome, by Leopold Ranke, translated by Sarah 
Austen, 1866, i 72).] 



;CENE III.] 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



915 



Cces. Yea, a disciple that would make 
the founder 
)f your belief renounce it, could he see 
»uch proselytes. Best stint thyself to 
plunder. 10 

Luth. Sold. I say he is the Devil. 
Cas. Hush ! keep that secret, 

^est he should recognise you for his own. 
Luth. Sold. Why would you save 
him? I repeat he is 
The Devil, or the Devil's vicar upon 
earth. 
Cces. And that 's the reason: would 
you make a quarrel 
Vith your best friends? You had far 

best be quiet; 
lis hour is not yet come. 
Luth. Sold. That' shall be seen ! 

{The Lutheran Soldier rushes forward: 
a shot strikes him jroni one of the 
Pope's Guards, and he falls at the 
foot of the Altar. 
Cess, (to the Lutheran). I told you so. 
Luth. Sold. And will you not avenge 

me? 
C(rs. Not I ! You know that "Ven- 
geance is the Lord's": 
{on see he loves no interlopers. 



Luth. Sold, {dying). 



Oh 



3ad I but slain him, I had gone on high, 
Drowned with eternal glory ! Heaven, 

forgive 
Vly feebleness of arm that reached him 

not, 

\nd take thy servant to thy mercy. 'Tis 
\ glorious triumph still; proud Baby- 
lon's 
Sfo more; the Harlot of the Seven 

Hills 
Hath changed her scarlet raiment for 

sackcloth 
\nd ashes ! \The Lutheran dies. 

Cces. Yes, thine own amidst the rest. 
vVell done, old Babel ! 
{The Guards defend themselves des- 
perately, while the Pontiff escapes, 
by a private passage, to the Vati- 
can and the Castle of St Angela. 
Cces. Ha ! right nobly battled ! 



Mow, priest 



soldier ! th'e two 



great professions, 30 

(Together by the ears and hearts ! I 
have not 



Seen a more comic pantomine since 

Titus 
Took Jewry. But the Romans had the 

best then; 
Now they must take their turn. 

Soldiers. He hath escaped ! 

Follow ! 

Another Sold. They have barred the 

narrow passage up, 
And it is clogged with dead even to the 

door. 
Cces. I am glad he hath escaped : he 

may thank me for't 
In part. I would not have his bulls 

abolished — 
'Twere worth one half our empire: his 

indulgences 
Demand some in return; no, no, he 

must not 40 

Fall ; — and besides, his now escape 

may furnish 
A future miracle, in future proof 
Of his infallibility. 

{To the Spanish Soldiery. 

Well, cut-throats ! 

What do you pause for? If you make 

not haste. 
There will not be a link of pious gold 

left. 
And you, too, Catholics ! Would ye 

return 
From such a pilgrimage without a relic ? 
The very Lutherans have more true 

devotion : 
See how they strip the shrines ! 

Soldiers. By holy Peter ! 

He speaks the truth; the heretics will 

bear 50 

The best away. 

Cces. And that were shame ! Go to ! 
Assist in their conversion. 

{Tlie Soldiers disperse; many quit 

the Church, others enter. 
Cces. They are gone. 

And others come : so flows the wave on 

wave 
Of what these creatures call Eternity, 
Deeming themselves the breakers of the 

Ocean, 
While they are but its bubbles, 

ignorant 
That foam is their foundation. So, 

another ! 



9i6 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



[Part ii. 



Enter Olimpia, flying from the pursuit — 
She springs upon the Altar. 

Sold. She's mine ! 

Another Sold, {opposing the former). 
You lie, I tracked tier first: and 
were she 
The Pope's niece, I'll not yield her. 

[They fight. 
2,d Sold, {advancing towards Olimpia) . 
You may settle 
Your claims; I'll make mine good. 

Olimp. Infernal slave 1 60 

You touch me not alive. 

2)d Sold. Alive or dead ! 

Olimp. {embracing a massive crucifix). 

Respect your God ! 
3^ Sold. Ye§, when he shines in 
gold. 
Girl, you but grasp your dowry. 

[As he advances, Olimpia, with a 
strong and sudden effort, casts 
down the crucifix; it strikes the 
Soldier, who falls. 
3^ Sold. Oh, great God ! 

Olimp. Ah ! now you recognise him. 
T,d Sold. My brain's crushed ! 

Cornrades, help, ho! All's darkness! 
[He dies. 
Other Soldiers {coming up). Slay her, 
although she had a thousand lives : 
She hath killed our comrade. 

Olimp. Welcome such a death ! 

You have no life to give, which the worst 

slave 
Would take. Great God ! through thy 

redeeming Son, 
And thy Son's Mother, now receive me 
as 70 

I would approach thee, worthy her, and 
him, and thee ! 

Enter Arnold. 

Am. What do I see? Accursed 
jackals ! 
Forbear ! 

Cces. {aside and laughing) . Ha ! ha ! 
here's equity ! The dogs 
Have as much right as he. But to the 
issue ! 
Soldiers. Count, she hath slain our 

comrade. 
Am. With what weapon? 



Sold. The cross, beneath which he is 
crushed ; behold him 
Lie there, more like a worm than man; 

she cast it 
Upon his head. 

Am. Even so: there is a woman 

Worthy a brave man's liking. Were ye 

such. 
Ye would have honoured her. But get 
ye hence, 80 

And thank your meanness, other God 

you have none. 
For your existence. Had you touched a 

hair 
Of those dishevelled locks, I would have 

thinned 
Your ranks more than the enemy. 

Away ! 
Ye jackals ! gnaw the bones the lion 

leaves, 
But not even these till he permits. 

A Sold, {murmuring). The lion 

Might conquer for himself then. 

Am. {cuts him down). Mutineer! 

Rebel in hell — you shall obey on earth ! 

[The Soldiers assault Arnold. 

Am. Come on! I'm glad on't! I 

will show you, slaves, 

How you should be commanded, and 

who led you 90 

First o'er the wall you were so shy to 

scale, 
Until I waved my banners from its 

height, 
As you are bold within it. 

[Arnold mows down the foremost; the 

rest throw down their arms. 
Soldiers. Mercy ! mercy ! 

Am. Then learn to grant it. Have 
I taught you who 
Led you o'er Rome's eternal battle- 
ments ? 
Soldiers. We saw it, and we know it : 
yet forgive 
A moment's error in the heat of con- 
quest — 
The conquest which you led to. 

Am. Get you hence! 

Hence to your quarters! you will find 

them fixed 
In the Colonna palace. 

Olimp. {aside). In my father's 100 
House ! 



Scene hi.] 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



917 



Am. {to the Soldiers). Leave your 
arms; ye have no further need 
Of such: the City's rendered. And 

mark well 
You keep your hands clean, or I'll find 

out a stream 
As red as Tiber now runs, for your 
baptism. 
Soldiers {deposing their arms and de- 
parting) . We obey ! 
Am. {to Olimpia). Lady, you are 
I safe. 

1 Olimp. I should be so, 

jEIad I a knife even ; but it matters not — 
Death hath a thousand gates; and on 

the marble, 
!^ven at the altar foot, whence I look 

down 
Upon destruction, shall my head be 

dashed, 

lire thou ascend it. God forgive thee, 
man! no 

Am. I wish to merit his forgiveness, 
and 
Thine own, although I have not injured 
thee. 
Olimp. No ! Thou hast only sacked 
my native land, -^ 
No injury 1 — and made my father's 

house 
A den of thieves ! No injury ! — this 

temple — 
Slippery with Roman and with holy 

gore ! 
No injury ! And now thou wouldst pre- 
serve me. 

To be but that shall never be ! 

[She raises her eyes to Heaven, folds 
her robe round her, and prepares ' 
to dash herself down on the side of 
the Altar opposite to that where 
; Arnold stands. 

{ Am. Hold! hold! 

I swear. 

, Olimp. Spare thine already forfeit 
; soul 

A perjury for which even Hell would 
loathe thee. 120 

I know thee. 

Am. No, thou know'st me not; I 
^am not 

Of these men, though 

Olimp. I judge thee by thy mates; 



It is for God to judge thee as thou art. 
I see thee purple with the blood of Rome ; 
Take mine, 'tis all thou e'er shalt have 

of me, 
And here, upon the marble of this 

temple. 
Where the baptismal font baptized me 

God's, 
I offer him a blood less holy 
But not less pure (pure as it left me 

then, 
A redeemed infant) than the holy water 
The saints haVe sanctified ! 

[Olimpia waves her hand to Arnold 
with disdain, and dashes herself 
on the pavement from the Altar. 
Am. Eternal God ! 131 

I feel thee now ! Help ! help ! she's 
gone. 
C(BS. {approaches). I am here. 
Am. Thou! but oh, save her! 
CcEs. {assisting him to raise Olimpia). 
She hath done it well ! 
The leap was serious. 

Arn. Oh ! she is lifeless ! 

Ca-s. If 

She be so, I have nought to do with 

that; 
The resurrection is beyond me. 

Arn. Slave! 

CcBs. Aye, slave or master, 'tis all 

one: methinks 

Good words, however, are as well at 

times. 

Arn. Words ! - — Canst thou aid her ? 

Ca^s. I will try. A sprinkling 

Of that same holy water may be 

useful. 140 

[He brings some in his helmet from 

the font. 
Arn. 'Tis mixed with blood. 
Cas. There is no cleaner now 

In Rome. 

Arn. How pale! how beautiful ! how 
lifeless ! 
Alive or dead, thou Essence of all 

Beauty, 
I love but thee ! 

CcBs. Even so Achilles loved 

Penthesilea; ^ with his form it seems 

' [Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons, was 
slain by Achilles, who wept over her as she lay 
a-dying, bewailing her beauty and her daring.] 



9i8 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



[Part ii. 



You have his heart, and yet it was no 

soft one. 

Am. She breathes! But no, 'twas 

nothing, or the last 

Faint flutter Life disputes with Death. 

Cces. She breathes. 

Am. Thou say'st it? Then 'tis 

truth. 
Cm. You do me right — 

The Devil speaks truth much oftener 
than he's deemed: 150 

He hath an ignorant audience. 

Am. {without attending-to him). Yes ! 
her heart beats. 
Alas ! that the first beat of the only 

heart 
I ever wished to beat with mine should 

vibrate 
To an assassin's pulse. 

Cas. A sage reflection, 

But somewhat late i' the day. Where 

shall we bear her? 
I say she lives. 

Am. And will she live? 

Ccts. As much 

As dust can ! 

Am. Then she is dead 1 

Cces. Bah ! bah ! You are so, 

And do not know it. She will come to 

life — 
Such as you think so, such as you now 

are; 
But we must work by human means. 

Am. We will 160 

Convey her unto the Colonna palace, 
Where I have pitched my banner. 

Cas. Come then ! raise her up ! 

Am. Softly 

C(Bs. As softly as they bear 

the dead, 
Perhaps because they cannot feel the 
jolting. 
Am. But doth she live indeed? 
Cas. Nay, never fear ! 

But, if you rue it after, blame not me. 
Am. Let her but live ! 
Ccrs. The Spirit of her life 

Is yet within her breast, and may re- 
vive. 
Count ! count ! I am your servant in all 

things, 
And this is a new oflFice: — 'tis not 
oft 1 70 



I am employed in such; but you per- 
ceive 
How staunch a friend is what you call a 

fiend. 
On earth you have often only fiends for 

friends; 
Now I desert not mine. Soft ! bear 

her hence. 
The beautiful half-clay, and nearly 

spirit ! 
I am almost enamoured of her, as 
Of old the Angels of her earliest sex. 
Am. Thou! 
Cas. I! But fear not. I'll not be 

your rival. 
Am. Rival! 
C<TS. I could be one right formi- 
dable; 

But since I slew the seven husbands 

of 180 

Tobias' future bride (and after all 

Was smoked out by some incense), ^ 

I have laid 
Aside intrigue: 'tis rarely worth the 

trouble 
Of gaining, or — what is more diffi- 
cult- 
Getting rid of your prize again; for 

there's 
The rub ! at least to mortals. 

Am. Prithee, peace! 

Softly! methinks her lips moves, her 

eyes open I 

Cces. Like stars, no doubt; for 

that's a metaphor j 

For Lucifer and Venus. i 

Am. To the palac^ 

Colonna, as I told you ! 

Ca-s. Oh! I know 190 

My way through Rome, 

Am. Now onward, onward ! Gently! 
\^Exeunt, hearing Olimpia, TJic 
scene closes. 



■ [" It came to pass the same day, that in j 
Ecl)atane a city of Media, .Sara the daughter of 
Raguel was also reproached by her father's I [ 
maids; because that she had been married to 
seven husbands, whom Asmodeus the evil spirit 
had killed before they had lain with her. . . . 
And as he went, he remembered the words of 
RajMiael, and took the ashes of the perfumes, 
and put the heart and the liver of the fish thereupon | 
and made smoke therewith. The which smell whea 1 
the evil spirit had smelied, he fled into the utmost | 
parts of Egypt." — Tobit iii. 7, 8; viii. 2, 3.] 



Scene i.] 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



919 



PART III. 

Scene I. — A Castle in the Apennines, 
surrounded hy a wild hut smiling 
Country. Chorus of Peasants sing- 
ing before the Gates. 

Chorus, 

I. 
The wars are over, 

The spring is come; 
The bride and her lover 
Have sought their home: 
They are happy, we rejoice; 
Let their hearts have an echo in every 
voice ! 

II. 

The spring is come; the violet's gone 
The first-born child of the early sun: 
With us she is but a winter's flower, 
The snow on the hills cannot blast her 

bower, 10 

And she lifts up her dewy eye of blue 
To the youngest sky of the self-same 

hue. 

III. 

And when the spring comes with her 
host 

Of flowers, that flower beloved the most 

Shrinks from the crowd that may con- 
fuse 

Her heavenly odour and virgin hues. 

IV. 

Pluck the others, but still remember 
Their herald out of dim December — ■ 
The morning star of all the flowers. 
The pledge of daylight's lengthened 
hours; 20 

Nor, midst the roses, e'er forget 
The virgin — virgin Violet. 

Enter C^sar. 

C(BS. {singing). The wars are all over, 
Our swords are all idle, 
The steed bites the bridle. 

The casque's on the wall. 

There's rest for the rover; 
But his armour is rusty. 
And the veteran grows crusty, 

As he yawns in the hall. 30 



He drinks — but what's drinking? 
A mere pause from thinking ! 
No bugle awakes him with life-and- 
death call. 

Chorus. 

But the hound bayeth loudly, 

The boar's in the wood. 
And the falcon longs proudly 

To spring from her hood; 
On the wrist of the noble 

She sits like a crest. 
And the air is in trouble 40 

With birds from their nest. 

CcES. Oh! shadow of Glory! 

Dim image of war ! 
But the chase hath no story, 

•Her hero no star. 
Since Nimrod, the founder 

Of empire and chase. 
Who made the woods wonder 

And quake for their race. 
When the lion was young, 50 

In the pride of his might. 
Then 'twas sport for the strong 

To embrace him in fight; 
To go forth, with a pine 

For a spear, 'gainst the mammoth, 
Or strike through the ravine 

At the foaming behemoth; 
While man was in stature 

As towers in our time, 
The first born of Nature, 60 

And, like her, sublime! 

Chorus. 

But the wars are over. 
The spring is come; 
The bride and her lover 
Have sought their home: 
They are happy, and we rejoice; 
Let their hearts have an echo from 
every voice ! 

[Exeunt the Peasantry, singing. 



FRAGMENT OF THE THIRD 
PART OF THE DEFORMED 
TRANSFORMED. 
Chorus. 

When the merry bells are ringing, 
And the peasant girls are singing. 



920 



THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED 



[Part 



And the early flowers are flinging 

Their odours in the air; 
And the honey bee is clinging 
To the buds; and birds are winging 

Their way, pair by pair: 
Then the earth looks free from 

trouble 
With the brightness of a bubble: 
Though I did not make it, lo 

1 could breathe on and break it; 
But too much I scorn it, 
Or else I would mourn it, 
To see despots and slaves 
Playing o'er their own graves. 

Enter Count Arnold. 

Mem. Jealous — Arnold of 
Caesar. Olimpia at first not 
liking Caesar — then ? — Ar- 
nold jealous of himself under 
his former figure, owing to the 
power of intellect, etc., etc., 
I etc. 
Arnold. You are merry, Sir — what ? 

singing too? 
Ccesar. It is 

The land of Song — and Canticles you 

know 
Were once my avocation. 

Arn. Nothing moves you; 

You scoff even at your own calamity — 
And such calamity ! how wert thou 
fallen 20 

Son of the Morning ! and yet Lucifer 
Can smile. 

CcBS. His shape can — would you 
have me weep. 
In the fair form I wear, to please 
you? 
Arn. Ah! 

CcBS. You are grave — what have 

you on your spirit ? 
Am. Nothing. 

Cces. How mortals lie by instinct ! 
If you ask 
A disappointed courtier — What's the 

matter? 
"Nothing" — an outshone Beauty what 

has made 
Her smooth brow crisp — "Oh, Noth- 
ing!" — a young heir 
When his Sire has recovered from the 
Gout, 



What ails him? "Nothing!" or a 

Monarch who . 30 

Has heard the truth, and looks imperial 

on it — 
What clouds his royal aspect? "Noth- 
ing," "Nothing!" 
Nothing — eternal nothing — of these 

nothings 
All are a lie — for all to them are 

much ! 
And they themselves alone the real 

"Nothings." 
Your present Nothing, too, is something 

to you — 
What is it? 

Arn. Know you not? 

Cas. I only know 

What I desire to know ! and will not 

waste 
Omniscience upon phantoms. Out with 

it, 
If you seek aid from me ! or else be 
silent, 40 

And eat your thoughts — till they breed 
snakes within you. 
Arn. Olimpia! 

Cces. I thought as much — go on. 

Arn. I thought she had loved me. 
Cces. Blessings on your Creed ! 

What a good Christian you were found 

to be ! 
But what cold Sceptic hath appalled 

your faith 
And transubstantiated to crumbs 

again 
The body of your Credence? I 

Arn. No one — but — 1 

Each day — each hour — each minute 

shows me more 
And more she loves me not — 

Ccps. Doth she rebel ? 

Arn. No, she is calm, and meek, 
and silent with me, 50 

And coldly dutiful, and proudly pa- 
tient — 
Endures my Love — not meets it. 

Cces. That seems strange. 

You are beautiful and brave ! the first 

is much 
For passion — and the rest for Vanity. 
Arn. I saved her life, too; and hei 
Father's life, , 

And Father's house from ashes. 



THE AGE OF BRONZE 



921 



CcBS. These are nothing. 

You seek for Gratitude — the Philoso- 
pher's stone. 
Am. And find it not. 
CcKS. You cannot find what is not. 
But/otmd would it content you? would 

you owe 
To thankfulness what you desire from 

Passion ? 60 

No ! No ! you would be loved — what 

you call loved — 
Self-loved — loved for yourself — for 

neither health, 
Nor wealth, nor youth, nor power, nor 

rank, nor beauty — 
For these you may be stripped of — 

but beloved 
As an abstraction — for — you know 

not what ! 
These are the wishes of a moderate 

lover — 
And so you love. 

Am. Ah ! could I be beloved. 

Would I ask wherefore? 

Cccs. Yes ! and not believe 

The answer — You are jealous. 

Am. And of whom? 

Cces. It may be of yourself, for 

Jealousy 70 

Is as a shadow of the Sun. The Orb 
Is mighty — as you mortals deem — 

and to 

Your little Universe seems universal; 
But, great as He appears, and is to 

you, 
The smallest cloud — the slightest 

vapour of 
Your humid earth enables you to look 
Upon a Sky which you revile as dull; 
Though your eyes dare not gaze on it 

when cloudless. 
Nothing can blind a mortal like to light. 
Now Love in you is as the Sun — a 

thing 80 

Beyond you — and your Jealousy's 

of Earth — 
A cloud of your own raising. 

Am. Not so always ! 

There is a cause at times. 

CcBS. Oh, yes ! when atoms jostle, 
The System is in peril. But I speak 
Of things you know not. Well, to earth 



This precious thing of dust — this 

bright Olimpia — 
This marvellous Virgin, is a marble 

maid — 
An Idol, but a cold one to your heat 
Promethean, and unkindled by your 
torch. 
Am. Slave! 

CcES. In the victor's Chariot, when 

Rome triumphed, 90 

There was a Slave of yore to tell him 

truth ! 
You are a Conqueror — command 
your Slave. 
Am. Teach me the way to win the 

woman's love. 
Cces. Leave her. 
Am. Were that the path — I'd not 

pursue it. 
Ca-s. No doubt ! for if you did, the 
remedy 
Would 'be for a disease already cured. 
Am. All wretched as I am, I would 
not quit 
My unrequited love, for all that's happy. 
Cces. You have possessed the woman 
— still possess. 
W^hat need you more? 

Am. To be myself possessed — 

To be her heart as she is mine. loi 



THE AGE OF BRONZE;^ 

OR 

CARMEN SECULARE ET ANNUS 
HAUD MIRABILIS. 



"Impar Congrcssus Achilli. 



The "good old times" — all times when 

old are good — 
Are gone; he present might be if they 

would ; 
Great things have been, and are, and 

greater still 
W^ant little of mere mortals but their will : 

' [The Age of Bronze was begun in December 
1822, and finished on January 10, 1823. It was 
published (by John Hunt, but not with the 
author's name), April 1, 1823.] 



922 



THE AGE OF BRONZE 



A wider space, a greener field, is given 
To those who play their "tricks before 

high heaven." 
I know not if the angels weep, but men 
Have wept enough — for what ? — to 

weep again ! 



All is exploded — be it good or bad. 
Reader ! remember when thou wert a 

lad, lo 

Then Pitt was all; or, if not all, so 

much, 
His very rival almost deemed him such.^ 
We — we have seen the intellectual race 
Of giants stand, like Titans, face to 

face — 
Athos and Ida, with a dashing sea 
Of eloquence between, which flowed 

all free, 
As the deep billows of the .^gean roar 
Betwixt the Hellenic and the Phrygian 

shore. 
But where are they — the rivals ! a 

few feet 
Of sullen earth divide each winding 

sheet.^ 20 

How peaceful and how powerful is the 

grave, 
Which hushes all ! a calm, unstormy 

wave, 
Which oversweeps the World. The 

theme is old 
Of "Dust to Dust," but half its tale 

untold: 
Time tempers not its terrors — still 

the worm 
Winds its cold folds, the tomb preserves 

its form. 
Varied above, but still alike below; 
The urn may shine — the ashes will 

not glow — 
Though Cleopatra's mummy cross 

the sea ^ 
O'er which from empire she lured 

Anthony; 30 

' [Fox used to say, "/ never want a word, but 
Pitt never wants the word."] 

» [The grave of Fox, in Westminster Abbey, is 
within eighteen inches of that of Pitt.] 

3 [The Cleopatra whose mummy is preserved 
in the British Museum was a member of the 
Theban Archon family. Her date was circ. 
A.D. 100.1 



Though Alexander's urn ^ a show be 

grown 
On shores he wept to conquer, though 

unknown — ^ 
How vain, how worse than vain, at 

length appear 
The madman's \^ash, the Macedonian's 

tear ! 
He wept for worlds to conquer — half 

the earth 
Knows not his name, or but his death, 

and birth, 
And desolation ; while his native Greece 
Hath all of desolation, save its peace. 
He "wept for worlds to conquer"! 

he who ne'er 
Conceived the Globe, he panted not 

to spare ! 40 

With even the busy Northern Isle 

unknown. 
Which holds his urn — and never knew 

his throne. 

III. 
But where is he, the modern, mightier 

far. 
Who, born no king, made monarchs 

draw his car; 1 

The new Sesostris, whose unharnessed 

kings. 
Freed from the bit, believe themselves 

with wings. 
And spurn the dust o'er which they 

crawled of late, 
Chained to the chariot of the Chief- 
tain's state? 

' [According to Strabo, Ptolema?us Soter 
brought Alexander's body back from Babylon, 
and buried it in Alexandria, in the spot after- 
wards known as the Soma. In 1801 a sarcopha- 
gus came into the possession of the English 
Army, and was presented by George III. to the 
British Museum. Hieroglyphics were as yet 
undeciphered, and, in 1805, the traveller Edward 
Daniel Clarke published a quarto monograph 
{The Tomb of Alexander, f/c), in which he proves, 
to his own satisfaction, that "this surprising 
sarcophagus in one entire block of green Egyptian 
breccia" had once contained the ashes of Alexan- 
der the Great. Byron knew Clarke, and, no 
doubt, respected his authority; and, hence, the I 
description of "Alexander's urn" as "a show." j 
The sarcophagus T,vhich has, since 1844, been j 
assigned to its rightful occupant, Nectanebus II., | 
is a conspicuous object in the Egyptian Gallery -i 
of the British Museum.] J 

^ [It was "Other Worlds" the planets and < 
stars which Alexander "wept to conquer," not \ 
the undiscovered countries of the Ancient World.) 



THE ACE OF BRONZE 



923 



Yes! where is he, "the champion and 

the child " ^ 
Of all that's great or little — wise or 

wild; 50 

Whose game was Empire, and whose 

stakes were thrones; 
Whose table Earth — whose dice were 

human bones? 
Behold the grand result in yon lone 

Isle, 
And, as thy nature urges — weep or 

smile — 

Sigh to behold the Eagle's lofty rage 
Reduced to nibble at his narrow cage; 
Smile to survey the queller of the 

nations 
Now daily squabbling o'er disputed 

rations; 
Weep to perceive him mourning, as he 

dines, 
O'er curtailed dishes and o'er stinted 

wines; 60 

O'er petty quarrels upon petty things. 
Is this the Man who scourged or feasted 

kings ? 
Behold the scales in which his fortune 

hangs, 
A surgeon's^ statement, and an earl's^ 

harangues ! 
A bust delayed,* — a book ^ refused, 

can shake 

' [In a speech delivered in the House of 
Commons, February 17, 1800, "On the con- 
tinuance of the War with France," Pitt described 
Napoleon as the "child and champion of 
Jacobinism."] 

' Barry Edward O'Meara (i 786-1836), who 
had been surgeon on board the Bellerophon, and 
who accompanied Napoleon to St. Helena in the 
Northumberland. He published in 1S19, a work 
entitled Exposition of some of the Transactions 
that have taken place at St Helena since the 
appointment of Sir Hudson Lowe as Governor, 
which was afterwards expanded into Napoleon 
in Exile, or a Voice from St Helena (2 vols. 8vo, 
1822). He is the "stiff surgeon" of line 79. 

3 [Henry, Earl Bathurst (1762-1834), Secre- 
tary for War and the Colonies, replied to Lord 
Holland's motion "for papers connected with the 
personal treatment of Napoleon Buonaparte at 
St. Helena," March 18, 181 7.] 

■» [A bust of Napoleon's son, the Duke of 
Reichstadt, had been forwarded to St. Helena. 
It was detained on board ship for inspection, 
before it was transferred to Longwood.] 

s [The book in question was The Substance of 
some Letters zvrilten by an Englislmian in Paris, 
1816 (by J. C. Hobhouse). It was inscribed 
"To the Emperor Napoleon."] 



The sleep of Him who kept the world 

awake. 
Is this indeed the tamer of the Great, 
Now slave of all could tease or irritate — 
The paltry gaoler ^ and the prying spy, 
The staring stranger v^th his note-book 

nigh ? ^ 70 

Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been 

great; 
How low, how little was this middle 

state, 
Between a prison and a palace, where 
How few could feel for what he had to 

bear! 
Vain his complaint, — My Lord pre- 
sents his bill, 
His food and wine were doled out duly 

still; 
Vain was his sickness, never was a clime 
So free from homicide — to doubt's a 

crime; 
And the stiff surgeon, who maintained 

his cause, 
Hath lost his place, and gained the 

world's applause. 80 

But smile — though all the pangs of 

brain and heart 
Disdain, defy, the tardy aid of art; 
Though, save the few fond friends and 

imaged face 
Of that fair boy his Sire shall ne'er 

embrace, 
None stand by his low bed — though 

even the mind 
Be wavering, which long awed and 

awes mankind: 
Smile — for the fettered Eagle breaks 

his chain. 
And higher Worlds than this are his 

again. 

IV. 

How, if that soaring Spirit still retain 
A conscious twilight of his blazing reign 

' [Lieutenant-General Sir Hudson Lowe, 
K.C.B. (1769-1844), was the son of an army 
surgeon, John Hudson Lowe. He was appointed 
Governor of St. Helena, August 23, 1815, and 
landed in the island April 14, 1816.] 

- [There is reason to think that "the staring 
stranger" was the traveller Captain Basil Hall 
(1788-1844), who called upon Byron at Venice, 
but did not see him. His account of his inter- 
view with Napoleon is attached to his narrative 
of a Voyage to Java, 1840.] 



924 



THE AGE OF BRONZE 



How must he smile, on looking down, 

to see 91 

The little that he was and sought to be ! 
What though his Name a wider empire 

found 
Than his Ambition, though with scarce 

a bound; 
Though first in glory, deepest in reverse. 
He tasted Empire's blessings and its 

curse; 
Though kings, rejoicing in their late 

escape 
From chains, would gladly be their 

Tyrant's ape; 
How must he smile, and turn to yon 

lone grave. 
The proudest Sea-mark that o'ertops 

the wave ! 100 

What though his gaoler, duteous to 

the last, 
Scarce deemed the coffin's lead could 

keep him fast, 
Refusing one poor line ^ along the lid, 
To date the birth and death of all it 

hid; 
That name shall hallow the ignoble 

shore, 
A talisman to all save him who bore: 
The fleets that sweep before the eastern 

blast 
Shall hear their sea-boys hail it from 

the mast; 
When Victory's Gallic column ^ shall 

but rise. 
Like Pompey's pillar, in a desert's 

skies, no 

The rocky Isle that holds or held his 

dust. 
Shall crown the Atlantic like the Hero's 

bust. 
And mighty Nature o'er his obsequies 
Do more than niggard Envy still denies. 



' [At the end of vol. ii. of O'Meara's Voice, etc. 
(ed. 5), there is a statement signed by Count 
Montholon, to the effect that he wished the 
following inscription to be placed on Napoleon's 
cofi&n — 

"Napoleon. 
Ne a Ajaccio le 15 Aout, 1760, 
Mort a Ste Helene le 5 Mai, 1821; " 
but that the Governor said, "that his instruc- 
tions would not allow him to sanction any other 
name being placed on the coffin than that of 
'General Bonaparte.'"] 

' [The Colonne Vendome.] 



But what are these to him ? Can Glory's 

lust 
Touch the freed spirit or the fettered 

dust? 
Small care hath he of what his tomb 

consists; 
Nought if he sleeps — nor more if he 

exists: 
Alike the better-seeing Shade will smile 
On the rude cavern^ of the rocky isle, 120 
As if his ashes found their latest home 
In Rome's Pantheon or Gaul's mimic 

dome.^ 
He wants not this; but France shall feel 

the want 
Of this last consolation, though so scant: 
Her Honour — Fame — and Faith de- 
mand his bones. 
To rear above a Pyramid of thrones; 
Or carried onward in the battle's van. 
To form, like GuescHn's dust, her Talis- 
man.^ 
But be it as it is — the time may come 
His name shall beat the alarm, like 
Ziska's drum.'* 130 

V. 

Oh Heaven ! of which he was in power 
a feature; 

Oh Earth ! of which he was a noble 
creature; 

Thou Isle ! to be remembered long and 
well. 

That saw'st the unfledged eaglet chip 
his shell ! 

Ye Alps which viewed him in his dawn- 
ing flights 

Hover, the Victor of a hundred fights ! 1 

Thou Rome, who saw'st thy Caesar's 
deeds outdone ! 

' [Napoleon was buried, May 9, 182 1, in a 
garden in the middle of a deep ravine, under the 
shade of two willow trees.] 

^ [The Pantheon, where Mirabeau is buried, 
and where cenotaphs have been erected to 
Voltaire and Rousseau.] 

3 [Guesclin (1320-1380) died during the siege 
of a city; it surrendered, and the keys were 
brought and laid upon his bier, so that the place 
might appear rendered to his ashes.] 

4 [John of Trocnow (1360-1424) surnamed 
Zizka, or the "One-eyed." Voltaire, in his 
Essai siir Les Alceiirs el L'Esprit des Nations 
(cap. i.xxiii.) mentions the legend as a fact, "11 
ordonna qu'apres sa mort on fit un tambour de 
sa peau."] 



THE AGE OF BRONZE 



925 



Alas ! why passed he too the Rubicon — 
The Rubicon of Man's awakened 

rights, 
To herd with vulgar kings and para- 
sites? 140 
Egypt ! from whose all dateless tombs 

arose 
Forgotten Pharaohs from their long 

repose, 
And shook within their pyramids to 

hear 
A new Cambyses thundering in their 

ear; 
While the dark shades of Forty Ages 

stood 
Like startled giants by Nile's famous 

fiood; 1 
Or from the Pyramid's tall pinnacle 
Beheld the desert peopled, as from hell, 
With clashing hosts, who strewed the 

barren sand. 
To re-manure the uncultivated land ! 
Spain ! which, a moment mindless of 

the Cid, 151 

Beheld his banner flouting thy Madrid ! ^ 
Austria ! which saw thy twice-ta'en 

capital ^ 
Twice spared to be the traitress of his 

fall! 
Ye race of Frederic ! — Frederics but in 

name 
And falsehood — heirs to all except 

his fame: 
Who, crushed at Jena, crouched at 

Berlin,^ fell 
First, and but rose to follow ! Ye who 

dwell 
Where Kosciusko dwelt, remembering yet 

["Au moment de la bataille Napoleon avait 
lit a ses troupes en leur montrant les Pyramides: 
Soldats, quarant siecles vous regardent.'" — 
7ampagnes d'Egyple et de Syrie, 1798-9, par le 
General Bertrand, 1847, i. 160.] 

[Madrid was taken by the French, first in 
^larch, 1808, and again December 2, 1808.] 

3 [Vienna M^as taken by the French under 
vlurat, November 14, 1805, evacuated January 
2, 1S06, captured by Napoleon, May, 1800, and 
estored at the conclusion of peace, October 14, 

). Her treachery consisted in her share in 
he Treaty of Vienna, March 25, 181 5.] 

[At Jena Napoleon defeated Prince Hohen- 
ohe. and at Auerstadt General Davoust defeated 
he King of Prussia, October 14, 1806. Napo- 
;on then advanced to Berlin, October 27, from 
?hich^ he issued his famous decree against 
--ritish commerce, November 20, 1806.] 



The unpaid amount of Catherine's 

bloody debt ! ^ 160 

Poland ! o'er which the avenging Ange! 

past. 
But left thee as he found thee, still at 

waste. 
Forgetting all thy still enduring claim, 
Thy lotted people and extinguished 

name, 
Thy sigh for freedom, thy long-flowing 

tear, 
That sound that crashes in the tyrant's 

ear — 
Kosciusko ! ^ On — on — on — the 

thirst of War 
Gasps for the gore of serfs and of their 

Czar. 
The half barbaric Moscow's minarets 
Gleam in the sun, but 'tis a sun that 

sets! 170 

Moscow ! thou limit of his long career, 
For which rude Charles had wept his 

frozen tear ^ 
To see in vain — he saw thee — how ? 

with spire 
And palace fuel to one common fire. 
To this the soldier lent his kindling 

match, 
To this the peasant gave his cottage 

thatch. 
To this the merchant flung his hoarded 

store. 
The prince his hall — and Moscow 

was no more ! 
Sublimest of volcanoes ! Etna's flame 
Pales before thine, and quenchless 

Hecla's tame; 180 

Vesuvius shows his blaze, an usual sight 
For gaping tourists, from his hackneyed 

height: 
Thou stand'st alone unrivalled, till the 

Fire 
To come, in which all empires shall 

expire ! 

' [The partition of Poland was first discussed 
between Henry of Prussia, and the Empress 
Catherine, December 9, 1770.] 

^ [The final partition of Poland took place 
after the Battle of Maciejowice, October 12, 
1704, when "Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko 
fell."! 

3 [The reference is to Charles's chagrin when 
the Grand Vizier allowed the Russians to retire 
in safety from the banks of the Pruth, and 
assented to the Treaty of Jassy, July 21, 1711.] 



926 



THE AGE OF BRONZE 



Thou other Element ! as strong and 

stern, 
To teach a lesson conquerors will not 

learn ! — 
Whose icy wing flapped o'er the falter- 
ing foe, 
Till fell a hero with each flake of snow; 
How did thy numbing beak and silent 

fang 
Pierce, till hosts perished with a single 

pang! 190 

In vain shall Seine look up along his 

banks 
For the gay thousands of his dashing 

ranks ! 
In vain shall France recall beneath 

her vines 
Her Youth — their blood flows faster 

than her wines; 
Or stagnant in their human ice remains 
In frozen mummies on the Polar plains. 
In vain will Italy's broad sun awaken 
Her off'spring chilled; its beams are 

now forsaken. 
Of all the trophies gathered from the 

war. 
What shall return? the Conqueror's 

broken car ! ^ 200 

The Conqueror's yet unbroken heart? 

Again 
The horn of Roland sounds, and not in 

vain. 
Lutzen, where fell the Swede of victory,^ 
Beholds him conquer, but, alas ! not die: 
Dresden ^ surveys three despots fly 

once more 
Before their sovereign, — sovereign as 

before ; 
But there exhausted Fortune quits the 

field, 

'[The "broken car" was a sledge made of 
four pieces of pine which had suffered in the 
''terrible journey from Moscow." Napoleon's 
"unbroken heart" was evinced by a remark 
which he made in response to some who wished 
him a prosperous return to Paris. "If I carried 
the devil with me I should be all the better for 
that." See Quart. Rev. vol. xiv. pp. 64, 68.] 

' [Gustavus Adolphus fell at the great battle 
of Lutzen, in November, 1632. Napoleon 
defeated the allied Russian and Prussian armies 
at Lutzen. May 2, 1813.] 

3 [On June 26, 1813, Napoleon re-entered 
Dresden, and on the 27th repulsed the allied 
sovereigns, the Emperors of Russia and Prussia 
with tremendous loss.] 



And Leipsic's ^ treason bids the unvan- 

quished yield; 
The Saxon jackal leaves the lion's side 
To turn the bear's, and wolf's, and 

fox's guide; 210 

And backward to the den of his despair 
The forest monarch shrinks, but finds 

no lair ! 

Oh ye ! and each, and all ! Oh 

France ! who found 
Thy long fair fields ploughed up as 

hostile ground. 
Disputed foot by foot, till Treason, still 
His only victor, from Montmartre's 

hill 2 
Looked down o'er trampled Paris! and 

thou Isle, 
Which seest Etruria from thy ramparts 

smile, 
Thou momentary shelter of his pride. 
Till wooed by danger, his yet weeping 

bride ! 220 

Oh, France ! retaken by a single march. 
Whose path was through one long 

triumphal arch ! 
Oh bloody and most bootless Waterloo ! 
Which proves how fools may have their 

fortune too, 
Won half by blunder, half by treachery: 
Oh dull Saint Helen ! with thy gaoler 

nigh — 
Hear ! hear Prometheus ^ from his 

rock appeal 
To Earth, — Air, — Ocean, — all that 

felt or feel 
His power and glory, all who yet shall 

hear 
A name eternal as the rolling year; 230 



' [At the battle of Leipzig, October 18, 1813, 
on the appearance of Bernadotte, the Sa.xon 
soldiers under Regnicr deserted and went over 
to the Allies. Naix)leon, whose army was 
already weakened, lost 30,000 men at Leipzig.] 

' [Joseph Buonaparte, who had been stationed 
on the heights of Montmartre, March 30, 1814, 
to witness if not direct the defence of Paris 
against the Allies under Bliicher, authorised 
Marmont* to capitulate. His action was, un- 
justly, regarded as a betrayal of his brother's 
capital.] 

3 I refer the reader to the first address of 
Prometheus in ^schylus, when he is left alone 
by his attendants, and before the arrival of the 
chorus of Sea-nymphs. — Prometheus VincHts, 
line 88, sq. * 



THE AGE OF BRONZE 



927 



He teaches them the lesson taught so 

long, 
So oft, so vainly — learn to do no wrong ! 
A single step into the right had made 
This man the Washington of worlds 

betrayed : 
A single step into the wrong has given 
His name a doubt to all the winds of 

heaven ; 
The reed of Fortune, and of thrones the 

rod. 
Of P'ame the Moloch or the demigod ; 
His country's Caesar, Europe's Hannibal, 
Without their decent dignity of fall. 240 
Yet Vanity herself had better taught 
A surer path even to the fame he sought, 
By pointing out on History's fruitless 

page 
Ten thousand conquerors for a single 

sage. 
While Franklin's quiet memory climbs 

to Heaven, 
Calming the lightning which he hence 

hath riven. 
Or drawing from the no less kindled 

earth 
Freedom and peace to that which boasts 

his birth; ^ 
While Washington's a watchword, such 

as ne'er 
Shall sink while there's an echo left to 

air: 250 

While even the Spaniard's thirst of gold 

and war 
Forgets Pizarro to shout Bolivar ! ^ 
Alas! why must the same Atlantic 

wave 
Which wafted freedom gird a tyrant's 

grave — 
The king of kings, and yet of slaves the 

slave, 

* [The allusion is to Turgot's epigram on 
Franklin: — '' Etipuit cxlo fidmen sceplrumque 
tyrannis," which celebrates, in one line, the 
discovery of the lightning-conductor, and the 
deliverance of the United States from the tyranny 
of George III.] 

' [Simon Bolivar El Lihertador), 1783-1830, 
was at the height of his power and fame at the 
beginning of 1823. In 1821 he had united'New 
Granada to Venezuela under the name of the 
Republic of Colombia, and on the ist of Septem- 
ber he made a solemn entry into Lima. Byron, 
at one time, had a mind to settle in " Bolivar's 
country"; and he christened his yacht The 
Bolivar.'] 



Who burst the chains of millions to 

renew 
The very fetters which his arm broke 

through. 
And crushed the rights of Europe and 

his own. 
To iiit between a dungeon and a throne ? 

VI. 

But 'twill not be — the spark's awakened 

— lo ! 260 

The swarthy Spaniard feels his former 

glow ; 
The same high spirit which beat back 

the Moor 
Through eight long ages of alternate 

gore 
Revives — and where ? in that avenging 

clime 
Where Spain was once synonymous 

with crime. 
Where Cortes' and Pizarro's banner flew. 
The infant world redeems her name of 

''Newy 
'Tis the old aspiration breathed afresh. 
To kindle souls within degraded flesh, 
Such as repulsed the Persian from the 

shore 270 

Where Greece %i<as — No ! she still is 

Greece once more. 
One common cause makes myriads of 

one breast. 
Slaves of the East, or helots of the West : 
On Andes' and on Athos' peaks un- 
furled. 
The self-same standard streams o'er 

either world : 
The Athenian ^ wears again Flarmodius' 

sword ; 
The Chili chief ^ abjures his foreign lord ; 
The Spartan knows himself once more 

a Greek,^ 

' [The capitulation of Athens was signed 
June 21, 1822. "Three days after, the Greeks 
commenced murdering their helpless prisoners. 
. . . The streets of Athens were stained with 
the blood of four hundred men, women, and 
children." — History of Greece, by George 
Finlay, 1877, vi. 283. The sword was hid in 
the mvrtle bough. Hence the allusion to 
Harmodius.] 

» [The independence of Chili dated from April 
5, 1818, when General Jose de San Martin routed 
the Spanish army on the plains of Maypo.] 

3 [On the Sth of August, 1822, Niketas and 
Hypsilantes defeated the Tui'ks under Dramali, 



928 



THE AGE OF BRONZE 



Young Freedom plumes the crest of each 

cacique; 
Debating despots, hemmed on either 

shore, 280 

Shrink vainly from the roused Atlantic's 

roar; 
Through Calpe's strait the rolling tides 

advance. 
Sweep slightly by the half-tamed land of 

France, 
Dash o'er the old Spaniard's cradle, and 

would fain 
Unite Ausonia to the mighty main: 
But driven from thence awhile, yet not 

for aye, 
Break o'er th' ^gean, mindful of the day 
Of Salamis ! — there, there the waves 

arise. 
Not to be lulled by tyrant victories. 
Lone, lost, abandoned in their utmost 

need 290 

By Christians, unto whom they gave 

their creed. 
The desolated lands, the ravaged isle. 
The foster feud encouraged to beguile. 
The aid evaded, and the cold delay, 
Prolonged but in the hope to make a 

prey; — 
These, these shall tell the tale, and 

Greece can show 
The false friend worse than the infuriate 

foe. 
But this is well : Greeks only should free 

Greece, 
Not the barbarian, with his masque of 

peace, 
How should the Autocrat of bondage be 
The king of serfs, and set the nations 

free? 301 

Better still serve the haughty Mussul- 
man, 
Than swell the Cossaque's prowling 

caravan ; 
Better still toil for masters, than 

await. 
The slave of slaves, before a Russian 

gate, — 
Numbered by hordes, a human capital, 
A live estate, existing but for thrall. 
Lotted by thousands, as a meet reward 

near Lerna. The Moreotes attributed their 
good fortune to the generalship of Kolokotrones, 
a Messenian.] 



For the first courtier in the Czar's re- 
gard; 

While their immediate owner never 
tastes 310 

His sleep, sans dreaming of Siberia's 
wastes : 

Better succumb even to their own de- 
spair. 

And drive the Camel — • than purvey the 
Bear. 



But not alone within the hoariest clime 
Where Freedom dates her birth with 

■ that of Time, 
And not alone where, plunged in night, 

a crowd 
Of Incas darken to a dubious cloud, 
The dawn revives : renowned, romantic 

Spain 
Holds back the invader from her soil 

again. 
Not now the Roman tribe nor Punic 

horde 320 

Demands her fields as lists to prove the 

sword ; 
Not now the Vandal or the Visigoth 
Pollute the plains, alike abhorring 

both; 
Nor old Pelayo ^ on his mountain rears 
The warlike fathers of a thousand 

years. 
That seed is sown and reaped, as oft the 

Moor 
Sighs to remember on his dusky shore. 
Long in the peasant's song or poet's page 
Has dwelt the memory of Abencerrage ; 
The Zegri,^ and the captive victors, flung 
Back to the barbarous realm frorii 

whence they sprung. 331 

But these are gone — their faith, their 

swords, their sway. 
Yet left more anti-christian foes than 

they; 

» [Pelayo, said to be the son of Favila, Duke 
of Cantabria, was elected king by the Christians 
of the Asturias in 718, and defeated the Arab 
generals Suleyman and Manurza. He died 
A.D. 737.] 

^ [For the Zegri and Abencerrages, rival 
Moorish tribes, whose quarrels, at the close of 
the fifteenth century, deluged Granada with 
blood, see the Civil Wars of Granada, a prose 
fiction, interspersed with ballads, by Gines 
Perez de Hita, published in 1595.] 



THE AGE OF BRONZE 



929 



The bigot monarch, and the butcher 

priest/ 
The Inquisition, with her burning feast, 
The Faith's red "Auto," fed with human 

fuel. 
While sate the catholic Moloch, calmly 

cruel. 
Enjoying, with inexorable eye, 
That fiery festival of Agony ! 
The stern or feeble sovereign, one or 

both 340 

By turns; the haughtiness whose pride 

was sloth; 
The long degenerate noble; the debased 
Hidalgo, and the peasant less disgraced, 
But more degraded; the unpeopled 

realm; 
The once proud navy which forgot the 

helm; 

The once impervious phalanx dis- 
arrayed ; 
The idle forge that formed Toledo's 

blade ; 
The foreign wealth that flowed on every 

shore. 
Save hers who earned it with the native's 

gore; 
The very language which might vie with 

Rome's, 350 

And once was known to nations like 

their homes. 
Neglected or forgotten : — such was 

Spain; 
But such she is not, nor shall be 

again. 
These worst, these home invaders, felt 

and feel 
The new Numantine soul of old Castile. 
Up ! up again ! undaunted Tauridor ! 
The bull of Phalaris renews his roar; 
Mount, chivalrous Hidalgo ! not in vain 
Revive the cry — "lago! and close 

Spain !" ^ 
Yes, close her with your armed bosoms 

round, 360 

And form the barrier which Napoleon 

found, — 

' [Ferdinand VII. returned to Madrid in 
March, 1814. Once more on his throne, the 
nobles recovered their privileges, the Inquisition 
resumed its activity; and the Jesuits returned to 
Spain.] 

^ " ' St Jago and close Spain !' the old Spanish 
war-cry." ["Santiago y serra Espana."] 

30 



The exterminating war, the desert plain, 
The streets without a tenant, save the 

slain ; 
The wild Sierra, with its wilder troop 
Of vulture-plumed Guerrillas, on the 

stoop 
For their incessant prey; the desperate 

wall 
Of Saragossa, mightiest in her fall; 
The Man nerved to a spirit, and the 

Maid 
Waving her more than Amazonian 

blade; V 
The knife of Arragon, Toledo's steel; 
The famous lance of chivalrous 

Castile;^ 371 

The unerring rifle of the Catalan; 
The Andalusian courser in the van; 
The torch to make a Moscow of 

Madrid ; 
And in each heart the spirit of the 

Cid: — 
Such have been, such shall be, such are. 

Advance, 
And win — not Spain ! but thine own 

freedom, France ! 

VIII. 

But lo! a Congress! 3 What! that 
hallowed name 

Which freed the Atlantic ! May we 
hope the same 

For outworn Europe ? With the sound 
arise, 380 

Like Samuel's shade to Saul's mo- 
narchic eyes. 

The prophets of young Freedom, sum- 
moned far 

From climes of Washington and Bolivar; 

Henry, the forest-born Demosthenes, 

1 [The " Man " was Jorge Ibort: the "Maid," 
Augustina, the "Maid of Zaragoza."] 

2 The Arragonians are peculiarly dexterous in 
the use of this weapon, and displayed it parti- 
cularly in former French wars. 

i [The Congress of Allied Powers met at 
Verona, in November, 1822. A revolution had 
broken out in Spain, and the main question which 
the Congress was summoned to determine, was 
whether France should be permitted to invade 
Spain and crush the revolution. The Powers 
decided to send monitory despatches to Spain, 
and to leave France to do as she pleased. The 
Duke of Wellington, on behalf of Great Britain, 
declined to interfere with the domestic policy of 
Spain, and would not sign the proces verbaux.] 



930 



THE AGE OF BRONZE 



Whose thunder shook the Philip of the 

seas; ^ 
And stoic Franklin's energetic shade, 
Robed in the lightnings which his hand 

allayed ; 
And Washington, the tyrant-tamer, 

wake, 
To bid us blush for these old chains, or 

break. 
But who compose this Senate of the few 
That should redeem the many? Who 

renew 391 

This consecrated name, till now assigned 
To councils held to benefit mankind? 
Who now assemble at the holy call? 
The blest Alliance, which says three are 

all! 
An earthly Trinity ! which wears the 

shape 
Of Heaven's, as man is mimicked by the 

ape. 
A pious Unity ! in purpose one — 
To melt three fools to a Napoleon. 
Why, Egypt's Gods were rational to 

these ; 400 

Their dogs and oxen knew their own 

degrees. 
And, quiet in their kennel or their shed. 
Cared little, so that they were duly fed ; 
But these, more hungry, must have 

something more — 
The power to bark and bite, to toss and 

gore. 
Ah, how much happier were good 

i^sop's frogs 
Than we ! for ours are animated logs. 
With ponderous malice swaying to and 

fro. 
And crushing nations with a stupid blow; 
All dully anxious to leave little work 
Unto the revolutionary stork. 411 



Thrice blest Verona ! since the holy three 
With their imperial presence shine on 
thee! 



» [Patrick Henry, bom May 2q, 1736, died 
June 6, 1799, was one of the leading spirits of 
the American Revolution. 

He was delegate to the first Continental Con- 
gress, five times Governor of Virginia, and was 
appointed U. S. Senator in 1794. 

His contemporaries said that he was "the 
greatest orator that ever lived."] 



Honoured by them, thy treacherous site 1 

forgets 
The vaunted tomb of "all the Capu- 

lets!"i 
Thy Scaligers — for what was " Dog the 

Great," 
"Can Grande,"^ (which I venture to 

translate,) 
To these sublimer pugs? Thy poet 

too, 
Catullus, whose old laurels yield to 

new; ^ 
Thine amphitheatre, where Romans 

sate; 420 

And Dante's exile sheltered by thy 

gate; 
Thy good old man, whose world was all 

within 
Thy wall, nor knew the country held 

him in ; * 
Would that the royal guests it girds 

about 
Were so far like, as never to get out ! 
Aye, shout ! inscribe 1 ^ rear monuments 

of shame. 
To tell Oppression that the world is 

tame ! 
Crowd to the theatre with loyal rage. 
The comedy is not upon the stage; 
The show is rich in ribandry and 

stars, 430 

Then gaze upon it through thy dungeon 

bars; 
Clap thy permitted palms, kind Italy, 
For thus much still thy fettered hands 

are free ! 

I [The tombs of the Scaligers are close to the 
Church of Santa Maria I'Antica. Juliet's tomb, 
in the garden of the Orfanoirofio, is not "that 
ancient vault where all the kindred of the Capu- 
lets lie," which has long since been destroyed. 
Since 1814 Verona had been under Austria's 
sway, and had "treacherously" forgotten her 
republican traditions.] 

" [Francesco Can Grande della Scalla died in 
1329-] 

3 [Ippolito Pindemonte, the modern TibuUus 
(1753-1828).] 

4 [Claudian's famous old man of Verona, 
''qui suburbium mmquam egressus est." 

"Indocilis rerum, vicinae nescius urbis, 
Adspectu fruitur liberior^ poli." 
C. Claudiani Opera, lii., Epigramma, ii. lines 9, 
10.] 

^ [After the sittings of the Congress Verona 
was eti fete. An illuminated inscription on the 
Church of St Agnes, ran thus : — 

"yl Cesare Augusta Verona estiUanle."] 



THE AGE OF BRONZE 



931 



[ Resplendent sight ! Behold the cox- 
; comb Czar/ 

[ The Autocrat of waltzes and of war ! 
['As eager for a plaudit as a realm, 

JAnd just as fit for flirting as the helm; 

A Calmuck beauty with a Cossack wit, 

And generous spirit, when 'tis not frost- 
bit; 

Now half dissolving to a liberal thaw, 

But hardened back whene'er the morn- 
ing's raw; 441 

With no objection to true Liberty, 

Except that it would make the nations 
free. 

How well the imperial dandy prates of 
peace ! 

How fain, if Greeks would be his slaves, 
free .Greece! 

How nobly gave he back the Poles their 
Diet, 

Then told pugnacious Poland to be quiet ! 

How kindly would he send the mild 
Ukraine, 

kVith all her pleasant Pulks,^ to lecture 
Spain ! 

How royally show off in proud Madrid 

His goodly person, from the South long 
hid ! 45 1 

\. blessing cheaply purchased, the world 
knows, 

By having Muscovites for friends or foes. 

'roceed, thou namesake of great 
Philip's son ! 

^a Harpe, thine Aristotle, beckons on ; ^ 

^nd that which Scythia was to him of 
yore 



Find with thy Scythians on Iberia's 

shore. 
Yet think upon, thou somewhat aged 

youth. 
Thy predecessor on the banks of Pruth; 
Thou hast to aid thee, should his lot be 

thine, 460 

Many an old woman,^ but not Cath- 
erine; ^ 
Spain, too, hath rocks, and rivers, and 

defiles — 
The Bear may rush into the Lion's toils. 
Fatal to Goths are Xeres' sunny fields; 
Think'st thou to thee Napoleon's victory 

yields ? 
Better reclaim thy deserts, turn thy 

swords 
To ploughshares, shave and wash thy 

Bashkir ^ hordes. 
Redeem thy realms from slavery and the 

knout. 
Than follow headlong in the fatal route, 
To infest the clime whose skies and laws 

are pure 470 

With thy foul legions. Spain wants no 

manure : 
Her soil is fertile, but she feeds no foe : 
Her vultures, too, were gorged not long 

ago; 
And wouldst thou furnish them with 

fresher prey? 
Alas ! thou wilt not conquer, but purvey, 
I am Diogenes, though Russ and Hun * 
Stand between mine and many a 

myriad's sun; 
But were I not Diogenes, I'd wander 
Rather a worm than such an Alexander ! 
Be slaves who will, the cynic shall be 

free ; 480 

' [Alexander's platonic attachment to the 
Baronne de Kriidener (Barbe Julie de Wieten- 
hoff), beauty, novelist, ilhcminee, then in her 
fiftieth year, was the source of amusement 
rather than scandal.] 

^ The dexterity of Catherine extricated Peter 
(called the Great by courtesy), when siirrounded 
by the. Mussulmans on the banks of the river 
Pruth. 

3 [The Bashkirs are a Turco-Mongolian tribe 
inhabiting the slopes of the Ural Mountains. 
They supply a body of irregular cavalry to the 
Russian army.] 

* [The Austrian and Russian armies stood 
between the Greeks and other peoples, and their 
independence, as Alexander the Great stood 
between Diogenes and the sunshine.] 



932 



THE AGE OF BRONZE 



His tub hath tougher walls than Sinope : 
Still will he hold his lantern up to scan 
The face of monarchs for an "honest 
man." 



And what doth Gaul, the all-prolific land 

Of ne plus ultra ultras and their band 

Of mercenaries? and her noisy cham- 
bers 

And tribune, which each orator first 
clambers 

Before he finds a voice, and when 'tis 
found. 

Hears "the lie" echo for his answer 
round ? 

Our British Commons sometimes deign 
to "hear!" 490 

A Gallic senate hath more tongue than 
ear; 

Even Constant,^ their sole master of 
debate, 

Must fight next day his speech to vindi- 
cate. 

But this costs little to true Franks, who'd 
rather 

Combat than listen, were it to their 
father. 

What is the simple standing of a shot, 

To listening long, and interrupting not ? 

Though this was not the method of old 
Rome, 

When TuUy fulmined o'er each vocal 
dome, 

Demosthenes has sanctioned the trans- 
action, 500 

In saying eloquence meant "Action, 
action !" 

XII. 

But where's the monarch?^ hath he 

dined ? or yet 
Groans beneath Indigestion's heavy 

debt? 
Have revolutionary pates risen. 
And turned the royal entrails to a 

prison ? 

' [Constant (Henri Benjamin de Rebecque, 
1767-1830) was the "stormy petrel" of debate in 
the French Chamber. The duel with the Mar- 
quis de Forbin des Issarts was fought in June, 
1822.] 

' [Louis XVIII. (1755-1824) passed several 
years of exile in England, latterly at Hartwell, in 
Buckinghamshire. A scholar and a wit, he was 



Have discontented movements stirred 
the troops? 

Or have no movements followed traitor- 
ous soups? 

Have Carbonaro ' cooks not carbona- 
doed 

Each course enough? or doctors dire 
dissuaded 509 

Repletion ? Ah ! in thy dejected looks 

I read all France's treason in her cooks! 

Good classic Louis! is it, canst thou 
say. 

Desirable to be the "Desire"? 

Why wouldst thou leave calm Hartwell's 
green abode, 

Apician table, and Horatian ode, 

To rule a people who will not be ruled, 

And love much rather to be scourged 
than schooled? 

Ah ! thine was not the temper or the 
taste 

For thrones; the table sees thee better 
placed : 

A mild Epicurean, formed, at best, 520 

To be a kind host and as good a guest, 

To talk of Letters, and to know by heart 

One half the Poet's, all the Gourmand's 
art; 

A scholar always, now and then a wit, 

And gentle when Digestion may per- 
mit; — 

But not to govern lands enslaved or free; 

The gout was martyrdom enough for 
thee. 

XIII. 

Shall noble Albion pass without a phrase 
From a bold Briton in her wonted 

praise ? 
"Arts — arms — and George — and 
glory — and the Isles, 530 

And happy Britain, wealth, and Free- 
dom's smiles. 
White cliffs, that held invasion far aloof. 
Contented subjects, all alike tax-proof, 

not only gourmet but gourmand. Fifteen mutton 
cutlets, "sautees au jus," for breakfast; fifteen 
mutton cutlets, served with a "sauce a la cham- 
pagne," for dinner; to say nothing of straw- 
berries, and sweet apple-puffs between meals, 
made digestion and locomotion difficult. It was 
no wonder that he was a martyr to the gout.] 
' [Louvel, who assassinated the Due de Berri, 
and who was executed June 7, 1820, was sup- 
posed to have been an agent of the carbonari.] 



THE AGE OF BRONZE 



933 



Proud Wellington, with eagle beak so 

curled, 
That nose, the hook where he suspends 

the world ! ^ 
And Waterloo, and trade, and 

(hush ! not yet 

A syllable of imposts or of debt) 

And ne'er (enough) lamented Castle- 

reagh,^ 
Whose penknife slit a goose-quill t'other 

day — 
And, 'pilots who have weathered every 

storm' — ^ 540 

(But, no, not even for rhyme's sake, 

name Reform)." 
These are the themes thus sung so oft 

before, 
Methinks we need not sing them any 

more ; 

Found in so many volumes far and near, 
There's no occasion you should find 

them here. 
Yet something may remain perchance to 

chime 
With reason, and, what stranger's still, 

with rhyme. 
Even this thy genius. Canning ! ^ may 

permit, 
Who, bred a statesman, still wast born a 

a wit, 
And never, even in that dull House, 

couldst tame 550 

To unleavened prose thine own poetic 

flame; 
Our last, our best, our only orator, 

^''Naso suspendis adunco." — Horace [Sat. 
i. 6. 5.]. 

The Roman applies it to one who merely was 
imperious to his acquaintance. 

' [Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, 
afterwards Marquis of Londonderry (1760-1S22) 
who had been labouring under a "mental 
delirium" (Letter of Duke of Wellington, 
August 9, 1822), committed suicide by cutting 
his throat with a penknife (August 12, 1822).] 

3 ["The Pilot that weathered the Storm" was 
written by Canning, to be recited at a dinner 
given on Pitt's birthday, May 28, 1802.] 

4 [George Canning (1770-1827) succeeded 
Lord Londonderry as Foreign Secretary, Septem- 
ber 8, 1822. He was not a persona grata to 
George IV., who had been offended by Canning's 

'> attitude towards Queen Caroline. There was, 
too. the prosi)ect of Catholic Emancipation. If 
Canning persisted in his advocacy of Catholic 
claims, the king's conscience might turn restive, 
and urge him to effectual resistance. Hence 
the warning in lines 563-567.] 



Even I can praise thee — Tories do no 
more: 

Nay, not so much ; — they hate thee, 
man, because 

Thy Spirit less upholds them than it 
awes. 

The hounds will gather to their hunts- 
man's hollo, 

And where he leads the duteous pack 
will follow; 

But not for love mistake their yelling 
cry; 

Their yelp for game is not an eulogy; 

Less faithful far than the four-footed- 
pack, 560 

A dubious scent would lure the bipeds 
back. 

Thy saddle-girths are not yet quite 
secure. 

Nor royal stallion's feet extremely sure; 

The unwieldy old white horse is apt at 
last 

To stumble, kick — and now and then 
stick fast 

With his great Self and Rider in the mud ; 

But w^hat of that? the animal shows 
blood. 

XIV. 

Alas, the Country ! how shall tongue or 

pen 
Bew^ail her now «wcountry gentlemen ? 
The last to bid the cry of warfare cease. 
The first to make a malady of peace. 571 
For what were all these country patriots 

born ? 
To hunt — ■ and vote — and raise the 

price of corn? 
But corn, like every mortal thing, must 

fall, 
Kings — ■ Conquerors — and markets 

most of all. 
And must ye fall with every ear of grain ? 
W^hy would you trouble Buonaparte's 

reign ? 
He was your great Triptolemus; ^ his 

vices 
Destroyed but realms, and still main- 
tained your prices; 
He amplified to every lord's content 580 

' [Demeter gave Triptolemus a chariot drawn 
by serpents, and bade him scatter wheat through- 
out the world.] 



934 



THE AGE OF BRONZE 



The grand agrarian alchymy, high rent. 
Why did the tyrant stumble on the 

Tartars, 
And lower wheat to such desponding 

quarters ? 
Why did you chain him on yon Isle so 

lone? 
The man was worth much more upon 

his throne. 
True, blood and treasure boundlessly 

were spilt, 
But what of that? the Gaul may bear 

the guilt; 
But bread was high, the farmer paid his 

way, 
And acres told upon the appointed day. 
But where is now the goodly audit ale? 
The purse-proud tenant, never known to 

fail? 591 

The farm which never yet was left on 

hand? 
The marsh reclaimed to most improving 

land? 
The impatient hope of the expiring 

lease ? 
The doubling rental? What an evil's 

peace ! 
In vain the prize excites the ploughman's 

skill. 
In vain the Commons pass their patriot 

bill;^ 
The Landed Interest — (you may under- 
stand 
The phrase much better leaving out the 

land) — 
The land self-interest groans from shore 

to shore, 600 

For fear that plenty should attain the 

poor. 
Up, up again, ye rents, exalt your 

notes. 
Or else the Ministry will lose their votes, 
And patriotism, so delicately nice. 
Her loaves will lower to the market price ; 
For ah! "the loaves and fishes," once 

so high. 
Are gone — their oven closed, their 

ocean dry. 
And nought remains of all the millions 

spent, 

' [A bill regulating the price of wheat in 
accordance with a sliding scale was passed 
May 13, 1822.] 



Excepting to grow moderate and con- 
tent. 

They who are not so, had their turn — 
and turn 610 

About still flows from Fortune's equal 
urn; 

Now let their virtue be its own reward, 

And share the blessings which them- 
selves prepared. 

See these inglorious Cincinnati swarm, 

Farmers of war, dictators of the farm; 

Their ploughshare was the sword in 
hireling hands. 

Their fields manured by gore of other 
lands; 

Safe in their barns, these Sabine tillers 
sent 

Their brethren out to battle — why ? 
for rent ! 

Year after year they voted cent, per 
cent., 620 

Blood, sweat, and tear- wrung millions 
— why ? — for rent ! 

They roared, they dined, they drank, 
they swore they meant 

To die for England — ■ why then live ? — ■ 
for rent ! 

The peace has made one general mal- 
content 

Of these high-market patriots; war was 
rent! 

Their love of country, millions all mis- 
spent. 

How reconcile ? by reconciling rent ! 

And will they not repay the treasures 
lent? 

No : down with everything, and up with 
rent! 

Their good, ill, health, wealth, joy, or 
discontent, 630 

Being, end, aim, religion — rent — rent 
rent ! 

Thou sold'st thy birthright, Esau ! for a 
mess; 

Thou shouldst have gotten more, or 
eaten less; 

Now thou hast swilled thy pottage, thy 
demands 

Are idle ; Israel says the bargain stands. 

Such, landlords ! was your appetite for 
war. 

And gorged v»'ith blood, you grumble at 
a scar! 



THE AGE OF BRONZE 



935 



' What ! would they spread their earth- 
quake even o'er cash? 
And when land crumbles, bid firm paper 

crash ? ^ 
So rent mav rise, bid Bank and Nation 

fall, " 640 

And found on 'Change a Fundling 

Hospital ? 
Lo, Mother Church, while all religion 

writhes, 
Like Niobe, weeps o'er her offspring — 

Tithes; 
The Prelates go to — where the Saints 

have gone, 
And proud pluralities subside to one; 
Church, state, and faction wrestle in the 

dark, 
Tossed by the deluge in their common 

ark. 
Shorn of her bishops, banks, and 

dividends. 
Another Babel soars — but Britain ends. 
And why? to pamper" the self-seeking 

wants, 650 

And prop the hill of these agrarian ants. 
"Go to these ants, thou sluggard, and 

be wise;" 
Admire their patience through each 

sacrifice. 
Till taught to feel the lesson of their 

pride, 
The price of taxes and of homicide ; 
Admire their justice, which would fain 

deny 
The debt of nations: — pray who made 

it high ? 

XV. 

Or turn to sail between those shifting 
rocks. 

The new Symplegades ^ — the crushing 
Stocks 

Where Midas might again his wish be- 
hold 660 

In real paper or imagined gold. 

That magic palace of Alcina ^ shows 

' [Peel's bill for the resumption of cash pay- 
ments (Act 59 Geo. III. cap. 49) was passed 
June 14, 1810.] 

* [The Symplegades, or "justling rocks," 
were supposed to crush the ships which sailed 
between them.] 

3 [Alcina, the personification of carnal pleasure 
in the Orlando Furioso, is the counterpart of 
Homer's CirceJ] 



More wealth than Britain ever had to 

lose, 
Were all her atoms of unleavened ore. 
And all her pebbles from Pactolus' 

shore. 
There Fortune plays, w^hile Rumour 

holds the stake 
And the World trembles to bid brokers 

break. 
How rich is Britain ! not indeed in 

mines, 
Or peace or plenty, corn or oil, or wines; 
No land of Canaan, full of milk and 

honey, 670 

Nor (save in paper shekels) ready 

money : 
But let us not to own the truth refuse, 
Was ever Christian land so rich in Jews ? 
Those parted with their teeth to good 

King John, 
And now, ye kings, they kindly draw 

your own; 
All states, all things, all sovereigns they 

control, 
And waft a loan "from Indus to the 

pole." 
The banker — broker — baron ^ — 

brethren, speed 
To aid these bankrupt tyrants in their 

need. 
Nor these alone; Columbia feels no 

less 680 

Fresh speculations follow each success; 
And philanthropic Israel deigns to drain 
Her mild per-centage from exhausted 

Spain. 
Not without Abraham's seed can Russia 

march ; 
'Tis gold, not steel, that rears the con- 
queror's arch. 
Two Jews, a chosen people can com- 
mand 
In every realm their Scripture-promised 

land : — 

I [There were five brothers Rothschild: 
Anselm, of Frankfort, 1 773-1855; Salomon, of 
Vienna, 1774-1855; Nathan Mayer, of London, 
1777-1836; Charles, of Naples, 1788-1855; and 
James, of Paris, 1702-1868. In 1821 Austria 
raised 3 7 ^^ million guldens through the firm, and, 
as an acknowledgment of their services, the 
Emperor raised the brothers to the rank of baron, 
and appointed Baron Nathan Mayer Consul- 
General in London, and Baron James to the 
same post in Paris.] 



936 



THE AGE OF BRONZE 



Two Jews, keep down the Romans/ and 

uphold 
The accursed Hun, more brutal than of 

old: 
Two Jews, — but not Samaritans — 

direct 690 

The world, with all the spirit of their 

sect. 
What is the happiness of earth to 

them? 
A congress forms their "New Jeru- 
salem," 
Where baronies and orders both invite — 
Oh, holy Abraham ! dost thou see the 

sight ? 
Thy followers mingling with these royal 

swine, 
Who spit not "on Lhcir Jewish gaber- 
dine," 
But honour them as portion of the 

show — 
(Where now, oh Pope ! is thy forsaken 

toe? 
Could it not favour Judah with some 

kicks? 700 

Or has it ceased to "kick against the 

pricks" ?) 
On Shylock's shore behold them stand 

afresh. 
To cut from Nation's hearts their 

"pound of flesh." 



Strange sight this Congress ! destined to 

unite 
All that's incongruous, all that's op- 
posite. 
I speak not of the Sovereigns — they're 

alike, 
A common coin as ever mint could 

strike ; 
But those who sway the puppets, pull 

the strings. 
Have more of motley than their heavy 

kings. 
Jews, authors, generals, charlatans, 

combine, 710 

While Europe wonders at the vast 

design : 
There Metternich, power's foremost 

parasite, 

» [In 1822 the Neapolitan Government raised 
22,000,000 ducats through the Rothschilds.] 



Cajoles; there Wellington forgets to 

fight; 
There Chateaubriand ^ forms new books 

of martyrs; 
And subtle Greeks intrigue for stupid 

Tartars; 
There Montmorenci, the sworn foe to 

charters,^ 
Turns a diplomatist of great eclat, 
To furnish articles for the "Debats"; 
Of war so certain — yet not quite so sure 
As his dismissal in the " Moniteur." 720 
Alas ! how could his cabinet thus err I 
Can Peace be worth an ultra-minister? 
He falls indeed, perhaps to rise again, 
"Almost as quickly as he conquered 

Spain." ^ 

XVII. 

Enough of this — a sight more mourn- 
ful woos 

The averted eye of the reluctant Muse. 

The Imperial daughter, the Imperial 
bride,'* 

The imperial Victim — sacrifice to pride ; 

The mother of the Hero's hope, the boy. 

The young Astyanax of Modern Troy ; ^ 

' Monsieur Chateaubriand, who has not for- 
gotten the author in the minister, received a 
handsome compliment at Verona from a Hterary 
sovereign: "Ah! Monsieur C, are you related 
to that Chateaubriand who — who — who has 
written something?" (ecrit quelque chose/) It 
is said that the author of Atala repented him for 
a moment of his legitimacy. [Frangois Rene 
Vicomte de Chateaubriand (i 768-1848) pub- 
lished Les Martyrs on le Triomphe de la religion 
chretienne in 1809.] 

2 [Jean Mathieu Felicite, Due de Mont- 
morenci (1766-1826), was, in his youth, a Jaco- 
bin. His dismissal (Dec. 29, 1822) from the 
post of Minister of Foreign Affairs was pub- 
lished in the Moniteur.] 

i [From Pope's line on Lord Peterborough, 
Imitalions of Horace, Sat. i. 132.] 

■* [Marie Louise, daughter of Francis I. of 
Austria, was born December 12, 1791, and died 
December 18, 1849. She was married to Na- 
poleon, April 2, 1810, and gave birth to a son, 
March 29, iSii. In accordance with the Treaty 
of Paris, she renounced the title of Empress, and 
was created Duchess of Parma. After Napo- 
leon's death (May 5, 1821), she did not long 
remain a widow, but speedily and secretly 
married her chamberlain and gentleman of 
honour. Count Adam de Neipperg, to whom she 
had long been attached.] 

5 [Napoleon Francois Charles Joseph, Duke 
of Reichstadt, died at the palace of Schonbrunn, 
July 22, 1832, having just attained his twenty- 
first year.] 



THE AGE OF BRONZE 



937 



The still pale shadow of the loftiest 

Queen 731 

That Earth has yet to see, or e'er hath 

seen; 
She flits amidst the phantoms of the 

hour, 
The theme of pity, and the wreck of 

power. 
Oh, cruel mockery ! Could not Austria 

spare 
A daughter ? What did France's widow 

there ? 
Her fitter place was by St Helen's 

wave, 
Her only throne is in Napoleon's grave. 
But, no, — she still must hold a petty 

reign. 
Flanked by her formidable chamberlain; 
The martial Argus, whose not hundred 

eyes^ 741 

Must watch her through these paltry 

pagentries. 
What though she share no more, and 

shared in vain, 
A sway surpassing that of Charlemagne, 
Which swept from Moscow to the 

southern seas ! 
Yet still she rules the pastoral realm of 

cheese. 
Where Parma views the traveller 

resort. 
To note the trappings of her mimic 

court. 
But she appears! Verona sees her 

shorn 
Of all her beams — while nations gaze 

and mourn — 750 

Ere yet her husband's ashes have had 

time 
To chill in their inhospitable clime; 
(If e'er those awful ashes can grow 

cold; — 
But no, — their embers soon will burst 

the mould;) 
She comes ! — the Andromache (but not 

Racine's, 
Nor Homer's,) — Lo ! on Pyrrhus' 

arm ^ she leans ! 



' [Count Adam Albrecht de Neipperg had 
lost an eye from a wound in battle.] 

^ [Pyrrhus must stand for the Duke of Welling- 
ton whose "respectful gallantry" to the Ex- 
Hmpress was noted in the Parisian newspapers.] 



Yes ! the right arm, yet red from 

Waterloo, 
Which cut her lord's half-shattered 

sceptre through, 
Is offered and accepted ? Could a 

slave 
Do more ? or less? — and he in his new 

grave ! 760 

Her eye — her cheek — betray no 

inward strife, 
And the £:v:-Empress grows as Ex a 

wife ! 
So much for human ties in royal 

breasts ! 
Why spare men's feelings, when their 

own are jests ? 



But, tired of foreign follies, I turn 

home. 
And sketch the group — the picture's 

yet to come. 
My Muse 'gan weep, but, ere a tear was 

spilt, 
She caught Sir William Curtis in a 

kilt ! ^ 
While thronged the chiefs of every 

Highland clan 
To hail their brother, Vich Ian Alder- 
man ! 770 
Guildhall grows Gael, and echoes with 

Erse roar. 
While all the Common Council cry 

"Claymore ! " 
To see proud Albvn's tartans as a 

belt 
Giri the gross sirloin of a city Celt, 
She burst into a laughter so 

extreme. 
That I awoke — and lo ! it was no 



Here, reader, will we pause: — if there's 

no harm in 
This first — you'll have, perhaps, a 

second "Carmen." 

I [Sir William Curtis (1752-1805), maker of 
sea-biscuits at Wapping, was M.P. for the City 
of London 1700-1818, Lord Mayor 1795-6. 
When the king visited Scotland in August, 1822, 
Curtis followed in his train, and on more than 
one occasion wore a kilt. There was much 
joking, at the expense of the "Fat Knight" in 
his "pyramid of Tartan."] 



938 



THE ISLAND 



[Canto i. 



THE ISLAND;! 

OR, 

CHRISTIAN AND HIS 
COMRADES. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The foundation of the following story 
will be found partly in Lieutenant 
Bligh's "Narrative of the Mutiny and 
Seizure of the Bounty, in the South 
Seas (in 1789);"^ and partly in "Mari- 
ner's Account of the Tonga Islands." ^ 
Genoa, 1823. 



CANTO THE FIRST. 
I. 

The morning watch was come; the 

vessel lay 
Her course, and gently made her liquid 

way ; 
The cloven billow flashed from off her 

prow 
In furrows formed by that majestic 

plough; 
The waters with their world were all 

before ; 
Behind, the South Sea's many an islet 

shore. 
The quiet night, now dappling, 'gan to 

wane. 
Dividing darkness from the dawning 

main; 
The dolphins, not unconscious of the 

day, 
Swam high, as eager of the coming ray; 
The stars from broader beams began to 

creep, 1 1 

' [The Island was \^Titten January 10- 
February 14, 1823. It was published (by John 
Hunt) June 26, 1823.] 

'[A Narrative of the Mutiny on board His 
Majesty's ship Bounty, and the subsequent voyage 
of . . . the ship's Boat from Tofoa, one of the 
Friendly Islands, to Timon, a Dutch Settlement 
in the East Indies, written by Lieutenant William 
Bligh, 1790.] 

i [An Account of the Natives of the Tonga 
Islands, compiled and arranged from the ex- 
tensive communications of Mr. William Mariner, 
by John Martin, M.D., 181 7.] 



And lift their shining eyelids from the 
deep; 

The sail resumed its lately shadowed 
white, 

And the wind fluttered with a freshen- 
ing flight; 

The purpling Ocean owns the coming 
Sun, 

But ere he break — a deed is to be done. 



The gallant Chief ^ within his cabin 

slept. 
Secure in those by whom the watch 

was kept: 
His dreams were of Old England's 

welcome shore, 19 

Of toils rewarded, and of dangers o'er; 
His name was added to the glorious roll 
Of those who search the storm-sur- 
rounded Pole. 
The worst was over, and the rest seemed 

sure. 
And why should not his slumber be 

secure ? 
Alas ! his deck was trod by unwilling 

feet. 
And wilder hands would hold the vessel's 

sheet ; 
Young hearts, which languished for 

some sunny isle, 
Where summer years and summer 

women smile; 

' [William Bligh, the son of Cornish parents, 
was born September 0, 1754. He served under 
Cook in his second voyage in the Resolution, 
1772-75. as sailing-master; and, in 1782, fought 
under Lord Howe at Gibraltar. He married 
a daughter of William Betham, first collector of 
customs in the Isle of Man, and hence his con- 
nection with Fletcher Christian, who belonged to 
a Manx family, and the midshipman Peter Hay- 
ward, who was the son of a Deemster. He was 
appointed to the Bounty in December, 1787, and 
in 1791 to the Providence, which was despatched 
to the Society Islands to obtain a fresh cargo of 
bread-fruit trees in place of those which were 
thrown overboard by the mutineers. He com- 
manded the Glatton at Coi^enhagen, May 21, 
1 80 1, and on that and other occasions served 
with distinction. He was made Governor of 
New South Wales in 1805, but was forcibly 
deposed in an insurrection headed by Major 
Johnston, January, 1808. He was kept in 
prison till 1810, but on his return to England his 
administration of his office was approved, and 
Johnston was cashiered. He was advanced to 
the rank of Vice-.Admiral of the Blue in 1814, 
and died, December 7, 1817.] 



Canto i.] 



THE ISLAND 



939 



Men without country, who, too long 

estranged, 
Had found no native home, or found it 

changed, 30 

And, half uncivilised, preferred the cave 
Of some soft savage to the uncertain 

wave — 
The gushing fruits that nature gave 

untilled; 
The wood without a path — but where 

they willed; 
The field o'er which promiscuous Plenty 

poured 
Her horn ; the equal land without a lord ; 
The wish — \vhich ages have not yet 

subdued 
In man — to have no master save his 

mood; 
The earth, whose mine was on its face, 

unsold, 
The glowing sun and produce all its 

gold; 40 

The Freedom which can call each grot a 

home ; 
The general garden, where all steps 

may roam, 
Where Nature owns a nation as her child, 
Exulting in the enjoyment of the wild; 
Their shells, their fruits, the only wealth 

they know. 
Their unexploring navy, the canoe; 
Their sport, the dashing breakers and 

the chase; 
Their strangest sight, an European 

face : — 
Such was the country which these 

strangers yearned 
To see again — a sight they dearly 

earned. 50 



Awake, bold Bligh! the foe is at the 

gate! 

Awake ! awake ! Alas ! it is too late ! 

Fiercely beside thy cot the mutineer 
Stands, and proclaims the reign of rage 

and fear. 
Thy limbs are bound, the bayonet at 
i thy breast ; 

fThe hands, which trembled at thy voice, 
I arrest ; 
[Dragged o'er the deck, no more at thy 

command 



The obedient helm shall veer, the sail 
expand; 

That savage Spirit, which would lull 
by wrath 

Its desperate escape from Duty's path, 

Glares round thee, in the scarce believ- 
ing eyes 61 

Of those who fear the Chief they sacri- 
fice: 

For ne'er can, Man his conscience all 
assuage, 

Unless he drain the wine of Passion — 
Rage. 

IV. 

In vain, not silenced by the eye of Death, 
Thou call'st the loyal with thy menaced 

breath: — 
They come not; they are few, and, 

overa\'\ed, 
Must acquiesce, while sterner hearts 

applaud. 
In vain thou dost demand the cause: 

a curse 
Is all the answer, with the threat of 

worse. 70 

Full in thine eyes is waved the glittering 

blade, 
Close to thv throat the pointed bavonet 

laid. 
The levelled muskets circle round thy 

breast 
In hands as steeled to do the deadly rest. 
Thou dar'st them to their worst, exclaim- 
ing — "Fire!" 
But they who pitied not could yet ad- 
mire; 
Some lurking remnant of their former 

awe 
Restrained them longer than their 

broken law; 
They would not dip their souls at once 

in blood, 79 

But left thee to the mercies of the flood. 

V. 

"Hoist out the boat!" was now the 

leader's cry; 
And who dare answer " No I " to Mutiny, 
In the first dawning of the drunken 

hour, 
The Saturnalia of unhoped-for power? 
The boat is lowered with all the haste of 

hate, 



940 



THE ISLAND 



[Canto i. 



With its slight plank between thee and 

thy fate; 
Her only cargo such a scant supply 
As promises the death their hands deny; 
And just enough of water and of bread 
To keep, some days, the dying from the 

dead : 90 

Some cordage, canvas, sails, and lines, 

and twine. 
But treasures all to hermits of the brine, 
Were added after, to the earnest prayer 
Of those who saw no hope, save sea and 

air; 
And last, that trembUng vassal of the 

Pole — 
The feeling compass — Navigation's 

soul. 



VI, 

self-elected 



Chief finds 



And now the 

time 
To stun the first sensation of his crime. 
And raise it in his followers — "Ho! 

the bowl ! " 
Lest Passion should return to Reason's 

shoal. 100 

"Brandy for heroes!" Burke could 

once exclaim — - 
No doubt a liquid path to Epic fame; 
And such the new-born heroes found it 

here. 
And drained the draught with an ap- 
plauding cheer. 
" Huzza ! for Otaheite ! " was the cry. 
How strange such shouts from sons of 

Mutiny ! 
The gentle island, and the genial soil, 
The friendly hearts, the feasts without 

a toil. 
The courteous manners but from nature 

caught. 
The wealth unhoarded, and the love 

unbought; no 

Could these have charms for rudest 

sea-boys, driven 
Before the mast by every wind of heaven ? 
And now, even now prepared with 

others' woes 
To earn mild Virtue's vain desire, 

repose ? 
Alas ! such is our nature ! all but aim 
At the same end by pathways not the 

same; 



Our means — our birth — our nation, 

and our name, 
Our fortune — temper — even our out- 
ward frame. 
Are far more potent o'er our yielding 

clay 
Than aught we know beyond our little 

day. 120 

Yet still there whispers the small voice 

within. 
Heard through Gain's silence, and o'er 

Glory's din: 
Whatever creed be taught, or land be 

trod, 
Man's conscience is the Oracle of God. 

VII. • 

The launch is crowded with the faithful 
few 

Who wait their Chief, a melancholy 
crew: 

But some remained reluctant on the deck 

Of that proud vessel — now a moral 
wreck — 

And viewed their Captain's fate with 
piteous eyes; 

While others scoffed his augured mis- 
eries, 130 

Sneered at the prospect of his pigmy 
sail, 

And the slight bark so laden and so frail. 

The tender nautilus, who steers his prow 

The sea-born sailor of his shell canoe, 

The ocean Mab, the fairy of the sea. 

Seems far less fragile, and, alas ! more 
free. 

He, when the lightning-winged Tor- 
nados sweep 

The surge, is safe — • his port is in the 
deep — 

And triumphs o'er the armadas of 
Mankind, 

Which shake the World, yet crumble in 
the wind. 140 

VIII. 

When all was now prepared, the vessel 

clear 
Which hailed her master in the mutineer, 
A seaman, less obdurate than his mates. 
Showed the vain pity which but irritates; 
Watched his late Chieftain with explor- 
ing eve, 



Canto i.j 



THE ISLAND 



941 



And told, in signs, repentant sympathy; 
Held the moist shaddock to his parched 

mouth. 
Which felt Exhaustion's deep and bitter 

drouth. 
But soon observed, this guardian was 

withdrawn, 
Nor further Mercy clouds Rebellion's 

dawn. 150 

Then forward stepped the bold and 

froward boy 
His Chief had cherished only to destroy, 
And, pointing to the helpless prow 

beneath, 
Exclaimed, "Depart at once! delay is 

death!" 
Yet then, even ihen, his feelings ceased 

not all: 
In that last moment could a word 

recall 
Remorse for the black deed as yet half 

done, 
And what he hid from many showed 

to one: 
When Bligh in stern reproach demanded 

where 
Was now his grateful sense of former 

care ? 1 60 

Wliere all his hopes to see his name 

aspire. 
And blazon Britain's thousand glories 

higher ? 
His feverish lips thus broke their- gloomy 

spell, 
"'Tis that! 'tis that! I am in hell! in 

hell!" 
No more he said; but urging to the 

bark 
His Chief, commits him to his fragile 

ark; 
These the sole accents from his tongue 

that fell, 
But volumes lurked below his fierce 

farewell. 



The arctic Sun rose broad above the 

wave ; 
The breeze now sank, now whispered 

from his cave ; 1 70 

As on the .^olian harp, his fitful wings 
Now swelled, now fluttered o'er his 

Ocean strings. 



With slow, despairing oar, the aban- 
doned skiff 

Ploughs its drear progress to the scarce 
seen cliff. 

Which lifts its peak a cloud above the 
main: 

That boat and ship shall never meet 
again ! 

But 'tis not mine to tell their tale of 

grief. 
Their constant peril, and their scant 

relief; 
Their days of danger, and their nights 

of [ ain ; 
Their manly courage even when deemed 

in vain; 180 

The sapping famine, rendering scarce 

a son 
Known to his mother in the skeleton; 
The ills that lessened still their little 

store. 
And starved even hunger till he wrung 

no more; 
The varying frowns and favours of the 

deep, 
That now almost ingulfs, then leaves to 

creep 
With crazy oar and shattered strength 

along 
The tide that yields reluctant to the 

strong; 
The incessant fever of that arid 

thirst 
Which welcomes, as a well, the clouds 

that burst 190 

Above their naked bones, and feels de- 
light 
In the cold drenching of the stormy 

night. 
And from the outspread canvass gladly 

wrings 
A drop to moisten Life's all-gasping 

springs; 
The savage foe escaped, to seek again 
More hospitable shelter from the 

main; 
The ghastly Spectres which were doomed 

at last 
To tell as true a tale of dangers past. 
As ever the dark annals of the deep 
Disclosed for man to dread or woman 

weep. 200 



942 



THE ISLAND 



[Canto ii. 



We leave them to their fate, but not 

unknown 
Nor unredressed. Revenge may have 

her own: 
Roused Discipline aloud proclaims 

their cause, 
And injured Navies urge their broken 

laws. 
Pursue we on his track the mutineer. 
Whom distant vengeance had not taught 

to fear. 
Wide o'er the wave — away ! away ! 

away ! 
Once more his eyes shall hail the wel- 
come bay; 
Once more the happy shores without 

a law 
Receive the outlaws whom they lately 

saw; 2 ID 

Nature, and Nature's goddess — Wo- 
man — woos 
To lands where, save their conscience, 

none accuse; 
Where all partake the earth without 

dispute, 
And bread itself is gathered as a fruit ; ^ 
Where none contest the fields, the woods, 

the streams: — 
The goldless Age, where Gold disturbs 

no dreams, 
Inhabits or inhabited the shore. 
Till Europe taught them better than 

before ; 
Bestowed her customs, and amended 

theirs. 
But left her vices also to their heirs. 220 
Away with this! behold them as they 

were. 
Do good with Nature, or with Nature err. 
" Huzza ! for Otaheite ! " was the cry, 
As stately swept the gallant vessel by. 
The breeze springs up; the lately flap- 

ing sail 
Extends its arch before the growing gale ; 

» The now celebrated bread-fruit, to trans- 
plant which Captain Bligh's expedition was 
undertaken. 

[The bread-fruit {Autocar pus incisa) was dis- 
covered by Dumpier, in 1688. "Cook, says that 
its taste is insipid, with a slight sweetness, some- 
what resembling that of the crumb of wheaten 
bread mixed with a Jerusalem artichoke." — ■ 
The Eventful History, etc., 183 1, p. 43.] 



In swifter ripples stream aside the seas. 
Which her bold bow flings off with 

dashing ease. 
Thus Argo ploughed the Euxine's virgin 

foam. 
But those she wafted still looked back to 

home; 230 

These spurn their country with their 

rebel bark, 
And fly her as the raven fled the Ark; 
And yet they seek to nestle with the 

dove, 
And tame their fiery spirits down to 

Love. 



CANTO THE SECOND. 



How pleasant were the songs of Too- 

bonai,^ 
When Summer's Sun went down the 

coral bay ! 
Come, let us to the islet's softest shade, 
And hear the warbling birds! the 

damsels said: 
The wood-dove from the forest depth 

shall coo, 
Like voices of the Gods from Bolotoo; ^ 
We'll cull the flowers that grow above 

the dead, 
For these most bloom where rests the 

warrior's head; 
And we will sit in Twilight's face, and 

see 
The sweet Moon glancing through the 

Tooa ^ tree, 10 

The lofty accents of whose sighing 

bough 

I The first three sections are taken from an 
actual song of the Tonga Islanders, of which a 
prose translation is given in "Mariner's Account 
of the Tonga Islands." Toobonai is not how- 
ever one of them; but was one of those where 
Christian and the mutineers took refuge. I 
have altered and added, but have retained as 
much as possible of the original. 

^ [Bolotoo is a visionary island to the north- 
westward, the home of the Gods. The souls 
of chieftains, priests, and, possibly, the gentry, 
ascend to Bolotoo after death; but the souls of 
the lower classes "come to dust" with their 
bodies. — An Account, etc., 1817, ii. 104, 105.] 

i [The Toa, or drooping casuarina. " F-^- 
merly the toa was rcgarcied as sacred, and 
planted in groves round the 'Morais' of Tahiti." 
— Fclyneiia, by G. F. Angas, 1866, p. 44.] 



Canto ii.] 



THE ISLAND 



943 



Shall sadly please us as we lean below; 
Or climb the steep, and view the surf in 

vain 
Wrestle with rocky giants o'er the main, 
Which spurn in columns back the 

baffled spray. 
How beautiful are these ! how happy 

they, 
Who, from the toil and tumult of their 

lives, 
Steal to look down where nought but 

Oce^fli strives! 
Even He too loves at times the blue 

lagoon. 
And smooths his rufHed mane beneath 

the Moon. 20 



Yes — from the sepulchre we'll gather 

flowers, 
Then feast like spirits in their promised 

bowers. 
Then plunge and revel in the rolling 

surf. 
Then lay our limbs along the tender turf, 
And, wet and shining from the sportive 

toil, 
Anoint our bodies with the fragrant oil. 
And plait our garlands gathered from 

the grave, 
And wear the wreaths that sprung from 

out the brave. 
But lo ! night comes, the Mooa ^ woos 

us back. 
The sound of mats ^ are heard along our 
i track; ' 30 

I Anon the torchlight dance shall fling 

its sheen 
In flashing mazes o'er the Marly's^ 

green ; 
And we too will be there; we too recall 
The memory bright with many a festival, 
Ere Fiji blew the shell of war, when foes 
For the first time were wafted in canoes. 

' [The capital town of an island.] 

- [The preparation of gnaloo, or tappa-doth, 

from the inner bark of the paper mulberry tree, 

occupies much of the time of tlie Tongan women. 

The bark, after being soaked in water, is beaten 

out by means of wooden mallets. . . . "Early 

in the morning," says Mariner, "when the air is 

I calm and still, the beating of the gnatoo at all the 

I plantations about has a very pleasing effect."] 

j 3 [Marly, or Malai, is an open grass plat set 

apart for public ceremonies.] 



Alas ! for them the flower of manhood 

bleeds; 
Alas ! for them our fields are rank with 

weeds : 
Forgotten is the rapture, or unknown, 
Of wandering with the Moon and Love 

alone. 40 

But be it so: — they taught us how to 

wield 
The club, and rain our arrows o'er the 

field: 
Now let them reap the harvest of their 

art! 
But feast to-night! to-morrow we de- 
part. 
Strike up the dance ! the Cava bowl » 

fill high ! 
Drain every drop ! — to-morrow we may 

die. 
In summer garments be our limbs 

arrayed; 
Around our waists the Tappa's white 

displayed; 
Thick wreaths shall form our coronal,^ 

like Spring's, 
And round our necks shall glance the 

Hooni strings; 50 

So shall their brighter hues contrast the 

glow 
Of the dusk bosoms that beat high 

below. 

' [Cava, "kava," or "ava," is an intoxicating 
drink, prepared from the roots and stems of a 
kind of pepper. Mariner {Ati Accovnl, etc., 
1817, ii. 183-206) gives an account of the pro- 
cess of brewing the kava, and of the solemn 
"kava-drinking," which was attended with 
ceremonial rites. Briefly, a large wooden bowl, 
about three feet in diameter, and one foot in 
depth in the centre (see, for a typical specimen. 
King Thakombau's kava-bowl, in the British 
Museum), is placed in front of the king or chief, 
who sits in the midst, surrounded by his guests 
and courtiers. A portion of kava root is handed 
to each person present, who chews it to a pulp, 
and then deposits his quid in the kava bowl. 
Water being gradually added, the roots are well 
squeezed and twisted by various "curvilinear 
turns" of the hands and arms through the 
"fow," i.e. shavings of fibrous bark. When 
the "kava is in the cup," quaighs made of the 
"uncxpanded leaf of the banana" are handed 
round to the guests, and the symposium begins.] 

^ [The gnatoo, which is a piece of tappa-cloth, 
is worn in different ways. "Twenty yards of fine 
cloth are required by a Tahitian woman to make 
one dress, which is worn from the waist down- 
wards." — Polynesia, by G. F. Angas, 1866, 
P- 45.] 



944 



THE ISLAND 



[Canto ii. 



But now the dance is o'er — yet stay 

awhile; 
Ah, pause ! nor yet put out the social 

smile. 
To-morrow for the Mooa we depart, 
But not to-night — to-night is for the 

heart. 
Again bestow the wreaths we gently woo. 
Ye young Enchantresses of gay Licoo ! 
How lovely are your forms ! how every 

sense 
Bows to your beauties, softened, but 

intense, 60 

Like to the flowers on Mataloco's 

steep, 
Which fling their fragrance far athwart 

the deep ! — 
We too will see Licoo; but — oh! my 

heart ! — 
What do I say ? — to-morrow we depart ! 



Thus rose a song — the harmony of 

times 
Before the winds blew Europe o'er these 

climes. 
True, they had vices — such are 

Nature's growth — 
But only the barbarian's — we have 

both; 
The sordor of civilisation, mixed 
With all the savage which Man's fall 

hath fixed. 70 

Who hath not seen Dissimulation's 

reign. 
The prayers of Abel linked to deeds of 

Cain? 
Who such would see may from his lattice 

view 
The Old World more degraded than the 

New, — 
Now nezv no more, save where Columbia 

rears 
Twin giants, born by freedom to her 

spheres. 
Where Chimborazo, over air, — earth, 

— wave, — - 
Glares with his Titan eye, and sees no 

slave. 

' [Licoo is the name given to the hack of or 
unfrequented part of any island.] 



Such was this ditty of Tradition's days, 
Which to the dead a lingering fame 

conveys 80 

In song, where Fame as yet hath left no 

sign 
Beyond the sound whose charm is half 

divine; 
Which leaves no record to the sceptic 

eye. 
But yields young History alF to Har- 
mony — 
A boy Achilles, with the Centaur's lyre 
In hand, to teach him to surpass his 

sire. 
For one long-cherished ballad's simple 

stave. 
Rung from the rock, or mingled with the 

wave. 
Or from the bubbling streamlet's grassy 

side. 
Or gathering mountain echoes as they 

glide, 90 

Hath greater power o'er each true heart 

and ear. 
Than all the columns Conquest's 

minions rear; 
Invites, when Hieroglyphics are a theme 
For sages' labours, or the student's 

dream; 
Attracts, when History's volumes are a 

toil, — 
The first, the freshest bud of Feeling's 

soil. 
Such was this rude rhyme — rhyme is of 

the rude — 
But such inspired the Norseman's soli- 
tude. 
Who came and conquered; such, 

wherever rise 
Lands which no foes destroy or civilise, 
Exist: and what can our accomplished 

art loi 

Of vrse do more than reach the 

awakened heart? 



And sweetly now those untaught 

melodies 
Broke the luxurious silence of the skies, 
The sweet siesta of a summer day. 
The tropic afternoon of Toobonai, 



Canto ii.] 



THE ISLAND 



945 



Iw 



When every flower was bloom, and air 

was balm, 
And the first breath began to stir the 

palm. 
The first yet voiceless wind to urge the 

wave 
All gently to refresh the thirsty cave, no 
Where sat the Songstress with the 

stranger boy, 
ho taught her Passion's desolating 

joy, 
Too powerful over every heart, but 

most 
O'er those who know not how it may be 

lost; 
D'er those who, burning in the new- 
born fire, 
Like martyrs revel in their funeral 

pyre. 
With such devotion to their ecstasy. 
That Life knows no such rapture as to 

die: 
And die they do; for earthly Hfe has 

nought 
Matched with that burst of Nature, even 

in thought; 120 

And all our dreams of better life 

above 
But close in one eternal gush of Love. 



There sat the gentle savage of the 

wild. 
In growth a woman, though in years a 

child. 
As childhood dates within our colder 

clime. 
Where nought is ripened rapidly save 

crime ; 

The infant of an infant world, as pure 
From Nature — lovely, warm, and pre- 
mature; 
Dusky like night, but night with all her 

stars; 
Or cavern sparkling with its native 

spars; 130 

With eyes that were a language and a 

spell, 
A form like Aphrodite's in her shell. 
With all her loves around her on the 
1 deep, 
[Voluptuous as the first approach of 

sleep; 

3P 



Yet full of life — for through her tropic 

cheek 
The blush would make its way, and all 

but speak; 
The sun-born blood suffused her neck, 

and threw 
O'er her clear nut-brown skin a lucid 

hue, 
Like coral reddening through the 

darkened wave, 
Which draws the diver to the crimson 

cave. 140 

Such was this daughter of the southern 

seas, 
Herself a billow in her energies. 
To bear the bark of others' happiness, 
Nor feel a sorrow till their joy grew 

less: 
Her wild and warm yet faithful bosom 

knew 
No joy like what it gave; her hopes 

ne'er drew 
Aught from Experience, that chill touch- 
stone, whose 
Sad proof reduces all things from their 

hues: 
She feared no ill, because she knew it 

not. 
Or what she knew was soon — too^ soon 

— forgot: 150 

Her smiles and tears had passed, as 

light winds pass 
O'er lakes to rufile, not destroy, their 

glass. 
Whose depths unsearched, and fountains 

from the hill. 
Restore their surface, in itself so still. 
Until the Earthquake tear the Naiad's 

cave. 
Root up the spring, and trample on the 

wave, 
And crush the living waters to a 

mass. 
The amphibious desert of the dank 

morass ! 
And must their fate be hers? The 

eternal change 
But grasps Humanity waih quicker 

range; 160 

And they who fall but fall as worlds will 

fall. 
To rise, if just, a Spirit o'er them 

all. 



946 



THE ISLAND 



[Canto il 



And who is he ? the blue-eyed northern 

child 1 
Of isles more known to man, but scarce 

less wild; 
The fair-haired offspring of the Hebrides 
Where roars the Pentland with its whirl- 
ing seas; 
Rocked in his cradle by the roaring 

wind, 
The tempest-born in body and in mind, 
His young eyes opening on the ocean- 
foam. 
Had from that moment deemed the deep 
his home, 170 

The giant comrade of his pensive moods, 
The sharer of his craggy solitudes. 
The only Mentor of his youth , where'er 
His bark was borne; the sport of wave 

and air; 
A careless thing, who placed his choice 
in chance, 

' [George Stewart was born at Ronaldshay 
(«>c. 1764), but was living at Stromness in 1780 
(where his father's house, "The White House," 
is still shown), when, on the homeward voyage 
of the Resolution, Cook and Bligh were hospitably 
entertained by his parents. Lieutenant Bligh 
took Stewart with him, partly in return for the 
"civilities" at Stromness, but also because "he 
was a 'seaman, and had always borne a good 
character." Alexander Smith told Captain 
Beachey {Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific, 
183 1, Part I. p. 53) that it was Stewart who 
advised Christian " to take possession of the 
ship," but Peter Hayward, who survived to old 
age, strenuously maintained that this was a 
calumny, that Stewart was forcibly detained in 
his cabin, and that he would not, in any case, 
have taken part in the mutiny. He had, perhaps, 
already wooed and won a daughter of the isles, 
and when the Bounty revisited Tahiti, September 
20, 1789, he was put ashore, and took up his 
quarters in her father's house. There he re- 
mained till March, 1791, when he "voluntarily 
surrendered himself" to the captain of the Pan- 
dora, and was immediately put in irons. The 
story of his parting from his bride is told in A 
Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean 
in the Ship Duff (by W. Wilson), 1799, p. 360: 
" A beautiful litde girl had been the fruit of their 
union, and was at the breast when the Pandora 
arrived. . . . Frantic with grief, the unhappy 
Peggy . . . flew with her infant in a canoe to 
the arms of her husband. She was separated 
from him bv violence, and conveyed on shore 
in a state of despair and grief too big for utterance 
. . . she sank into the deepest dejection, . . . 
and fell a victim to her feelings, dying literally 
of a broken heart." Stewart was drowned or 
killed by an accident during the wreck of the 
Pandora, August 29, 1791.] 



Nursed by the legends of his land's 

romance; 
Eager to hope, but not less firm to bear, 
Acquainted with all feelings save despair. 
Placed in the Arab's clime he would 

have been 
As bold a rover as the sands have seen, 
And braved their thirst with as enduring 

Up 181 

As Ishmael, wafted on his Desert-Ship; ^ 
Fixed upon Chili's shore, a proud 

cacique; 
On Hellas' mountains, a rebellious 

Greek; 
Born in a tent, perhaps a Tamerlane; 
Bred to a throne, perhaps unfit to reign. 
For the same soul that rends its path to 

sway. 
If reared to .such, can find no further prey « 
Beyond itself, and must retrace its way,^ 
Plunging for pleasure into pain: the 

same 190 

Spirit which made a Nero, Rome's worst 

shame, 
A humbler state and discipline of heart, 
Had formed his glorious namesake's 

counterpart; ^ 
But grant his vices, grant them all his 

own, 
How small their theatre without a 

throne ! 

IX. 

Thou smilest: — these comparisons 

seem high 
To those who scan all things with 

dazzled eye; 

'The "ship of the desert" is the Oriental 
figure for the camel or dromedary; and they 
deserve the metaphor well, — the former for his 
endurance, the latter for his swiftness. 

^"Lucullus, when frugality could charm, 
Had roasted turnips in the Sabine farm." 
— Pope [Moral Essays, i. 218, 219.] 

i The consul Nero, who made the unequalled 
march which deceived Hannibal, and defeated 
Asdrubal; thereby accomplishing an achieve- 
ment almost unrivalled in military annals. The 
first intelligence of his return, to Hannibal, was 
the sight of Asdrubal's head thrown into his 
camp. When Hannibal saw this, he exclaimed 
with a sigh, that "Rome would now be the ;i 
mistress of the world." And yet to this victory 
of Nero's it might be owing that his imperial 
namesake reigned at all. But the infamy of one 
has eclipsed the glory of the other. When the 
name of "Nero" is heard, who think -of the 
consul ? — But such are human things 1 



Canto ii.] 



THE ISLAND 



947 



Linked with the unknown name of one 

whose doom 
Has nought to do with glory or with 

Rome, 
With Chili, Hellas, or with Araby; — 
Thou smilest ? ■ — Smile; 'tis better thus 

than sigh; 201 

yet such he might have been ; he was a 
i man, 

A soaring spirit, ever in the van, 
A patriot hero or despotic chief, 
To form a nation's glory or its grief, 
Born under auspices which make us 

more 
Or less than we delight to ponder o'er. 
But these are visions; say, what was he 

here? 
A blooming boy, a truant mutineer — 
The fair-haired Torquil, free as Ocean's 

spray, 210 

The husband of the bride of Toobonai. 



By Neuha's side he sate, and watched 

the waters, — 
Neuha, the sun-flower of the island 

daughters, 
Highborn, (a birth at which the herald 

smiles. 
Without a scutcheon for these secret 

isles,) 
|Of a long race, the valiant and the free. 
The naked knights of savage chivalry, 
Whose grassy cairns ascend along the 

shore; 
And thine — I've seen — Achilles ! do 

no more. 
She, when the thunder-bearing strangers 

came, 220 

In vast canoes, begirt with bolts of 

flame, 
Topped with tall trees, which, loftier 

than the palm. 
Seemed rooted in the deep amidst its 

calm : 
But when the winds awakened, shot 

forth wings 
Broad as the cloud along the horizon 

flings. 
And swayed the waves, like cities of the 

sea, 
Making the very billows look less 

free; — 



She, with her paddling oar and dancing 

prow. 
Shot through the surf, like reindeer 

through the snow, 
Swift-gliding o'er the breaker's whiten- 
ing edge, 230 
Light as a Nereid in her ocean sledge. 
And gazed and wondered at the giant 

hulk. 
Which heaved from wave to wave its 

trampling bulk. 
The anchor dropped; it lay along the 

deep. 
Like a huge lion in the sun asleep. 
While round it swarmed the Proas' 

flitting chain. 
Like summer bees that hum around his 



XL 

The white man landed ! — need the rest 

be told ? 
The New World stretched its dusk hand 

to the Old; 239 

Each was to each a marvel, and the tie 
Of wonder warmed to better sympathy. 
Kind was the welcome of the sun-born 

sires. 
And kinder still their daughters' gentler 

fires. 
Their union grew: the children of the 

storm 
Found beauty linked with many a dusky 

farm; 
While these in turn admired the paler 

glow, 
Which seemed so white in climes that 

Icnew no snow. 
The chace, the race, the Hberty to 

roam, 
The soil where every cottage showed a 

home; 
The sea-spread net, the lightly launched 

canoe, 250 

Which stemmed the studded archipelago 
O'er whose blue bosom rose the starry 

isles; 
The healthy slumber, earned by sportive 

toils; 
The palm, the loftiest Dryad of the 

woods. 
Within whose bosom infant Bacchus 

broods. 



948 



THE ISLAND 



[Canto ii. 



While eagles scarce build higher than 

the crest 
Which shadows o'er the vineyard in her 

breast ; 
The Cava feast, the Yam, the Cocoa's 

root, 
Which bears at once the cup, and milk, 

and fruit; 
The Bread-tree, which, without the 

ploughshare, yields 260 

The unreaped harvest of unfurrowed 

fields. 
And bakes its unadulterated loaves 
Without a furnace in unpurchased 

groves, 
And flings off famine from its fertile 

breast, 
A priceless market for the gathering 

guest; — ■ 
These, with the luxuries of seas and 

woods. 
The airy joys of social solitudes. 
Tamed each rude wanderer to the sym- 
pathies 
Of those who were more happy, if less 

wise. 
Did more than Europe's discipline had 

done, 270 

And civilised Civilisation's son ! 



Of these, and there was many a willing 
pair, 

Neuha and Torquil were not the least 
fair: 

Both children of the isles, though distant 
far; 

Both born beneath a sea-presiding star; 

Both nourished amidst Nature's native 
scenes. 

Loved to the last, whatever intervenes 

Between us and our Childhood's sym- 
pathy, 

Which still reverts to what first caught 
the eye. 

He who first met the Highlands' swell- 
ing blue 280 

Will love each peak that shows a kindred 
hue, 

Hail in each crag a friend's familiar 
face, 

And clasp the mountain in his Mind's 
embrace. 



Long have I roamed through lands 

which are not mine, 
Adored the Alp, and loved the Apennine, 
Revered Parnassus, and beheld the steep 
Jove's Ida and Olympus crown the 

deep: 
But 'twas not all long ages' lore, nor all 
Their nature held me in their thrilling 

thrall; 
The infant rapture still survived the 

boy, 290 

And Loch-na-gar with Ida looked o'er 

Troy,^ 
Mixed Celtic memories with the 

Phrygian mount, 
And Plighland linns with CastaUe's clear 

fount. 
Forgive me. Homer's universal shade ! , 
Forgive me, Phoebus ! that my fancy ^' 

strayed; 
The North and Nature taught me to 

adore 
Your scenes sublime, from those beloved 

before. 



The love which maketh all things fond 

and fair, 
The youth which makes one rainbow of 

the air. 
The dangers past, that make even Man 

enjoy 300 

The pause in which he ceases to destroy, 
The mutual beauty, which the sternest 

feel 
Strike to their hearts like lightning to 

the steel. 
United the half savage and the whole. 
The maid and boy, in one absorbing 

soul. 

' When very young, about eight years of age, 
after an attack of the scarlet fever at Aberdeen, 
I was removed by medical advice into the High- 
lands. Here I passed occasionally some sum- 
mers, and from this period I date my love of 
mountainous countries. I can never forget the 
effect, a few years afterwards, in England, of 
the only thing I had long seen, even in miniature, 
of a mountain, in the Malvern Hills. After I 
returned to Cheltenham, I used to watch them 
every afternoon, at sunset, with a sensation 
which I cannot describe. This was boyish 
enough: but I was then only thirteen years of 
age, and it was in the holidays. [Byron spent 
his summer holidays, 1706-98, at the farmhouse 
of Ballatrich, on Deeside.] 



Canto ii.] 



THE ISLAND 



949 



No more the thundering memory of the 

fight 
Wrapped his weaned bosom in its dark 

delight; 
No more the irksome restlessness of Rest 
Disturbed him like the eagle in her nest, 
Whose whetted beak and far-pervading 

eye 310 

Darts for a victim over all the sky: 
jHis heart was tamed to that voluptuous 

state, 
At once Elysian and effeminate, 
Which leaves no laurels o'er the Hero's 

urn; — 
These wither when for aught save blood 

they burn; 
Yet when their ashes in their nook are 

laid, 
Doth not the myrtle leave as sweet a 

shade ? 
Had Caesar known but Cleopatra's kiss, 
Rome had been free, the world had not 

been his. 
And what have Caesar's deeds and 
' Caesar's fame 320 

Done for the earth? We feel them in 

our shame. 
The gory sanction of his Glory stains 
The rust which tyrants cherish on our 

chains. 
Though Glory — Nature — Reason — 
j Freedom bid 
Roused millions do what single Brutus 

did — 
Sweep these mere mock-birds of the 

Despot's song 
From the tall bough where they have 

perched so long, — 
Still are we hawked at by such mousing 

owls. 
And take for falcons those ignoble fowls, 
When but a word of freedom would 

dispel 330 

These bugbears, as their terrors show 

too well. 



Rapt in the fond forgetfulness of life, 
Neuha, the South Sea girl, was all a wife. 
With no districting world to call her off 
From Love; with no Society to scoff 
|At the new transient flame; no babbling 
crowd 



Of coxcombry in admiration loud. 
Or with adulterous whisper to alloy 
Her duty, and her glory, and her joy: 
With faith and feelings naked as her 

form, 340 

She stood as stands a rainbow in a storm. 
Changing its hues with bright variety, 
But still expanding lovelier o'er the 

sky, 
Howe'er its arch may swell, its colours 

move, 
The cloud-compelling harbinger of Love. 

XV. 

Here, in this grotto of the wave-worn 

shore, 
They passed the Tropic's red meridian 

o'er; 
Nor long the hours — they never paused 

o'er time. 
Unbroken by the clock's funereal chime, 
Which deals the daily pittance of our 

span, 350 

And points and mocks with iron laugh 

at man. 
What deemed they of the future or the 

past? 
The present, like a tyrant, held them 

fast: 
Their hour-glass was the sea-sand, and 

the tide. 
Like her smooth billow, saw their 

moments glide; 
Their clock the Sun, in his unbounded 

tower ; 
They reckoned not, whose day was but 

an hour; 
The nightingale, their only vesper-bell, 
Sung sweetly to the rose the day's fare- 
well; 1 
The broad Sun set, but not with linger- 
ing sweep, 360 
As in the North he mellows o'er the 

deep; 
But fiery, full, and fierce, as if he left 
The World for ever, earth of light bereft. 
Plunged with red, forehead down along 

the wave. 
As dives a hero headlong to his grave. 

' The now well-known story of the loves of the 
nightingale and rose need not be more than 
alluded to, being sufficiently familiar to the 
Western, as to the Eastern reader. 



95° 



THE ISLAND 



[Canto n. 



Then rose they, looking first along the 

skies, 
And then for light into each other's eyes, 
Wondering that Summer showed so brief 

a sun, 
And asking if indeed the day were done. 



And let not this seem strange: the 
devotee 370 

Lives not in earth, but in his ecstasy; 

Around him days and worlds are heed- 
less driven. 

His Soul is gone before his dust to 
Heaven. 

Is Love less potent ? No — his path is 
trod. 

Alike uplifted gloriously to God ; 

Or linked to all we know of Heaven 
below, 

The other better self, whose joy or woe 

Is more than ours; the all-absorbing 
flame 

Which, kindled by another, grows the 
same, 

Wrapt in one blaze ; the pure, yet funeral 



pile. 



?8o 



Where gentle hearts, like Bramins, sit 

and smile. 
How often we forget all time, when 

lone, 
Admiring Nature's universal throne, 
Her woods — her wilds — her waters — 

the intense 
Reply of hers to our intelligence ! 
Live not the Stars and Mountains? 

Are the Waves 
Without a spirit? Are the dropping 

caves 
Without a feeling in their silent tears? 
No, no; — they woo and clasp us to 

their spheres. 
Dissolve this clog and clod of clay 

before 390 

Its hour, and merge our soul in the great 

shore. 
Strip off this fond and false identity ! — 
Who thinks of self when gazing on the 

sky? 
And who, though gazing lower, ever 

thought, 
In the young moments ere the heart is 

taught 



Time's lesson, of Man's baseness or his 

own ? 
All Nature is his realm, and Love his 

throne. 



Neuha arose, and Torquil: Twilight's 

hour 
Came sad and softly to their rocky 

bower, 
Which, kindling by degrees its dewy 

spars, 400 

Echoed their dim light to the mustering 

stars. 
Slowly the pair, partaking Nature's 

calm, 
Sought out their cottage, built beneath 

the palm; 
Now smiling and now silent, as the 

scene; 
Lovely as Love — the Spirit ! — when 

serene. 
The Ocean scarce spoke louder with his 

swell. 
Than breathes his mimic murmurer in 

the shell,^ 
As, far divided from his parent deep. 
The sea-born infant cries, and will not 

sleep. 
Raising his little plaint in vain, to rave 
For the broad bosom of his nursing 

wave: 411 

The woods drooped darkly, as inclined 

10 rest, 

I If the reader will apply to his ear the sea- 
shell on his chimney-piece, he will be aware of 
what is alluded to. If the text should appear 
obscure, he will find in Gebir the same idea better 
expressed in two lines. The poem I never read, 
but have heard the lines quoted, by a more re- 
condite reader — who seems to be of a different 
opinion from the editor of the Quarterly Review, 
who qualified it in his answer to the Critical 
Reviewer of his Juvenal, as trash of the worst 
and most insane description. It is to Mr 
Landor, the author of GeUr, so qualified, and 
of some Latin poems, which vie with Martial 
or Catullus in obscenity, that the immaculate 
Mr Southey addresses his declamation against 
impurity ! 

[These are the lines in Gebir to which Byron 
alludes — 

"But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue. 

Shake one and it awakens ; then apply 
Its polisht lips to your attentive ear, 
And it remembers its august abodes, 
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there."] 



Canto ii.] 



THE ISLAND 



951 



The tropic bird wheeled rockward to his 

nest. 
And the blue sky spread round them like 

a lake 
Of peace, where Piety her thirst might 

slake. 

XVIII. 

But through the palm and plantain, 

hark, a Voice ! 
Not such as would have been a lover's 

choice, 
In such an hour, to break the air so still; 
No dving night-breeze, harping o'er the 

hill, 
Striking the strings of nature, rock and 

tree, 420 

Those best and earliest lyres of Har- 
mony, 
With Echo for their chorus ; nor the 

alarm 
Of the loud war-whoop to dispel the 

charm ; 
Nor the soliloquy of the hermit owl, 
Exhaling all his solitary soul, 
The dim though large-eyed winged 

anchorite. 
Who peals his dreary Paean o'er the 

night ; 
But a loud, long, and naval whistle, shrill 
As ever started through a sea-bird's bill; 
And then a pause, and then a hoarse 

"Hillo! 430 

Torquil, my boy! what cheer? Ho! 

brother, ho!" 
"Who hails?" cried Torquil, following 

with his eye 
The sound. "Here's one," was all the 

brief reply. 

XIX. 

But here the herald of the self-same 

mouth 
Came breathing o'er the aromatic south. 
Not like a "bed of violets" on the gale, 
But such as wafts its cloud o'er grog or 

ale, 
Borne from a short frail pipe, which yet 

had blown 
Its gentle odours over either zone, 
And, puffed where'er winds rise or 

waters roll, 440 

Had wafted smoke from Portsmouth to 

the Pole, 



Opposed its vapour as the lightning 

flashed, 
And reeked, midst mountain-billows, 

unabashed. 
To ^olus a constant sacrifice. 
Through every change of all the varying 

skies. 
And what was he who bore it ? — I may 

err, 
But deem him sailor or philosopher.^ 
Sublime Tobacco ! which from East to 

West 
Cheers the tar's labour or the Turk- 
man's rest; 
Which on the Moslem's ottoman divides 
His hours, and rivals opium and his 

brides; 451 

Magnificent in Stamboul, but less 

grand, 
Though not less loved, in Wapping or 

the Strand; 
Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe, 
When tipped v/ith amber, mellow, rich, 

and ripe; 
Like other charmers, wooing the caress. 
More dazzlingly when daring in full 

dress ; 
Yet thy true lovers more admire by far 
Thy naked beauties — Give me a cigar ! 

XX. 

Through the approaching darkness of 

the wood 460 

A human figure broke the solitude. 
Fantastically, it may be, arrayed, 
A seaman in a savage masquerade; 
Such as appears to rise out from the 

deep. 
When o'er the line the merry vessels 

sweep. 
And the rough Saturnalia of the tar 
Flock o'er the deck, in Neptune's 

borrowed car; ^ 
And, pleased, the God of Ocean sees 

his name 
Revive once more, though but in mimic 



^ Hobbes, the father of Locke's and other 
philosophy, was an inveterate smoker, — even 
to pipes beyond computation. 

2 This rough but jovial ceremony, used in 
crossing the line, has been so often and so well 
described, that it need not be more than alluded to. 



952 



THE ISLAND 



[Canto ii. 



Of his true sons, who riot in the breeze 
Undreamt of in his native Cyclades. 47 1 
Still the old God delights, from out the 

main, 
To snatch some glimpses of his ancient 

reign. 
Our sailor's jacket, though in ragged 

trim. 
His constant pipe, which never yet 

burned dim, 
His foremast air, and somewhat rolling 

gait. 
Like his dear vessel, spoke his former 

state ; 
But then a sort of kerchief round his 

head, 
Not over tightly bound, nor nicely 

spread ; 
And, 'stead of trowsers (ah ! too early 

torn ! 480 

For even the mildest woods will have 

their thorn) 
A curious sort of somewhat scanty 

mat 
Now served for inexpressibles and 

hat; 
His naked feet and neck, and sunburnt 

face, 
Perchance might suit alike with either 

race. 
His arms were all his own, our Europe's 

growth, 
Which two worlds bless for civilising 

both; 
The musket swung behind his shoulders 

broad. 
And somewhat stooped by his marine 

abode, 
But brawny as the boar's; and hung 

beneath, 490 

His cutlass drooped, unconscious of a 

sheath, 
Or lost or worn away; his pistols were 
Linked to his belt, a matrimonial pair — 
(Let not this metaphor appear a scoff, 
Though one missed fire, the other would 

go off) ; 
These, with a bayonet, not so free from 

rust 
As when the arm-chest held its brighter 

trust. 
Completed his accoutrements, as Night 
Surveyed him in his garb heteroclite. 



"What cheer, Ben Bunting?" cried 

(when in full view 500 

Our new acquaintance) Torquil. 

"Aught of new?" 
" Ey, ey!" quoth Ben, "not new, but 

news enow; 
A strange sail in the offing." — "Sail! 

and how? 
What ! could you make her out ? It 

cannot be; 
I've seen no rag of canvas on the sea." 
"Belike," said Ben, "you might not 

from the bay. 
But from the bluff-head, where I 

watched to-day, 
I saw her in the doldrums; for the wind 
Was light and baffling." — "When the 

Sun declined 
Where lay she? had she anchored?" — 

"No, but still 510 

She bore down on us, till the wind grew 

still." 
"Her flag?" — "I had no glass: but 

fore and aft. 
Egad ! she seemed a wicked-looking 

craft." 
"Armed?" — "I expect so; — sent on 

the look-out: 
'Tis time, belike, to put our helm about.' 
" About ? — Whate'er may have us now 

in chase. 
We'll make no running fight, for that 

were base; 
We will die at our quarters, like true 

men." 
" Ev, ev ! for that 'tis all the same to 

' Ben." 
" Does Christian know this?" — "Aye; 

he has piped all hands 520 

To quarters. They are furbishing the 

stands 
Of arms; and we have got some guns 

to bear. 
And scaled them. You are wanted." — ■ 

"That's but fair; 
And if it were not, mine is not the soul 
To leave my comrades helpless on the 

shoal. 
My Neuha ! ah ! and must my fate 

pursue 
Not me alone, but one so sweet and true ? 



Canto m.] 



THE ISLAND 



953 



But whatsoe'er betide, ah, Neuha ! now 
Unman me not: the hour will not allow 
A tear; I am thine whatever inter- 
venes!" 530 
"Right," quoth Ben, "that will do for 
the marines." ^ 



CANTO THE THIRD. 

I. 

The fight was o'er; the flashing through 

the gloom. 
Which robes the cannon as he wings a 

tomb, 
Had ceased; and sulphury vapours 

upward driven 
Had left the Earth, and but polluted 

Heaven : 
The rattling roar which rung in every 

volley 
Had left the echoes to their melancholy; 
No more they shrieked their horror, 

boom for boom; 
The strife was done, the vanquished had 

their doom; 
The mutineers were crushed, dispersed, 

or ta'en, 
Or lived to deem the happiest were the 

slain. 10 

Few, few escaped, and these were hunted 

o'er 
The isle they loved beyond their native 

shore. 
No further home was theirs, it seemed, 

on earth, 
Once renegades to that which gave 

them birth; 
Tracked like wild beasts, like them 

they sought the wild. 
As to a Mother's bosom flies the child; 
But vainly wolves and lions seek their 

den. 
And still more vainly men escape from 

men. 

II. 

Beneath a rock whose jutting base pro- 
trudes 

'"That will do for the marines, but the 
sailors won't believe it," is an old saying: and 
one of the few fragments of former jealousies 
which still survive (in jest only) between these 
gallant services. 



Far over Ocean in its fiercest moods, 20 
When scaling his enormous crag the 

wave 
Is hurled down headlong, like the fore- 
most brave. 
And falls back on the foaming crowd 

behind. 
Which fight beneath the banners of the 

wind. 
But now at rest, a little remnant drew 
Together, bleeding, thirsty, faint, and 

few ; 
But still their weapons in their hands, 

and still 
With something of the pride of former 

will, 
As men not all unused to meditate, 
And strive much more than wonder ^t 

their fate. 30 

Their present lot was what they had 

foreseen. 
And dared as what was likely to have 

been; 
Yet still the lingering hope, which 

deemed their lot 
Not pardoned, but unsought for or 

forgot, 
Or trusted that, if sought, their distant 

caves 
Might still be missed amidst the world 

of waves. 
Had weaned their thoughts in part from 

what they saw 
And felt, the vengeance of their country's 

law. 
Their sea-green isle, their guilt-won 

Paradise, 
No more could shield their Virtue or 

their Vice : 40 

Their better feelings, if such were, were 

thrown 
Back on themselves, — their sins re- 
mained alone. 
Proscribed even in their second country, 

they 
Were lost; in vain the World before 

them lay; 
All outlets' seemed secured. Their 

new allies 
Had fought and bled in mutual sacrifice; 
But what availed the club and spear, 

and arm 
Of Hercules, against the sulphury charm, 



954 



THE ISLAND 



[Canto hi. 



The magic of the thunder, which 

destroyed 
The warrior ere his strength could be 

employed ? 50 

Dug, like a spreading pestilence, the 

grave 
No less of human bravery than the 

brave ! ^ 
Their own scant numbers acted all the 

few 
Against the many oft will dare and do; 
But though the choice seems native to 

die free. 
Even Greece can boast but one Ther- 
mopylae, 
Till noiv, when she has forged her 

broken chain 
Back to a sword, and dies and lives 



Beside the jutting rock the few appeared, 
Like the last remnant of the red-deer's 

herd; 60 

Their eyes were feverish, and their 

aspect worn, 
But still the hunter's blood was on their 

horn. 
A little stream came tumbling from the 

height, 
And straggling into Ocean as it might, 
Its bounding crystal frohcked in the 

ray, 
And gushed from cliff to crag with 

saltless spray; 
Close on the wild, wide Ocean, yet as 

pure 
And fresh as Innocence, and more secure. 
Its silver torrent glittered o'er the deep, 
As the shy chamois' eye o'erlooks the 

steep, 70 

While far below the vast and sullen swell 
Of Ocean's alpine azure rose and fell. 
To this young spring they rushed, — 

all feelings first 
Absorbed in Passion's and in Nature's 

thirst, — 

' Archidamus, King of Sparta, and son of 
Agesilaus, when he saw a machine invented for 
the casting of stones and darts, exclaimed that it 
was the "grave of valour." The same story has 
been told of some knights on the first application 
of gunpowder; but the original anecdote is in 
Plutarch. 



Drank as they do who drink their last, 

and threw 
Their arms aside to revel in its dew; 
Cooled their scorched throats, and 

washed the gory stains 
From wounds whose only bandage 

might be chains; 
Then, when their drought was quenched, 

looked sadly round. 
As wondering how so many still were 

found 80 

Alive and fetterless: — but silent all, 
Each sought his fellow's eyes, as if to 

call 
On him for language which his lips 

denied. 
As though their voices with their cause 

had died. 

IV. 

Stern, and aloof a little from the rest. 
Stood Christian, with his arms across 

his chest. 
The ruddy, reckless, dauntless hue once 

spread 
Along his cheek was livid now as lead; 
His light-brown locks, so graceful in 

their flow. 
Now rose like startled vipers o'er his 

brow. 90 

Still as a statue, with his lips comprest l 
To stifle even the breath within his 

breast. 
Fast by the rock, all menacing, but 

mute. 
He stood; and, save a slight beat of his 

foot. 
Which deepened now and then the 

sandy dint 
Beneath his heel, his form seemed 

turned to flint. 
Some paces further Torquil leaned his 

head 
Against a bank, and spoke not, but he 

bled, — 
Not mortally: — his worst wound was 

within; 
His brow was pale, his blue eyes sunken 

in, 100 

And blood-drops, sprinkled o'er his 

yellow hair, 
Showed that his faintncss came not 

from despair. 



Canto hi.] 



THE ISLAND 



955 



But Nature's ebb. Beside him was an- 
other, 
Rough as a bear, but willing as a 

brother, — 
Ben Bunting, who essayed to wash, 

and wipe. 
And bind his wound — then calmly lit 

his pipe, 
A trophy which survived a hundred 

fights, 
A beacon which had cheered ten thou- 
sand nights. 
The fourth and last of this deserted 

group 
Walked up and down — at times would 

stand, then stoop no 

To pick a pebble up — then let it 

drop — 
Then hurry as in haste — then quickly 

stop — 
Then cast his eyes on his companions — 

then 
Half whistle half a tune, and pause 

again — 
And then his former movements would 

redouble. 
With something between carelessness 

and trouble. 
This is a long description, but applies 
To scarce five minutes passed before 

the eyes; 
But yet tvhat minutes ! Moments like 

to these 
Rend men's lives into immortalities. 120 



At length Jack Skyscrape, a mercurial 

man. 

Who fluttered over all things like a fan, 
More brave than firm, and more dis- 
posed to dare 
And die at once than wrestle with 

despair. 
Exclaimed, "G — d damn!" — those 

syllables intense, — 
Nucleus of England's native eloquence, 
As the Turk's "Allah ! " or the Roman's 

more 
Pagan "Proh Jupiter!" was wont of 

yore 
To give their first impressions such a 

vent, 
By way of echo to embarrassment. 130 



Jack was embarrassed, — never hero 

more, 
And as he knew not what to say, he 

swore : 
Nor swore in vain; the long congenial 

sound 
Revived Ben Bunting from his pipe 

profound ; 
He drew it from his mouth, and looked 

full wise. 
But merely added to the oath his 

eyes ; 
Thus rendering the imperfect phrase 

complete, 
A peroration I need not repeat. 



But Christian,^ of a higher order, stood 
Like an extinct volcano in his mood; 
Silent, and sad, and savage, — with the 

trace 141 • 

Of passion reeking from his clouded 

face; 
Till lifting up again his sombre eye, 
It glanced on Torquil, who leaned 

faintly by. 
"And is it thus?" he cried, "unhappv 

boy ! 
And thee, too, thee — my madness 

must destroy !" 
He said, and strode to where young 

Torquil stood, 
Yet dabbled with his lately flowing 

blood ; 
Seized his hand wistfully, but did not 

press. 
And shrunk as fearful of his own caress; 
Enquired into his state: and when he 

heard 151 

The wound was slighter than he deemed 

or feared, 

' [Fletcher Christian, born 1763, was the 
fourth son of Charles Christian, an attorney, of 
Moreland Close, in the parish of Brigham, 
Cumberland. His family, which was of Alanx 
extraction, was connected with the Christians of 
Ewanrigii, and the Curwens of Workington 
Hall. His brother Edward became Chief 
Justice of Ely, and was well known as the editor 
of Blackslone's Com}rcntaries. Contradictory 
accounts are given of Christian's death. It is 
generally believed that in the fourth year of the 
settlement on Pitcairn Island the Tahitians 
formed a plot to massacre the Englishmen, and 
that Christian was shot when at work in his 
plantation.] 



956 



THE ISLAND 



[Canto hi. 



A moment's brightness passed along his 

brow, 
As much as such a moment would 

allow. 
" Yes," he exclaimed, "we are taken in 

the toil, 
But not a coward or a common spoil; 
Dearly they have bought us — dearly 

still may buy, — 
And I must fall; but have you strength 

to fly ? 
'Twould be some comfort still, could 

you survive; 
Our dwindled band is now too few to 

strive. i6o 

Oh ! for a sole canoe ! though but a shell, 
To bear vou hence to where a hope mav 

dwell ! 
For me, my lot is what I sought; to be. 
In life or death, the fearless and the 

free." 



Even as he spoke, around the promon- 
tory. 

Which nodded o'er the billows high and 
hoary, 

A dark speck dotted Ocean: on it flew 

Like to the shadow of a roused sea-mew; 

Onward it came — and, lo ! a second 
followed — 

Now seen — now hid — where Ocean's 
vale was hollowed; 170 

And near, and nearer, till the dusky 
crew 

Presented well-known aspects to the 
view. 

Till on the surf their skimming paddles 

Buoyant as wings, and flitting through 

the spray ; — 
Now perching on the wave's high curl, 

and now 
Dashed downward in the thundering 

foam below, 
Which flings it broad and boiling sheet 

on sheet, 
And slings its high flakes, shivered into 

sleet: 
But floating still through surf and swell, 

drew nigh 
The barks, like small birds through a 

lowering sky. 180 



Their art seemed nature — such the 

skill to sweep 
The wave of these born playmates of 

the deep. 

VIII. 

And who the first that, springing on the 

strand. 
Leaped like a Nereid from her shell to 

land. 
With dark but brilliant skin and dewy 

eye 
Shining with love, and hope, and con- 
stancy ? 
Neuha — the fond, the faithful, the 

adored — 
Her heart on Torquil's like a torrent 

poured ; 
And smiled, and wept, and near, and 

nearer clasped. 
As if to be assured 'twas him she 

grasped; 190 

Shuddered to see his yet warm wound, 

and then. 
To find it trivial, smiled and wept again. 
She was a warrior's daughter, and could 

bear 
Such sights, and feel, and mourn, but 

not despair. 
Her lover lived, — nor foes nor fears 

could blight 
That full-blown moment in its all 

delight: 
Joy trickled in her tears, joy filled the j 

sob 
That rocked her heart till almost heard 

to throb; 
And Paradise was breathing in the sigh 
Of Nature's child in Nature's ecstasy. 200 



The sterner spirits who beheld that 

meeting 
W'ere not unmoved; who are, when 

hearts are greeting? 
Even Christian gazed upon the maid 

and boy 
With tearless eye, but yet a gloomy joy 
Mixed with those bitter thoughts the 

soul arrays 
In hopeless visions of our better days. 
When all's gone — to the rainbow's 

latest ray. 



Canto IV.] 



THE ISLAND 



^S1 



"And but for me!" he said, and turned 

away; 
Then gazed upon the pair, as in his den 
A lion looks upon his cubs again; 210 
And then relapsed into his sullen guise. 
As heedless of his further destinies. 



But brief their time for good or evil 

thought; 
The billows round the promontory 

brought 
The plash of hostile oars. — Alas ! 

who made 
That sound a dread ? All around them 

seemed arrayed 
Against them, save the bride of Too- 

bonai : 
She, as she caught the first glimpse o'er 

the bay 
Of the armed boats, which hurried to 

complete 
The remnant's ruin with their flying 

feet, 220 

Beckoned the natives round her to 

their prows, 
Embarked their guests and launched 

their light canoes; 
In one placed Christian and his com- 
rades twain — 
But she and Torquil must not part 

again. 
She fixed him in her own. — Away ! 

away ! 
They cleared the breakers, dart along 

the bay, 
And towards a group of islets, such as 

bear 
The sea-bird's nest and seal's surf- 
hollowed lair, 
They skim the blue tops of the billows; 

fast 
They flew, and fast their fierce pursuers 

chased. 230 

They gain upon them — now they lose 

again, — 
Again make way and menace o'er the 

main; 
And now the two canoes in chase divide, 
And follow different courses o'er the 

tide, 
To baffle the pursuit. — Away ! away ! 
As Life is on each paddle's flight to-day. 



And more than Life or lives to Neuha: 

Love 
Freights the frail bark and urges to the 

cove; 
And now the refuge and the foe are 

nigh — 
Yet, yet a moment ! Fly, thou light ark, 

fly ! 240 



CANTO THE FOURTH. 



White as a white sail on a dusky sea, 

When half the horizon's clouded and 
half free, 

Fluttering between the dun wave and 
the sky. 

Is Hope's last gleam in Man's extremity. 

Her anchor parts; but still her snowy- 
sail 

Attracts our eye amidst the rudest gale: 

Though every wave she climbs divides 
us more. 

The heart still follows from the loneliest 
shore. 

II. 

Not distant from the isle of Toobonai, 
A black rock rears its bosom o'er the 

spray, 10 

The haunt of birds, a desert to mankind. 
Where the rough seal reposes from the 

wind. 
And sleeps unwieldy in his cavern dun, 
Or gambols with huge frolic in the sun: 
There shrilly to the passing oar is heard 
The startled echo of the Ocean bird, 
Who rears on its bare breast her callow 

brood, 
The feathered fishers of the soHtude. 
A narrow segment of the yellow sand 
On one side forms the outline of a 

strand; 20 

Here the voung turtle, crawling from his 

shelC 
Steals to the deep wherein his parents 

dwell; 
Chipped by the beam, a nursling of the 

day. 
But hatched for ocean by the fostering 

ray; 
The rest was one bleak precipice, as e'er 



958 



THE ISLAND 



[Canto iv. 



Gave mariners a shelter and despair; 
A spot to make the saved regret the 

deck 
Which late went down, and envy the 

lost wreck. 
Such was the stern asylum Neuha chose 
To shield her lover from his following 

foes; 30 

But all its secret was not told; she knew 
In this a treasure hidden from the view. 



Ere the canoes divided, near the spot, 
The men that manned what held her 

TorquiPs lot. 
By her command removed, to strengthen 

more 
The skiff which wafted Christian from 

the shore. 
This he would have opposed; but with 

a smile 
She pointed calmly to the craggy isle, 
And bade him "speed and prosper." 

She would take 
The rest upon herself for Torquil's 

sake. 40 

They parted with this added aid; afar 
The Proa darted like a shooting star. 
And gained on the pursuers, who now 

steered 
Right on the rock which she and Tor- 

quil neared. 
They pulled; her arm, though delicate, 

was free 
And firm as ever grappled with the sea. 
And yielded scarce to Torquil's manlier 

strength. 
The prow now almost lay within its 

length 
Of the crag's steep inexorable face, 
With nought but soundless waters for its 

base ; 50 

Within a hundred boats' length was the 

foe, 
And now what refuge but their frail 

canoe ? 
This Torquil asked with half upbraiding 

eye, 
Which said — "Has Neuha brought 

me here to die ? 
Is this a place of safety, or a grave, 
And yon huge rock the tombstone of the 



They rested on their paddles, and uprose 
Neuha, and pointing to the approaching 

foes. 
Cried, "Torquil, follow me, a'nd fearless 

follow !" 
Then plunged at once into the Ocean's 

hollow. 60 

There was no time to pause — the foes 

were near — 
Chains in his eye, and menace in his 

ear; 
With vigour they pulled on, and as they 

came. 
Hailed him to yield, and by his forfeit 

name. 
Headlong he leapt — to him the swim- 
mer's skill 
Was native, and now all his hope from 

ill: 
But how, or where? He dived, and rose 

no more; 
The boat's crew looked amazed o'er 

sea and shore. 
There was no landing on that precipice, 
Steep, harsh, and slippery as a berg of 

ice. 70 

They watched awhile to see him float 

again. 
But not a trace rebubbled from the 

main: 
The wave rolled on, no ripple on its face. 
Since their first plunge recalled a single 

trace; 
The Httle whirl which eddied, and slight 

foam, 
That whitened o'er what seemed their 

latest home, 
White as a sepulchre above the pair 
Who left no marble (mournful as an 

heir) 
The quiet Proa wavering o'er the tide 
Was all that told of Torquil and his 

bride; 80 

And but for this alone the whole might 

seem 
The vanished phantom of a seaman's 

dream. 
They paused and searched in vain, then 

pulled away; 
Even Superstition now forbade their 

stay. 



Canto iv.] 



THE ISLAND 



059 



Some said he had not plunged into the 

wave, 
But vanished like a corpse-light from 

a grave; 
Others, that something supernatural 
Glared in his figure, more than mortal 

tall; 
While all agreed that in his cheek and 

eye 
There was a dead hue of Eternity. 90 
Still as their oars receded from the crag, 
Round every weed a moment would 

they lag, 
Expectant of some token of their prey; 
But no — he had melted from them 

like the spray. 



And where was he the Pilgrim of the 

Deep, 
Following the Nereid ? Had they ceased 

to weep 
For ever ? or, received in coral caves. 
Wrung life and pity from the softening 

waves ? 
Did they with Ocean's hidden sovereigns 

dwell, 
And sound with Mermen the fantastic 

shell? 100 

Did Neuha with the mermaids comb 

her hair 
Flowing o'er Ocean as it streamed in 

air? 
Or had they perished, and in silence 

slept 
Beneath the gulf wherein they boldly 

leapt ? 



Young Neuha plunged into the deep, 

and he 
Followed : her track beneath her native 

sea 
Was as a native's of the element. 
So smoothly — bravely — brilliantly she 

went. 
Leaving a streak of light behind her 

heel, 
Which struck and flashed Hke an 

amphibious steel. no 

Closely, and scarcely less expert to trace 
The depths where divers hold the pearl 

in chase, 



Torquil, the nursling of the northern 

seas. 
Pursued her hquid steps with heart and 

ease. 
Deep — deeper for an instant Neuha led 
The way — then upward soared — and 

as she spread 
Her arms and flung the foam from ofT 

her locks. 
Laughed, and the sound was answered 

by the rocks. 
They had gained a central realm of 

earth again, 
But looked for tree, and field, and sky, 

in vain. 120 

Around she pointed to a spacious cave, 
Whose only portal was the keyless 

wave, ^ 
(A hollow archway by the sun unseen, 
Save through the billows' glassy veil of 

green. 
In some transparent ocean holiday, 
When all the finny people are at play,) 
Wiped with her hair the brine from 

Torquil's eyes. 
And clapped her hands with joy at his 

surprise ; 
Led him to where the rock appeared to 

jut. 
And form a something like a Triton's 

hut; 130 

For all was darkness for a space, till day. 
Through clefts above let in a sobered 

ray; 
As in some old cathedral's glimmering 

aisle 
The dusty monuments from light recoil. 
Thus sadly in their refuge submarine 
The vault drew half her shadow from 

the scene. 



Forth from her bosom the young savage 

drew 
A pine torch, strongly girded with 

gnatoo ; 
A plaintain-leaf o'er all, the more to keep 

I Of this cave Cwhich is no fiction) the original 
will be found in the ninth chapter of "Mariner's 
Account of the Tonga Islands" [1817, i. 267- 
279]. I have taken the poetical liberty to trans- 
plant it to Toobonai, the last island where any 
distinct account is left of Christian and his 
comrades. 



960 



THE ISLAND 



[Canto iv. 



Its latent sparkle from the sapping deep. 
This mantle kept it dry; then from a 

nook 141 

Of the same plaintain-leaf a flint she 

took, 
A few shrunk withered twigs, and from 

the blade 
Of Torquil's knife struck tire, and thus 

arrayed 
The grot with torchlight. Wide it was 

and high. 
And showed a self-born Gothic canopy ; 
The arch upreared by Nature's architect, 
The architrave some Earthquake might 

erect : 
The buttress from some mountain's 

bosom hurled, 
When the poles crashed, ond water was 

the world: 150 

Or hardened from some earth-absorbing 

fire. 
While yet the globe reeked from its 

funeral pvre; 
The fretted pinnacle, the aisle, the nave,^ 
Were there, all scooped by Darkness 

from her cave. 
There, with a little tinge of phantasy, 
Fantastic faces moped and mowed on 

high, 
And then a mitre or a shrine would fix 
The eye upon its seeming crucifix. 158 
Thus Nature played with the stalactites, 
And built herself a Chapel of the Seas. 

VIII. 

And Neuha took her Torquil by the hand, 
And waved along the vault her kindled 
brand, 

■ This may seem too minute for the general 
outline (in Mariner's Account) from which it is 
taken. But few men have travelled without 
seeing something of the kind — on latid, that is. 
Without adverting to EUora, in Mungo Park's 
last journal, he mentions having met with a rock 
or mountain so exactly resembling a Gothic 
cathedral, that only minute inspection could 
convince him that it was a work of nature. 

[The passage in Mungo Park's Journal of a 
Mission to the Interior of Africa, 1815, p. 75, 
runs thus: "June 24th [1S05]. — Left Sullo, and 
travelled through a country beautiful beyond 
imagination, with all the possible diversities of 
rock, sometimes towering up like ruined castles, 
spires, pyramids, etc. We passed one place so 
like a ruined Gothic abbey, that we halted a 
little before we could satisfy ourselves that the 
niches, windows, etc., were all natural rock."] 



And led him into each recess, and 
showed 

The secret places of their new abode. 

Nor these alone, for all had been pre- 
pared 

Before, to soothe the lover's lot she 
shared : 

The mat for rest; for dress the fresh 
gnatoo. 

And sandal oil to fence against the dew; 

For food the cocoa-nut, the yam, the 
bread 

Born of the fruit; for board the plain- 
tain spread 170 

With its broad leaf, or turtle-shell which 
bore 

A banquet in the flesh it covered o'er; 

The gourd with water recent from the . 
rill. 

The ripe banana from the mellow hill; 

A pine-torch pile to keep undying light, 

And she herself, as beautiful as night. 

To fling her shadowy spirit o'er the 
scene. 

And make their subterranean world 
serene. 

She had foreseen, since first the stranger's 
sail 

Drew to their isle, that force or flight 
might fail, 180 

And formed a refuge of the rocky den 

For Torquil's safety from his country- 
men. 

Each dawn had wafted there her light 
canoe. 

Laden with all the golden fruits that 
grew; 

Each eve had seen her gliding through 
the hour 

With all could cheer or deck their sparry 
bower ; 

And now she spread her little store with 
smiles. 

The happiest daughter of the loving isles. 

IX. 

She, as he gazed with grateful wonder, 

pressed 
Her sheltered love to her impassioned 

breast; 190 

And suited to her soft caresses, told 
An olden tale of Love, — for Love is old, 
Old as eternity, but not outworn 



Canto iv.] 



THE ISLAND 



961 



With each new being born or lo be 

born: ' 
How a young Chief, a thousand moons 

Diving for turtle in the depths below, 
Had risen, in tracking fast his ocean 

prey, 
Into the cave which round and o'er them 

lay; 
How, in some desperate feud of after- 
time, 
He sheltered there a daughter of the 

clime, 200 

A foe beloved, and offspring of a foe, 
Saved by his tribe but for a captive's 

woe; 
How, when the storm of war was stilled, 

he led 
His island clan to where the waters 

spread 
Their deep-green shadow o'er the rocky 

door. 
Then dived — it seemed as if to rise no 

more : 
His wondering mates, amazed within 

their bark, 
Or deemed him mad, or prey to the blue 

shark; 
Rowed round in sorrow the sea-girded 

rock, 
Then paused upon their paddles from 

the shock; 210 

When, fresh and springing from the 

deep, they saw 
A Goddess rise — so deemed they in 

their awe; 
And their companion, glorious by her 

side, 
Proud and exulting in his Mermaid 

bride; 

' The reader will recollect the epigram of the 
Greek anthology, or its translation into most of 
the modern languages — 

"Whoe'er thou art, thy master see — 
He was, or is, or is to be." 

[Byron is quoting from memory an "Illustra- 
tion" in the notes to Collections from the Greek 
Anthology, by the Rev Robert Bland, 181 3, 
p. 402 — 

"Whoe'er thou art, thy Lord and master see. 
Thou wast my Slave, thou art, or thou shalt be." 

The couplet was written by George Granville, 
Lord Lansdowne (1667-1 73s). as an Inscription 
for a Figure representing the God of Love. (See 
The Genuine Works, etc., 1732, I. 120)] 

3Q 



And how, when undeceived, the pair 
they bore 

With sounding conchs and joyous shouts 
to shore; 

How they had gladly lived and calmly 
died, — 

And why not also Torquil and his bride ? 

Not mine to tell the rapturous caress 

Which followed wildly in that wild 
recess 220 

This tale; enough that all within that 
cave 

Was .'ove, though buried strong as in the 
grave. 

Where Abelard, through twenty years of 
death. 

When Eloisa's form was lowered be- 
neath 

Their nuptial vault, his arms out- 
stretched, and pressed 

The kindling ashes'to his kindled breast.^ 

The waves without sang round their 
couch, their roar 

As much unheeded as if life were o'er; 

Within, their hearts made al) their 
harmony, 

Love's broken murmur and more broken 
sigh. 230 



And they, the cause and sharers of the 

shock 
Which left them exiles of the hollow 

rock, 
^^'here were they? O'er the sea for life 

they plied. 
To seek from Heaven the shelter men 

denied. 
Another course had been their choice — 

but where? 
The wave which bore them still their 

foes would bear, 
Who, di.sappointed of their former chase, 
In search of Christian now renewed their 

race. 
Eager with anger, their strong arms 

made way, 
Like vultures bafHed of their previous 

prey. 240 

' The tradition is attached to the story of 
Eloisa. that when her body was lowered into the 
grave of Abelard (who had been buried twenty 
years), he opened his arms to receive her. 



962 



THE ISLAND 



[Canto iv. 



They gained upon them, all whose safetv 

lay 
In some bleak crag or deeply-hidden 

bay : 
No further chance or choice remained; 

and right 
For the first further rock which met 

their sight 
They steered, to take their latest view 

of land, 
And yield as victims, or die sword in 

hand; 
Dismissed the natives and their shallop, 

who 
Would still have battled for that scanty 

crew ; 
But Christian bade them seek their shore 

again, 
Nor add a sacrifice which were in vain; 
For what were simple bow and savage 

spear 251 

Against the arms which must be wielded 

here? 

XI. 

They landed on a wild but narrow scene, 
Where few but Nature's footsteps yet 

had been; 
Prepared their arms, and with that 

gloomy eye. 
Stern and sustained, of man's extremity, 
When Hope is gone, nor Glory's self 

remains 
To cheer resistance against death or 

chains, — 
They stood, the three, as the three hun- 
dred stood 
Who dyed Thermopylae with holy blood. 
But, ah ! how difi'erent ! 'tis the cause 

makes all, 261 

Degrades or hallows courage in its 

fall. 
O'er them no fame, eternal and intense, 
Blazed through the clouds of Death and 

beckoned hence; 
No grateful country, smiling through her 

tears, 
Began the praises of a thousand years; 
No nation's eyes would on their tomb be 

bent, 
No heroes envy them their monument; 
However boldly their warm blood was 

spilt, 



Their Life was shame, their Epitaph was 

guilt. 270 

And this they knew and felt, at least the 

one, 
The leader of the band he had undone; 
Who, born perchance for better things, 

had set 
His life upon a cast which lingered yet: 
But now the die was to be thrown, and 

all 
The chances were in favour of his fall: 
And such a fall ! But still he faced the 

shock. 
Obdurate as a portion of the rock 
Whereon he stood, and fixed his levelled 

gun, 279 

Dark as a sullen cloud before the sun. 



The boat drew nigh, well armed, and 
firm the crew 

To act whatever Duty bade them do; 

Careless of danger, as the onward wind 

Is of the leaves it strews, nor looks be- 
hind. 

And, yet, perhaps, they rather wished to 

Against a nation's than a native foe, 

And felt that this poor victim of self- 
will, 

Briton no more, had once been Britain's 
still. 

They hailed him to surrender — no 
reply; 

Their arms were poised, and gUttered in 
the sky. 290 

They hailed again — no answer; yet 
once more 

They o&'ered quarter louder than before. 

The echoes only, from the rock's re- 
bound, 

Took their last farewell of the dying 
sound. 

Then flashed the flint, and blazed the 
volleying flame, 

And the smoke rose between them and 
their aim. 

While the rock rattled with the bullet's 
knell, 

Which pealed in vain, and flattened as 
they fell ; 

Then flew the only answer to be 
given 



Canto iv.] 



THE ISLAND 



963 



By those who had lost all hope in earth 

or heaven. 300 

After the first fierce peal as they pulled 

nigher, 
They heard the voice of Christian shout, 

"Now, fire ! " 
And ere the word upon the echo died, 
Two fell; the rest assailed the rock's 

rough side. 
And, furious at the madness of their foes. 
Disdained all further efforts, save to 

close. 
But steep the crag, and all without a 

path, 
Each step opposed a bastion to their 

wrath, 
While, placed 'midst clefts the least 

accessible, 
Which Christian's eye was trained to 

mark full well, 310 

The three maintained a strife which 

must not yield. 
In spots where eagles might have chosen 

to build. 
Their every shot told ; while the assailant 

fell, 
Dashed on the shingles like the limpet 

shell; 
But still enough survived, and mounted 

still. 
Scattering their numbers here and there, 

until 
Surrounded and commanded, though 

not nigh 
Enough for seizure, near enough to die, 
The desperate trio held aloof their fate 
But by a thread, like sharks who have 

gorged the bait; 320 

Yet to the very last they battled well. 
And not a groan informed their foes u'/io 

fell. 
Christian died last — twice v/ounded; 

and once more 
Mercy was offered when they saw his 

gore; 
Too late for life, but not too late to die. 
With, though a hostile hand, to close his 

eye. 
■ A limb was broken, and he drooped 

along 
The crag, as doth a falcon reft of young. 
The sound revived him, or appeared to 

wake 



Some passion which a weakly gesture 

spake: 330 

He beckoned to the foremost, who drew 

nigh. 
Cut, as they neared, he reared his weapon 

high — 
His last ball had been aimed, but from 

his breast 
He tore the topmost button from his 

vest,^ 
Down the tube dashed it — levelled — 

fired, and smiled 
As his foe fell; then, like a serpent, 

coiled 
His wounded, weary form, to where the 

steep 
Looked desperate as himself along the 

deep; 
Cast one glance back, and clenched his 

hand, and shook 
His last rage 'gainst the earth which he 

forsook; 340 

Then plunged : the rock below received 

like glass 
His body crushed into one gory mass, 
With scarce a shred to tell of human 

form, 
Or fragment for the sea-bird or the 

worm ; 
A fair-haired scalp, besmeared vdth 

blood and weeds, 
Yet reeked, the remnant of himself and 

deeds; 
Some splinters of his weapons (to the 

last, 
As long as hand could hold, he held 

them fast) 

^ In Thibault's account of Frederick the Sec- 
ond of Prussia, there is a singular relation of a 
young Frenchman, who with his mistress ap- 
peared to be of some rank. He enlisted and 
deserted at Schweidnitz; and after a desperate 
resistance was retaken, having killed an officer, 
who attempted to seize him after he was wounded, 
by the discharge of his musket loaded with a 
button of his uniform. Some circumstances on 
his court-martial raised a great interest amongst 
his judges, who wished to discover his real 
situation in life, which he offered to disclose, 
but to the king only, to whom he requested 
permission to write. This was refused, and 
Frederick was filled with the greatest indigna- 
tion, from baffled curiosity or some other motive, 
when he understood that his request had been 
denied. [Mes Souvenirs de vingt ans de sejour a 
Berlin, on Frederic Le Grand, etc., Paris, 1804, 
iv. 145-150-] 



962 



THE ISLAND 



m 

[Canto iv.« 
Epitaph was^l 



They gained upon them, all whose safety 

lay 
In some bleak crag or deeply-hidden 

bay: 
No further chance or choice remained; 

and right 
For the first further rock which met 

their sight 
They steered, to take their latest view 

of land. 
And yield as victims, or die sword in 

hand ; 
Dismissed the natives and their shallop, 

who 
Would still have battled for that scanty 

crew; 
But Christian bade them seek their shore 

again, 
Nor add a sacrifice which were in vain; 
For what were simple bow and savage 

spear 251 

Against the arms which must be wielded 

here? 

XI. 

They landed on a wild but narrow scene. 
Where few but Nature's footsteps yet 

had been; 
Prepared their arms, and with that 

gloomy eye, 
Stern and sustained, of man's extremity, 
When Hope is gone, nor Glory's self 

remains 
To cheer resistance against death or 

chains, — 
They stood, the three, as the three hun- 
dred stood 
Who dyed Thermopylae with holy blood. 
But, ah ! how different ! 'tis the cause 

makes all, 261 

Degrades or hallows courage in its 

fall. 
O'er them no fame, eternal and intense, 
Blazed through the clouds of Death and 

beckoned hence; 
No grateful country, smiling through her 

tears, 
Began the praises of a thousand years; 
No nation's eyes would on their tomb be 

bent. 
No heroes envy them their monument; 
However boldly their warm blood was 

spilt. 



Their Life was shame, their Epitaph was 

guilt. 270 

And this they knew and felt, at least the 

one. 
The leader of the band he had undone; 
Who, born perchance for better things, 

had set 
His life upon a cast which lingered yet: 
But now the die was to be thrown, and 

all 
The chances were in favour of his fall: 
And such a fall ! But still he faced the 

shock. 
Obdurate as a portion of the rock 
Whereon he stood, and fi.xed his levelled 

gun, 279 

Dark as a sullen cloud before the sun. 



The boat drew nigh, well armed, and 
firm the crew 

To act whatever Duty bade them do; 

Careless of danger, as the onward wind 

Is of the leaves it strews, nor looks be- 
hind. 

And, yet, perhaps, they rather wished to 

go 

Against a nation's than a native foe. 

And felt that this poor victim of self- 
will, 

Briton no more, had once been Britain's 
still. 

They hailed him to surrender — no 
reply; 

Their arms were poised, and glittered in 
the sky. 290 

They hailed again — no answer; yet 
once more 

They offered quarter louder than before. 

The echoes only, from the rock's re- 
bound. 

Took their last farewell of the dying 
sound. 

Then flashed the flint, and blazed the 
volleying flame. 

And the smoke rose between them and 
their aim. 

While the rock rattled with the bullet's 
knell. 

Which pealed in vain, and flattened as 
they fell; 

Then flew the only answer to be 
given 



Canto iv.] 



THE ISLAND 



963 



By those who had lost all hope in earth 

or heaven. 300 

After the first fierce peal as they pulled 

nigher, 
They heard the voice of Christian shout, 

"Now, fire!" 
And ere the word upon the echo died, 
Two fell; the rest assailed the rock's 

rough side, 
And, furious at the madness of their foes. 
Disdained all further efforts, save to 

close. 
But steep the crag, and all without a 

path. 
Each step opposed a bastion to their 

wrath. 
While, placed 'midst clefts the least 

accessible, 
Which Christian's eye was trained to 

mark full well, 310 

The three maintained a strife which 

must not yield. 
In spots where eagles might have chosen 

to build. 
Their every shot told ; while the assailant 

fell, 
Dashed on the shingles like the limpet 

shell; 
But still enough survived, and mounted 

still. 
Scattering their numbers here and there, 

until 
Surrounded and commanded, though 

not nigh 
Enough for seizure, near enough to die. 
The desperate trio held aloof their fate 
But by a thread, like sharks who have 

gorged the bait; 320 

Yet to the very last they battled well. 
And not a groan informed their foes ivho 

fell. 
Christian died last — twice wounded; 

and once more 
Mercy was offered when they saw his 

gore; 
Too late for life, but not too late to die, 
With, though a hostile hand, to close his 

eye. 
A limb was broken, and he drooped 

along 
The crag, as doth a falcon reft of young. 
The sound revived him, or appeared to 

wake 



Some passion which a weakly gesture 

spake: ' 330 

He beckoned to the foremost, who drew 

nigh. 
But, as thev neared, he reared his weapon 

high- 
His last ball had been aimed, but from 

his breast 
He tore the to[)niosl button from his 

vest,' 
Down the tube dashed it — levelled — 

fired, and smiled 
As his foe fell; then, like a serpent, 

coiled 
His wounded, weary form, to where the 

steep 
Looked desperate as himself along the 

deep; 
Cast one glance back, and clenched his 

hand, and shook 
His last rage 'gainst the earth which he 

forsook ; 340 

Then plunged : the rock below received 

like glass 
His body crushed into one gory mass, 
With scarce a shred to tell of human 

form. 
Or fragment for the sea-bird or the 

worm ; 
A fair-haired scalp, besmeared with 

blood and weeds, 
Yet reeked, the remnant of himself and 

deeds; 
Some splinters of his weapons (to the 

last. 
As long as hand could hold, he held 

them fast) 

» In Thibault's account of Frederick the Sec- 
ond of Prussia, there is a singular relation of a 
young Frenchman, who with his mistress ap- 
peared 1.0 be of some rank. He enlisted and 
deserted at Schweidnitz; and after a desperate 
resistance was retaken, having killed an officer, 
who attemr)ted to seize him after he was wounded, 
bv the discharge of his musket loaded with a 
button of his uniform. Some circumstances on 
his court-martial raised a great interest amongst 
his judges, who wished to discover his real 
situation in life, which he offered to disclose, 
but to the king only, to whom he reauested 
permission to write. This was refused, and 
Frederick was filled with the greatest indigna- 
tion, from bafiled curiosity or some other motive, 
when he understood tbat his request had been 
denied. [Mes Souvenirs de vingl ans de s^jour a 
Berlin, ou Frederic Le Grand, etc., Paris, 1804, 
iv. 145-150-] 



964 



THE ISLAXD 



[Canto rv 



Yet glittered, but at distance — hurled 

away 
To rust beneath the dew and dashing 

spray. 350 

The rest was nothing — save a life mis- 
spent, 
And soul — but who shall answer where 

it went? 
'Tis ours to bear, not judge the dead; 

and they 
Who doom to Hell, themselves are on 

the way. 
Unless these bullies of eternal pains 
Are pardoned their bad hearts for their 

worse brains. 



The deed was over! All were gone or 
ta'en, 

The fugitive, the captive, or the slain. 

Chained on the deck, where once, a 
gallant crew. 

They stood with honour, were the 
wTetched few 360 

Survivors of the skirmish on the isle; 

But the last rock left no sur\i\'ing 
spoil. 

Cold lay they where they fell, and welter- 
ing, 

While o'er them flapped the sea-bird's 
dewy wing, 

Now wheeling nearer from the neigh- 
bouring surge. 

And screaming high their harsh and 
hungT}- dirge: 

But calm and careless heaved the wave 
below, 

Eternal with unsympathetic flow ; 

Far o'er its face the Dolphins sported on. 

And sprung the flying fish against the 
sun, 370 

Till its dried wing relapsed from its brief 
height. 

To gather moisture for another flight. 

xr\-. 

'Twas mom ; and Xeuha, who by dawn 

of day 
Swam smoothly forth to catch the rising 

ray. 
And watch if aught approached the 

amphibious lair 
WTiere lay her lover, saw a sail in air: 



It flapped, it filled, and to the gro^\'ing 

gale 
Bent its broad arch: her breath began 

to fail 
With fluttering fear, her heart beat thick 

and high. 
While yet a doubt sprung where its 

course might lie. 380 

But no I it came not; fast and far away 
The shadow lessened as it cleared the 

bay. 
She gazed, and flung the sea-foam from 

her eyes. 
To watch as for a rainbow in the skies. 
On the horizon verged the distant 

deck. 
Diminished, dwindled to a ver\' speck — 
Then vanished. All was Ocean, all was 

Joy ! 
Down plunged she through the cave to 

rouse her boy; 
Told all she had seen, and all she hoped, 

and all 
That happy love could augur or recall; 
Sprung forth again, with Torquil follow- 
ing free 391 
His bounding Xereid over the broad sea ; 
Swam round the rock, to where a shallow 

cleft 
Hid the canoe that Neuha there had 

left 
Drifting along the tide, without an oar. 
That eve the strangers chased them from 

the shore; 
But when these vanished, she pursued 

her prow. 
Regained, and urged to where they 

found it now: 
Xor ever did more love and joy embark. 
Than now were wafted in that slender 

ark. 400 



Again their own shore rises on the 

view, 
Xo more polluted with a hostile hue; 
Xo sullen ship lay bristling o'er the 

foam 
A floating dungeon : — all was Hope and 

Home ! 
A thousand Proas darted o'er the bay, 
With sounding shells, and heralded their 

way; 



DOX JUAX 



o6> 



The chiefs came down, around the 

people poured, 
And welcomed Torquil as a son restored ; 
The women thronged, embracing and 

embraced 
By Xeuha, asking where they had been 

chased, 410 

\nd how escaped ? The tale was told ; 

and then 

Dne acclamation rent the sky again; 
\nd from that hour a new tradition 

gave 
Their sanctuary the name of "Xeuha's 

Cave." 
\ hundred fires, far flickering from the 

height. 
Blazed o'er the general revel of the 

night. 
The feast in honour of the guest, 

returned 
To Peace and Pleasure, perilously 

earned ; 
V night succeeded by such happy 

days 
^s only the yet infant world displays. 420 



DOX JUAX.i 

FRAGMEXT 

JN THE BACK OF THE MS. OF C-\XTO I. 

WOULD to Heaven that I were so much 

clay, 
As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion 
feeling — 
iecause at least the past were passed 
away, 
And for the future — i^but I write this 
reeling, 

laving got drunk exceedingly to-day. 
So that I seem to stand upon the 

ceiling") 
say — the future is a serious matter — 
Vnd so — for God's sake — hock and 
soda-water ! 

' prhe First Canto of Don Jucn wras begun at 
enice. September 0, and iinished November i, 
SiS. The Second Canto w-as begun. December 
■t, 1S18. and finished. January >o. 1810. Both 
antos were published (by John Murray) without 
lie author's or publisher's name, July 15. 1819.] 



DEDICATION. 



Bob Southey 1 You're a poet — Poet- 
laureate. 
And representative of all the race: 
Although 'tis true that you turned out 
a Tory at 
Last, — yours has lately been a com- 
mon case; 
And now, my Epic Ren^ade ! what are 
ye at? 
With all the Lakers, in and out of 
place ? 
A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye 
Like "four and twenty Blackbirds in a 
pye; 



"Which pye being opened they b^an to 
sing," 
(This old song and new simile holds 
good\ 
"A dainty dish to set before the King," 
Or Regent, who admires such kind of 
food; — 
And Coleridge, too, has lately taken 
wing. 
But like a hawk encumbered with his 
hood, — 
Explaining Metaph}.-sics to the nation — 
I wish he would explain his Explana- 
tion .- 



You, Bob I are rather insolent, you 
know, 
At being disappointed in your wish 
To supersede all w-arblers here below. 

And be the only Blackbird in the dish; 

And then you overstrain yourself, or so. 

And tumble downward like the fl}-ing 

fish 

Gasping on deck, because you soar too 

high. Bob, 
And fall, for lack of moisture, quite 
a-dry, Bob! 

« [The Dedication (to Robert Southey) of Don 
Juan was written SepcembCT 10. 181S, but re- 
mained unpublished (.except as a broadside strid 
in the streets') till iSjjs. when it appe^ired in vol. 
XV. of the Collected Edition of 1832-1835.] 
[In the Bu'p-jpkio LiVrrjrta, 1817.] 



DON JUAN 



[Canto i. 



Where shall I turn me not to view its 
bonds, 
For I will never feel them ? — Italy ! 
Thy late reviving Roman soul desponds 
Beneath the lie this State-thing 
breathed o'er thee — 
Thy clanking chain, and Erin's yet 
green wounds. 
Have voices — tongues to cry aloud 
for me. 
Europe has slaves — allies — kings — 

armies still — 
And Southey hves to sing them very ill. 

XVII. 

Meantime, Sir Laureate, I proceed to 
dedicate. 
In honest simple verse, this song to 
you. 
And, if in flattering strains I do not 
predicate, 
'Tis that I still retain my "buff and 
blue ; " ^ 
My politics as yet are all to educate: 

Apostasy's so fashionable, too, 
To Utep ^e creed's a task grown quite 

Herculean; 
Is it not so, my Tory, ultra-Julian ? ^ 
Venice, Sept. i6, 1818. 



CANTO THE FIRST. 



I WANT a hero: an uncommon want, 
When every year and month sends 
forth a new one. 
Till, after cloying the gazettes with 
cant, 
The age discovers he is not the true 
one; 
Of such as these I should not care to 
vaunt, 
I'll therefore take our ancient friend 
Don Juan — 

' [Charles James Fox and the Whig Club of 
his time adopted a uniform of blue and buff. 
Hence the livery of the Edinburgh Review.] 

' I allude not to our friend Landor's hero, the 
traitor Count JuUan, but to Gibbon's hero, 
vulgarly yclept "The Apostate." 



We all have seen him, in the pan- 
tomime,^ 
Sent to the Devil somewhat ere his time. 

II. 

Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, 

Hawke, 
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, 

Keppel, Howe, 
Evil and good, have had their tithe of 

talk. 
And filled their sign-posts then, like 

Wellesley now; 
Each in their turn like Ba*quo's mon- 

archs stalk, 
Followers of Fame, "nine farrow" 

of that sow : 
France, too, had Buonaparte and 

Dumourier 
Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier. 



Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau, 
Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La 
Fayette 
Were French, and famous people, as 
we know; 
And there were others, scarce forgotten 
yet, 
Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, 
Desaix, Moreau, 
With many of the military set, 
Exceedingly remarkable at times. 
But not at all adapted to my rhymes. 

IV. 

Nelson was once Britannia's god of War, 
And still should be so, but the tide 
is turned ; 

There's no more to be said of Trafalgar, 
'Tis with our hero quietly inurned; ■ 

' [The pantomime which Byron and his 
readers "all had seen," was an abbreviated and 
bowdlerised version of Shadwell's Libertine. 
"First produced by Mr Garrick on the boards 
of Drury Lane Theatre," it was recomposed by 
^Charles Anthony Delpini, and performed at the 
Royalty Theatre, in Goodman's Fields, in 1787. 
It was entitled Don Juan ; or, The Libertine 
Destroyed; A Tragic Pantomimical Entertain- 
ment, In Two Acts. Music Composed by Mr 
Gluck. At the end of the pantomime "the 
Furies gather round him [Don Juan], and the 
Tyrant being bound in chains is hurried away 
and thrown into flames." The Devil is con- 
spicuous by his absence.] 



Canto i.] 



DON JUAN 



969 



Because the army's grown more popular, 
At which the naval people are con- 
cerned; 

Besides, the Prince is all for the land- 
service. 

Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and 
Jervis. 



Brave men were living before Agamem- 
non 
And since, exceeding valorous and 
sage, 

A good deai like him too, though quite 
the same none; 
But then they shone not on the poet's 
page, 

And so have been forgotten : — I con- 
demn none. 
But can't find any in the present age 

Fit for my poem (that is, for my new 
one); 

So, as I said, I'll take my friend Don 
Juan, 



Most epic poets plunge "m medias res" 
(Horace makes this the heroic turn- 
pike road). 
And then your hero tells, whene'er you 
please. 
What went before — by way of 
episode. 
While seated after dinner at his ease. 

Beside his mistress in some soft abode. 
Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern. 
Which serves the happy couple for a 
tavern. 

VII. 

That is the usual method, but not 
mine — 
My way is to begin with the beginning ; 
The regularity of my design 

Forbids all wandering as the worst of 
sinning, 
And therefore I shall open with a line 
(Although it cost me half an hour in 
spinning), 
Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's 

father. 
And also of his mother, if you'd 
rather. 



In Seville was he born, a pleasant city, 
Famous for oranges and women, — 
he 
Who has not seen it will be much to pity, 
So says the proverb ^ — and I quite 
agree ; 
Of all the Spanish towns is none more 
pretty, 
Cadiz perhaps — but that you soon 
may see; — 
Don Juan's parents lived beside the 

river, 
A noble stream, and called the Guadal- 
quivir. 

IX. 

His father's name was Jose — Don, 
of course — 
A true Hidalgo, free from every stain 
Of Moor or Hebrew blood, he traced 
his source 
Through the most Gothic gentleman 
of Spain; 
A better cavalier ne'er mounted horse. 
Or, being mounted, e'er got down 
again. 
Than Jose, who begot our hero, who 

Begot — but that's to come Well, 

to renew : 



His mother was a learned lady, famed 
For every branch of every science 
known — 
In every Chri'stian language ever named, 
With virtues equalled by her wit alone : 
She made the cleverest people quite 
ashamed. 
And even the good with inward envy 
groan. 
Finding themselves so very much 

exceeded. 
In their own way, by all the things that 
she did. 

XI. 

Her memory was a mine : she knew by 
heart 
All Calderon and greater part of 
Lope, 

' [" Quien no ha visto Sevilla, no ha visto 
maraviaa."] 



970 



DON JUAN 



[Canto i. 



So, that if any actor missed his part, 
She could have served him for the 
prompter's copy; 
For her Feinagle's were a useless art,^ 
And he himself obliged to shut up 
shop — he 
Could never make a memory so fine as 
That virhich adorned the brain of Donna 
Inez. 

XII. 

Her favourite science w^as the mathe- 
matical, 
Her noblest virtue was her magna- 
nimity, 

Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was 
Attic all, 
Her serious sayings darkened to 
subHmity; 

In short, in all things she was fairly 
what I call 
A prodigy — her morning dress was 
dimity, 

Her evening silk, or, in the summer, 
muslin, 

And other stuffs, with which I won't 
stay puzzling. 

XIII. 

She knew the Latin — that is, "the 
Lord's prayer," 
And Greek' — the alphabet — I'm 
nearly sure; 
She read some French romances here 
and there. 
Although her mode of speaking was 
not pure; 
For native Spanish she had no great care. 
At least her conversation was obscure; 
Her thoughts were theorems, her words 

a problem. 
As if she deemed that mystery would 
ennoble 'em. 



She liked the English and the Hebrew 
tongue. 
And said there was analogy between 
'em; 

' [Gregor von Feinagle, born 1765 (?), was 
the inventor of a system of mnemonics, "founded 
on the topical memory of the ancients," as 
described by Cicero and Quinctilian. He 
lectured, in 181 1, at the Royal Institution and 
elsewhere.] 



She proved it somehow out of sacred 

song. 
But I must leave the proofs to those 

who've seen 'em; 
But this I heard her say, and can't be 

wrong. 
And all may think which way their 

judgments lean 'em, 
" 'Tis strange — the Hebrew noun 

which means ' I am,' 
The English always use to govern d — n." 

XV. 

Some women use their tongues — she 

looked a lecture, 
Each eye a sermon, and her brow a. 

homily. 
An all-in-all sufficient self-director, 
Like the lamented late Sir Samuel 

Romilly,^ 
The Law's expounder, and the State's 

corrector 
Whose suicide was almost an anom- 
aly — 
One sad example more, that "All is 

vanity," — 
(The jury brought their verdict in 

"Insanity !") 

XVI. 

In short, she was a walking calculation, 
Miss Edgeworth's novels stepping 
from their covers. 
Or Mrs Trimmer's books on education, 
Or "Coelebs' Wife" ^ set out in quest 
of lovers. 
Morality's prim personification, 

In which not Envy's self a flaw dis- 
covers; 
To others' share let " female errors fall," 
For she had not even one — the worst of 
all. 

XVII. 

Oh ! she was perfect past all parallel — 
Of any modern female saint's com- 
parison ; 
So far above the cunning powers of Hell, 
Her Guardian Angel had given up 
his garrison ; 

' [Sir Samuel Romilly, born 1757, lost his 
wife on the 29th of October, and committed 
suicide on the 2d of November, 1818.] 

' [Hannah More (1745-1833) published 
Coelebs in Search of a Wife in 1809.] 



Canto i.] 



DON JUAN 



971 



Even her minutest motions went as well 
As those of the best time-piece made 
by Harrison : ^ 

In virtues nothing earthly could surpass 
her, 

Save thine "incomparable oil," Macas- 
sar! 

XVIII. 

Perfect she was, but as perfection is 

Insipid in this naughty world of ours, 
Where our first parents never learned 
to kiss 
Till they were exiled from their earlier 
bowers. 
Where all was peace, and innocence, 
and bliss, 
(I wonder how they got through the 
twelve hours), 
Don Jose, like a lineal son of Eve, 
Went plucking various fruit without 
her leave. 



He was a mortal of the careless kind. 
With no great love for learning, or the 
learned. 

Who chose to go where'er he had a mind. 
And never dreamed his lady was 
concerned ; 
The world, as usual, wickedly inclined 
To see a kingdom or a house over- 
turned, 
W^hispered he had a mistress, some said 

two. 
But for domestic quarrels one will do. 



Now Donna Inez had, with all her merit, 
A great opinion of her own good 
qualities; 
Neglect, indeed, requires a saint to 
bear it. 
And such, indeed, she was in her 
moralities; 
But then she had a devil of a spirit. 
And sometimes mixed up fancies 
with realities, 
And let few opportunities escape 
Of getting her liege lord into a scrape. 

' [John Harrison (1693- 17 76), known as 
"Longitude" Harrison, was the inventor of 
A^atch compensation.] 



This was an easy matter with a man 
Oft in the wrong, and never on his 

guard; 
And even the wisest, do the best they 

can. 
Have moments, hours, and days, 

so unprepared. 
That you might "brain them with their 

lady's fan;" 
And sometimes ladies hit exceeding 

hard, 
And fans turn into falchions in fair 

hands, 
And why and wherefore no one under- 
stands. 

XXII. 

'Tis pity learned virgins ever wed 

With persons of no sort of education, 
Or gentlemen, who, though well born 
and bred. 
Grow tired of scientific conversation : 
I don't choose to say much upon this 
head, 
I'm a plain man, and in a single 
station. 
But — Oh ! ye lords of ladies intel- 
lectual, 
Inform us truly, have they not hen- 
pecked you all? 

XXIII. 

Don Jose and his lady quarrelled — why 

Not any of the many could divine, 
Though several thousand people chose 
to try, 
'Twas surely no concern of theirs nor 
mine; 
I loathe that low vice — curiosity ; 
But if there's anything in which I 
shine, 
'Tis in arranging all my friends' affairs, 
Not having, of my own, domestic cares. 

XXIV. 

And so I interfered, and with the best 
Intentions, but their treatment was 
not kind; 
I think the foolish people were possessed. 
For neither of them could I ever 
find, 



972 



DON JUAN 



[Canto i. 



Although their porter afterwards con- 
fessed — 
But that's no matter, and the worst's 
behind, 

For little Juan o'er me threw, down 
stairs, 

A pail of housemaid's water unawares. 



A Httle curly-headed, good-for-nothing, 
And mischief-making monkey from 
his birth; 
His parents ne'er agreed except in 
doting 
Upon the most unquiet imp on earth; 
Instead of quarrelling, had they been 
but both in 
Their senses, they'd have sent young 
master forth 
To school, or had him soundly whipped 

at home. 
To teach him manners for the time to 
come. 

XXVI. 

Don Jose and the Donna Inez led 
. For some time an unhappy sort of life. 
Wishing each other, not divorced, but 
dead; 
They lived respectably as man and 
wife. 
Their conduct was exceedingly well- 
bred. 
And gave no outward signs of inward 
strife, 
Until at length the smothered fire broke 

cut. 
And put the business past all kind of 
doubt. 

XXVII. 

For Inez called some druggists and 
physicians. 
And tried to prove her loving lord 
was mad, 
But as he had some lucid intermissions. 

She next decided he was only had; 
Yet when they asked her for her depo- 
sitions. 
No sort of explanation could be had, 
Save that her dutv both to man and 

God 
Required this conduct — which seemed 
very odd. 



She kept a journal, where his faults 

were noted, 
And opened certain trunks of books 

and letters. 
All which might, if occasion served, be 

quoted ; 
And then she had all Seville for 

abettors, 
Besides her good old grandmother (who 

doted) ; 
The hearers of her case became 

repeaters, 
Then advocates, inquisitors, and judges, 
Some for amusement, others for old 

grudges. 

XXIX. 

And then this best and meekest woman 
bore 
With such serenity her husband's 
woes. 
Just as the Spartan ladies did of yore. 
Who saw their spouses killed, and 
nobly chose 
Never to say a word about them more — 
Calmly she heard each calumny that 
rose. 
And saw his agonies with such sublimity 
That all the world exclaimed, "What 
magnanimity !" 

XXX. 

No doubt this patience, when the world 
is damning us, 
Is philosophic in our former friends; 
'Tis also pleasant to be deemed mag- 
nanimous, 
The more so in obtaining our own 
ends; 
And what the lawyers call a ''mains 
animus" 
Conduct like this by no means com- 
prehends: 
Revenge in person's certainly no virtue, 
But then 'tis not my fault, if others hurt 
you. 

XXXI. 

And if our quarrels should rip up old 
stories, 
And help them with a lie or two 
additional, 



Canto i.] 



DON JUAN 



973 



/'m not to blame, as you well know — 
no more is 
Any one else — they were become 
traditional; 

Besides, their resurrection aids our 
glories 
By contrast, which is what we just 
were wishing all: 

And Science profits by this resurrec- 
tion — 

Dead scandals form good subjects for 
dissection. 

XXXII. 

Their friends had tried at reconciliation, 
Then their relations, who made mat- 
ters worse. 
('Twere hard to tell upon a like occasion 
To whom it may be best to have 
recourse — 
I can't say much for friend or yet rela- 
tion) : 
The lawyers did their utmost for 
divorce. 
But scarce a fee was paid on either side 
Before, unluckily, Don Jose died. 

XXXIII. 

He died: and most unluckily, because, 

According to all hints I could collect 
From Counsel learned in those kinds 
of laws, 
(Although their talk's obscure and 
circumspect) 
His death contrived to spoil a charming 
cause; 
A thousand pities also with respect 
'To public feeling, which on this occasion 
Was manifested in a great sensation. 

XXXIV. 

But ah! he died; and buried with him 
lay 
The public feeling and the lawyers' 
fees : 
His house was sold, his servants sent 
away, 
A Jew took one of his two mistresses, 
A priest the other — at least so they say : 
I asked the doctors after his disease — 
He died of the slow fever called the 

tertian, 
And left his widow to her own aversion. 



XXXV. 

Yet Jose was an honourable man, 
That I must say, who knew him very 
well; 
Therefore his frailties I'll no further scan. 
Indeed there were not many more 
to tell: 
And if his passions now and then outran 
Discretion, and were not so peaceable 
As Numa's (who was also named Pom- 

pilius). 
He had been ill brought up, and was 
born bilious. 



Whate'er might be his worthlessness or 

worth. 
Poor fellow ! he had many things to 

wound him. 
Let's own — since it can do no good on 

earth — 
It was a trying moment that which 

found him 
Standing alone beside his desolate 

hearth. 
Where all his household gods lay 

shivered round him: 
No choice was left his feelings or his 

pride, 
Save Death or Doctors' Commons — 

so he died. 



Dying intestate, Juan was sole heir 
To a chancery suit, and messuages, 
and lands. 
Which, with a long minority and care. 
Promised to turn out well in proper 
hands : 
Inez became sole guardian, which was 
fair. 
And answered but to Nature's just 
demands; 
An only son left with an only mother 
Is brought up much more wisely than 
another. 

XXXVIII. 

Sagest of women, even of widows, she 
Resolved that Juan should be quite 
a paragon, 
And worthy of the noblest pedigree, 
(His Sire was of Castile, his Dam 
from Aragon) : 



974 



DON JUAN 



[C.\NTO I. 



Then, for accomplishments of chivalry, 
In case our Lord the King should go 

to war again, 
He learned the arts of riding, fencing, 

gunnery. 
And how to scale a fortress — or a 

nunnery. 

XXXIX. 

But that which Donna Inez most desired. 
And saw into herself each day before 
all 
The learned tutors whom for him she 
hired, 
Was, that his breeding should be 
strictly moral : 
Much into all his studies she inquired, 
And so they were submitted first to 
her, all, 
Arts, sciences — no branch was made 

a mystery 
To Juan's eyes, excepting natural 
history. 

XL. 

The languages, especially the dead, 
The sciences, and most of all the 
abstruse, 
The arts, at least all such as could be 
said 
To be the most remote from common 
use. 
In all these he was much and deeply read : 
But not a page of anything that's loose. 
Or hints continuation of the species, 
Was evier suffered, lest he should grow 
vicious. 

XLI. 

His classic studies made a httle puzzle, 
Because of filthy loves of gods and 
goddesses. 
Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle. 
But never put on pantaloons or 
bodices ; 
His reverend tutors had at times a tussle. 
And for their ^Eneids, Iliads, and 
Odysseys, 
Were forced to make an odd sort of 

apology. 
For Donna Inez dreaded the Mythology. 

XLII. 

Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show 
him, 



Anacreon's morals are a still worse 
sample, 
Catullus scarcely has a decent poem, 
I don't think Sappho's Ode a good 
example. 
Although Longinus tells us there is no 
hymn 
Where the Sublime soars forth on 
wings more ample; 
But Virgil's songs are pure, except that 

horrid one 
Beginning with "Formosum Pastor > 
Corydon^ 



Lucretius' irreligion is too strong 

For early stomachs, to prove whole- 
some food 
I can't help thinking Juvenal was wrong, 
Although no doubt his real intent 
was good. 
For speaking out so plainly in his song, 
So much indeed as to be downright 
rude; 
And then what proper person can be 

partial 
To all those nauseous epigrams of 
Martial ? 

XLIV. 

Juan was taught from out the besfti. 
edition. 
Expurgated by learned men, who 
place. 
Judiciously, from out the schoolboy's 
vision. 
The grosser parts; but, fearful to 
deface 
Too much their modest bard by this : 
omission, 
And pitying sore his mutilated case, 
They only add them all in an appendix,*^ ' 
Which saves, in fact, the trouble of an 
index; 

XLV. 

For there we have them all "at one fell i 
swoop," 
Instead of being scattered through 
the pages; 

' Fact ! There is, or was, such an edition, 
with all the obnoxious epigrams of Martial 
placed by themselves at the end.^ 



pANTO I.] 



DON JUAN 



91S 



jrhey stand forth marshalled in a hand- 
some troop, 
To meet the ingenuous youth of future 
ages, 

irill some less rigid editor shall stoop 
To call them back into their separate 
cages, 

[[nstead of standing staring all together. 

Like garden gods — and not so decent 
either. 

XLVI. 

The Missal too (it was the family 
Missal) 
Was ornamented in a sort of way 
Which ancient mass-books often are, 
and this all 
Kinds of grotesques illumined; and 
how they, 
Who saw those figures on the margin 
kiss all. 
Could turn their optics to the text 
and pray, 
Is more than I know — But Don 

Juan's mother 
Kept this herself, and gave her son 
another. 

XLVII. 

Sermons he read, and lectures he en- 
dured, 
And homilies, and lives of all the 
saints; 
To Jerome and to Chrysostom inured, 
He did not take such studies for 
restraints ; 
But how Faith is acquired, and then 
insured, 
So well not one of the aforesaid paints 
As Saint Augustine in his fine Confes- 
sions, 
Which make the reader envy his trans- 
gressions.^ 

XLVIII. 

This, too, was a sealed book to little 
Juan — 

' See his Confessions, lib. i. cap. ix.; [lib. ii. 
cap. ii. et pasnin]. By the representation which 
Saint Augustine gives of himself in his youth, it is 
easy to see that lie was what we should call a 
rake. He avoided the school as the plague; he 
loved nothing but gaming and public shows; he 
robbed his father of everything he could find; 
he invented a thousand lies to escape the rod, 
which they were obliged to make use of to punish 
his irregularities. 



I can't but say that his mamma was 
right, 
If such an education was the true one. 
She scarcely trusted him from out her 
sight; 
Her maids were old, and if she took a 
new one. 
You might be sure she was a perfect 
fright ; 
She did this during even her husband's 

life — 
I recommend as much to every wife. 



Young Juan waxed in goodliness and 
grace ; 
At six a charming child, and at eleven 
With all the promise of as fine a face 
As e'er to Man's maturer growth was 
given : 
He studied steadily, and grew apace. 
And seemed, at least, in the right 
road to Heaven, 
For half his days were passed at church, 

the other 
Between his tutors, confessor, and 
mother. 



At six, I said, he was a charming child. 
At twelve he was a fine, but quiet boy; 
Although in infancy a little wild, 

They tamed him down amongst them : 

to destroy 

His natural spirit not in vain they toiled, 

At least it seemed so ; and his mother's 

joy 

Was to declare how sage, and still, and 

steady, 
Her young philosopher was grown 
already. 

LI. 

I had mv doubts, perhaps I have them 
still, 
But what I say is neither here nor 
there: 
I knew his father well, and have some 
skill 
In character — but it would not be 
fair 
From sire to son to augur good or ill: 
He and his wife were an ill-sorted 
pair — 



976 



DON JUAN 



[Canto i. 



But scandal's my version — I protest 
Against all evil speaking, even in jest. 

LII. 

For my part I say nothing — nothing — 
but 
This I will say — my reasons are my 
own — 
That if I had an only son to put 

To school (as God be praised that I 

have none), 

'Tis not with Donna Inez I would shut 

Him up to learn his catechism alone, 

No — no — I'd send him out betimes to 

college, 
For there it was I picked up my own 
knowledge. 

LIII. 

For there one learns — 'tis not for me 
to boast. 
Though I acquired — but I pass over 
that, 
As well as all the Greek I since have 
lost: — 
I say that there's the place — but 
" Verbum sat," 
1 think I picked up too, as well as most. 
Knowledge of matters — but no 
matter what — 
I never married — but, I think, I know 
That sons should not be educated so. 



Young Juan now was sixteen years of 
age, 
Tall, handsome, slender, but well 
knit: he seemed 
Active, though not so sprightly, as a 
page; 
And everybody but his mother deemed 
Him almost man ; but she flew in a rage 
And bit her lips (for else she might 
have screamed) 
If any said so — for to be precocious 
Was in her eyes a thing the most 
atrocious. 

LV. 

Amongst her numerous acquaintance, 

all 
Selected for discretion and devotion, 
There was the Donna Julia, whom to 

call 



Pretty were but to give a feeble notion 
Of many charms in her as natural 

As sweetness to the flower, or salt to 
Ocean, 
Her zone to Venus, or his bow to Cupid, [ 
(But this last simile is trite and stupid.) j 



The darkness of her Oriental eye 

Accorded with her Moorish origin; 
(Her blood was not all Spanish; by the 

In Spain, you know, this is a sort of 
sin;) 
When proud Granada fell, and, forced 
to fly, 
Boabdil wept: of Donna Julia's kin 
Some went to Africa, some stayed in 

Spain — 
Her great great grandmamma chose to 
remain. 

LVII. 

She married (I forget the pedigree) 
With an Hidalgo, who transmitted 
down 
His blood less noble than such blood 
should be; 
At such aUiances his sires would frown, 
In that point so precise in each degree 
That they bred in and in, as might be 
shown. 
Marrying their cousins — nay, their 

aunts, and nieces. 
Which always spoils the breed, if it 
increases. 

LViir. 

This heathenish cross restored the breed 

again. 
Ruined its blood, but much improved 

its flesh; 
For from a root the ugliest in Old 

Spain 
Sprung up a branch as beautiful as 

fresh ; 
The sons no more were short, the 

daughters plain: 
But there's a rumour which I fain 

would hush, 
'Tis said that Donna Julia's grand- 
mamma 
Produced her Don more heirs at love 

than law. 



Canto i.] 



DON JUA N 



977 



LIX. 

However this might be, the race went on 
Improving still through every genera- 
tion, 
Until it centred in an only son, 

Who left an only daughter; my narra- 
tion 

May have suggested that this single one 
CoUld be but Julia (whom on this 
occasion 
[ shall have much to speak about), and 

she 

iVas married, charming, chaste, and 
twenty-three. 

LX. 

3er eye (I'm very fond of handsome 

eyes) 
Was large and dark, suppressing half 

its fire 
Jntil she spoke, then through its soft 

disguise 
Flashed an expression more of pride 

than ire, 
\nd love than either; and there would 

arise 
A something in them which was not 

desire, 
3ut would have been, perhaps, but for 

the soul 
iVhich struggled through and chastened 

down the whole. 

LXI. 

iler glossy hair was clustered o'er a brow 
Bright with intelligence, and fair, and 

smooth; 
Her eyebrow's shape was like the aerial 

bow, 
Her cheek all purple with the beam of 

youth. 
Mounting, at times, to a transparent 

glow. 
As if her veins ran Hghtning; she, in 

sooth. 
Possessed an air and grace by no means 

common : 
Her stature tall — I hate a dumpy 

woman. 



■Wedded she was some years, and to a 
man 

3R 



Of fifty, and such husbands are in 
plenty; 
And yet, I think, instead of such a one 
'Twere better to have two of five- 
and-twenty. 
Especially in countries near the sun: 
And now I think on't, "w/ vien in 
mente,'' 
Ladies even of the most uneasy virtue 
Prefer a spouse whose age is short of 
thirty. 

LXIII. 

'Tis a sad thing, I cannot choose but say, 
And all the fault of that indecent sun, 
Who cannot leave alone our helpless 
clay, 
But will keep baking, broiling, burn- 
ing on. 
That howsoever people fast and pray, 
The flesh is frail, and so the soul un- 
done : 
What men call gallantry, and gods 

adultery. 
Is much more common where the 
climate's sultry. 

LXIV. 

Happy the nations of the moral North ! 
Where all is virtue, and the winter 
season 
Sends sin, without a rag on, shivering 
forth 
('Twas snow that brought St 
Anthony ^ to reason) ; 
Where juries cast up what a wife is 
worth, 
By laying whate'er sum, in mulct, they 
please on 
The lover, who must pay a handsome 

price. 
Because it is a marketable vice. 



Alfonso was the name of Julia's lord, 
A man well looking for his years, and 
who 
Was neither much beloved nor yet 
abhorred : 
They lived together as most people do, 

I For the particulars of St. Anthony's recipe 
for hot blood in cold weather, see Mr Alban 
Butler's Lives of the Saints. 



978 



DON JUAN 



[Canto i, 



Suffering each other's foibles by accord, 

And not exactly either one or two; 
Yet he was jealous, though he did not 

show it. 
For Jealousy dislikes the world to know 
it. 

LXVI. 

Julia was — yet I never could see why — 
With Donna Inez quite a favourite 
friend ; 
Between their tastes there was small 
sympathy, 
For not a line had Julia ever penned : 
Some people whisper (but, no doubt, 
they lie, 
For Malice still imputes some private 
end) 
That Inez had, ere Don Alfonso's jnar- 

riage, 
Forgot with him her very prudent 
carriage ; 

LXVII. 

And that still keeping up the old 
connection. 
Which Time had lately rendered much 
more chaste. 
She took his lady also in affection. 
And certainly this course was much 
the best: 
She flattered Julia with her sage pro- 
tection. 
And complimented Don Alfonso's 
taste; 
And if she could not (who can ?) silence 

scandal. 
At least she left it a more slender handle. 

LXVIII. 

I can't tell whether JuHa saw the affair 
With other people's eyes, or if her own 
Discoveries made, but none could be 
aware 
Of this, at least no symptom e'er was 
shown ; 
Perhaps she did not know, or did not 
care, 
Indifferent from the first, or callous 
grown : 
I'm really puzzled what to think or 

say. 
She kept her counsel in so close a 
way. 



LXIX. 

Juan she saw, and, as a pretty child 
Caressed him often — such a thing 
might be 
Quite innocently done, and harmless 
styled. 
When she had twenty years, and 
thirteen he; 
But I am not so sure I should have 
smiled 
When he was sixteen, Julia twenty- 
three; 
These few short years make wondrous 

alterations. 
Particularly amongst sun-burnt nations. 

LXX. 

Whate'er the cause might be, they had 
become 
Changed ; for the dame grew distant, 
the youth shy. 
Their looks cast down, their greetings 
almost dumb. 
And much embarrassment in either 
eye; 
There surely will be Uttle doubt with 
some 
That Donna Juha knew the reason 
why, 
But as for Juan, he had no more notion 
Than he who never saw the sea of Ocean. 



Yet Julia's very coldness still was kind, 
And tremulously gentle her small hand i 
Withdrew itself from his, but left behind 
A little pressure, thrilling, and so 
bland 
And slight, so very slight, that to thei 
mind 
'Twas but a doubt; but ne'er 
magician's wand 
Wrought change with all Armida's ^ fairy 

art 
Like what this light touch left on 
Juan's heart. 

LXXII. 

And if she met him, though she smilecJ 
no more, 

' [The sorceress in Tasso*s Gerusal&mme 
Liherala. The story of Armida and Rinaldo 
forms the plot of operas by Gliick and Rossini.] 



ANTO I.] 



DON JUAN 



979 



She looked a sadness sweeter than her 

smile, 
s if her heart had deeper thoughts in 

store 
She must not own, but cherished more 

the while 
'or that compression in its burning core; 
Even Innocence itself has many a wile, 
nd will not dare to trust itself with 

truth, 
ind Love is taught hypocrisy from 

youth. 

LXXIII. 

Jut Passion most dissembles, yet betrays 
Even by its darkness; as the blackest 

sky 
oretells the heaviest tempest, it dis- 
plays 
Its workings through the vainly 
guarded eye, 
^nd in whatever aspect it arrays 

Itself, 'tis still the same hypocrisy; 
boldness or Anger, even Disdain or 

Hate, 
^re masks it often wears, and still too 
late. 

LXXIV. 

Then there were sighs, the deeper for 
suppression. 
And stolen glances, sweeter for the 
theft, 

\nd burning blushes, though for no 
transgression. 
Tremblings when met, and restless- 
ness when left; 

.All these are little preludes to possession. 
Of which young Passion cannot be 
bereft. 

And merely tend to show how greatly 
Love is 

Embarrassed at first starting with a 

j novice. 

LXXV. 

Poor Julia's heart was in an awkward 
state ; 
She felt it going, and resolved to make 
The noblest efforts for herself and mate. 
For Honour's, Pride's, Religion's, 
Virtue's sake: 
Her resolutions were most truly great. 
And almost might have made a 
Tarquin quake: 



She prayed the Virgin Mary for her 

grace. 
As being the best judge of a lady's case. 

LXXVI. 

She vowed she never would see Juan 
more. 
And next day paid a visit to his 
mother. 
And looked extremely at the opening 
door, 
Which, by the Virgin's grace, let in 
another; 
Grateful she was, and yet a little sore — 

Again it opens, it can be no other, 
'Tis surely Juan now — No! I'm afraid 
That night the Virgin was no further 
prayed.^ 

LXXVII. 

She now determined that a virtuous 

woman 
Should rather face and overcome 

temptation. 
That flight was base and dastardly, and 

no man 
Should ever give her heart the least 

sensation, ' 
That is to say, a thought beyond the 

common 
Preference, that we must feel, upon 

occasion. 
For people who are pleasanter than 

others, 
But then they only seem so many 

brothers. 

LXXVIII. 

And even if by chance — and w'ho can 
tell? 
The Devil's so very sly — she should 
discover 
That all within was not so very well. 
And, if still free, that such or such a 
lover 
Might please perhaps, a virtuous wife 
can quell 
Such thoughts, and be the better when 
they're over; 
And if the man should ask, 'tis but 

denial: 
I recommend young ladies to make trial. 

' r"QueI giorno piu non vi leggemmo avante." 
— Dante, Inferno, canto v. line 138.] 



DON JUAN 



[Canto i. 



And, then, there are such things as Love 

divine, 
Bright and immaculate, unmixed and 

pure. 
Such as the angels think so very 

fine, 
And matrons, who would be no less 

secure, 
Platonic, perfect, "just such love as 

mine;" 
Thus Julia said — and thought so, to 

be sure; 
And so I'd have her think, were I the 

man 
On whom her reveries celestial ran. 



Such love is innocent, and may exist 
Between young persons without any 
danger. 
A hand may first, and then a lip be 
kissed ; 
For my part, to such doings I'm a 
stranger, 
But hear these freedoms form the 
utmost list 
Of all o'er which such love may be a 
ranger : 
If people go beyond, 'tis quite a crime, 
But not my fault — I tell them all in time. 

LXXXI. 

Love, then, but Love within its proper 
limits, 
Was Julia's innocent determination 
In young Don Juan's favour, and to him 
its 
Exertion might be useful on occasion ; 
And, lighted at too pure a shrine to dim 
its 
Ethereal lustre, with what sweet 
persuasion 
He might be taught, by Love and her 

together — 
I really don't know what, nor Julia 
either. 

LXXXII. 

Fraught with this fine intention, and well 
fenced 
In mail of proof — her purity of 
soul — 



She, for the future, or her strength 
convinced. 
And that her honour was a rock, or 
mole. 

Exceeding sagely from that hour dis- 
pensed 

With any kind of troublesome con- 
trol; 

But whether Julia to the task was 
equal 

Is that which must be mentioned in thi 
sequel. 



Her plan she deemed both innocent and 
feasible, 

And, surely, with a stripling of sixteen 

Not Scandal's fangs could fix on much 

that's seizable. 

Or if they did so, satisfied to mean 

Nothing but what was good, her breast 

was peaceable — 

A quiet conscience makes one so 

serene ! 

Christians have burnt each other, quite 

persuaded 

That all the Apostles would have done 
as they did. 

LXXXIV. 

And if in the mean time her husband 

died. 
But Heaven forbid that such a thought 

should cross 
Her brain, though in a dream ! (and 

then she sighed) 
Never could she survive that common 

loss; 
But just suppose that moment should 

betide, 
I only say suppose it — inter nos : 
(This should be entre nous, for Julia 

thought 
In French, but then the rhyme would go 

for nought.) 



I only say, suppose this supposition: 
Juan being then grown up to man's 
estate 
Would fully suit a widow of condition, 
Even seven years hence it would not 
be too late; 



Canto i.] 



DON JUAN 



981 



And in the interim (to pursue this 

vision) 
The mischief, after all, could not be 

great, 
For he would learn the rudiments of 

Love, 
I mean the seraph way of those above. 

LXXXVI. 

po much for Julia! Now we'll turn to 
Juan. 
Poor little fellow ! he had no idea 
3f his own case, and never hit the true 
one; 
In feelings quick as Ovid's Miss 
Medea, 

le puzzled over what he found a new 
one, 
But not as yet imagined it could be a 
Thing quite in course, and not at all 

alarming, 

Vhich, with a little patience, might grow 
charming. 

LXXXVII. 

ilent and pensive, idle, restless, slow. 
His home deserted for the lonely 

wood, 
'ormented with a wound he could not 

know, 
His, like all deep grief, plunged in 

solitude : 
'm fond myself of solitude or so. 
But then, I beg it may be understood, 
iy solitude I mean a Sultan's (not 
. Hermit's), with a haram for a grot. 

LXXXVIII. 

Oh Love ! in such a wilderness as this. 
Where Transport and Security en- 
twine, 
[ere is the Empire of thy perfect bliss. 
And here thou art a God indeed 

divine." ^ 
he bard I quote from does not sing 

amiss, 
With the exception of the second line, 
or that same twining ''Transport and 

Security " 
re twisted to a phrase of some obscurity. 

'Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming — (T 
ink) — the opening of Canto Second [Part III. 
a i. lines 1-4] — but quote from memory. 



The Poet meant, no doubt, and thus 
appeals 
To the good sense and senses of man- 
kind, 
The very thing which everybody feels, 
As all have found on trial, or may 
find. 
That no one likes to be disturbed at 
meals 
Or love. — I won't say more about 
"entwined" 
Or "Transport," as we knew all that 

before, 
But beg "Security" will bolt the door. 



Young Juan wandered by the glassy 
brooks. 
Thinking unutterable things; he 
threw 
Himself at length within the leafy 
nooks 
Where the wild branch of the cork 
forest grew; 
There poets find materials for their 
books. 
And every now and then we read them 
through, 
So that their plan and prosody are 

eligible. 
Unless, like Wordsworth, they prove un- 
intelligible. 

xci. 

He, Juan (and not Wordsworth), so 
pursued 
His self-communion with his own 
high soul, 
Until his mighty heart, in its great 
mood, 
Had mitigated part, though not the 
whole 
Of its disease; he did the best he could 
With things not very subject to 
control. 
And turned, without perceiving his 

condition. 
Like Coleridge, into a metaphysician. 



He thought about himself, and the 
whole earth. 



982 



DON JUAN 



[Canto i. 



Of man the wonderful, and of the 
stars, 
And how the deuce they ever could have 
birth; 
And then he thought of earthquakes, 
and of wars, 
How many miles the moon might have 
in girth, 
Of air-balloons, and of the many 
bars 
To perfect knowledge of the boundless 

skies; — ■ 
And then he thought of Donna Julia's 
eyes. 

XCIII. 

In thoughts like these true Wisdom may 

discern 
Longings sublime, and aspirations 

high, 
Which some are born with, but the 

most part learn 
To plague themselves withal, they 

know not why: 
'Twas strange that one so young should 

thus concern 
His brain about the action of the 

sky; 
If you think 'twas Philosophy that this 

did, 
I can't help thinking puberty assisted. 

xciv. 

He pored upon the leaves, and on the 

flowers. 
And heard a voice in all the winds; 

and then 
He thought of wood-nymphs and im- 
mortal bowers, 
And how the goddesses came down to 

men: 
He missed the pathway, he forgot the 

hours, 
And when he looked upon his watch 

again. 
He found how much old Time had been 

a winner — ■ 
He also found that he had lost his 

dinner. 



Sometimes he turned to gaze upon his 
book, 



Boscan,^ or Garcilasso; ^ — by the 
wind 
Even as the page is rustled while we 
look, 
So by the poesy of his own mind 
Over the mystic leaf his soul was shook, 
As if 'twere one whereon magicians 
bind 
Their spells, and give them to the pass- 
ing gale, 
According to s me good old woman's 
tale. 

xcvi. 

Thus would he while his lonely hours 
away 
Dissatisfied, not knowing what he 
wanted ; 
Nor glowing reverie, nor poet's lay. 
Could yield his spirit that for which it 
panted, 
A bosom whereon he his head might lay. 
And hear the heart beat with the 
love it granted. 

With several other things, which 

I forget, 
Or which, at least, I need not mention 
yet. 

XCVII. 

Those lonely walks, and lengthening 
reveries. 
Could not escape the gentle Julia's 
eyes; 
She saw that Juan was not at his ease; . 
But that which chiefly may, and must ' 
surprise. 
Is, that the Donna Inez did not tease 
Her only son with question or sur- ; 
mise; 
Whether it was she did not see, or would j' 
not, .1; 

Or, like all very clever people, could not. 

XCVIII. 

This may seem strange, but yet 'tis very 
common ; 

' [Juan Boscan, of Barcelona (1500-1544), in 
concert with his friend Garcilasso, Italianised 
Castilian poetry. He was the author of the 
Leandro, a poem in blank verse, of canzoni, and 
sonnets after the model of Petrarch, and of The 
Allegory. — History of Spanish Literature, by 
George Ticknor, 1888, i. 513.] 

' [Garcias Lasso or Garcilasso de la Vega 
(1503-1536).] 



f Canto i.] 



DON JUAN 



983 



I For instance — gentlemen, whose 
ladies take 

Leave to o'erstep the written rights of 
Woman, 
And break the Which command- 
ment is't they break ? 

(I have forgot the number, and think no 
man 

L Should rashly quote, for fear of a 

[ mistake;) 

1 say, when these same gentlemen are 
jealous, 

iThey make some blunder, which their 

I. ladies tell us. 

xcix. 

A real husband always is suspicious, 
But still no less suspects in the wrong 
place. 
Jealous of some one who had no such 
wishes. 
Or pandering blindly to his own dis- 
grace, 
By harbouring some dear friend ex- 

ftremely vicious; 
The last indeed's infallibly the case : 
And when the spouse and friend are 

gone off wholly, 
He wonders at their vice, and not his 
folly. 

c. 

Thus parents also are at times short- 
sighted : 
Though watchful as the lynx, they 
ne'er discover, 
The while the wicked world beholds 

delighted, 
i Young Hopeful's mistress, or Miss 
f Fanny's lover, 

Till some confounded escapade has 
blighted 
The plan of twenty years, and all is 
over; 
And then the mother cries, the father 

swears 
And wonders why the devil he got heirs. 

CI. 

But Inez was so anxious, and so 
clear 
Of sight, that I must think, on this 
occasion, 



She had some other motive much more 
near 
For leaving Juan to this new tempta- 
tion. 
But what that motive was, I shan't say 
here; 
Perhaps to finish Juan's education, 
Perhaps to open Don Alfonso's eyes. 
In case he thought his wife too great a 
prize. 

CII. 

It was upon a day, a summer's day; — 
Summer's indeed a very dangerous 
season, 
And so is spring about the end of 
May; 
The sun, no doubt, is the prevailing 
reason ; 
But whatsoe'er the cause is, one may say. 
And stand convicted of more truth 
than treason, 
That there are months which nature 

grows more merry in, — 
March has its hares, and May must have 
its heroine. 

cm. 

'Twas on a summer's day — the sixth 
of June: 
I like to be particular in dates, 
Not only of the age, and year, but moon ; 
They are a sort of post-hause, where 
the Fates 
Change horses, making History change 
its tune, 
Then spur away o'er empires and o'er 
states, 
Leaving at last not much besides 

chronology, 
Excepting the post-obits of theology. 



'Twas on the sixth of June, about the 
hour 
Of half -past six — perhaps still nearer 
seven — 
When Julia sate within as pretty a bower 
As e'er held houri in that heathenish 
heaven 
Described by Mahomet, and Anacreon 
Moore, 
To whom the lyre and laurels have 
been given, 



984 



DON JUAN 



[Canto i. Z' 



With all the trophies of triumphant 

song — 
He won them well, and may he wear 

them long ! 

cv. 

She sate, but not alone; I know not 
well 
How this same interview had taken 
place. 
And even if I knew, I shall not tell — 
People should hold their tongues in 
any case; 
No matter how or why the thing befell, 
But there were she and Juan, face to 
face — 
When two such faces are so, 'twould be 

wise, 
But very diflBcult, to shut their eyes. 

CVI. 

How beautiful she looked ! her con- 
scious heart 
Glowed in her cheek, and yet she felt 
no wrong: 
Oh Love ! how perfect is thy mystic art. 
Strengthening the weak, and tramp- 
ling on the strong ! 
How self-deceitful is the sagest part 
Of mortals whom thy lure hath led 
along ! — • 
The precipice she stood on was immense. 
So was her creed in her own innocence 



She thought of her own strength, and 
Juan's youth. 
And of the folly of all prudish fears. 
Victorious Virtue, and domestic Truth, 
And then of Don Alfonso's fifty years: 
I wish these last had not occurred, in 
. sooth, 

Because that number rarely much en- 
dears, 
And through all climes, the snowy and 

the sunny. 
Sounds ill in love, whate'er it may in 
money. 

CVIII. 

When people say, "I've told you fifty 
times," 
They mean to scold, and very often 
do; 



When poets say, "I've written fifty 
rhymes," 
They make you dread that they'll 
recite them too; 
In gangs of fifty, thieves commit their 
crimes; 
At fifty love for love is rare, 'tis true. 
But then, no doubt, it equally as true is, 
A good deal may be bought for fifty 
Louis. 

cix. 
Julia had honour, virtue, truth, and love 
For Don Alfonso; and she inly swore, 
By all the vows below to Powers above, 
She never would disgrace the ring she 
wore. 
Nor leave a wish which wisdom might 
reprove ; 
And while she pondered this, besides 
much more. 
One hand on Juan's carelessly was 

thrown. 
Quite by mistake — she thought it was 
her own; 

ex. 

Unconsciously she leaned upon the other, 
Which played within the tangles of her 
hair; 
And to contend with thoughts she could 
not smother 
She seemed by the distraction of her 
air. 
'Twassurelyvery wrong in Juan'smother 
To leave together this imprudent pair, 
She who for many years had watched 

her son so — 
I'm very certain mine would not have 
done so. 

CXI. 

The hand which still held Juan's, by 
degrees 
Gently, but palpably confirmed its 
grasp, 
As if it said, " Detain me, if you please ; " 
Yet there's no doubt she only meant 
to clasp 
His fingers with a pure Platonic squeeze, 
She would have shrunk as from a 
toad, or asp. 
Had she imagined such a thing could 

rouse 
A feeling dangerous to a prudent spouse. 



Canto i] 



DON JUAN 



985 



I cannot know what Juan thought of 

this, 
But what he did, is much what you 

would do, 
His young lip thanked it with a grateful 

kiss, 
And then, abashed at its own joy, 

withdrew 
In deep despair, lest he had done 

amiss, — 
Love is so very timid when 'tis new: 
She blushed, and frowned not, but she 

strove to speak. 
And held her tongue, her voice was 

grown so weak. 



The sun set and up rose the yellow 
moon. 
The Devil's in the moon for mischief; 
they 
Who called her chaste, methinks, began 
too soon 
Their nomenclature ; there is not a 
day, 
The longest, not the twenty-first of 
June, 
Sees half the business in a wicked way. 
On which three single hours of moon- 
shine smile — 
And then she looks so modest all the 
while ! .^ 1 /, , . ■ , '^.^: 
.Jt^-O-^ ^ cxiv. '^ 

There is a dangerous silence in that hour. 
A stillness, which leaves room for the 
full soul 
To open all itself, without the power 

Of calhng wholly back its self-control; 
The silver light which, hallowing tree 
and tower. 
Sheds beauty and deep softness o'er 
the whole. 
Breathes also to the heart, and o'er it 

throws 
A loving languor, which is not repose. 

cxv. 

And Julia sate with Juan, half em- 
braced 
And half retiring from the glowing 
arm, 



Which trembled like the bosom where 
'twas placed; 
Yet still she must have thought there 
was no harm. 
Or else 'twere easy to withdraw her 
waist ; 
But then the situation had its charm, 
And then God knows what next 

— I can't go on; 

I'm almost sorry that I e'er begun. 

ex VI. 

Oh Plato ! Plato ! you have paved the 
way. 
With your confounded fantasies, to 
more 
Immoral conduct by the fancied sway 
Your system feigns o'er the controlless 
core 
Of human hearts, than all the long 
array 
Of poets and romancers: — You're a 
bore, 
A charlatan, a coxcomb — and have 

been. 
At best, no better than a go-between. 

CXVII. 

And Julia's voice was lost, except in 
^ sighs, 
Until too late for useful conversa- 
tion; 
The tears were gushing from her gentle 
eyes, 
I wish, indeed, they had not had 
occasion ; 
But who, alas! can love, and then be 
wise ? 
Not that Remorse did not oppose 
Temptation ; 
A little still she strove, and much re- 
pented, 
And whispering "I will ne'er consent" 

— consented. 

cxv III. 

'Tis said that Xerxes offered a re- 
ward 
To those who could invent him a new 
pleasure : 
Methinks the requisition's rather hard. 
And must have cost his Majesty a 
treasure : 



986 



DON JUAN 



Jh^^' ([ [Canto i. 



4^^ 



For my part, I'm a moderate-minded 

bard, 
Fond of a little love (which I call 

leisure) ; 
I care not for new pleasures, as the old 
Are quite enough for me, so they but 

hold. 

CXIX. 

Oh Pleasure ! you're indeed a pleasant 
thing, 
Although one must be damned for 
you, no doubt : 
I make a resolution every spring 

Of reformation, ere the year run out. 
But somehow, this my vestal vow takes 
wing, 
Yet still, I trust, it may be kept 
throughout : 
I'm very sorry, very much ashamed, 
And mean, next winter, to .be quite 
reclaimed. 
, V .; -* cxx. 

Here my chaste Muse a liberty must 
take — 
Start not ! still chaster reader — she'll 
be nice hence- 
Forward, and there is no great cause to 
quake ; 
This liberty is a poetic licence. 
Which some irregularity may make 
In the design, and as I have a high 
sense 
Of Aristotle and the Rules, 'tis fit 
To beg his pardon when I err a bit. 



This licence is to hope the reader will 
Suppose from June the sixth (the fatal 
day, 
Without whose epoch my poetic skill 
For want of facts would all be thrown 
away), 
But keeping Julia and Don Juan still 
In sight, that several months have 
passed; we'll say 
'Twas in November, but I'm not so 

sure 
About the day — the era's more obscure. 



We'll talk of that anon. — 'Tis sweet 
to hear 



At midnight on the blue and moonlit 
deep 
The song and oar of Adria's gondolier, 
By distance mellowed, o'er the waters 
sweep ; 
'Tis sweet to see the evening star 
appear; 
'Tis sweet to listen as the night- 
winds creep 
From leaf to leaf; »'tis sweet to view on 

high 
The rainbow, based on ocean, span 
the sky. 

CXXIII. 

'Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's 
honest bark 
Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we 
draw near home; 
'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will 
mark 
Our coming, and look brighter when 
we come; 
'Tis sweet to be awakened by the lark, 
Or lulled by falling waters; sweet 
the hum 
Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of 

birds, 
The lisp of children, and their earliest 
words. 

cxxiv. 

Sweet is the vintage, when the showering 
grapes 
In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth, 
Purple and gushing: sweet are our 
escapes 
From civic revelry to rural mirth; 
Sweet to the miser are his glittering 
heaps. 
Sweet to the father is his first-born's 
birth. 
Sweet is revenge — especially to 

women — 
Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to 
seamen. 



Sweet is a legacy, and passing sweet 
The unexpected death of some old 
lady. 
Or gentleman of seventy years complete, 
Who've made "us youth" wait too — 
too long already, 



Canto i.] 



DON JUAN 



987 



For an estate, or cash, or country seat, 

Still breaking, but with stamina so 

steady, 

That all the Israelites are fit to mob its 

Next owner for their double-damned 

post-obits. 

cxxvi. 

'Tis sweet to win, no matter how, one's 

laurels, 
By blood or ink; 'tis sweet to put an 

end 
To strife; 'tis sometimes sweet to have 

our quarrels, 
Particularly with a tiresome friend: 
Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in 

barrels; 
Dear is the helpless creature we 

defend 
Against the world; and dear the school- 
boy spot 
We ne'er forget, though there we are 

forgot. 

CXXVII. 

But sweeter still than this, than these, 
than all, 
Is first and passionate Love — it 
stands alone. 
Like Adam's recollection of his fall; 
The Tree of Knowledge has been 
plucked — -all's known — 
And Life yields nothing further to recall 
Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so 
shown. 
No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven 
Fire which Prometheus filched for us 
from Heaven. 



Man's a strange animal, and makes 
strange use 
Of his own nature, and the various 
arts, 
And likes particularly to produce 

Some nev/ experiment to show his 
parts; 
This is the age of oddities let loose, 
Where different talents find their 
different marts; 
You'd best begin with truth, and when 

you've lost your 
Labour, there's a sure market for 
imposture. 



What opposite discoveries we have seen 1 
(Signs of true genius, and of empty 
pockets.) 
One makes new noses, one a guillotine. 
One breaks your bones, one sets them 
in their sockets; 
But Vaccination certainly has been 
A kind antithesis to Congreve's 
rockets, 
With which the Doctor paid off an old 

pox. 
By borrowing a new one from an ox. 

cxxx. 

Bread has been made (indifferent) from 
potatoes: 
And Galvanism has set some corpses 
grinning. 
But has not answered like the apparatus 
Of the Humane Society's beginning, 
By which men are unsuffocated gratis: 
What wondrous new machines have 
late been spinning ! 
I said the small-pox has gone out of late; 
Perhaps it may be followed by the great. 

cxxxi. 

'Tis said the great came from America; 
Perhaps it may set out on its return, — 
The population there so spreads, they 
say 
'Tis grown high time to thin it in its 
turn. 
With war, or plague, or famine — any 
way. 
So that civilisation they may learn-; 
And which in ravage the more loath- 
some evil is — 
Their real lues, or our pseudo-syphilis? 

CXXXII. 

This is the patent age of new inventions 
For killing bodies, and for saving souls. 
All propagated with the best intentions; 
Sir Humphry Davy's lantern, by 
which coals 
Are safely mined for in the mode he 
mentions, 
Tombuctoo travels, voyages to the 
Poles 
Are ways to benefit mankind, as true, 
Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo. 



DON JUAN 



[Canto i. 



CXXXIII. 

Man's a phenomenon, one knows not 

what, 
And wonderful beyond all wondrous 

measure ; 
Tis pity though, in this sublime world, 

that 
Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes Sin's 

a pleasure; 
Few mortals know what end they would 

be at, 
But whether Glory, Power, or Love, 

or Treasure, 
The path is through perplexing ways, 

and when 
The goal is gained, we die, you know 

— and then 

CXXXIV. 

What then ? — I do not know, no more 

do you — 
And so good night. — Return we 

to our story: 
'Twas in November, when fine days 

are few, 
And the far mountains wax a little 

hoary. 
And clap a white cape on their mantles 

blue; 
And the sea dashes round the prom- 
ontory, 
And the loud breaker boils against the 

rock. 
And sober suns must set at five o'clock. 

cxxxv. 

'Twas, as the watchmen say, a cloudy 

night ; 
No moon, no stars, the wind was 

low or loud 
By gusts, and many a sparkling hearth 

was bright 
With the piled wood, round which the 

family crowd; 
There's something cheerful in that sort 

of light. 
Even as a summer sky's without a 

cloud: 
I'm fond of fire, and crickets, and all 

that, 
A lobster salad, and champagne, and 

chat. 



'Twas midnight — Donna Julia was 
in bed. 
Sleeping, most probably, — when at 
her door 
Arose a clatter might awake the dead. 

If they had never been awoke before. 

And that they have been so we all have 

read. 

And are to be so, at the least, once 

more; — 

The door was fastened, but with voice 

and fist 
First knocks were heard, then "Madam 
— Madam — hist 1 

CXXXVII. 

" For God's sake, Madam — Madam — 
here's my master. 
With more than half the city at his 
back — 

Was ever heard of such a curst disaster ! 

'Tis not my fault — I kept good 

watch — Alack ! 

Do pray undo the bolt a Uttle faster — 

They're on the stair just now, and in 

a crack 

Will all be here; perhaps he yet mav 

fly — 
Surely the window's not so very high!" 



By this time Don Alfonso was arrived. 
With torches, friends, and servants 
in great number; 
The major part of them had long been 
wived. 
And therefore paused not to disturb 
the slumber 
Of any wicked woman, who contrived 
By stealth her husband's temples to 
encumber: 
Examples of this kind are so contagious, 
Were one not punished, all would be 
outrageous. 

CXXXIX. 

I can't tell how, or why, or what sus- 
picion 

Could enter into Don Alfonso's head; 
But for a cavalier of his condition 

It surely was exceedingly ill-bred, 



Canto i.] 



DON JUA 



989 



Without a word of previous admoriilior.; 

To hold a levee round his lady's bed, 

And summon lackeys, armed with fire 

and sword. 
To prove himself the thing he most 

abhorred. 

CXL. 

Poor Donna Julia ! starting as from 

sleep, 
(Mind — that I do not say — she 

had not slept). 
Began at once to scream, and yawn, 

and weep; 
Her maid, Antonia, who was an adept, 
Contrived to fling the bed-clothes in a 

heap. 
As if she had just now from out them 

crept: 
I can't tell why she should take all this 

trouble 
To prove her mistress had been sleeping 

double. 

CXLI. 

But Julia mistress, and Antonia maid. 
Appeared like two poor harmless 
women who 
Of goblins, but still more of men afraid, 
Had thought one man might be 
deterred by two, 
And therefore side by side were gently 
laid. 
Until the hours of absence should 
run through, 
And truant husband should return, 

and say, 
' My dear, — I was the first who came 
away." 

CXLII. 

Now Julia found at length a voice, and 
cried, 
"In Heaven's name, Don Alfonso, 
what d'ye mean ? 
Has madness seized you? would that 
I had died 
Ere such a monster's victim I had 
been ! 

What may this midnight violence betide, 
A sudden fit of drunkenness or spleen ? 
Dare you suspect me, whom the thought 

would kill? 
Search, then, the room ! " — Alfonso 
said, "I will." 



He searched, they searched, and rum- 
maged everywhere. 
Closet and clothes' press, chest and 

window-seat. 
And found much linen, lace, and several 

pair 
Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, 

complete 
With other articles of ladies fair, 

To keep them beautiful, or leave 

them neat: 
Arras they pricked and curtains with 

their swords. 
And wounded several shutters, and some 

boards. 

CXLIV. 

Under the bed they searched, and there 

they found — 
No matter what — it was not that 

they sought; 
They opened windows, gazing if the 

ground 
Had signs of footmarks, but the earth 

said nought; 
And then they stared each others' faces 

round: 
'Tis odd, not one of all these seekers 

thought, 
And seems to me almost a sort of 

blunder. 
Of looking in the bed as well as under. 

CXLV. 

During this inquisition Julia's tongue 
Was not asleep — "Yes, search and 
search," she cried, 
"Insult on insult heap, and wrong on 
wrong ! 
It was for this that I became a bride ! 
For this in silence I have suffered long 
A husband like Alfonso at my side; 
But now I'll bear no more, nor here 

remain, 
If there be law or lawyers in all Spain. 

CXLVI. 

"Yes, Don Alfonso! husband now no 
more, 
If ever you indeed deserved the name, 
Is't worthy of your years ? — you have 
threescore — ■ 
Fifty, or sixty, it is all the same — 



990 



DON JUAN 



[Canto i. 



Is't wise or fitting, causeless to explore 
For facts against a virtuous woman's 

fame? 
Ungrateful, perjured, barbarous Don 

Alfonso, 
How dare you think your lady would 

go on so? 

CXLVII. 

"Is it for this I have disdained to hold 

The common privileges of my sex? 
That I have chosen a confessor so old 
And deaf, that any other it would 
vex, 
And never once he has had cause to 
scold, 
But found my very innocence perplex 
So much, he always doubted I was 

married — 
How sorry you wall be when I've mis- 
carried ! 

CXLVIII. 

"Was it for this that no Cortejo ^ e'er 
I yet have chosen from out the youth 
of Seville ? 
Is it for this I scarce went anywhere. 
Except to bull-fights, mass, play, 
rout, and revel? 
Is it for this, whate'er my suitors were, 
I favoured none — nay, was almost 
uncivil ? 
Is it for this that General Count 

O'Reilly, 
Who took Algiers,^ declares I used him 
vilely ? 

CXLIX. 

"Did not the Italian Musico Cazzani 
Sing at my heart six months at least 
in vain? 
Did not his countryman, Count Corni- 
ani. 
Call me the only virtuous wife in 
Spain ? 

' The Spanish "Cortejo" is much the same as 
the Italian "Cavalier Servente." 

^ Donna Julia here made a mistake. Count 
O'Reilly did not take Algiers — but Algiers very 
nearly took him: he and his army and fleet 
retreated with great loss, and not much credit, 
from before that city, in the year 1775. 

[Alexander O'Reilly, born 1722, a Spanish 
general of Irish extraction, failed in an expedition 
against Algiers in 1775, in which the Spaniards 
lost four thousand men. He died March 23, 1794.] 



Were there not also Russians, English, 

many? 
The Count Strongstroganoff I put 

in pain. 
And Lord Mount Coffeehouse, the 

Irish peer, 
Who killed himself for love (with wine) 

last year. 

CL. 

"Have I not had two bishops at mv 

feet ? 
The Duke of Ichar, and Don Fernan 

Nunez; 

And is it thus a faithful wife you treat? 
I wonder in what quarter now the 

moon is: 
I praise your vast forbearance not to 

beat 
Me also, since the time so opportune 

is — 
Oh, valiant man ! with sword drawn 

and cocked trigger, 
Now, tell me, don't you cut a pretty 

figure ? 

CLI. 

"Was it for this you took your sudden 
journey. 
Under pretence of business indis- 
pensable 

With that sublime of rascals your 
attorney, 
Whom I see standing there, and look- 
ing sensible 

Of having played the fool? though 
both I spurn, he 
Deserves the worst, his conduct's 
less defensible, 

Because, no doubt, 'twas for his dirty 
fee, 

And not from any love to you nor me. 



"If he comes here to take a deposition. 
By all means let the gentleman pro- 
ceed; 
You've made the apartment in a fit 
condition : — 
There's pen and ink for you, sir, 
when you need — ■ 
Let everything be noted with precision, 
I would not you for nothing should bej 
fee'd — 



Canto i.] 



DON JUAN 



991 



But, as my maid's undressed, pray turn 

your spies out." 
"Oh!" sobbed Antonia, "I could 

tear their eyes out." 

[ CLIII. 

"There is the closet, there the toilet, 

there 
The antechamber — search them 

under, over; 
There is the sofa, there the great arm- 
chair, 
The chimney — which would really 

hold a lover. 
I wish to sleep, and beg you will take 

care 
And make no further noise, till you 

discover 
The secret cavern of this lurking 

treasure — 
And when 'tis found, let me, too, have 

that pleasure. 



And now, Hidalgo ! now that you have 

thrown 
Doubt upon me, confusion over all. 
Pray have the courtesy to make it 
known 
Who is the man you search for ? how 
d'ye call 
Him? what's his lineage? let him but 
be shown — 
I hope he's young and handsome — 
is he tall ? 
Tell me — and be assured, that since 

you stain 
My honour thus, it shall not be in 
vain. 



At least, perhaps, he has not sixty 

years. 
At that age he would be too old for 
slaughter, 
Or for so young a husband's jealous 
fears — 
(Antonia! let me have a glass of 
water.) 
I am ashamed of having shed these 
tears. 
They are unworthy of my father's 
daughter; 



My mother dreamed not in my natal 

hour. 
That I should fall into a monster's 

power. 

CLVI. 

"Perhaps 'tis of Antonia you are 
jealous, 
You saw that she was sleeping by my 
side. 
When you broke in upon us with your 
fellows : 
Look where you please — we've noth- 
ing, sir, to hide; 
Only another time, I trust you'll tell us. 

Or for the sake of decency abide 
A moment at the door, that we may be 
Dressed to receive so much good com- 
pany. 

CLVII. 

"And now, sir, I have done, and say 

no more; 
The little I have said may serve to 

show 
The guileless heart in silence may grieve 

o'er 
The wrongs to w^hose exposure it is 

slow : — 
I leave you to your conscience as before, 
'Twill one day ask you ivhy you used 

me so? 
God grant you feel not then the bitterest 

grief I — 
Antonia ! where's my pocket-hand- 
kerchief ?" 

CLVIII. 

She ceased, and turned upon her pillow; 

pale 
She lay, her dark eyes flashing through 

their tears, 
Like skies that rain and lighten; as a 

veil. 
Waved and o'ershading her wan 

cheek, appears 
Her streaming hair; the black curls 

strive, but fail 
To hide the glossy shoulder, which 

uprears 
Its snow through all ; — her soft lips 

lie apart. 
And louder than her breathing beats 

her heart. 



99- 



DON JUAN 



[Canto i. 



CLIX. 

The Senhor Don Alfonso stood con- 
fused ; 
Antonia bustled round the ransacked 
room, 
And, turning up her nose, with looks 
abused 
Her master, and his myrmidons, of 
whom 
Not one, except the attorney, was 
amused ; 
He, like Achates, faithful to the tomb, 
So there were quarrels, cared not for 

the cause, 
Knowing they must be settled by the 
laws. 

CLX. 
With prying snub-nose, and small eyes, 
he stood, 
Following Antonia's motions here 
and there, 
With much suspicion in his attitude; 
For reputations he had little care; 
So that a suit or action were made good. 
Small pity had he for the young and 
fair. 
And ne'er believed in negatives, till 

these 
Were proved by competent false wit- 
nesses. 

CLXI. 

But Don Alfonso stood with downcast 
looks, 
And, truth to say, he made a foolish 
figure; 

When, after searching in five hundred 
nooks, 
And treating a young wife with so 
much rigour, 

He gained no point, except some self- 
rebukes. 
Added to those his lady with such 
vigour 

Had poured upon him for the last half- 
hour, 

Quick, thick, and heavy — as a thunder- 
shower. 

CLXII. 

At first he tried to hammer an excuse. 
To which the sole reply was tears, 
and sobs, 



And indications of hysterics, whose 
Prologue is always certain throes, 
and throbs, 

Gasps, and whatever else the owners 
choose; 
Alfonso saw his wife, and thought 
of Job's; 

He saw too, in perspective, her relations. 

And then he tried to muster all his pa- 
tience. 

CLXIII. 

He stood in act to speak, or rather 
stammer, 
But sage Antonia cut him short before 
The anvil of his speech received the 
hammer. 
With "Pray, sir, leave the room, 
and say no more. 
Or madam dies." — Alfonso muttered, 
"D — n her," 
But nothing else, the time of words 
was o'er; 
He cast a rueful look or two, and did, 
He knew not wherefore, that which he 
was bid. 

CLXIV. 

With him retired his "posse comitatus," 
The attorney last, who lingered near 
the door 
Reluctantly, still tarrying there as late as 

Antonia let him — not a little sore 
At this most strange and unexplained 
"hiatus" 
In Don Alfonso's facts, which just 
now wore 
An awkward look; as he revolved the 

case, 
The door was fastened in his legal face. 

CLXV. 

No sooner was it bolted, than — Oh 
Shame ! 
Oh Sin! Oh Sorrow! and Oh 
Womankind ! 
How can you do such things and keep 
your fame. 
Unless this world, and t'other to, 
be blind? 
Nothing so dear as an unfilched good 
name ! 
But to proceed — for there is more 
behind : 



Canto i.] 



DON JUAN 



993 



With much heartfelt reluctance be it 

said, 
Young Juan slipped, half-smothered, 

from the bed. 

CLXVI. 

He had been hid — I don't pretend to 
say 
How, nor can I indeed describe the 
where — 
Young, slender, and packed easily, he 
lay, 
No doubt, in little compass, round or 
square ; 
But pity him I neither must nor may 
His suffocation by that pretty pair; 
'Twere better, sure, to die so, than be 

shut 
With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey 
butt. 

CLXVII. 

And, secondly, I pity not, because 

He had no business to commit a sin. 
Forbid by heavenly, fined by human 
laws; — 
At least 'twas rather early to begin. 
But at sixteen the conscience rarely 
gnaws 
So much as when we call our old debts 
in 
At sixty years, and draw the accompts 

of evil, 

And find a deuced balance with the 
Devil. 

CLXVIII. 

Of his position I can give no notion : 

'Tis written in the Hebrew Chronicle, 
How the physicians, leaving pill and 
potion, 
Prescribed, by way of blister, a 
young belle. 
When old King David's blood grew 
dull in motion, 
And that the medicine answered 
very well; 
Perhaps 'twas in a different way applied. 
For David lived, but Juan nearly died. 

CLXIX. 

What's to be done ? Alfonso will be back 
The moment he has sent his fools 
away. 

3S 



Antonia's skill was put upon the rack, 
But no device could be brought into 
play — 
And how to parry the renewed attack? 
Besides, it wanted but few hours of 
day: 
Antonia puzzled; Julia did not speak. 
But pressed her bloodless lip to Juan's 
cheek. 

CLXX. 

He turned his lip to hers, and \\'ith his 
hand 
Called back the tangles of her wander- 
ing hair; 
Even then their love they could not all 
command, 
And half forgot their danger and 
despair: 
Antonia's patience now was at a stand — 
"Come, come, 'tis no time now for 
fooHng there," 
She whispered, in great wrath — "I 

must deposit 
This pretty gentleman within the closet : 

CLXXI. 

"Pray, keep your nonsense for some 
luckier night — 
Who can have put my master in this 
mood? 
W' hat will become on't — I'm in such 
a fright, 
The Devil's in the urchin, and no 
good — 
Is this a time for giggling ? this a plight ? 
Whv don't you know that it may end 
in blood? 
You'll lose your life, and I shall lose 

mv place, 
My mistress all, for that half-girlish face. 

CLXXII. 

"Had it but been for a stout cavalier 
Of twenty-five or thirty — (come, 
make haste) 
But for a child, what piece of work is 
here! 
I really, madam, wonder at your 
taste — 
(Come, sir, get in) — my master must 
be near: 
There, for the present, at the least, 
he's fast, 



994 



DON JUAN 



[Canto i. 



And if we can but till the morning keep 
Our counsel — (Juan, mind, you must 
not sleep.)" 

CLXXIII. 

Now, Don Alfonso entering, but alone, 
Closed the oration of the trusty maid: 
She loitered, and he told her to be 
gone, 
An order somewhat sullenly obeyed ; 
However, present remedy was none, 
And no great good seemed answered 
if she staid: 
Regarding both with slow and sidelong 

view, 
She snuffed the candle, curtsied, and 
withdrew. 

CLXXiV. 

Alfonso paused a minute — then begun 
Some strange excuses for his late 
proceeding; 
He would not justify what he had done, 
To say the best, it was extreme ill- 
breeding; 
^But there were ample reasons for it, none 
Of which he specified in this his 
pleading: 
His speech was a fine sample, on the 

whole. 
Of rhetoric, which the learned call 
^'rigmarole.'' 



Julia said nought; though all the while 

there rose 
A ready answer, which at once enables 
A matron, who her husband's foible 

knows, 
By a few timely words to turn the 

tables. 
Which, if it does not silence, still must 

pose, — 
Even if it should comprise a pack of 

fables; 
'Tis to retort with firmness, and when 

he 
Suspects with one, do you reproach 

with three. 

CLXXVI. 

Julia, in fact, had tolerable grounds, — 
Alfonso's loves with Inez were well 
known; 



But whether 'twas that one's own guilt 

confounds — 
But that can't be, as has been often 

shown, 
A lady with apologies abounds; — 
It might be that her silence sprang 

alone 
From delicacy to Don Juan's ear, 
To whom she knew his mother's fame 

was dear. 

CLXXVII. 

There might be one more motive, 
which makes two; 
Alfonso ne'er to Juan had alluded, — 
Mentioned his jealousy, but never who 
Had been the happy lover, he con- 
cluded. 
Concealed amongst his premises; 'sit 
true, 
His mind the more o'er this its mystery 
brooded ; 
To speak of Inez now were, one may 

say. 
Like throwing Juan in Alfonso's way. 

CLXXVIII. 

A hint, in tender cases, is enough; 
Silence is best: besides, there is a 
tact — 
(That modern phrase appears to me 
sad stuff,. 
But it will serve to keep my verse 
compact) — 
Which keeps, when pushed by questions 
rather rough, 
A lady always distant from the fact: 
The charming creatures lie with such 

a grace. 
There 's nothing so becoming to the 
face. 

CLXXIX. 

They blush, and we believe them; at 
least I 
Have always done so; 'tis of no great 
use, 
In any case, attempting a reply. 

For then their eloquence grows quite 
profuse ; 
And when at length they're out of 
breath, they sigh, 
And cast their languid eyes down, and 
let loose 



Canto i.] 



DON JUAN 



995 



A tear or two, and then we make it up; 
And then — and then — and then — sit 
down and sup. 

CLXXX. 

Alfonso closed his speech, and begged 

her pardon, 
Which Julia half withheld, and then 

half granted. 
And laid conditions he thought very 

hard on, 
Denying several little things he 

w anted : 
He stood like Adam lingering near his 

garden, 
With useless penitence perplexed 

and haunted; 
Beseeching she no further would refuse, 
When, lo ! he stumbled o'er a pair of 

shoes. 

CLXXXI. 

A pair of shoes ! — v/hat then ? not 
much, if they 
Are such as fit with ladies' feet, but 
these 

(No one can tell how much I grieve to 
say) 
Were masculine; to see them, and 
to seize, 

Was but a moment's act. — Ah ! well- 
a-day ! 
My teeth begin to chatter, my veins 
freeze ! 

Alfonso first examined well their fashion. 
And then flew out into another passion. 



He left the room for his relinquished 
sword. 
And Julia instant to the closet flew. 
Fly, Juan, fly ! for Heaven's sake — 

not a word — 
The door is open — you may yet slip 
through 

The passage you so often have ex- 
plored — 
Here is the garden-key — Fly — 
fly — Adieu ! 
3aste — haste ! I hear Alfonso's hurry- 
ing feet — 
Day has not broke — there's no one 
in the street." 



CLXXXIII. 

None can say that this was not good 
advice. 
The only mischief was, it came too 
late; 
Of all experience 'tis the usual price, 

A sort of income-tax laid on by fate: 
Juan had reached the room-door in a 
trice. 
And might have done so by the 
garden-gate. 
But met Alfonso in his dressing-gown, 
Who threatened death — so Juan 
knocked him down. 



Dire was the scuffle, and out went the 

light; 
Antonia cried out "Rape!" and 

Julia "Fire !" 
But not a servant stirred to aid the 

fight. 
Alfonso, pommelled to his heart's 

desire. 
Swore lustily he'd be revenged this 

night; 
And Juan, too, blasphemed an 

octave higher; 
His blood was up: though young, he 

was a Tartar, 
And not at all disposed to prove a 

martyr. 

CLXXXV. 

Alfonso's sword had dropped ere he 
could draw it. 
And they continued battling hand to 
hand, 
For Juan very luckily ne'er saw it; 
His temper not being under great 
command, 
If at that moment he had chanced to 
claw it, 
Alfonso's days had not been in the 
land 
Much longer. — Think of husbands', 

lovers' lives ! 
And how ye may be doubly widows — 



Alfonso grappled to detain the foe. 
And Juan throttled him to get away, 



996 



DON JUAN 



[Canto i. 



And blood ('twas from the nose) began 

to flow; 
At last, as they more faintly wrestling 

lay, 
Juan contrived to give an awkward 

blow, 
And then his only garment quite 

gave way ; 
He fled, like Joseph, leaving it; but 

there, 
I doubt, all likeness ends between the 

pair. 

CLXXXVII. 

Lights came at length, and men, and 
maids, who found 
An awkward spectacle their eyes 
before ; 
Antonia in hysterics, Julia swooned, 
Alfonso leaning, breathless by the 
door; 
Some half-torn drapery scattered on 
the ground, 
Some blood, and several footsteps, 
but no more: 
Juan the gate gained, turned the key 

about, 
And liking not the inside, locked the out. 

CLXXXVIII. 

Here ends this canto. — Need I sing, 

or say, 
How Juan, naked, favoured by the 

night. 
Who favours what she should not, 

found his way. 
And reached his home in an unseemly 

plight ? 
The pleasant scandal which arose next 

day. 
The nine days' wonder which was 

brought to light, 
And how Alfonso sued for a divorce. 
Were in the English newspapers, of 

course. 

CLXXXIX. 

If you would like to see the whole pro- 
ceedings. 
The depositions, and the Cause at 
full. 
The names of all the witnesses, the 
pleadings 
Of Counsel to nonsuit, or to annul, 



There's more than one edition, and the 
readings 
Are various, but they none of them 
are dull: 
The best is that in short-hand ta'en by 

Gurney,^ 
Who to Madrid on purpose made a 
journey. 

cxc. 

But Donna Inez, to divert the train 
Of one of the most circulating 

scandals 
That had for centuries been known in 

Spain, 
At least since the retirement of the 

Vandals, 
First vowed (and never had she vowed 

in vain) 
To Virgin Mary several pounds of 

candles; 
And then, by the advice of some old 

ladies, 
She sent her son to be shipped off from 

Cadiz. 

CXCI. 

She had resolved that he should travd' 
through 
All European climes, by land or sea, 
To mend his former morals, and get,' 
new, '■' 

Especially in France and Italy — 
(At least this is the thing most people e 
do.) 
Julia was sent into a convent — she 
Grieved — but, perhaps, her feelings 

may be better 
Shown in the following copy of hen 
Letter: — ; 

CXCII. 

"They tell me 'tis decided you depart: 
'Tis wise — 'tis well, but not the less- 
a pain; 

I have no further claim on your young 

heart. 

Mine is the victim, and would bet 

again : 

To love too much has been the only art i 

' [William Brodie Gurney (1777-1855), the 
son and grandson of eminent shorthand writers, 
"reported the proceedings against Queen 
Caroline" and other famous trials.] 



i 



DON JUAN 



997 



I used ; — I write in haste, and if 
a stain 
3e on this sheet, 'tis not what it appears; 
Vly eyeballs burn and throb, but have 
no tears. 

CXCIII. 

I loved, I love you, for this love have 

lost 
State, station. Heaven, Mankind's, 
my own esteem, 
^nd yet cannot regret what it hath cost, 
So dear is still the memory of that 
dream ; 
^et, if I name my guilt, 'tis not to 
boast, 
None can deem harsher of me than 

I deem: 
trace this scrawl because I cannot 

rest — 
ve nothing to reproach, or to request. 

cxciv. 

Man's love is of man's life a thing 

apart, 
'Tis a Woman's whole existence; 

Man may range 
'he Court, Camp, Church, the Vessel, 

and the Mart; 
Sword, Gown, Gain, Glory offer, in 

exchange 
ride. Fame, Ambition, to fill up his 

heart, 
And few there are whom these cannot 
estrange ; 
len t\ave all these resources, We but 

.one — 
^o love again, and be again undone. 



You will proceed in pleasure, and in 

pride, 
Beloved and loving many; all is o'er 
or me on earth, except some years 

to hide 
My shame and sorrow deep in my 
heart's core: 
I'hese I could bear, but cannot cast 
aside 
The passion which still rages as 
before, — 
Lnd so farewell — forgive me, love 

me — No, 
hat word is idle now — but let it go. 



cxcvi. 

"My breast has been all weakness, is 
so yet; 
But still I think I can collect my mind; 
My blood still rushes where my spirit's 
set. 
As roll the waves before the settled 
wind ; 
My heart is feminine, nor can forget — • 
To all, except one image, madly 
blind; 
So shakes the needle, and so stands the 

pole. 
As vibrates my fond heart to my fixed 
soul. 

CXCVII. 

"I have no more to say, but linger still, 
And dare not set my seal upon this 
sheet. 
And yet I may as well the task fulfil, 
My misery can scarce be more com- 
plete; 
I had not lived till now, could sorrow kill ; 
Death shuns the wretch who fain 
the blow would meet. 
And I must even survive this last adieu. 
And bear with life, to love and pray for 
you!" 

CXCVIII. 

This note was written upon gilt-edged 
paper 
With a neat little crow-quill, slight 
and new; 
Her small white hand could hardly 
reach the taper, 
It trembled as magnetic needles do, 
And yet she did not let one tear escape 
her; 
The seal a sun-flower; " Elle vous 
suit pariout,'' ^ 
The motto cut upon a white cornelian; 
The wax was superfine, its hue ver- 
milion. 

CXCIX. 

This was Don Juan's earliest scrape; 
but whether 
I shall proceed with his adventures is 
Dependent on the public altogether; 
We'll see, however, what they say 
to this: 

' [Byron had a seal bearing this motto. ^ 



998 



DON JUAN 



[Canto i. 



Their favour in an author's cap's a 

feather, 
And no great mischief's done by their 

caprice; 
And if their approbation we experience, 
Perhaps they'll have some more about 

a year hence. 



My poem's epic, and is meant to be 
Divided in twelve books; each book 
containing, 
With Love, and War, a heavy gale at 
sea, 
A list of ships, and captains, and 
kings reigning, 
New characters; the episodes are three: 
A panoramic view of Hell's in training 
After the style of Virgil and of Homer, 
So that my name of Epic's no misnomer. 

CCI. 

All these things will be specified in time, 
With strict regard to Aristotle's rules. 
The Vade Mecum of the true sublime, 
Which makes so many poets, and 
some fools: 
Prose poets like blank-verse, I'm fond 
of rhyme, 
Good workmen never quarrel with 
their tools; 
I've got new mythological machinery, 
And very handsome suj)eri; >atur al scen- 
ery. 

ecu. 

There's only one slight difference be- 
tween 
Me and my epic brethren gone before, 
And here the advantage is my own, 
I ween, 
(Not that I have not several merits 
more, 
But this will more peculiarly be seen); 
They so embellish, that 'tis quite a 
bore 
Their labyrinth of fables to thread 

through, 
Whereas this story's actually true. 

CCIII. 

If any person doubt it, I appeal 

To History, Tradition, and to Facts, 



To newspapers, whose truth all know 

and feel, 
To plays in five, and operas in three 

acts; 
All these confirm my statement a good 

deal, 
But that which more completely faith 

exacts 
Is, that myself, and several now in 

Seville, 
Saw Juan's last elopement with the 

Devil. 

CCIV. 

If ever I should condescend to prose, 
I'll write poetical commandments, 
which 
Shall supersede beyond all doubt all 
those 
That went before; in these I shall 
enrich 
My text with many things that no one 
knows. 
And carry precept to the highest 
pitch: 
I'll call the work "Longinus o'er a 

Bottle, 
Or, Every Poet his own Aristotle." ' 

ccv. \^jXijU^''A 

Thou shalt beUeve in Milton, Dryden, 
Pope; 
Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, 
Coleridge, Southey; 
Because the first is crazed beyond all 
hope, • 

The second drunk, the third so quaint 
and mouthy: 
With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope. 
And Campbell's Hippocrene is some- 
what drouthy: 
Thou shalt not steal from Samuel 

Rogers, nor 
Commit — flirtation with the muse of 
Moore. 

ccvi. 

Thou shalt not covet Mr Sotheby's 
Muse, 
His Pegasus, nor anything that's his; 
Thou shalt not bear false witness Hke 
"the Blues" — ■ 
(There's one, at least, is very fond of 
this) ; 



Canto i.] 



DON JUAN 



999 



Thou shalt not write, in short, but what 

I choose: 
This is true 'criticism, and you may 

kiss — 
Exactly as you please, or not, — the rod ; 
But if you don't, I'll lay it on, by G— d ! 

CCVII. 

If any person should presume to assert 

This story is not moral, first, I pray. 
That they will not cry out before they're 
hurt, 
Then that they'll read it o'er again, 
and say 
(But, doubtless, nobody will be so pert). 
That this is not g, moral tale, though 
gay: 
Besides, in Canto Twelfth, I mean to 

show 
The very place where wicked people go. 

CCVIII. 

If, after all, there should be some so 
blind 
To their own good this warning to 
despise, 
Led by some tortuosity of mind, 

Not to believe my verse and their 
I* own eyes. 

And cry that they "the moral cannot 
find," 
I tell him, if a clergyman, he lies; 
Should captains the remark, or critics, 

make. 
They also lie too — under a mistake. 

ccix. 

The public approbation I expect. 
And beg they'll take my word about 
the moral. 
Which I with their amusement will 
connect 
(So children cutting teeth receive a 
coral) ; 
Mean time they'll doubtless please to 
recollect 
My epical pretensions to the laurel: 
For fear some prudish readers should 

grow skittish, 
I've bribed my Grandmother's Review 
— the British.^ 

' rSee Byron's "Letter to the Editor of My 
Grandmother's Review," Letters, 1900, iv. Ap- 



I sent it in a letter to the Editor, 

Who thanked me duly by return of 
post — 
I'm for a handsome article his creditor; 
Yet, if my gentle Muse he please to 
roast. 
And break a promise after having made 
it her. 
Denying the receipt of what it cost, 
And smear his page with gall instead 

of honey. 
All I can say is — that he had the money. 

ccxi. 

I think that with this holy new alliance 

I may ensure the public, and defy 
All other magazines of art or science. 

Daily, or monthly, or three monthly; I 

Have not essayed to multiply their 

clients, 

Because they tell me 'twere in vain 

to try. 

And that the Edinburgh Review and 

Quarterly 
Treat a dissenting author very martyrly. 



" Non ego hocferrem calidus juventd 

Consiile Planco" Horace said, and so 
Say I; by which quotation there is 
meant a 
Hint that some six or seven good 
years ago 
(Long ere I dreamt of dating from the 
Brenta 
I was most ready to return a blow. 
And would not brook at all this sort of 

thing 
In my hot youth — when George the 
Third was King. 

CCXIII. 

But now at thirty years my hair is grey — 
(I wonder what it will be like at forty ? 

I thought of a peruke the other day — ) 
My heart is not much greener; and, 
in short, I 

pendix VII. 465-470. The letter was in reply 
to a criticism of Don Juan (Cantos I., II.) in 
the British Revieiv (No. xxvii., 1810), in which the 
Editor assumed, or feigned to assume, that the 
accusation of bribery was to be taken au grand 
serieux.] 



DON JUAN 



[Canto i. 



Have squandered my whole summer 

while 'twas May, 
And feel no more the spirit to retort ; I 
Have spent my life, both interest and 

principal, 
And deem not, what I deemed — my 

soul invincible. 

CCXIV. 

No more — no more — Oh ! never more 
on me 
The freshness of the heart can fall 
like dew, 
Which out of all the lovely things we 
see 
Extracts emotions beautiful and new, 
Hived in our bosoms like the bag o' the 
bee. 
Think' St thou the honey with those 
objects grew? 
Alas! 'twas not in them, but in thy 

power 
To double even the sweetness of a flower. 

ccxv. 

No more — no more — Oh ! never 

more, my heart, 
. Canst thou be my sole world, my 
/ universe ! 

/Once all in all, but now a thing apart, 
/ Thou canst not be my blessing or 
/ my curse: 

/ The illusion's gone for ever, and thou 
art 
Insensible, I trust, but none the worse, 
And in thy stead I've got a deal of 

judgment, 
Though Heaven knows how it ever 
found a lodgment. 

ccxvi. 

My days of love are over; me no more ^ 
The charms of maid, wife, and still 
less of widow, 
Can make the fool of which they made 
J before, — 

/ In short, I must not lead the life I 
I did do; 

» " Me nee femina nee puer 

Jam, nee spes animi credula mutui, 

Nee certare juvat mero; 
Nee vineire novis tempora floribus." 

— Hon, Od. IV. i. 30. 



f 

i The credulous hope of mutual minds 

\_^ is o'er, 

The copious use of claret is forbid too, 
So for a good old-gentlemanly vice, 
I think I must take up with avarice. 

\ CCXVII. ' 

Ambition was my idol, which was broken 
Before the shrines of Sorrow, and of 
\ Pleasure ; 
And the two last have left me many 

a token 
O'er which reflection may be made 

at leisure: 
Now, like Friar Bacon's Brazen Head 

I've spoken, 
"Time is. Time was, Time's past:'' 

— a chymic treasure 
Is glittering Youth, which I have spent 

betimes — 
My heart in passion, and my head on 

rhymes. 

CCXVIII. 

What is the end of fame ? 'tis but to fill 
A certain portion of uncertain paper: 
Some liken it to climbing up a hill, 
W^hose summit, like all hills, is lost in 
vapour; 

For this men write, speak, preach, and 

heroes kill. 

And bards burn what they call their 

"midnight taper," 

To have, when the original is dust, 

A name, a wretched picture and worse 

It are the hopes of man? Old 

Egypt's King I 

Cheops erected the first Pyramid 

And largest, thinking it was just the 

thing 

To keep his memory whole, and 

mummy hid; 

But somebody or other rummaging. 

Burglariously broke his coffin's lid: 
Let not a monument give you or me 

hopes, 

Since not a pinch of dust remains of 
Cheops. 

' [B\Ton sat for his bust to Thorwaldsen, in 
May, 181 7.] 



Canto ii.J 



DON JUAN 



But I, being fond of true philosophy, 

Say very often to myself, "Alas! 
All things that have been born were born 
to die, 
And flesh (which Death mows down 
to hay) is grass; 
You've passed your youth not so un- 
pleasantly, 
And if you had it o'er again — 
't would pass • — 
So thank your stars that matters are no 

worse, 

And read your Bible, Sir, and mind your 
purse." 

ccxxi. 

But for the present, gentle reader ! 
and 
Still gentler purchaser ! the Bard — 
that's I — 
Must, with permission, shake you by the 
hand, 
And so — "your humble servant, and 
Good-bye!" 
We meet again, if we should understand 
Each other; and if not, I shall not 
try 
Your patience further than by this short 

sample — 
Twere well if others followed my ex- 
ample. 

ccxxn. 

" Go, little Book, from this my solitude ! 
I cast thee on the waters — go thy 
ways ! 

And if — as I believe, thy vein be 
good. 
The World will find thee after many 
days." ^ 
When Southey's read, and Wordsworth 
understood, 
I can't help putting in my claim to 
praise — 
The four first rhymes are Southey's 

every line: 
For God's sake, reader ! take them not 
for mine. 

Nov. I, 1818. 

' [Lines 1-4 are taken from the last stanza of 
he Epilogue to the Lay of the Laureate, entitled 
L'Envoy." (See Poetical Works of Robert 
jouthey, 1838, x. 174.)] 



CANTO THE SECOND. 



Oh ye ! who teach the ingenuous youth 
of nations, 
Holland, France, England, Germany, 
or Spain, 
I pray ye flog them upon all occasions — 
It mends their morals, never mind the 
pain : 
The best of mothers and of educations 
In Juan's case were but employed in 
vain. 
Since, in a way that's rather of the 

oddest, he 
Became divested of his native modesty. 



Had he but been placed at a public 
school. 
In the third form, or even in the 
fourth. 
His daily task had kept his fancy 
cool. 
At least, had he been nurtured in the 
North; 
Spain may prove an exception to the 
rule, 
But then exceptions always prove its 
worth — 
A lad of sixteen causing a divorce 
Puzzled his tutors very much, of course. 



I can't say that it puzzles me at all. 
If all things be considered : first, there 
was 
His lady-mother, mathematical, 

A never mind ; — his tutor, an 

old ass; 
A pretty woman — (that's quite natural, 
Or else the thing had hardly come to 
pass) 
A husband rather old, not much in unity 
With his young wife — a time, and 
opportunity. 

t^""^ IV. 

Well — well ; the World must turn upon 
its axis, 
And all Mankind turn with it, heads 
or tails, 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ii. 



And live and die, make love and pay our 

taxes, 
And as the veering wind shifts, shift 

our sails; 
The King commands us, and the Doctor 

quacks us, 
The Priest instructs, and so our hfe 

exhales, 
A little breath, love, wine, ambition, 

fame, 
Fighting, devotion, dust, — perhaps a 

name. 

V. 

I said that Juan had been sent to 
Cadiz — 
A pretty town, I recollect it well — 
'Tis there the mart of the colonial trade 
is, 
(Or was, before Peru learned to rebel). 
And such sweet girls ! — I mean, such 
graceful ladies. 
Their very walk would make your 
bosom swell; 
I can't describe it, though so much it 

strike, 
Nor liken it — I never saw the like : 



An Arab horse, a stately stag, a barb 
New broke, a camelopard, a gazelle, 
No — none of these will do; — and then 
their garb. 
Their veil and petticoat — Alas ! to 
dwell 
Upon such things would very near 
absorb 
A canto — then their feet and ankles, 
— well, 
Thank Heaven I've got no metaphor 

quite ready, 
(And so, my sober Muse — come, let's 
be steady — 



Chaste Muse ! — well, — if you must, 
you must) — - the veil 
Thrown back a moment with the 
glancing hand, 
While the o'erpowering eye, that turns 
you pale. 
Flashes into the heart: — All sunny 
land 



Of Love ! when I forget you, may I fail 
To say my prayers — but never 

was there planned 
A dress through which the eyes give 

such a volley. 
Excepting the Venetian Fazzioli.^ 



But to our tale : the Donna Inez sent 
Her son to Cadiz only to embark; 
To stay there had not answered her 
intent. 
But why ? — we leave the reader in 
the dark — 
'Twas for a voyage the young man was 
meant, 
As if a Spanish ship were Noah's ark, 
To wean him from the wickedness of 

earth. 
And send him like a Dove of Promise 
forth. 

IX. 

Don Juan bade his valet pack his things 
According to directions, then received 
A lecture and some money: for four 
springs 
He was to travel; and though Inez 
grieved 
(As every kind of parting has its stings). 
She hoped he would improve — per- 
haps believed: 
A letter, too, she gave (he never read it) 
Of good advice — and two or three of 
credit. 

X. 

In the mean time, to pass her hours 
away, 
Brave Inez now set up a Sunday 
school 
For naughty children, who would rather 
play 
(Like truant rogues) the devil, or the 
fool; 
Infants of three years old were taught 
that day. 
Dunces were whipped, or set upon a 
stool : 
The great success of Juan's education 
Spurred her to teach another generation. 

I Fazzioli — literally, little handkerchiefs — 
the veils most availing of St Mark. 



Canto ii.I 



DON JUAN 



Juan embarked — the ship got under 

way, 
The wind was fair, the water passing 

rough ; 

A devil of a sea rolls in that bay. 
As I, who've crossed it oft, know well 

enough ; 
And, standing on the deck, the dashing 

spray 
Flies in one's face, and makes it 

weather-tough : 
And there he stood to take, and take 

again, 
His first — perhaps his last — farewell 

of Spain. 

XII. 

I can't but say it is an awkward sight 
i To see one's native land receding 

through 
The growing waters; it unmans one 

quite. 
Especially when life is rather new: 
I recollect Great Britain's coast looks 

white, 
But almost every other country's blue. 
When gazing on them, mystified by 

distance, 
We enter on our nautical existence. 



So Juan stood, bewildered on the deck : 
The wind sung, cordage strained, and 
sailors swore. 
And the ship creaked, the town became 
a speck, 
From which away so fair and fast they 
I bore. 
The best of remedies is a beef-steak 

Against sea-sickness : try it, Sir, before 
jYou sneer, and I assure you this is 
1 true. 

For I have found it answer — so may 
you. 

XIV. 

Don Juan stood, and, gazing from the 
stern, 
Beheld his native Spain receding far: 
First partings form a lesson hard to 
! learn. 
Even nations feel this when they go 
to war; 



There is a sort of unexpressed concern, 
A kind of shock that sets one's heart 

ajar. 
At leaving even the most unpleasant 

people 
And places — one keeps looking at the 

steeple. 

XV. 

But Juan had got many things to leave. 
His mother, and a mistress, and no 
wife. 
So that he had much better cause to grieve 
Than many persons more advanced 
in life: 
And if we now and then a sigh must 
heave 
At quitting even those we quit in 
strife. 
No doubt we weep for those the heart 

endears — 
That is, till deeper griefs congeal our 
tears. 

XVI. 

So Juan wept, as wept the captive Jews 
By Babel's waters, still remembering 
Sion: 
I'd weep, — but mine is not a weeping 
Muse, 
And such light griefs are not a thing 
to die on; 
Young men should travel, if but to amuse 
Themselves; and the next time their 
servants tie on 
Behind their carriages their new port- 
manteau, 
Perhaps it may be lined with this my 
canto. 

XVII. 

And Juan wept, and much he sighed 
and thought, 
While his salt tears dropped into the 
salt sea, 
"Sweets to the sweet;" (I like so much 
to quote; 
You must excuse this extract, — 'tis 
where she. 
The Queen of Denmark, for Ophelia 
brought 
Flowers to the grave;) and, sobbing 
often, he 
Reflected on his present situation. 
And seriously resolved on reformation. 



I004 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ii. 



" Farewell, my Spain ! a long farewell ! " 
he cried, 
"Perhaps I may revisit thee no more. 
But die, as many an exiled heart hath 
died. 
Of its own thirst to see again thy 
shore : 
Farewell, where Guadalquivir's waters 
glide ! 
Farewell, my mother ! and, since all 
is o'er. 
Farewell, too, dearest Julia ! — (here he 

drew 
Her letter out again, and read it through .) 

XIX. 

''And oh! if e'er I should forget, I 
swear — 
But that's impossible, and cannot 
be — 
Sooner shall this oiae Ocean melt to 
air. 
Sooner shall Earth resolve itself to sea. 
Than I resign thine image, oh, my 
fair! 
Or think of anything, excepting thee; 
A mind diseased no remedy can physic — 
(Here the ship gave a lurch, and he grew 
seasick.) 

XX. 

"Sooner shall Heaven kiss earth — 
(here he fell sicker) 
Oh, Julia ! what is every other 
woe? — 
(For God's sake let me have a glass of 
liquor; 
Pedro, Battista, help me down below.) 
Julia, my love ! — (you rascal, Pedro, 
quicker) — • 
Oh, Julia ! — (this curst vessel pitches 
so) — ■ 
Beloved Julia, hear me still beseeching ! " 
(Here he grew inarticulate with retching.) 



He felt that chilling heaviness of heart. 
Or rather stomach, which, alas ! 
attends, 
Beyond the best apothecary's art. 

The loss of Love, the treachery of 
friends, 



Or death of those we dote on, when a 

part 
Of us dies with them as each fond 

hope ends: 
No doubt he would have been much 

more pathetic, 
But the sea acted as a strong emetic. 

xxn. 

Love's a capricious power : I 've known 
it hold 
Out through a fever caused by its 
own heat, 
But be much puzzled by a cough and 
cold. 
And find a quinsy very hard to treat; 
Against all noble maladies he's bold, 

But vulgar illnesses don't like to meet. 
Nor that a sneeze should interrupt his 

sigh, 
Nor inflammation redden his blind eye. 



But worst of all is nausea, or a pain 

About the lower region of the bowels; 
Love, who heroically breathes a vein. 
Shrinks from the application of hot 
towels, 
And purgatives are dangerous to his 
reign. 
Sea-sickness death : his love was per- 
fect, how else 
Could Juan's passion, while the billows 

roar, 
Resist his stomach, ne'er at sea before ? 



The ship, called the most holy "Trini- 
dada," ^ 
Was steering duly for the port Leg- 
horn; 

' ["With regard to the charges about the Ship- 
wreck, I think that I told you and Mr Hobhouse, 
years ago, that there was not a single circwnstance 
of it not taken from jaci; not, indeed, from any 
single shipwreck, but all from actual facts of 
different wrecks." — Letter to Murray, August 
23, 1 82 1. In the Monthly Magazine, vol. liii. 
(August, 1821, pp. 19-22, and September, 1821, 
pp. 105-100), Byron's indebtedness to Sir G. 
Dalzell's Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea (181 2, 
8vo) is pointed out, and the parallel passages are 
printed in full. See, too. Poetical Works, 1832, 
1833, vol. XV.; Poetical Works, 1837, etc., pp. 
612-620; and Poetical Works, 1898, 1903, vol. 
vi., pp. 88-112.] 



' Canto ii.] 



DON JUAN 



1005 



For there the Spanish family Moncada 
Were settled long ere Juan's sire was 
born : 
They were relations, and for them he 
had a 
Letter of introduction, which the morn 
Of his departure had been sent him by 
His Spanish friends for those in Italy. 



His suite consisted of three servants and 

A tutor, the licentiate Pedrillo, 
A/'ho several languages did understand, 
But now lay sick and speechless on 
his pillow. 
And, rocking in his hammock, longed 
for land. 
His headache being increased by every 
billow; 
And the waves oozing through the port- 
hole made 
His berth a little damp, and him afraid. 

XXVI. 

'Twas not without some reason, for the 

wind 
I Increased at night, until it blew a gale ; 
And though 'twas not much to a naval 
' mind, 
Some landsmen would have looked a 
little pale, 
For sailors are, in fact, a different kind : 
At sunset they began to take in sail, 
For the sky showed it would come on to 

blow, 
And carry away, perhaps, a mast or so. 

XXVII. 

At one o'clock the wind with sudden 

shift 
Threw the ship right into the trough 

of the sea. 
Which struck her aft, and made an 

awkward rift. 
Started the stern-post, also shattered 

the 
Whole of her stern-frame, and, ere she 

could lift 
Herself from out her present jeopardy. 
The rudder tore away: 'twas time to 

sound 
The pumps, and there were four feet 

water found. 



XXVIII. 

One gang of people instantly was put 
Upon the pumps, and the remainder 
set 
To get up part of the cargo, and what 
not; 
But they could not come at the leak 
as yet; 
At last they did get at it really, but 

Still their salvation was an even bet: 
The water rushed through in a way 

quite puzzling. 
While they thrust sheets, shirts, jackets, 
bales of muslin, 



Into the opening; but all such in- 
gredients 
Would have been vain, and they must 
have gone down. 
Despite of all their efforts and expedients, 
But for the pumps: I 'm glad to make 
them known 
To all the brother tars who may have 
need hence. 
For fifty tons of water were upthrown 
By them per hour, and they had all 

been undone, 
But for the maker, Mr Mann, of 
London. 

XXX. 

As day advanced the weather seemed to 

abate. 
And then the leak they reckoned to 

reduce. 
And keep the ship afloat, though three 

feet yet 
Kept two hand- and one chain-pump 

still in use. 
The wind blew fresh again: as it grew 

late 
A squall came on, and while some 

guns broke loose, 
A gust — which all descriptive power 

transcends — 
Laid with one blast the ship on her 

beam ends. 

XXXI. 

There she lay, motionless, and seemed 
upset; 
The water left the hold, and washed 
the decks, 



ioo6 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ii. 



And made a scene men do not soon 

forget; 
For they remember battles, fires, and 

wrecks, 
Or any other thing that brings regret. 
Or breaks their hopes, or hearts, or 

heads, or necks: 
Thus drownings are much talked of by 

the divers. 
And swimmers, who may chance to be 

survivors. 

XXXII. 

Immediately the masts were cut away, 
Both main and mizen ; first the mizen 

went, 
The main-mast followed: but the ship 

still lay 
Like a mere log, and bafiied our in- 
tent. 
Foremast and bowsprit were cut down, 

and they 
Eased her at last (although we never 

meant 
To part with all till every hope was 

blighted), 
And then with violence the old ship 

righted. 

XXXIII. 

It may be easily supposed, while this 
Was going on, some people were un- 
quiet. 
That passengers would find it much 
amiss 
To lose their lives, as well as spoil 
their diet; 
That even the able seaman, deeming his 
Days nearly o'er, might be disposed 
to riot, 
As upon such occasions tars will ask 
For grog, and sometimes drink rum 
from the cask. 



There's nought, no doubt, so much the 
spirit calms 
As rum and true religion : thus it was. 
Some plundered, some drank spirits, 
some sung psalms. 
The high wind made the treble, and as 
bass 
The hoarse harsh waves kept time; 
fright cured the qualms 



Of all the luckless landsmen's sea-sick 

maws : 
Strange sounds of wailing, blasphemy, 

devotion. 
Clamoured in chorus to the roaring 

Ocean. 

XXXV. 

Perhaps more mischief had been done, 
but for 
Our Juan, who, with sense beyond his 
years. 
Got to the spirit-room, and stood before 
It with a pair of pistols; and their 
fears. 
As if Death were more dreadful by his 
door 
Of fire than water, spite of oaths and 
tears, 
Kept still aloof the crew, who, ere they 

sunk. 
Thought it would be becoming to die 
drunk. ' - - ' i fc''^\ 

(^j^S" XXXVI.- -/ <^^^ ' 

"Give us more grog," they cried, "for 
it will be 
All one an hour hence." Juan an- 
swered, "No! 
'Tis true that Death awaits both you 
and me. 
But let us die like men, not sink below 
Like brutes:" — and thus his danger- 
ous post kept he. 
And none liked to anticipate the 
blow ; 
And even Pedrillo, his most reverend 

tutor. 
Was for some rum a disappointed suitor. 



The good old gentleman was quite 
aghast. 
And made a loud and pious lamenta- 
tion; 
Repented all his sins, and made a 
last 
Irrevocable vow of reformation; 
Nothing should tempt him more (this 
peril past) 
To quit his academic occupation. 
In cloisters of the classic Salamanca, 
To follow Juan's wake, like Sancho 
Panca. 



Canto ii.] 



DON JUAN 



1007 



XXXVIII. 

But now there came a flash of hope once 

more; 
Day broke, and the wind lulled : the 

masts were gone, 
The leak increased; shoals round her, 

but no shore. 
The vessel swam, yet still she held her 

own. 
They tried the pumps again, and though, 

before. 
Their desperate efforts seemed all 

useless grown, 
lA glimpse of sunshine set some hands 

to bale — 
The stronger pumped, the weaker 

thrummed a sail. 

XXXIX. 

Under the vessel's keel the sail was 
passed, 
And for the moment it had some effect ; 
But with a leak, and not a stick of mast. 
Nor rag of canvas, what could they 
expect ? 
But still 'tis best to struggle to the last, 
'Tis never too late to be wholly 
wrecked : 
And though 'tis true that man can only 

die once, 
'Tis not so pleasant in the Gulf of Lyons. 



There winds and waves had hurled 
them, and from thence. 
Without their will, they carried them 
away; 
For they were forced with steering to 
dispense. 
And never had as yet a quiet day 
On which they might repose, or even 
commence 
A jurymast or rudder, or could say 
The ship would swim an hour, which, 

by good luck. 
Still swam — though not exactly like a 
duck. 

XLI. 

The wind, in fact, perhaps, was rather 
less, 
But the ship laboured so, they scarce 
could hope 



To weather out much longer; the 

distress 
Was also great with which they had 

to cope 
For want of water, and their solid mess 
Was scant enough: in vain the 

telescope 
Was used — nor sail nor shore appeared 

in sight. 
Nought but the heavy sea, and coming 

night. 

XLII. 

Again the weather threatened, — again 
blew 
A gale, and in the fore and after-hold 
Water appeared; yet, though the people 
knew 
All this, the most were patient, and 
some bold. 
Until the chains and leathers were worn 
through 
Of all our pumps : — a wreck com- 
plete she rolled. 
At mercy of the waves, whose mercies 

are 
Like human beings during civil war. 

XLIII. 

Then came the carpenter, at last, with 
tears 
In his rough eyes, and told the cap- 
tain, he 

Could do no more: he was a man in 
years. 
And long had voyaged through many 
a stormy sea. 

And if he wept at length they were not 
fears 
That made his eyelids as a woman's 
be. 

But he, poor fellow, had a wife and 
children, • — 

Two things for dying people quite be- 
wildering. 

XLIV. 

The ship was evidently settling now 
Fast by the head; and, all distinction 
gone. 
Some went to prayers again, and made 
a vow 
Of candles to their saints — but there 
were nofie 



DOX JUAN 



[Canto ri. 



To pay them \Wth; and some looked 

o'er the bow; 
Some hoisted out the boats; and there 

was one 
That begged Pedrillo for an absolution, 
Who told him to be damned — in his 

confusion. 

XLV. 

Some lashed them in their hammocks; 
some put on 
Their best clothes, as if going to a fair; 
Some cursed the day on which they saw 
the Sun, 
And gnashed their teeth, and, howl- 
ing, tore their hair; 
And others went on as they had begun, 
Getting the boats out, being well 
aware 
That a tight boat will Hve in a rough 

sea. 
Unless -n-ith breakers close beneath her 
lee. 

XL VI. 

The worst of all was, that in their 
condition, 
Having been several days in great 
distress, 
'Twas difficult to get out such provision 
As now might render their long suffer- 
ing less: 
Men, even when dying, dislike inanition; 
Their stock was damaged by the 
weather's stress: 
Two casks of biscuit, and a keg of butter, 
Were all that could be thrown into the 
cutter. 



But in the long-boat they contrived to 
stow 
Some pounds of bread, though injured 
by the wet; 
Water, a twenty-gallon cask or so; 
Six flasks of wine ; and they contrived 
to get 
A portion of their beef up from below, 
And \\ith a piece of pork, moreover, 
met. 
But scarce enough to serve them for a 

luncheon — 
Then there was rum, eight gallons in a 
puncheon. 



The other boats, the vawl and pinnace, 

had 
Been stove in the beginning of the 

gale; 
And the long-boat's condition was buf 

bad, 
As there were but two blankets for a 

sail. 
And one oar for a mast, which a voung 

lad 
Threw in by good luck over the ship 

rail; 
And two boats could not hold, far less' 

be stored. 
To save one half the people then o; 

board. 






'Twas twilight, and the sunless day 
went down 
Over the waste of waters; like a veil, 
Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose ' 
the frown 
Of one whose hate is masked but t 
assail. 
Thus to their hopeless eyes the night 
was shown, 
And grimly darkled o'er the faces 
pale. 
And the dim desolate deep: twelve day 

had Fear 
Been their familiar, and now Death was 
here. 

L. 

Some trial had been making at a raft. 

With Httle hope in such a rolling sea, I 
A sort of thing at which one would have 1) 
laughed, '' 

If any laughter at such times could be. 
Unless with people who too much have 
quaffed, '' 

And have a kind of wild and horrid 
glee. 
Half epileptical, and half hysterical: • — 
Their preservation would have been a 
miracle. 



At half-past eight o'clock, booms, hen- 
coops, spars, 
And all things, for a chance, had been 
cast loose. 



AXTO II.] 



DOX J VAX 



1C09 



That still could keep afloat the struggling 
tars, 
For yet they strove, although of no 
great use: 
■Jhere was no light in heaven but a few 
stars, 
The boats put off o'ercrowded with 
their crews; 
^e gave a heel, and then a lurch to port, 
nd, going down head foremost — sunk, 
in short. 

Ln. 

'then rose from sea to sky the wild 
farewell — 
Then shrieked the timid, and stood 
still the brave, — 
Jfhen some leaped overboard with 
dreadful yell, 
As eager to anticipate their grave; 
\nd the sea vawned around her like a 
hell. 
And down she sucked ^s^ith her the 
whirling wave, 
Like one who grapples x^ith his enemy, 
■^nd strives to strangle him before he die. 

j Lin. 

f.nd first one universal shriek there 
rushed, 
Louder than the loud Ocean, hke a 
crash 
>f echoing thimder; and then all was 
hushed, 
Save the wild wind and the remorse- 
less dash 
)f billows; but at intervals there 
gushed. 
Accompanied by a convulsive splash, 
V solitary shriek, the bubbling cry 
Df some strong swimmer in his agony. 

LIV. 

The boats, as stated, had got off before, 
.\nd in them crowded several of the 
crew ; 

^nd yet their present hope was hardly 
more 
Than what it had been, for so strong 
it blew 
There was slight chance of reaching any 
shore ; 
And then they were too many, though 
so few — 

3T 



Nine in the cutter, thirty in the boat. 
Were counted in them when they got 
afloat. 

LV. 

All the rest perished; near two hundred 
souls 
Had left their bodies; and what's 
worse, alas ! 
When over Catholics the Ocean rolls. 
They must wait several weeks before 
a mass 
Takes off one peck of purgatorial coals. 
Because, till people know what's 
come to pass. 
They won't lay out their money on the 

dead — 
It costs three francs for every mass that's 
said. 

LVI. 

Juan got into the long-boat, and there 
I Contrived to help Pedrillo to a place; 
It seemed as if they had exchanged their 
care, 
For Juan wore the magisterial face 
Which courage gives, while poor 
Pedrillo's pair 
Of eyes were crying for their owner's 
case: 
Battista, though, (a name called shortlv 

Tita), 
Was lost by getting at some aqua-Wta. 



Pedro, his valet, too, he tried to save. 
But the same cause, conducive to his 
loss. 
Left him so drunk, he jumped into the 
wave. 
As o'er the cutter's edge he tried to 
cross, 
And so he found a wine-and-watery 
grave; 
They could not rescue him although 
so close. 
Because the sea ran higher every minute, 
And for the boat — the crew kept crowd- 
ing in it. 

LVIII. 

A small old spaniel, — which had been 
Don Jose's, 
His father's, whom he loved, as >-e 

mav think. 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ii. 



For on such things the memory reposes 
With tenderness — stood howling on 

the brink, 
Knowing, (dogs have such intellectual 

noses !) 
No doubt, the vessel was about to 

sink; 
And Juan caught him up, and ere he 

stepped 
Off threw him in, then after him he 

leaped. 

LIX. 

He also stuffed his money where he 
could 
About his person, and Pedrillo's too, 
Who let him do, in fact, whate'er he 
would. 
Not knowing what himself to say, or 
do, 
As every rising wave his dread renewed; 
But Juan, trusting they might still get 
through, 
And deeming there were remedies for 

any ill, 
Thus re-embarked his tutor and his 
spaniel. 

fOLflV/t- L^- 

'Twas a rough night, and blew so stifHy 

yet, 
That the sail was becalmed between 

tHe seas. 
Though on the wave's high top too 

much to set. 
They dared not take it in for all the 

'breeze: 
Each sea curled o'er the stern, and kept 

-them wet. 
And made them bale without a 

moment's ease, 
So that themselves as well as hopes were 

damped, 
And the poor little cutter quickly 

swamped. 

LXI. 

Nine souls more went in her: the long- 
boat still 
Kept above water, with an oar for 
mast, 
Two blankets stitched together, an- 
swering ill 
Instead of sail, were to the oar made 
fast; 



Though everv wave rolled menacing to 
fill. 
And present peril all before surpassed. 
They grieved for those who perished ^^ 

with the cutter, 
And also for the biscuit-casks and butter. 



The sun rose red and fiery, a sure sijn 
Of the continuance of the gale : to run 
Before the sea until it should grow fire. 
Was all that for the present could oe 
done : 
A few tea-spoonfuls of their rum a;id 
wine 
Were served out to the people, who 
begun 
To faint, and damaged bread wet, 

through the bags, 
And most of them had little clothes but 
rags. 

LXIII. 

They counted thirty, crowded in a 

space 
Which left scarce room for motion or 

exertion ; 
They did their best to modify their case, 
One half sate up, though numbed 

with the immersion. 
While t'other half wer'e laid down in i 

their place, 
At watch and watch; thus, shivering 

like the tertian 
Ague in its cold fit, they filled their 

boat. 
With nothing but the sky for a great 

coat. 

LXIV. 

'Tis very certain the desire of life 
Prolongs it: this is obvious to phy- 
sicians. 
When patients, neither plagued with, 
friends nor wife. 
Survive through very desperate con- 
ditions. 
Because they still can hope, nor shines 
the knife 
Nor shears of Atropos before their 
visions: 
Despair of all recovery spoils longevity, 
And makes men's misery of alarming 
brevity. 



i 



ANTO II.] 



DON JUAN 



Tis said that persons living on annuities 
Are longer lived than others, — God 
knows why, 
L^less to plague the grantors, — yet so 
true it is, 
That some, I really think, do never die : 
Cf any creditors the worst a Jew it is, 
And that's their mode of furnishing 
supply: 
my young days they lent me cash 
that way, 
'hich I found very troublesome to pay. 



is thus with people in an open boat, 
They live upon the love of Life, and 
I bear 

More than can be believed, or even 
thought, 
And stand like' rocks the tempest's 
wear and tear; 
And hardship still has been the sailor's 

lot 
I Since Noah's ark went cruising here 

and there; 
She had a curious crew as well as cargo, 
like the first old Greek privateer, the 
I Argo. 

LX\T[I. 

But man is a carnivorous production, 
And must have meals, at least one 
meal a day; 
He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon 
suction. 
But, like the shark and tiger, must 
have prey; 
Although his anatomical construction 

Bears vegetables, in a grumbling way. 
Your labouring people think, beyond 

all question, 
Beef, veal, and mutton, better for 
digestion. 

LXVIII. 

And thus it was with this our hapless 
crew; 
For on the third day there came on 
a calm, 
And though at first their strength it 
might renew. 
And lying on their weariness like 
balm. 



Lulled them like turtles sleeping on the 
blue 
Of Ocean, when they woke they felt 
a qualm. 

And fell all ravenously on their pro- 
vision, 

Instead of hoarding it with due pre- 
cision. 

LXIX. 

The consequence was easily foreseen — 
They ate up all they had, and drank 
their wine. 
In spite of all remonstrances, and then 
On what, in fact, next day were they 
to dine ? 
They hoped the wind would rise, these 
foolish men ! 
And carry them to shore; these hopes 
were fine, 
But as they had but one oar, and that 

brittle, 
It would have been more wise to save 
their victual. 



The fourth day came, but not a breath 

of air. 
And Ocean slumbered Hke an un- 

weaned child: 
The fifth day, and their boat lay floating 

there. 
The sea and sky were blue, and clear, 

and mild — 
With their one oar (I wish they had 

,had a pair) 
What could they do? and Hunger's 

rage grew wild: 
So Juan's spaniel, spite of his entreating. 
Was killed, and portioned out for present 

eating. 

LXXI. 

On the sixth day they fed upon his hide, 
And Juan, who had still refused, 
because 
The creature was his father's dog that 
died, 
Now feeling all the vulture in his jaws. 
With some remorse received (though 
first denied) 
As a great favour one of the fore-paws. 
Which he divided wdth Pedrillo, who 
Devoured it, longing for the other too. 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ii. 



LXXII. 

The seventh day, and no wind — the 

burning sun 
Blistered and scorched, and, stag- 
nant on the sea. 
They lay like carcasses; and hope was 

none, 
Save in the breeze that came not: 

savagely 
They glared upon each other — all was 

done. 
Water, and wine, and food, — and 

you might see 
The longings of the cannibal arise 
(Although they spoke not) in their 

wolfish eves. 



At length one whispered his companion, 

who 
Whispered another, and thus it went 

round, 
And then into a hoarser murmur grew, 
An ominous, and wild, and desperate 

sound ; 
And when his comrade's thought each 

sufferer knew, 
'Twas but his own, suppressed till 

now, he found: 
And out they spoke of lots for flesh and 

blood. 
And who should die to be his fellow's 

food. 

LXXIV. 

But ere they came to this, they that day 

shared 
Some leathern caps, and what re- 
mained of shoes; 
And then they looked around them, 

and despaired. 
And none to be the sacrifice would 

choose; 
At length the lots were torn up, and 

prepared. 
But of materials that must shock the 

Muse — 
Having no paper, for the want of better, 
They took by force from Juan Julia's 

letter. 

LXXV. 

The lots were made, and marked, and 
mixed, and handed. 



In silent horror, and their distribution 
Lulled even the savage hunger which 
demanded. 
Like the Promethean vulture, this 
pollution; 
None in particular had sought or 
planned it, 
'Twas Nature gnawed them to this 
resolution. 
By which none were permitted to be nf 

neuter — 
And the lot fell on Juan's luckless tutor. 

LXXVI. 

He but requested to be bled to death : 
The surgeon had his instruments, 
and bled 
Pedrillo, and so gently ebbed his breath, 
You hardly could perceive when he 
was dead. 
He died as born, a Catholic in faith. 
Like most in the belief in which 
they're bred. 
And first a little crucifix he kissed, 
And then held out his jugular and 
wrist. 

LXXVII. 

The surgeon, as there was no other fee, 
Had his first choice of morsels for 
his pains; 
But being thirstiest at the moment, he 
Preferred a draught from the fast- 
flowing veins: 
Part was divided, part thrown in the sea, 
And such things as the entrails and 
the brains 
Regaled two sharks, who followed o'er 

the billow — 
The sailors ate the rest of poor Pedrillo. 



The sailors ate him, all save three or ji 
four, ■* 

Who were not quite so fond of animal 
food; 
To these was added Juan, who, before 
Refusing his own spaniel, hardly 
could 
Feel now his appetite increased much 
more; 
'Twas not to be expected that he 
should, 



DON JUAN 



1013 



)ven in extremity of their disaster, 
\ )ine with them on his pastor and his 
master. 

LXXIX. 

i^'was better that he did not; for, in 

fact. 
The consequence was awful in the 
extreme; 

"|)r they, who were most ravenous in 

the act, 

Went raging mad — Lord ! how they 
did blaspheme ! 

ilid foam, and roll, with strange con- 
vulsions racked, 
Drinking salt- water like a mountain- 
stream. 

Tearing, and grinning, howling, screech- 
ing, swearing, 

Viid, with hyaena-laughter, died despair- 
ing. 



eir numbers were much thinned by 

this infliction. 
And all the rest were thin enough, 
Heaven knows; 
And some of them had lost their recol- 
lection. 
Happier than they who still perceived 
their woes; 
But others pondered on a new dissec- 
tion, 
As if not warned sufficiently by 
those 
Who had already perished, suffering 

madly, 
For having used their appetites so sadly. 

LXXXI. 

And next they thought upon the master's 
mate. 
As fattest; but he saved himself, 
because. 
Besides being much averse from such 
a fate. 
There were some other reasons: the 
first was. 
He had been rather indisposed of late; 
And — that which chiefly proved his 
saving clause — 
Was a small present made to hir^ at 

Cadiz, 
By general subscription of the ladies. 



Of poor Pedrillo something still re- 
mained. 
But was used sparingly, — some 
were afraid. 

And others still their appetites con- 
strained. 
Or but at times a little supper made; 

All except Juan, who throughout ab- 
stained, 
Chewing a piece of bamboo, and 
some lead : 

At length they caught two Boobies, 
and a Noddy, 

And then they left off eating the dead 
body. 

LXXXIII. 

And if Pedrillo's fate should shocking 
be, 
Remember Ugolino condescends 
To eat the head of his arch-enemy 

The moment after he politely ends 
His tale: if foes be food in Hell, at sea 
'Tis surely fair to dine upon our 
friends. 
When Shipwreck's short allowance 

grows too scanty. 
Without being much more horrible 
than Dante. 



And the same night there fell a shower 
of rain. 
For which their mouths gaped, like 
the cracks of earth 
When dried to summer dust ; till taught 
by pain. 
Men really know not what good 
water's worth ; 
If you had been in Turkey or in Spain, 
Or with a famished boat's-crew had 
your berth. 
Or in the desert heard the camel's bell. 
You'd wish yourself where Truth is — 
in a well. 

LXXXV. 

It poured down torrents, but they were 

no richer 
Until they found a ragged piece of 

sheet. 
Which served them as a sort of spongy 

pitcher, 



IOI4 



DON JUAN 



[Canto u. 



And when they deemed its moisture 
was complete, 
They wrung it out, and though a thirsty 
ditcher 
Might not have thought the scanty 
draught so sweet 
As a full pot of porter, to their thinking 
They ne'er till now had known the 
joys of drinking. 

LXXXVI. 

And their baked lips, with many a 

bloody crack, 
Sucked in the moisture, which like 

nectar streamed; 
Their throats were ovens, their swoln 

tongues were black. 
As the rich man's in Hell, who vainly 

screamed 
To beg the beggar, who could not rain 

back 
A drop of dew, when every drop had 

seemed 
To taste of Heaven — K this be true, 

indeed. 
Some Christians have a comfortable 

creed. 

LXXXVII. 

There were two fathers in this ghastly 

crew, 
And with them their two sons, of 

whom the one 
Was more robust and hardy to the 

view, 
But he died early; and when he was 

gone, 
His nearest messmate told his sire, 

who threw 
One glance at him, and said, 

"Heaven's will be done! 
I can do nothing," and he saw him 

thrown 
Into the deep without a tear or groan. 

Lxxxvm. 

The other father had a weaklier child. 
Of a soft cheek, and aspect delicate; 
But the boy bore up long, and with a 
mild 
And patient spirit held aloof his 
fate; 
Little he said, and now and then he 
smiled. 



As if to win a part from off the weight 
He saw increasing on his father's 

heart. 
With the deep deadly thought, that they 

must part. 

LXXXIX. 

And o'er him bent his sire, and neViT 
raised 
His eyes from off his face, but wiped 
the foam 
From his pale lips, and ever on him 
gazed. 
And when the wished-for shower i.t 
length was come, 
And the boy's eyes, which the dull film 
half glazed, 
Brightened, and for a moment seemed 
to roam. 
He squeezed from out a rag some drops 

of rain 
Into his dying child's mouth — but in , 
vain. 

xc. 

The boy expired — the father held the 
clay. 
And looked upon it long, and when at 
last 
Death left no doubt, and the dead 
burthen lay 
Stiff on his heart, and pulse and ho]/e 
were past. 
He watched it wistfully, until away 
'Twas borne by the rude wave 
wherein 'twas cast; 
Then he himself sunk down all dumb 

and shivering. 
And gave no sign of life, save his limbs 
quivering. 

xci. 

Now overhead a rainbow, bursting 
through 
The scattering clouds, shone, span- 
ning the dark sea. 
Resting its bright base on the quivering 
blue; 
And all within its arch appeared lo 
be 
CI 'arer than that without, and its wide 
hue 
Waxed broad and wavering, like a 
banner free, 



ICaxto II.] 



DOX JUAN 



[017 



To show its boiling surf and bounding 

spray, 
But finding no place for their landing 

better, 
They ran the boat for shore, — and 

overset her. 

cv. 

But in his native stream, the Guadal- 
quivir, 
Juan to lave his youthful limbs was 

wont ; 
And having learnt to swim in that sweet 

river, 
Had often turned the art to some 

account : 
A better swimmer you could scarce see 

ever. 
He could, perhaps, have passed the 

Hellespont, 
As once (a feat on which ourselves we 

prided) 
Leander, Mr Ekenhead, and I did. 

cvi. 

So here, though faint, emaciated, and 

stark. 
He buoyed his boyish limbs, and 

strove to ply 
With the quick wave, and gain, ere it 

was dark, 
The beach which lay before him, 

high and dry : 
The greatest danger here was from 

a shark, 
That carried off his neighbour by 

the thigh; 
As for the other two, they could not 

swim. 
So nobody arrived on shore but him. 

CVII. 

Nor yet had he arrived but for the oar, 
Which, providentially for him, was 
washed 
Just as his feeble arms could strike no 
more. 
And the hard wave o'erwhelmed him 
as 'twas dashed 
Within his grasp; he clung to it, and 
sore 
The waters beat while he thereto was 
lashed; 



At last, with swimming, wading, scram- 
bling, he 

Rolled on the beach, half-senseless, 
from the sea: 

CVIII. 

There, breathless, with his digging 
nails he clung 
Fast to the sand, lest the returning 
wave. 
From whose reluctant roar his life he 
wrung, 
Should suck him back to her insatiate 
grave : 
And there he lay, full length, where he 
was flung, 
Before the entrance of a cliff-worn 
cave. 
With just enough of life to feel its 

pain, 
And deem that it was saved, perhaps, 
in vain. 

Cix. 

With slow and staggering effort he 
arose. 
But sunk again upon his bleeding 
knee 
And quivering hand; and then he 
looked for those 
Who long had been his mates upon 
the sea; 
But none of them appeared to share his 
woes. 
Save one, a corpse, from out the 
famished three, 
Who died two days before, and now 

had found 
An unknown barren beach for burial 
ground. 

ex. 

And as he gazed, his dizzy brain spun 
fast. 
And down he sunk; and as he sunk, 
the sand 
Swam round and round, and all his 
senses passed : 
He fell upon his side, and his stretched 
hand 
Drooped dripping on the oar (their 
jury mast), 
And, like a withered lily, on the 
land 



ioi8 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ii 



His slender frame and pallid aspect lay, 
As fair a thing as e'er was formed of 
clay- 

CXI. 

How long in his damp trance young 

Juan lay 
He knew not, for the earth was gone 

for him, 
And Time had nothing more of night 

nor day 
For his congealing blood, and senses 

dim; 
And how this heavy f aintness passed away 
He knew not, till each painful pulse 

and limb, 
And tingling vein, seemed throbbing 

back to life. 
For Death, though vanquished, still 

retired with strife. 

CXII. 

His eyes he opened, shut, again un- 
closed. 
For all was doubt and dizziness; 

he thought 
He still was in the boat, and had but 

dozed. 
And felt again with his despair o'er- 

wrought, 
And wished it Death in which he had 

reposed. 
And then once more his feelings back 

were brought, 
And slowly by his swimming eyes was 

seen 
A lovely female face of seventeen. 



'Twas bending close o'er his, and the 
small mouth 
Seemed almost prying into his for 
breath ; 
And chafing him, the soft warm hand 
of youth 
Recalled his answering spirits back 
from Death : 
And, bathing his chill temples, tried to 
soothe 
Each pulse to animation, till beneath 
Its gentle touch and trembling care, 

a sigh 
To these kind efforts made a low reply. 



Then was the cordial poured, and 
mantle flung 
Around his scarce-clad limbs; and 
the fair arm 
Raised higher the faint head which 
o'er it hung; 
And her transparent cheek, all pure 
and warm. 
Pillowed his death-like forehead; then 
she wrung 
His dewy curls, long drenched by every 
storm ; 
And watched with eagerness each throb 

that drew 
A sigh from his heaved bosom — and 
hers, too. 

cxv. 

And lifting him with care into the cave, 
The gentle girl, and her attendant, — 
one 
Young, yet her elder, and of brow less 
grave, 
And more robust of figure, — then 
begun 
To kindle fire, and as the new flames 
gave 
Light to the rocks that roofed them, 
which the sun 
Had never seen, the maid, or whatsoe'er 
She was, appeared distinct, and tall, and 
fair. 

CXVI. 

Her brow was overhung with coins of 

gold. 
That sparkled o'er the auburn of her 

hair — 
Her clustering hair, whose longer locks 

were rolled 
In braids behind; and though her 

stature were 
Even of the highest for a female 

mould. 
They nearly reached her heel; and in 

her air 
There was a something which bespoke 

command. 
As one who was a Lady in the land. 

CXVII. 

Her hair, I said, was auburn; but her 
eyes 



Canto ii/)' 



.i>N^ 



DON JUAN 



1019 



Were black as Death, their lashes the 
same hue, 

Of downcast length, in whose silk 
shadow . lies 
Deepest attraction; for when to the 
view 
Forth from its raven fringe the full 
glance flies, 
Ne'er with such force the swiftest 
arrow flew; 
'Tis as the snake late coiled, who pours 

his length, 
And hurls at once his venom and his 
strength. 

CXVIII. 

Her brow was white and low, her cheek's 
pure dye 
Like twilight rosy still with the set sun ; 
Short upper lip — sweet lips ! that make 
us sigh 
Ever to have seen such; for she was 
one 
Fit for the model of a statuary 

(A race of mere impostors, when all's 
done — 
I've seen much finer women, ripe and 

real. 
Than all the nonsense of their stone 
ideal). 

cxix. 

I'll tell you why I say so, for 'tis just 
One should not rail without a decent 
cause: 
There was an Irish lady,^ to whose bust 
I ne'er saw justice done, and yet she 
was 
A frequent model; and if e'er she must 
Yield to stern Time and Nature's 
wrinkling laws. 
They will destroy a face which mortal 

thought 
Ne'er compassed, nor less mortal chisel 
wrought. 

cxx. 

And such was she, the lady of the cave : 
Her dress was very different from the 
Spanish, 

' [Probably that " Alpha and Omega of 
Beauty," Lady Adelaide Forbes (daughter of 
George, sixth Earl of Granard), whom Byron 
compared to the Apollo Belvidere. See Letters, 
1898, ii. 230, note 3.] 



Simpler, and yet of colours not so grave; 
For, as you know, the Spanish women 
banish 
Bright hues when out of doors, and yet, 
while wave 
Around them (what I hope will never 
vanish) 
The basquina and the mantilla, they 
Seem at the same time mystical and gay. 

cxxi. 

But with our damsel this was not the 

case: 
Her dress was many-coloured, finely 

spun; 
Her locks curled negligently round her 

face, 
But through them gold and gems 

profusely shone: 
Her girdle sparkled, and the richest 

lace 
Flowed in her veil, and many a 

precious stone 
Flashed on her little hand; but, what 

was shocking, 
Her small snow feet had slippers, but no 

stocking. 

CXXII. 

The other female's dress was not unlike. 

But of inferior materials: she 

Had not so many ornaments to strike, 

Her hair had silver only, bound to be 

Her dowry; and her veil, in form alike. 

Was coarser; and her air, though 

firm, less free; 

Her hair was thicker, but less long ; her 

eyes 
As black, but quicker, and of smaller 
size. 

CXXIII. 

And these two tended him, and cheered 
him both 
With food and raiment, and those soft 
attentions. 
Which are — as I must own — of female 
growth. 
And have ten thousand delicate inven- 
tions: 
They made a most superior mess of 
'broth, 
A thing which poesy but seldom 
mentions, 



DON JUAN 



[Canto n. 



But the best dish that e'er was cooked 

since Homer's 
Achilles ordered dinner for new comers.^ 

cxxiv. 
I'll tell you who they were, this female 
pair, 
Lest they should seem Princesses in 
disguise; 
Besides, I hate all mystery, and that 
air 
Of clap-trap, which your recent poets 
prize ; 
And so, in short, the girls they really 
were 
They shall appear before your curious 
eyes. 
Mistress and maid; the first was only 

daughter 
Of an old man, who lived upon the water. 

cxxv. 

A fisherman he had been in his youth, 
And still a sort of fisherman was he; 

But other speculations were, in sooth. 
Added to his connection with the sea, 

Perhaps not so respectable, in truth: 
A little smuggling, and some piracy. 

Left him, at last, the sole of many 
masters 

Of an ill-gotten milUon of piastres. 



A fisher, therefore, was he, — though of 
men. 
Like Peter the Apostle, and he fished 
For wandering merchant-vessels, now 
and then. 
And sometimes caught as many as he 
wished ; 
The cargoes he confiscated, and gain 
He sought in the slave-market too, 
and dished 
Full many a morsel for that Turkish 

trade. 
By which, no doubt, a good deal may be 
made. 

' [" When Ajax, Ulysses, and Phoenix stand 
before Achilles, he rushes forth to greet them, 
brings them into the tent, directs Patroclus to 
mix the wine, cuts up the meat, dresses it, ancl 
sets it before the ambassadors" {Iliad, ix. 193, 
sq.) — Study of the Classics, by H. N. Coleridge, 
1830, p. 71.] 



He was a Greek, and on his isle had 
built 
(One of the wild and smaller Cyclades) 
A very handsome house from out his 
guilt, 
And there he Uved exceedingly at ease; 
Heaven knows what cash he got, or 
blood he spilt, 
A sad old fellow was he, if you please; 
But this I know, it was a spacious 

building. 
Full of barbaric carving, paint, and 
gilding. 

CXXVIII. 

He had an only daughter, called Haidee, 
The greatest heiress of the Eastern 
Isles; . 
Besides, so very beautiful was she, 
Her dowry was as nothing to her 
smiles : 
Still in her teens, and like a lovely tree 
She grew to womanhood, and between 
whiles 
Rejected several suitors, just to learn 
How to accept a better in his turn. 

CXXIX. 

And walking out upon the beach, below 
The cliff, towards sunset, on that day 
she found. 
Insensible, — not dead, but nearly so, — 
Don Juan, almost famished, and half 
drowned ; 
But being naked, she was shocked, you 
know, 
Yet deemed herself in common pity 
bound. 
As far as in her lay, "to take him in, 
A stranger" dying — with so white a 
skin. 

CXXX. 

But taking him into her father's house 
Was not exactly the best way to save, 

But like conveying to the cat the 
mouse. 
Or people in a trance into their grave; 

Because the good old man had so much 

" POVS," 

Unlike the honest Arab thieves so 
brave. 



Canto il] 



DON JUAN 



He would have hospitably cured the 

stranger, 
And sold him instantly when out of 

danger. 

CXXXI. 

And therefore, with her maid, she 

thought it best 
(A virgin always on her maid relies) 
To place him in the cave for present 

rest: 
And when, at last, he opened his black 

eyes. 
Their charity increased about their 

guest ; 
And their compassion grew to such a 

size, 
It opened half the turnpike-gates to 

Heaven — 
(St Paul says, 'tis the toll which must 

be given). 

CXXXII. 

They made a fire, — but such a fire as 

they 
Upon the moment could contrive with 

such 
Materials as were cast up round the 

bay, — 
Some broken planks, and oars, that 

to the touch 
Were nearly tinder, since, so long they 

lay, 
A mast was almost crumbled to a 

crutch ; 
But, by God's grace, here wrecks were 

in such plenty. 
That there was fuel to have furnished 

twenty. 

CXXXIII. 

He had a bed of furs, and a pelisse. 
For Haidee stripped her sables off to 
make 
His couch; and, that he might be more 
at ease. 
And warm, in case by chance he 
should awake. 
They also gave a petticoat apiece. 
She and her maid, — and promised 
by daybreak 
To pay him a fresh visit, with a 

dish 
For breakfast, of eggs, coffee, bread, and 
fish. 



CXXXIV. 

And thus they left him to his lone 
repose : 
Juan slept like a top, or like the dead, 
Who sleep at last, perhaps (God only 
knows). 
Just for the present : and in his lulled 
head 
Not even a. vision of his former woes 
Throbbed in accursed dreams, which 
sometimes spread 
Unwelcome visions of our former years. 
Till the eye, cheated, opens thick with 
tears. 



Young Juan slept all dreamless : — but 

the maid, 
Who smoothed his pillow, as she left 

the den 
Looked back upon him, and a moment 

stayed 
And turned, believing that he called 

again. 
He slumbered ; yet she thought, at least 

she said 
(The heart will slip, even as the 

tongue and pen), 
He had pronounced her name — but she 

forgot 
That at this moment Juan knew it not. 



And pensive to her father's house she 
went. 
Enjoining silence strict to Zoe, who 
Better than her knew what, in fact, she 
meant. 
She being wiser by a year or two: 
A year or two's an age when rightly 
spent. 
And Zoe spent hers, as most women 
do, 
In gaining all that useful sort of know- 
ledge 
Which is acquired in Nature's good old 
college. 

CXXXVII. 

The morn broke, and found Juan slum- 
bering still 
Fast in his cave, and nothing clashed 
upon 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ii. 



His rest; the rushing of the neighbour- 
ing rill, 
And the young beams of the excluded 
Sun, 

Troubled him not, and he might sleep 
his fill; 
And need he had of slumber yet, for 
none 

Had suffered more — his hardships were 
comparative 

To those related in my grand-dad's 
"Narrative." ^ 

CXXXVIII. 

Not so Haidee: she sadly tossed and 

tumbled, 
And started from her sleep, and, turn- 
ing o'er. 
Dreamed of a thousand wrecks, o'er 

which she stumbled. 
And handsome corpses strewed upon 

the shore; 
And woke her maid so early that she 

grumbled. 
And called her father's old slaves up, 

who swore 
In several oaths — Armenian, Turk, 

and Greek — 
They knew not what to think of such a 

freak. 

CXXXIX. 

But up she got, and up she made them 

get, 
With some pretence about the Sun, 

that makes 
Sweet skies just when he rises, or is set ; 
And 'tis, no doubt, a sight to see 

when breaks 
Bright Phoebus, while the mountains 

still are wet 
With mist, and every bird with him 

awakes. 
And night is flung off like a mourning 

suit 
Worn for a husband, — or some other 

brute. 



' [Entitled "/I Narrative of the Honourable 
John Byron (Commodore in a late expedition 
round the world), containing an account of the 
great distresses suffered by himself and his 
companions on the coast of Patagonia, from the 
year 1740, till their arrival in Englancl, 1746. 
Written by Himself," London, ijbS, 40.] 



I say, the Sun is a most glorious 
sight, 
I've seen him rise full oft, indeed of 
late 
I have sat up on purpose all the night, ^ 
Which hastens, as physicians say, one's 
fate; 
And so all ye, who would be in the 
right 
In health and purse, begin your day 
to date 
From daybreak, and when coffined at 

fourscore. 
Engrave upon the plate, you rose at four. 



And Haidee met the morning face to 

face ; 
Her own was freshest, though a 

feverish flush 
Had dyed it with the headlong blood, 

whose race 
From heart to cheek is curbed into a 

blush. 
Like to a torrent which a mountain's 

base. 
That overpowers some Alpine river's 

rush. 
Checks to a lake, whose waves in circles 

spread ; 
Or the Red Sea — but the sea is not red. ; 

CXLII. 

And down the cliff the island virgin 

came, 
And near the cave her quick light 

footsteps drew. 
While the Sun smiled on her with his 

first flame, 
And young Aurora kissed her lips 

with dew. 
Taking her for a sister; just the same 
Mistake you would have made on 

seeing the two. 
Although the mortal, quite as fresh and 

fair. 
Had all the advantage, too, of not being 

air. 

' [The second canto of Don Juan was finished 
in January, tSiq, when the Venetian Carnival 
was at its height.] 



Canto ii.] 



DON JUAN 



1023 



CXLIII. 

And when into the cavern Haidee 
stepped 
All timidly, yet rapidly, she saw 
That like an infant Juan sweetly slept; 
And then she stopped, and stood as if 
in awe 
(For sleep is awful), and on tiptoe crept 
And wrapped him closer, lest the air, 
too raw, 
Should reach his blood, then o'er him 

still as Death 
Bent, with hushed lips, that drank his 
scarce-drawn breath. 



And thus like to an Angel o'er the 

dying 
Who die in righteousness, she leaned ; 

and there 
All tranquilly the shipwrecked boy was 

lying, 
As o'er him lay the calm and stirless 

air: 
But Zoe the meantime some eggs was 

frying, 
Since, after all, no doubt the youthful 

pair 
Must breakfast — and, betimes, lest 

they should ask it. 
She drew out her provision from the 

basket. 

CXLV. 

She knew that the best feelings must 

have victual, 
And that a shipwrecked youth would 

hungry be; 
Besides, being less in love, she yawned 

a Httle, 
And felt her veins chilled by the 

neighbouring sea; 
And so, she cooked their breakfast to a 

tittle ; 
I can't say that she gave them any tea. 
But there were eggs, fruit, coffee, bread, 

fish, honey, 
With Scio wine, — and all for love, not 

money. 

CXLVI. 

And Zoe, when the eggs were ready, and 
The coffee made, would fain have 
wakened Juan; 



But Haidee stopped her with her quick 
small hand, 
And without a word, a sign her finger 
drew on 

Her lip, which Zoe needs must under- 
stand ; 
And, the first breakfast spoilt, pre- 
pared a new one. 

Because her mistress would not let her 
break 

That sleep which seemed as it would 
ne'er awake. 

CXLVII. 

For still he lay, and on his thin worn 
cheek 
A purple hectic played like dying day 
On the snow-tops of distant hills; the 
streak 
Of sufferance yet upon his forehead lay, 
Where the blue veins looked shadowy, 
shrunk, and weak; 
And his black curls were dewy with 
the spray, 
Which weighed upon them yet, all damp 

and salt. 
Mixed with the stony vapours of the 
vault. J 

CXLVIII. '. ,\>A^^ 
And she bent o'er him, and he lay 
beneath, 
Hushed as a babe upon its mother's 
breast. 
Drooped as the willow when no winds 
can breathe. 
Lulled like the depth of Ocean when 
at rest, 
Fair as the crowning rose of the whole 
wreath. 
Soft as the callow cygnet in its nest; 
In short, he was a very pretty fellow, 
Although his woes had turned him rather 
yellow. 

CXLIX. 

He woke and gazed, and would have 
slept again. 
But the fair face which met his eyes 
forbade 
Those eyes to close, though weariness 
and pain 
Had further sleep a further pleasure 
made: 



I024 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ii. 



For Woman's face was never formed in 

vain 
For Juan, so that even when he prayed 
He turned from grisly saints, and 

martyrs hairy. 
To the sweet portraits of the Virgin 

Mary. 

CL. 

And thus upon his elbow he arose, 
And looked upon the lady, in whose 
cheek 
The pale contended with the purple rose. 
As with an effort she began to speak; 
Her eyes were eloquent, her words would 
pose. 
Although she told him, in good 
modern Greek, 
With an Ionian accent, low and sweet, 
That he was faint, and must not talk, 
but eat. 

CLI. 

Now Juan could not understand a word, 

Being no Grecian ; but he had an ear, 

And her voice was the warble of a bird, 

So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear. 
That finer, simpler music ne'er was 
heard ; 
The sort of sound we echo with a tear, 
Without knowing why — an overpower- 
ing tone. 
Whence Melody descends as from a 
throne. 

CLII. 

And Juan gazed as one who is awoke 
By a distant organ, doubting if he be 

Not yet a dreamer, till the spell is broke 
By the watchman, or some such 
reality. 

Or by one's early valet's cursed knock; 
At least it is a heavy sound to me, 

Who like a morning slumber — for the 
. night 

Shows stars and women in a better light. 

CLIII 

And Juan, too, was helped out from his 
dream, 
Or sleep, or whatsoe'er it was, by 
feeling 
A most prodigious appetite; the steam 
Of Zoe's cookery no doubt was steal- 
ing 



Upon his senses, and the kindling beam 
Of the new fire, which Zoe kept up, n 
/ kneehng, ^ 

To stir her viands, made him quite 
'. awake 

\ And long for food, but chiefly a beef- 

* steak. 

CLIV. 

But beef is rare within these oxless isles ; 
Goat's flesh there is, no doubt, and 
kid, and mutton. 
And, when a holiday upon them smiles, 
A joint upon their barbarous spits they 
put on: 
But this occurs but seldom, between 
whiles. 
For some of these are rocks with 
scarce a hut on; 
Others are fair and fertile, among which 
This, though not large, was one of the 
most rich. 

CLV. 

I say that beef is rare, and can't help 
thinking 
That the old fable of the Minotaur — 
From which our modern morals, rightly 
shrinking. 
Condemn the royal lady's taste who 
wore 
A cow's shape for a mask — was only 
(sinking 
The allegory) a mere type, no more, 
That Pasiphae promoted breeding cattle 
To make the Cretans bloodier in battle. 



For we all know that English people are 
Fed upon beef — I won't say much of 
beer. 
Because 'tis liquor only, and being far 
From this my subject, has no business 
here; 
We know, too, they are very fond of war, 
A pleasure — like all pleasures — 
rather dear; 
So were the Cretans — from which I 

infer. 
That beef and battles both were owing 
to her. 

CLVII. 

But to resume. The languid Juan 
raised 



Canto ii.] 



DON JUAN 



IC25 



His head upon his elbow, and he saw 
A sight on which he had not lately gazed, 
'\s all his latter meals had been quite 
raw, 
Three or four things, for which the Lord 
he praised, 
And, feeling still the famished vulture 
gnaw, 
He fell upon whate'er was offered, like 
A priest, a shark, an alderman, or pike. 

CLVIII. 

He ate, and he was well supplied; and 
she, 
Who watched him like a mother, 
would have fed 
Him past all bounds, because she smiled 
- to see 

Such appetite in one she had deemed 
dead: 
But Zoe, being older than Haidee, 
Knew (by tradition, for she ne'er had 
read) 
That famished people, must be slowly 

nurst. 
And fed by spoonfuls, else they always 
burst. 

CLIX. 

And so she took the liberty to state, 
Rather by deeds than words, because 

the case 
Was urgent, that the gentleman, whose 

fate 
Had made her mistress quit her bed 

to trace 
The sea-shore at this hour, must leave 

his plate, 
Unless he wished to die upon the 

place- — 
She snatched it, and refused another 

morsel, 
Saying, he had gorged enough to make 

a horse ill. 

CLX. 

Next they — he being naked, save a 
tattered 
Pair of scarce decent trowsers — 
went to work, 
And in the fire his recent rags they 
scattered. 
And dressed him, for the present, like 
a Turk, 

3U 



Or Greek — that is, although it not 

much mattered. 
Omitting turban, slippers, pistol, 

dirk, — 
They furnished him, entire, except some 

stitches. 
With a clean shirt, and very spacious 

breeches. 

CLXI. 

And then fair Haidee tried her tongue 
at speaking. 
But not a word could Juan compre- 
hend. 
Although he listened so that the young 
Greek in 
Her earnestness would ne'er have 
made an end; 
And, as he interrupted not, went eking 
Her speech out to her protege and 
friend. 
Till pausing at the last her breath to take. 
She saw he did not understand Romaic. 

CLXII. 

And then she had recourse to nods, and 
signs, 
And smiles, and sparkles of the speak- 
ing eye, 

And read (the only book she could) the 
lines 
Of his fair face, and found, by sym- 
pathy. 

The answer eloquent, where the Soul 
shines 
And darts in one quick glance a long 
reply; 

And thus in every look she saw expressed 

A world of words, and things at which 
she guessed. 



And now, by dint of fingers and of eyes. 
And words repeated after her, he took 
A lesson in her tongue; but by surmise, 
No doubt, less of her language than 
her look: 
As he who studies fervently the skies 
Turns oftener to the stars than to his 
book. 
Thus Juan learned his alpha beta better 
From Haidee's glance than any graven 
letter. 



I026 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ii. 



CLXIV. 

'Tis pleasing to be schooled in a strange 

tongue 
By female lips and eyes — that is, I 

mean, 
When both the teacher and the taught 

are young. 
As was the case, at least, where I have 

been; 
They smile so when one's right, and 

when one's wrong 
They smile still more, and then there 

intervene 
Pressure of hands, perhaps even a chaste 

kiss; — 
I learned the little that I know by this: 



That is, some words of Spanish, Turk, 
and Greek, 
Italian not at all, having no teachers; 
Much English I cannot pretend to 
speak, 
Learning that language chiefly from 
its preachers, 
Barrow, South, Tillotson, whom every 
week 
I study, also Blair — the highest 
reachers 
Of eloquence in piety and prose — 
I hate your poets, so read none of those. 



As for the ladies, I have nought to say, 
A wanderer from the British world of 

Fashion, 
Where I, like other "dogs, have had my 

day," 
Like other men, too, may have had 

my passion — 
But that, like other things, has passed 

away. 
And all her fools whom I could lay 

the lash on: 
Foes, friends, men, women, now are 

nought to me 
But dreams of what has been, no more 

to be. 

CLXVII. 

Return we to Don Juan. He begun 
To hear new words, and to repeat 
them; but 



Some feelings, universal as the Sun, 
Were such as could not in his breast 
be shut 
More than within the bosom of a nun: 
He was in love, — as you would be, 
no doubt, 
With a young benefactress, — so was 

she. 
Just in the way we very often see. 

CLXVIII. 

And every day by daybreak — rather 
early 
For Juan, who was somewhat fond of 
rest — 
She came into the cave, but it was 
merely 
To see her bird reposing in his nest; 
And she would softly stir his locks so 
curly, 
Without disturbing her yet slumbering 
guest. 
Breathing all gently o'er his cheek and 

mouth. 
As o'er a bed of roses the sweet South. 

CLXIX. 

And every morn his colour freshlier 

came, 
And every day helped on his con- 
valescence; 
'Twas well, because health in the 

human frame 
Is pleasant, besides being true Love's 

essence. 
For health and idleness to Passion's flame 
Are oil and gunpowder; and some 

good lessons 
Are also learnt from Ceres and from 

Bacchus, 
Without whom Venus will not long 

attack us. 

CLXX. 

While Venus fills the heart, (without 
heart, really, 
Love, though good always, is not 
quite so good,) 
Ceres presents a plate of vermicelli, — 
For Love must be sustained like 
flesh and blood, — 
While Bacchus pours out wine, or hands 
a jelly: 
Eggs, oysters, too, are amatory food; 



Canto ii.] 



DON JUAN 



1027 



But who is their purveyor from above 
Heaven knows, — it may be Neptune, 
Pan, or Jove. 



When Juan woke he found some good 
things ready, 
A bath, a breakfast, and the finest 
eyes 
That ever made a youthful heart less 
steady. 
Besides her maid's, as pretty for 
their size; 
But I have spoken of all this already — 
A repetition's tiresome and unwise, — 
Well — Juan, after bathing in the sea. 
Came always back to coffee and Haidee. 



Both were so young, and one so inno- 
cent, 
Tha.t bathing passed for nothing; 

Juan seemed 
To her, as 'twere, the kind of being 

sent. 
Of whom these two years she had 

nightly dreamed, 
A something to be loved, a creature 

meant 
To be her happiness, and whom she 

deemed 
To render happy;; all who joy would 

win 
Must share it, — Happiness was born 

a Twin. 

CLXXIII. 

It was such pleasure to behold him, such 
Enlargement of existence to partake 
Nature with him, to thrill beneath his 
touch. 
To watch him slumbering, and to see 
him wake: 
To live with him for ever were too much ; 
But then the thought of parting made 
her quake; 
He was her own, her ocean-treasure, 

cast 
Like a rich wreck — her first love, and 
her last. 

CLXXIV. 

And thus a moon rolled on, and fair 
Haidee 



Paid daily visits to her boy, and took 
Such plentiful precautions, that still he 
Remained unknown within his craggy 
nook; 
At last her father's prows put out to sea. 
For certain merchantmen upon the 
look, 
Not as of yore to carry off an lo, 
But three Ragusan vessels, bound for 
Scio. 

CLXXV. 

Then came her freedom, for she had 
no mother. 
So that, her father being at sea, she 
was 
Free as a married woman, or such other 
Female, as where she likes may freely 
pass. 
Without even the encumbrance of a 
brother. 
The freest she that ever gazed on glass : 
I speak of Christian lands in this com- 
parison, 
Where wives, at least, are seldom kept 
in garrison. 

CLXXVI. 

Now she prolonged her visits and her 
talk 
(For they must talk), and he had 
learnt to say 
So much as to propose to take a walk, — 
For little had he wandered since the 
day 
On which, like a young flower snapped 
from the stalk, 
Drooping and dewy on the beach he 
lay, — 
And thus they walked out in the after- 
noon, 
And saw the sun set opposite the moon. 

^,^000"^ 0\^ CLXXVII. 

It was a wild and breaker-beaten coast. 
With cHffs above, and a broad sandy 
shore. 
Guarded by shoals and rocks as by an 
host. 
With here and there a creek, whose 
aspect wore 
A better welcome to the tempest-tost; 
And rarely ceased the haughty billow's 
roar, 



I028 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ii. 



Save on the dead long summer days, 

which make 
The outstretched Ocean glitter Hke a 

lake. 

CLXXVIII. 

And the small ripple spilt upon the 

beach 
Scarcely o'erpassed the cream of 

your champagne, 
When o'er the brim the sparkling 

bumpers reach, 
That spring-dew of the spirit! the 

heart's rain ! 
Few things surpass old wine; and they 

may preach 
Who please, — the more because they 

preach in vain, — 
Let us have Wine and Woman, Mirth 

and Laughter, 
Sermons and soda-water the day after. 



[an, being reasonable, must get drunk; 
'he best of Life is but intoxication: 
Glory, the Grape, Love, Gold, in these 
are sunk 
The hopes of all men and of every 
nation; 
Without their sap, how branchless 
were the trunk 
Of Life's strange tree, so fruitful on 
occasion ! 
But to return, — Get very drunk, and 

when 
You wake with headache — you shall 
see what then ! 



Ring for your valet — bid him quickly 
bring 
Some hock and soda-water, then 
you'll know 
A pleasure worthy Xerxes the great 
king; 
For not the blest sherbet, sublimed 
with snow, 
Nor the first sparkle of the desert-spring. 
Nor Burgundy in all its sunset glow. 
After long travel. Ennui, Love, or 

Slaughter, 
Vie with that draught of hock and 
soda-water ! 



CLXXXI. 

I think it was the coast 



The coast 
that I 
Was just describing — Yes, it was 
the coast — 
Lay at this period quiet as the sky, 
The sands untumbled, the blue waves 
untossed. 
And all was stillness, save the sea-bird's 
cry. 
And dolphin's leap, and the Httle 
billow crossed 
By some low rock or shelve, that made 

it fret 
Against the boundary it scarcely wet. 

CLXXXII. 

And forth they wandered, her sire being 
gone. 
As I have said, upon an expedition; 
And mother, brother, guardian, she 
had none. 
Save Zoe, who, although with due 
precision 
She waited on her lady with the Sun, 
Thought daily service was her only 
mission. 
Bringing warm water, wreathing her 

long tresses, 
And asking now and then for cast-off 
dresses. 

CLXXXIII. 

It was the cooling hour, just when the 

rounded 
Red sun sinks down behind the azure 

hill. 
Which then seems as if the whole earth 

it bounded. 
Circling all Nature, hushed, and 

dim, and still. 
With the far mountain-crescent half 

surrounded 
On one side, and the deep sea calm 

and chill 
Upon the other, and the rosy sky 
With one star sparkling through it like 

an eye. 

CLXXXIV. 

And thus they wandered forth, and 
hand in hand, 
Over the shining pebbles and the 
shells, 



Canto ii.] 



DON JUAN 



1029 



Glided along the smooth and hardened 

sand. 
And in the worn and wild receptacles 
Worked by the storms, yet worked as 

it w^ere planned — 
In hollow halls, with sparry roofs and 

cells. 
They turned to rest; and, each clasped 

by an arm. 
Yielded to the deep Twilight's purple 

charm. 

CLXXXV. 

They looked up to the sky, whose 

floating glow 
Spread like a rosy Ocean, vast and 

Dright ; 
They gazed upon the glittering sea 

below, 
Whence the broad Moon rose circling 

into sight; 
They heard the waves' splash, and the 

wind so low. 
And saw each other's dark eyes 

darting light 
Into each other — and, beholding this. 
Their lips drew near, and clung into 

a kiss; 

CLXXXVI. 

A long, long kiss, a kiss of Youth, and 
Love, 
And Beauty, all concentrating like 
rays 
Into one focus, kindled from above; 
Such kisses as belong to early days, 
Where Heart, and Soul, and Sense, in 
concert move. 
And the blood's lava, and the pulse 
a blaze, 
Each kiss a heart-quake, — for a kiss's 

strength, 
I think, it must be reckoned by its 
length. 

CLXXXVII. 

By length I mean duration; theirs 
endured 
Heaven knows how long — no doubt 
they never reckoned; 
And if they had, they could not have 
secured 
The sum of their sensations to a 
second : 



They had not spoken, but they felt 

allured. 
As if their souls and lips each other 

beckoned. 
Which, being joined, like swarming 

bees they clung — 
Their hearts the flowers from whence 

the honey sprung. 

CLXXXVIII. 

They were alone, but not alone as they 
Who shut in chambers think it 
loneliness; 
The silent Ocean, and the starlight bay, 
The twilight glow, which momently 
grew less. 
The voiceless sands, and dropping 
caves, that lay 
Around them, made them to each 
other press. 
As if there were no life beneath the sky 
Save theirs, and that their life could 
never die. 



They feared no eyes nor ears on that 
lone beach; 
They felt no terrors from the night; 
they were 
All in all to each other: though their 
speech 
Was broken words, they thought a 
language there, • — 
And all the burning tongues the Pas- 
sions teach 
Found in one sigh the best interpreter 
Of Nature's oracle — first love, — that 

all 
Which Eve has left her daughters since 
her fall. 

cxc. 

Haidee spoke not of scruples, asked no 
vows, 
Nor offered any; she had never heard 
Of plight and promises to be a spouse, 
Or perils by a loving maid incurred; 
She was all which pure Ignorance 
allows. 
And flew to her young mate like a 
young bird; 
And, never having dreamt of falsehood, 

she 
Had not one word to say of constancy. 



:030 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ii. 



cxci. 

She loved, and was beloved — she 
adored, 
And she was worshipped after Na- 
ture's fashion — 

Their intense souls, into each other 
poured. 
If souls could die, had perished in 
that passion, — 

But by degrees their senses were re- 
stored, 
Again to be o'ercome, again to dash 
on; 

And, beating 'gainst his bosom, Haidee's 
heart 

Felt as if never more to beat apart. 



Alas ! they were so young, so beautiful. 
So lonely, loving, helpless, and the 
hour 
Was that in which the Heart is always 
full. 
And, having o'er itself no further 
power. 
Prompts deeds Eternity cannot annul, 
But pays off moments in an endless 
shower 
Of hell-fire — all prepared for people 

giving 
Pleasure or pain to one another living. 

CXCIII. 

Alas ! for Juan and Haidee ! they were 
So loving and so lovely — till then 
never. 
Excepting our first parents, such a 
pair 
Had run the risk of being damned 
for ever: 
And Haidee, being devout as well as 
fair, 
Had, doubtless, heard about the 
Stygian river, 
And Hell and Purgatory — but forgot 
Just in the very crisis she should not. 

cxciv. 

They looked upon each other, and their 
eyes 
Gleam in the moonlight; and her 
white arm clasps 



Round Juan's head, and his around 

her lies 
Half buried in the tresses which it 

grasps; 
She sits upon his knee, and drinks his 

sighs, 
He hers, until they end in broken 

gasps; 
And thus they form a group that's 

quite antique. 
Half naked, loving, natural, and Greek. 



And when those deep and burning 

moments passed. 
And Juan sunk to sleep within, her 

arms, 
She slept not, but all tenderly, though 

fast, 
Sustained his head upon her bosom's 

charms; 
And now and then her eye to Heaven 

is cast, 
And then on the pale cheek her breast 

now warms. 
Pillowed on her o'erflowing heart, 

which pants 
With all it granted, and with all it grants. 

cxcvi. i 

An infant when it gazes on a light, I 

A child the moment when it drains. '> 
the breast, 
A devotee when soars the Host in sight. 
An Arab with a stranger for a guest, 
A sailor when the prize has struck in 
fight, 
A miser filling his most hoarded chest, j 
Feel rapture; but not such true joy are * 

reaping 
As they who watch o'er what they love 
while sleeping. 



For there it lies so tranquil, so beloved, 
All that it hath of Life with us is 
living; 
So gentle, stirless, helpless, and un- 
moved. 
And all unconscious of the joy 'tis 
giving; 
All it hath felt, inflicted, passed, and 
proved. 



Canto ii.] 



DON JUAN 



'?^N 



^<^^^ 



Hushed into depths beyond the 
watcher's diving: 
There lies the thing we love with all its 

errors 
And all its charms — hke Death without 
its terrors. 

cxcviir. 

The Lady watched her lover — and 

that hour 
Of Love's, and Night's, and Ocean's 

solitude, 
O'erflowed her soul with their united 

power ; 
Amidst the barren sand and rocks 

so rude 
She and her wave- worn love had made 

their bower, 
Where nought upon their passion 

could intrude. 
And all the stars that crowded the blue 

space 
Saw nothing happier than her glowing 

face. 

CXCIX. 

Alas ! the love of Women ! it is known 

To be a lovely and a fearful thing; 
For all of theirs upon that die is thrown, 
And if 'tis lost, Life hath no more to 
bring 
To them but mockeries of the past 
alone. 
And their revenge is as the tiger's 
spring, 
Deadly, and quick, and crushing; yet, 

as real 
Torture is theirs — what they inflict 
they feel. 

cc. 
They are right; for Man, to man so 
oft unjust. 
Is always so to Women : one soul bond 
Awaits them — treachery is all their 
trust; 
Taught to conceal, their bursting 
hearts despond 
Over their idol, till some wealthier lust 
Buys them in marriage — and what 
rests beyond ? 
A thankless husband — next, a faithless 

lover — 
Then dressing, nursing, praying — and 
all's over. 



Some take a lover, some take drams 
or prayers. 
Some mind their household, others 
dissipation. 
Some run away, and but exchange their 
cares. 
Losing the advantage of a virtuous 
station ; 
Few changes e'er can better their affairs, 
Theirs being an unnatural situation, 
From the dull palace to the dirty hovel: 
Some play the deyil, and then write a 
novel. ^ 

ecu. / / 

Haidee was Nature's bride, and knew 

not this; 
Haidee was Passion's child, born 

where the Sun 
Showers triple light, and scorches even 

the kiss 
Of his gazelle-eyed daughters; she 

was one 
Made but to love, to feel that she was 

his 
Who was her chosen: what was said 

or done 
Elsewhere was nothing. She had nought 

to fear, 
Hope, care, nor love, beyond, — her 

heart beat here. 



And oh ! that quickening of the heart, 
that beat! 
How much it costs us ! yet each rising 
throb 
Is in its cause as its effect so sweet, 
That Wisdom, ever on the watch to 
rob 
Joy of its alchemy, and to repeat 

Fine truths; even Conscience, too, 
has a tough job 
To make us understand each good old 

maxim, 
So good — I wonder Castlereagh don't 
tax 'em. 

cciv. 

And now 'twas done — on the lone 
shore wxre plighted 

' [Lady Caroline Lamb's Glenarvon was pub- 
lished in 1816.] 



I034 



DON JUAN 



[Canto hi. 



CANTO THE THIRD.i 
I. 

Hail, Muse ! et cetera. — We left Juan 

sleeping, 
Pillowed upon a fair and happy 

breast. 
And watched by eyes that never yet 

knew weeping, 
And loved by a young heart, too 

deeply blest 
To feel the poison through her spirit 

creeping, 
Or know who rested there, a foe to 

rest, 
Had soiled the current of her sinless 

years, 
And turned her pure heart's purest 

blood to tears ! 



Oh, Love ! what is it in this world of 
ours 
Which makes it fatal to be loved ? Ah 
why 
With cypress branches hast thou 
wreathed thy bowers, 
And made thy best interpreter a sigh ? 
As those who dote on odours pluck 
the flowers. 
And place them on their breast — but 
place to die — 
Thus the frail beings we would fondly 

cherish 
Are laid within our bosoms but to perish. 



In her first passion Woman loves her 
lover, 
In all the others all she loves is Love, 
Which grows a habit she can ne'er- 
get over, 
And fits her loosely — like an easy 
glove. 
As you may find, whene'er you like 
to prove her: 
One man alone at first her heart can 
move; 

» [Cantos iii., iv., were written, October and 
November, 1810: Canto v. was begun at Ra- 
venna, October 16, and finished, November 20, 
1820. Cantos iii., iv., v. were published (by 
John Murray) August 8, 182 1.] 



She then prefers him in the plural 

number, 
Not finding that the additions much 

encumber. 

IV. 

I know not if the fault be men's or J 

theirs; 
But one thing's pretty sure; a woman 

planted 
(Unless at once she plunge for life in 

prayers) — 
After a decent time must be gallanted; 
Although, no doubt, her first of love 

affairs 
Is that to which her heart is wholly 

granted ; 
Yet there are some, they say, who have 

had none, 
But those who have ne'er end with only 

ofie} 

V. 

'Tis melancholy, and a fearful sign 

Of human frailty, folly, also crime. 
That Love and Marriage rarely can 
combine. 
Although they both are born in the 
same clime; 
Marriage from Love, like vinegar from 
wine — 
A sad, sour, sober beverage — by 
Time 
Is sharpened from its high celestial 

flavour 
Down to a very homely household 
savour. 



There's something of antipathy, as 
'twere, 
Between their present and their future 
state; 
A kind of flattery that's hardly fair 
Is used until the truth arrives too 
late — 
Yet what can people do, except despair? 

'["On peut trouver des femmes qui n'ont 
jamais eu de galanterie, mais il est rare d'en 
trouver qui n'en aient jamias eu qu'une." — 
Reflexions . . . du Due de la Rochefoucauld, 
No. Ixxiii. 

Byron prefixed the maxim as a motto to his 
"Ode to a Lady whose Lover was killed by a 
Ball, which at the same time shivered a Portrait 
next his Heart." Vide ante, pp. 660, 661.] 



Canto iii.l 



DON JUAN 



103s 



The same things change their names 

at such a rate; 
For instance — Passion in a lover's 

glorious, 
But in a husband is pronounced 

uxorious. 

VII. 

Men grow ashamed of being so very 
fond; 
They sometimes also get a little tired 
(But that, of course, is rare), and then 
despond : 
The same things cannot always be 
admired. 
Yet 'tis "so nominated in the bond," 
That both are tied till one shall have 
expired. 
Sad thought ! to lose the spouse that 

was adorning 
Our days, and put one's servants into 
mourning. 



There's doubtless something in domestic 

doings 
Which forms, in fact, true Love's 

antithesis; 
Romances paint at full length people's 

wooings, 
But only give a bust of marriages; 
For no one cares for matrimonial 

cooings, 
There's nothing wrong in a connubial 

kiss : 
Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's 

wife, 
He would have written sonnets all his 

life? 

IX. 

All tragedies are finished by a death, 

All comedies are ended by a marriage; 
The future states of both are left to faith, 
For authors fear description might 
disparage 
The worlds to come of both, or fall 
beneath. 
And then both worlds would punish 
their miscarriage; 
So leaving each their priest and prayer- 
book ready. 
They say no more of Death or of the 
Lady. 



The only two that in my recollection. 
Have sung of Heaven and Hell, or 
marriage, are 
Dante and Milton,^ and of both the 
affection 
Was hapless in their nuptials, for some 
bar 
Of fault or temper ruined the connection 
(Such things, in fact, it don't ask 
much to mar); 
But Dante's Beatrice and Milton's Eve 
Were not drawn from their spouses, you 
conceive. 

XI. 

Some persons say that Dante meant 
Theology 
By Beatrice, and not a mistress — I, 
Although my opinion may require 
apology. 
Deem this a commentator's phantasy, 
Unless indeed it was from his own 
knowledge he 
Decided thus, and showed good rea- 
son why; 
I think that Dante's more abstruse 

ecstatics 
Meant to personify the Mathematics.^ 



Haidee and Juan were not married, but 
The fault was theirs, not mine: it is 
not fair. 
Chaste reader, then, in any way to put 
The blame on me, unless you wish 
they were; 
Then if you'd have them wedded, 
please to shut 
The book which treats of this 
erroneous pair. 
Before the consequences grow too awful ; 
'Tis dangerous to read of loves unlaw- 
ful. 

' Milton's first wife ran away from him within 
the first month. If she had not, what would 
John Milton have done? 

[Mary Powell did not "run away," but at the 
end of the honeymoon obtained her husband's 
consent to visit her family at Shotover, "upon a 
promise of returning at Michaelmas."] 

2 ["Yesterday a very pretty letter from Anna- 
bella . . . She is a poetess — a mathematician 
— a metaphysician." — Journal, November 30, 
1813, Letters, i8y8, ii. 357.] 



1036 



DON JUAN 



[Canto hi. 



Yet they were happy, — happy in the 
illicit 
Indulgence of their innocent desires; 
But more imprudent grown with every 
visit, 
Haidee forgot the island was her 
Sire's; 
When we have what we Hke 'tis hard 
to miss it, 
At least in the beginning, ere one tires; 
Thus she came often, not a moment 

losing, 
Whilst her piratical papa was cruising. 

XIV. 

Let not his mode of raising cash seem 
strange. 
Although he fleeced the flags of every 
nation, 
For into a Prime Minister but change 
His title, and 'tis nothing but taxa- 
tion ; 
But he, more modest, took an humbler 
range 
Of Life, and in an honester vocation 
Pursued o'er the high seas his watery 

journey, 
And merely practised as a sea-attorney. 

XV. 

The good old gentleman had been 
detained 
By winds and waves, and some im- 
portant captures; 

And, in the hope of more, at sea re- 
mained, 
Although a squall or two had damped 
his raptures. 

By swamping one of the prizes; he had 
chained 
His prisoners, dividing them like 
chapters 

In numbered lots; they all had cuffs 
and collars. 

And averaged each from ten to a hun- 
dred dollars. 



Some he disposed of off Cape Matapan, 
Among his friends the Mainots; some 
he sold 



To his Tunis correspondents, save one 

man 
Tossed overboard unsaleable (being 

old); 
The rest — save here and there some 

richer one. 
Reserved for future ransom — in the 

hold, 
Were linked alike, as, for the common 

people, he 
Had a large order from the Dey of 

Tripoli. 

XVII. 

The merchandise was served in the same 
way, 
Pieced out for different marts in the 
Levant, 
Except some certain portions of the 
prey. 
Like classic articles of female want, 
French stuffs, lace, tweezers, toothpicks, 
teapot, tray. 
Guitars and castanets from Alicant, 
All w^hich selected from the spoil he 

gathers. 
Robbed for his daughter by the best of 
fathers. 

XVIII. 

A monkey, a Dutch mastiff, a mackaw. 

Two parrots, with a Persian cat and 

kittens, 

He chose from several animals he 

saw — 

A terrier, tQ O, which once had been a 

" Bnton's" \v v^^v^ay^ ' 
^\\o dying on tne~^ast of Ithaca, 
■^ The peasants gave the poor dumb 
thing a pittance: 
These to secure in this strong blowing 

weather. 
He caged in one huge hamper altogether. 

XIX. 

Then, having settled his marine affairs. 
Despatching single cruisers here and 
there. 
His vessel having need of some repairs, 
He shaped his course to where his 
daughter fair 
Continued still her hospitable cares; 
But that part of the coast being shoal 
and bare. 



Canto hi.] 



DON JUAN 



1037 



And rough with reefs which ran out 

many a mile, 
His port lay on the other side o' the isle. 



And there he went ashore without 

delay, 
Having no custom-house nor quaran- 
tine 
To ask him awkward questions on the 

way, 
About the time and place where he 

had been: 
He left his ship to be hove down next 

day. 
With orders to the people to careen; 
So that all hands were busy beyond 

measure. 
In getting out goods, ballast, guns, and 

treasure. 

XXI. 

Arriving at the summit of a hill 

Which overlooked "the white walls of 

his home, 
He stopped. — What singular emotions 

fill 
Their bosoms who have been induced 

to roam ! 
With fluttering doubts if all be well or 

ill — 
With love for many, and with fears 

for some; 
All feelings which o'erleap the years long 

lost. 
And bring our hearts back to their 

starting-post. 



The approach of home to husbands and 
to sires. 
After long travelling by land or water, 
Most naturally some small doubt in- 
spires — 
A female family's a serious matter, 
(None trusts the sex more, or so much 
admires — 
But they hate flattery, so I never 
flatter) ; 
Wives in their husbands' absences grow 

subtler, 
And daughters sometimes run off" with 
the butler. 



XXIII. 

An honest gentleman at his return 
May not have the good fortune of 

Ulysses; 
Not all lone matrons for their husbands 

mourn. 
Or show the same dislike to suitors' 

kisses; 
The odds are that he finds a handsome 

urn 
To his memory — and two or three 

young misses 
Born to some friend, who holds his wil 

and riches — 
And that his Argus ^ — bites him by the 

breeches. 

XXIV. 

If single, probably his plighted Fair 
Has in his absence wedded some rich 
miser; 
But all the better, for the happy pair 
May quarrel and, the lady growing 
wiser. 
He may resume his amatory care 

As cavalier servente, or despise her; 
And that his sorrow may not be a dumb 

one. 
Writes odes on the Inconstancy of 
Woman. 

XXV. 

And oh ! ye gentlemen who have already 
Some chaste liaison of the kind — I 
mean 
An honest friendship with a married 
lady — 
The only thing of this sort ever seen 
To last — of all connections the most 
steady. 
And the true Hymen, (the first's but 
a screen) — 
Yet, for all that, keep not too long 

away — 
I've known the absent wronged four 
times a day. 

' [" But as for canine recollections ... I had 
one (half a wolf by the she-side) that doted on me 
at ten years old, and very nearly ate me at 
twenty. When I thought he was going to enact 
Argus, he bit away the backside of my breeches, 
and never would consent to any kind of recogni- 
tion, in despite of all kinds of bones which I 
offered him." — Letter to Moore, January 19, 
1815.] 



I038 



DON JUAN 



[Canto hi. 



Lambro, our sea-solicitor, who had 
Much less experience of dry land than 
Ocean, 
On seeing his own chimney-smoke, felt 
glad; 
But not knowing metaphysics, had no 
notion 
Of the true reason of his not being sad, 
Or that of any other strong emotion; 
He loved his child, and would have wept 

the loss of her, 
But knew the cause no more than a 
philosopher. 

XXVII. 

He saw his white walls shining in the 

sun, 
His garden trees all shadowy and 

green ; 
He heard his rivulet's light bubbling 

run, 
The distant dog-bark; and perceived 

between 
The umbrage of the wood, so cool and 

dun, 
The moving figures, and the sparkling 

sheen 
Of arms (in the East all arm) — and 

various dyes 
Of coloured garbs, as bright as butter- 
flies. 

XXVIII. 

And as the spot where they appear he 

nears, 
Surprised at these unwonted signs of 

idling, 
He hears — alas ! no music of the 

spheres, 
But an unhallowed, earthly sound of 

fiddling ! 
A melody which made him doubt his 

ears, 
The cause being past his guessing or 

unriddling; 
A pipe, too, and a drum, and shortly 

after — 
A most unoriental roar of laughter. 



And still more nearly to the place 
advancing. 



Descending rather quickly the de- 
clivity. 
Through the waved branches o'er the 
greensward glancing, 
'Midst other indications of festivity. 
Seeing a troop of his domestics dancing 
Like Dervises, who turn as on a pivot, 
he 
Perceived it was the Pyrrhic dance so 

martial. 
To which the Levantines are very partial. 



And further on a troop of Grecian girls, 
The first and tallest her white kerchief 
waving, 
Were strung together like a row of pearls 
Linked hand in hand, and dancing; 
each too having 
Down her white neck long floating 
auburn curls — ■ 
(The least of which would set ten 
poets raving); 
Their leader sang — and bounded to her 

song 
With choral step and voice the virgin 
throng. 

XXXI. 

And here, assembled cross-legged round 
their trays. 
Small social parties just begun to dine; 
Pilaus and meats of all sorts met the 
gaze, 
And flasks of Samian and of Chian 
wine. 
And sherbet cooling in the porous vase; 
Above them their dessert grew on its. 
vine ; — 
The orange and pomegranate nodding 

o'er, 
Dropped in their laps, scarce plucked, 
their mellow store. 

XXXII. 

A band of children, round a snow-white 
ram. 
There wreathe his venerable horns 
with flowers; 
While peaceful as if still an unweaned 
lamb, 
The patriarch of the flock all gently 
cowers 



Canto hi. 



DON JUAN- 



1039 



His sober head, majestically tame, 
Or eats from out the palm, or playful 
, lowers 

His brow, as if in act to butt, and then 
Yielding to their small hands, draws 
back again. 



Their classical profiles, and glittering 

dresses. 
Their large black eyes, and soft 

seraphic cheeks, 
Crimson as cleft pomegranates, their 

long tresses. 
The gesture which enchants, the eye 

that speaks, 
The innocence which happy childhood 

blesses, 
Made quite a picture of these little 

Greeks; 
5o that the philosophical beholder 
lighed for their sakes — that they 

should e'er grow older. 



Afar, a dwarf buffoon stood telling 
tales 
To a sedate grey circle of old smokers. 
Of secret treasures found in hidden 
vales. 
Of wonderful replies from . Arab 
jokers, 
Of charms to make good gold and cure 
bad ails, 
Of rocks bewitched that open to the 
knockers, 
3f magic ladies who, by one sole act. 
Transformed their lords to beasts (but 
that's a fact). 



Here was no lack of innocent diversion 

For the imagination or the senses. 
Song, dance, wine, music, stories from 
the Persian, 
All pretty pastimes in which no 
offence is; 
But Lambro saw all these things with 
aversion. 
Perceiving in his absence such ex- 
penses, 
Dreading that climax of all human ills. 
The inflammation of his weekly bills. 



Ah ! what is man ? what perils still 

environ 
The happiest mortals even after 

dinner ! 
A day of gold from out an age of iron 
Is all that Life allows the luckiest 

sinner; 
Pleasure (whene'er she sings, at least) 's 

a Siren, 
That lures, to flay alive, the young 

beginner; 
Lambro's reception at his people's 

banquet 
Was such as fire accords to a wet 

blanket. 



He — being a man who seldom used a 
word 
Too much, and wishing gladly to 
surprise 
(In general he surprised men with the 
sword) 
His daughter — had not sent before 
to advise 
Of his arrival, so that no one stirred; 
And long he paused to re-assure his 
eyes. 
In fact much more astonished than 

delighted. 
To find so much good company invited. 



He did not know (alas ! how men will 

lie) 
That a report (especially the Greeks) 
Avouched his death (such people never 

die). 
And put his house in mourning several 

weeks, — 
But now their eyes and also lips were 

dry; 
The bloom, too, had returned to 

Haidee's cheeks: 
Her tears, too, being returned into their 

fount, 
She now kept house upon her own 

account. 



Hence all this rice, meat, dancing, wine, 
and fiddling, 



1 040 



DON JUAN 



[Canto hi. 



Which turned the isle into a place of 
pleasure; 
The servants all were getting drunk or 
idling, 
A life which made them happy beyond 
measure. 
Her father's hospitality seemed middhng 
Compared with what Haidee did with 
his treasure; 
'Twas wonderful how things went on 

improving, 
While she had not one hour to spare 
from loving. 

XL. 

Perhaps you think, in stumbling on this 
feast, 
He flew into a passion, and in fact 
There was no mighty reason to be 
pleased ; 
Perhaps you prophesy some sudden 
act. 
The whip, the rack, or dungeon at the 
least. 
To teach his people to be more exact. 
And that, proceeding at a very high rate, 
He showed the royal penchants of a 
pirate. 

XLI. 

You're wrong. — He was the mildest 
mannered man 
That ever scuttled ship or cut a 
throat; 
With such true breeding of a gentleman. 
You never could divine his real 
thought; 
No courtier could, and scarcely woman 
can 
Gird more deceit within a petticoat; 
Pity he loved adventurous life's variety. 
He was so great a loss to good society. 

XLII. 

Advancing to the nearest dinner tray, 

Tapping the shoulder of the nighest 

guest, 

With a peculiar smile, which, by the way, 

Boded no good, whatever it expressed, 

[e asked the meaning of this holiday: 



He asked the meaning 01 mis nonuay; 
"^' ■ Greek to whom he had 



The vinous 
addressed 



His question, much too merry to divine 
The questioner, filled up a glass of wine. 



XLIII. 

And without turning his facetious head, 
Over his shoulder, with a Bacchant 
air. 
Presented the o'erflowing cup, and said, 
"Talking's dry work, I have no time 
to spare." 
A second hiccuped, " Our old Master's 
dead. 
You'd better ask our Mistress who's 
his heir." 
" Our Mistress ! " quoth a third : " Our 

Mistress ! — pooh ! — 
You mean our Master — not the old, 
but new." 

XLIV. 

These rascals, being new comers, knew 
not whom 
They thus addressed — and Lambro's | 
visage fell — , 

And o'er his eye a momentary gloom 
Passed, but he strove quite courteously j 
to quell \ 

The expression, and endeavouring to i 
resume 
His smile, requested one of them to tell 
The name and quality of his new patron, 
Who seemed to have turned Haidee into 
a matron. 

XLV. 

"I know not," quoth the fellow, "who 
or what 
He is, nor whence he came — and 
little care; 
But this I know, that this roast capon's 
fat. 
And that good wine ne'er washed 
down better fare; 
And if you are not satisfied with that, 
Direct your questions to my neighbour 
there ; 
He'll answer all for better or for worse, 
For none likes more to hear himself 
converse." 

XLVI. 

I said that Lambro was a man of 

patience, 
And certainly he showed the best of 

breeding, 
Which scarce even France, the Paragon 

of nations, 



Canto hi.] 



DON JUAN 



TC41 



E'er saw her most polite of sons 
exceeding; 
He bore these sneers against his near 
relations, 
His own anxiety, his heart, too, 
bleeding, 
The insults, too, of ev^ry servile glutton, 
Who all the time was eating up his 
mutton. 

XLVII. 

Now in a person used to much com- 
mand — ■ 
To bid men come, and go, and come 
again — 

To see his orders done, too, out of 
hand — 
Whether the word was death, or but 
the chain — 

It may seem strange to find his manners 
bland ; 
Yet such things are, which I cannot 
explain, 

Though doubtless, he who can com- 
mand himself 

Is good to govern — almost as a Guelf . 

XLVIII. 

Not that he was not sometimes rash or 
so, 
But never in his real and serious 
mood ; 
Then calm, concentrated, and still, and 
slow. 
He lay coiled like the Boa in the 
wood; 
With him it never was a word and blow. 
His angry word once o'er, he shed no 
blood. 
But in his silence there was much to 

rue, 
And his one blow left little work for two. 



He asked no further questions, and 
proceeded 
On to the house, but by a private way, 
So that the few who met him hardly 
heeded, 
So little they expected him that day; 
If love paternal in his bosom pleaded 
For Haidee's sake, is more than I can 



say. 



But certainly to one deemed dead 

returning. 
This revel seemed a curious mode of 

mourning. 

L. 

If all the dead could now return to life, 
(Which God forbid !) or some, or a 
great many, 
For instance, if a husband or his wife 

(Nuptial examples are as good as any), 
No doubt whate'er might be their former 
strife. 
The present weather would be much 
more rainy — 
Tears shed into the grave of the con- 
nection 
Would share most probably its resurrec- 
tion. 

LI. 

He entered in the house no more his 
home, 
A thing to human feelings the most 
trying. 
And harder for the heart to overcome. 
Perhaps, than even the mental pangs 
of dying; 
To find our hearthstone turned into a 
tomb. 
And round its once warm precincts 
palely lying 
The ashes of our hopes, is a deep grief, 
Beyond a single gentleman's belief. 



He entered in the house — his home no 
more. 
For without hearts there is no home; 
— and felt 
The solitude of passing his own door 
Without a welcome : there he long had 
dwelt. 
There his few peaceful days Time had 
swept o'er. 
There his worn bosom and keen eye 
would melt 
Over the innocence of that sweet child, 
His only shrine of feelings undefiled. 

Lm. 

He was a man of a strange temperament, 
Of mild demeanour though of savage 
mood, 



3X 



1 042 



DON JUAN 



[Canto hi. 



Moderate in all his habits, and content 
With temperance in pleasure, as in 
food, 

Quick to perceive, and strong to bear, 
and meant 
For something better, if not wholly 
good; 

His Country's wrongs and his despair to 
save her 

Had stung him from a slave to an en- 
slaver. 

LIV. 

The love of power, and rapid gain of 
gold, 
The hardness by long habitude pro- 
duced. 
The dangerous life in which he had 
grown old, 
The mercy he had granted oft abused, 
The sights he was accustomed to be- 
hold, 
The wild seas, and wild men with 
whom he cruised. 
Had cost his enemies a long repentance. 
And made him a good friend, but bad 
acquaintance. 

LV. 

But something of the spirit of old Greece 

Flashed o'er his soul a few heroic rays. 

Such as lit onward to the Golden Fleece 

His predecessors in the Colchian days ; 

'Tis true he had no ardent love for 

peace — 

Alas ! his country showed no path to 

praise : 

Hate to the world and war with every 

nation 
He waged, in vengeance of her degrada- 
tion. 

LVI. 

Still o'er his mind the influence of the 
clime 
Shed its Ionian elegance, which 
showed 
Its power unconsciously full many a 
time, — 
A taste seen in the choice of his 
abode, 
A love of music and of scenes sublime, 
A pleasure in the gentle stream that 
flowed 



Past him in crystal, and a joy in flowers, 
Bedewed his spirit in his calmer hours. 

LVII. 

But whatsoe'er he had of love reposed 
On that beloved daughter; she had 
been 
The only thing which kept his heart 
unclosed 
Amidst the savage deeds he had done 
and seen, 
A lonely pure affection unopposed : 
There wanted but the loss of this to 
wean 
His feelings from all milk of human 

kindness. 
And turn him like the Cyclops mad 
with blindness. 

LVIII. 

The cubless tigress in her jungle raging 
Is dreadful to the shepherd and the 
flock; 
The Ocean when its yeasty war is waging 
Is awful to the vessel near the rock; 
But violent things will sooner bear 
assuaging. 
Their fury being spent by its own 
shock. 
Than the stern, single, deep, and word- 
less ire 
Of a strong human heart, and in a Sire. 



It is a hard although a common case 
To find our children running restive 
— they 
In whom our brightest days we would 
retrace. 
Our little selves re-formed in finer clay. 
Just as old age is creeping on apace. 
And clouds come o'er the sunset of our 
day. 
They kindly leave us, though not quite 

alone. 
But in good company — the gout or 
stone. 

LX. 

Yet a fine family is a fine thing 

(Provided they don't come in after 
dinner) ; 
'Tis beautiful to see a matron bring 



Canto hi.] 



DON JUAN 



1043 



Her children up (if nursing them don't 
thin her) ; 
Like cherubs round an altar-piece they 
cling 
To the fire-side (a sight to touch a 
sinner). 
A lady with her daughters or her nieces 
Shine like a guinea and seven-shilling 
pieces. 

LXI. 

Old Lambro passed unseen a private 
gate, 
And stood within his hall at eventide ; 
Meantime the lady and her lover sate 
At wassail in their beauty and their 
pride : 
An ivory inlaid table spread with state 
Before them, and fair slaves on every 
side ; ^ 
Gems, gold, and silver, formed the 

service mostly. 
Mother of pearl and coral the less costly. 

LXII. 

The dinner made about a hundred 
dishes ; 
Lamb and pistachio nuts — in short, 
all meats 
And saffron soups, and sweetbreads; 
and the fishes 
Were of the finest that e'er flounced 
in nets, 
Dressed to a Sybarite's most pampered 
wishes ; 
The beveragre was various sherbets 



I ["Almost all Don Juan is real life, either my 
own, or from people I knew. By the way, much 
of the description of the furniHire, in Canto 
Third, is taken from Tully's Tripoli (pray note 
this), and the rest from my own observation. 
Remember, I never meant to conceal this at all, 
and have only not stated it, because Doti Juan 
had no preface, nor name to it." — Letter to 
Murray, August 23, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 346. 

The first edition of ''Tully's Tripoli" is 
entitled Narrative of a Ten Years' Residence in 
Tripoli In Africa: From the original corres- 
Poftden-ce in the possession of the Family of the 
late Richard Tully, Esq., the Bri'ish Consul, 1816, 
4to. The book is in the form of letters (so says 
the Preface) written by the Consul's sister. 
The description of Haidee's dress is taken from 
the account of a visit to Lilla Kebbiera, the wife 
of the Bashaw (p. 30); the description of the 
furniture and refreshments from the account of 
a visit to'' Lilla Amnani," Hadgi Abderrahmam's 
Greek wife (pp. 132-137)-] 



Of raisin, orange, and pomegranate 

juice. 
Squeezed through the rind, which makes 

it best for use. 



These were ranged round, each in its 
crystal ewer. 
And fruits, and date-bread loaves 
closed the repast. 
And Mocha's berry, from Arabia pure, 
In small fine China cups, came in at 
last; 
Gold cups of filigree, made to secure 
The hand from burning, underneath 
thenT placed ; 
Cloves, cinnamon, and saffron too were 

boiled 
Up with the coffee, which (I think) they 
spoiled. n ,^4) 

LXIV. OJj,'.^ --" 

The hangings of the room were tapestry, 
made 
Of velvet panels, each of different hue. 
And thick with damask flowers of silk 
inlaid ; 
And round them ran a yellow border 
too; 
The upper border, richly wrought, dis- 
played. 
Embroidered delicately o'er with blue, 
Soft Persian sentences, in lilac letters. 
From poet's or the moralists their 
betters. 

LXV. 

These Oriental writings on the wall, 
Quite common in those countries, are 
a kind 
Of monitors adapted to recall, 

Like skulls at Memphian laanquets, 
to the mind. 
The words which shook Belshazzar in 
his hall. 
And took his kingdom from him: 
You will find. 
Though sages may pour out their wis- 
dom's treasure, 
There is no sterner moralist than 
Pleasure. 

LXVI. 

A Beauty at the season's close grown 
hectic, 



1044 



DON JUAN 



[Canto hi 



A Genius who has drunk himself to 
death, 
A Rake turned methodistic, or Eclec- 
tic— ^ 
(For that's the name they like to pray 
beneath) — 
But most, an Alderman struck apoplec- 
tic, 
Are things that really take away the 
breath, — 
And show that late hours, wine, and love 

are able 
To do not much less damage than the 
table. 



Haidee and Juan carpeted their feet 
On crimson satin, bordered with pale 

blue; 
Their sofa occupied three parts com- 
plete 
Of the apartment — and appeared 

quite new; 
The velvet cushions (for a throne more 

meet) 
Were scarlet, from whose glowing 

centre grew 
A sun embossed in gold, whose rays of 

tissue. 
Meridian-like, were seen all light to 

issue. 

LXVIII. 

Crystal and marble, plate and porcelain 
Had done their work of splendour; 
Indian mats 
And Persian carpets, which the heart 
bled to stain, 
Over the floors were spread; gazelles 
and cats. 
And dwarfs and blacks, and such like 
things, that gain 
Their bread as ministers and 
favourites (that's 

' [The reference is to a passage in a critique of 
Mazeppa (and, incidentally, of Don Juan) in the 
Eclectic Review, August, 1819: — "When he 
galculates that the reader is on the verge of 
pitying him, he takes care to throw him back the 
defiance of laughter, as if to let him know that all 
the Poet's pathos is but the sentimentalism of 
the drunkard between his cups, or the relenting 
softness of the courtesan, who the next moment 
resumes the bad boldness of her degraded char- 
acter. With such a man, who would wish either 
to laugh or to weep?"] 



To say, by degradation) mingled there 
As plentiful as in a court, or fair. | 

LXIX. ' 

There was no want of lofty mirrors, and 

The tables, most of ebony inlaid 
With mother of pearl or ivory, stood at 
hand. 
Or were of tortoise-shell or rare woods 
made. 
Fretted with gold or silver: — by com- ^| 
mand ■ 

The greater part of these were ready 
spread 
With viands and sherbets in ice — and 

wine — 
Kept for all comers at all hours to dine. 



Of all the dresses I select Haidee's; 
She wore tw^o jelicks — one was of 

pale yellow; 
Of azure, pink, and white was her 

chemise — 
'Neath which her breast heaved like a 

little billow: 
With buttons formed of pearls as large 

as peas, 
All gold and crimson shone her 

jelick's fellow. 
And the striped white gauze baracan 

that bound her, 
Like fleecy clouds about the moon, 

flowed round her. 



One large gold bracelet clasped each 
lovely arm, 
Lockless — so pliable from the pure 
gold 
That the hand stretched and shut it with- 
out harm, 
The limb which it adorned its only 
mould ; 
So beautiful — its very shape would 
charm. 
And clinging, as if loath to lose its 
hold, 
The purest ore enclosed the whitest skin 
That e'er by precious metal was held in.^ 

' This dress is Moorish, and the bracelets and 
bar are worn in the manner described. The 
reader will perceive hereafter, that as the mother 



Canto hi.] 



DON JUAN 



1C45 



Around, as Princess of her father's land, 
A like gold bar above her instep 

rolled ^ 
Announced her rank; twelve rings 

were on her hand; 
Her hair was starred with gems; her 

veil's fine fold 
Below her breast was fastened with a 

band 
Of lavish pearls, whose worth could 

scarce be told ; 
Her orange silk full Turkish trousers 

furled 
About the prettiest ankle in the world. 

LXXIII. 

Her hair's long auburn waves down to 
her heel 
Flowed like an Alpine torrent which 
the sun 
Dyes with his morning light, — and 
would conceal 
Her person ^ if allowed at large to run, 
And still they seemed resentfully to feel 
The silken fillet's curb, and sought 
to shun 
Their bonds whene'er some Zephyr 

caught began 
To offer his young pinion as her fan. 



Round her she made an atmosphere of 
life, 
The very air seemed lighter from her 
eyes, 
They were so soft and beautiful, and rife 
With all we can imagine of the skies, 
And pure as Psyche ere she grew a 
wife — 

of Haidee was of Fez, her daughter wore the garb 
of the country. [Vide ante, p. 1043, note i.] 

1 The bar of gold above the instep is a mark of 
sovereign rank in the women of the families of 
the Deys, and is worn as such by their female 
relatives. [Vide ibid.] 

2 This is no exaggeration: there were four 
M^^omen whom I remember to have seen, who 
p< assessed their hair in this profusion; of these, 
th';rce were English, the other was a" Levantine. 
T*heir hair was of that length and quantity, that, 
vv^ncn let down, it almost entirely shaded the 
j-ierson, so as nearly to render dress a superfluity. 
'Of these, only one had dark hair; the Oriental's 

had, perhaps, the lightest colour of the four. 



Too pure even for the purest human 
ties; 
Her overpowering presence made you 

feel 
It would not be idolatry to kneel. 



Her eyelashes, though dark as night, 

were tinged 
(It is the country's custom, but in 

vain). 
For those large black eyes were so 

blackly fringed. 
The glossy rebels mocked the jetty 

stain, 
And in their native beauty stood 

avenged : 
Her nails were touched with henna; 

but, again. 
The power of Art was turned to nothing, 

for 
They could not look more rosy than 

before. 

LXXVI. 

The henna should be deeply dyed to 
make 
The skin relieved appear more fairly 
fair ; 
She had no need of this, day ne'er will 
break 
On mountain tops more heavenly 
white than her: 
The eye might doubt if it were well 
awake. 
She was so like a vision; I might err. 
But Shakespeare also says, 'tis very 

silly 
"To gild refined gold, or paint the hly." 



Juan had on a shawl of black and 
gold, 
But a white baracan, and so trans- 
parent 
The sparkling gems beneath you might 
behold. 
Like small stars through the milky 
way apparent; 
His turban, furled in manv a graceful 
fold, 
An emerald aigrette, with Haidee's 
hair in 't, 



1046 



DON JUAN 



[Canto m. 



Surmounted, as its clasp, a glowing 

crescent. 
Whose rays shone ever trembling, but 

incessant. 

LXXVIII. 

And now they were diverted by their 
suite. 
Dwarfs, dancing girls, black eunuchs, 
and a poet, 
Which made their new establishment 
complete; 
The last was of great fame, and liked 
to show it ; 
His verses rarely wanted their due feet — 
And for his theme — he seldom sung 
below it. 
He being paid to satirise or flatter, 
As the Psalm says, "inditing a good 
matter." 

LXXIX. 

He praised the present, and abused 
the- past. 
Reversing the good custom of old 
days, 
An Eastern anti-jacobin at last 

He turned, preferring pudding to 

no praise — 

For some few years his lot had been 

o'ercast 

By his seeming independent in his lays, 

But now he sung the Sultan and the 

Pacha — 
With truth like Southey, and with verse 
like Crashaw, 



He was a man who had seen many 

changes. 
And always changed as true as any 

needle; 
His Polar Star being one which rather 

ranges. 
And not the fixed — he knew the 

way to wheedle: 
So vile he 'scaped the doom which oft 

avenges; 
And being fluent (save indeed when 

fee'd ill), 
He lied with such a fervour of inten- 
tion — 
There was no doubt he earned his 

laureate pension. 



But he had genius, — when a turncoat 
has it, 
The Vates irritahilis takes care 
That without notice few full moons 
shall pass it; 
Even good men like to make the 
public stare: — 
But to my subject — let me see — what 
was it ? — 
Oh ! — the third canto — and the 
pretty pair — 
Their loves, and feasts, and house, 

and dress, and mode 
Of living in their insular abode. 

LXXXII. 

Their poet, a sad trimmer, but, no less, 

In company a very pleasant fellow, 
Had been the favourite of full many 
a mess 
Of men, and made them speeches 
when half mellow; 
And though his meaning they could 
rarely guess, 
Yet still they deigned to hiccup or 
to bellow 
The glorious meed of popular applause, 
Of which the first ne'er knows the 
second cause. 



But now being lifted into high society. 
And having picked up several odds 
and ends 
Of free thoughts in his travels for 
variety, 
He deemed, being in a lone isle, 
among friends, 
That, without any danger of a riot, he 
Might for long lying make himself 
amends; 
And, singing as he sung in his warm 

youth, 
Agree to a short armistice with Truth. 

LXXXIV. 

He had travelled 'mongst the Arabs 

Turks, and Franks, 
And knew the self-loves of the difi"er 

ent nations; 
And having Hved with people of all^ 

ranks. 



"aNTO III.] 



DON JUAN 



e 



r.'^-^^"'^ 



1047 



Had something read}* upon most 
occasions — 
Vhich got him a few presents and some 
thanks. 

He varied with some skill his adula- 
tions; 

o "do at Rome as Romans do," a 

piece 
)f conduct was which he observed in 
Greece. 

LXXXV. 

Thus, usually, when he was asked to 
sing, 
He gave the different nations some- 
thing national; 
Twas all the same to him — "God 
save the King," 
Or "^a ira," according to the fashion 
all: 
ffis Muse made increment of anything, 
From the high lyric down to the low 
rational; 
[f Pindar sang horse-races, what should 

hinder 
Himself from being as pliable as Pindar ? 

LXXXVI. 

In France, for instance, he would write 
I a chanson; 

In England a six canto quarto tale; 
In Spain he'd make a ballad or romance 
on 
The last war — much the same in 
Portugal; 
In Germany, the Pegasus he'd prance 
on 
Would be old Goethe's — (see what 
says De Stael) ; 
In Italy he'd ape the "Trecentisti"; 
In Greece, he'd sing some sort of hymn 
like this t'ye: ^ 

' [The poet is sketched from memory. " Lord 
B>Ton," writes Finlay {History of Greece, vi. 335, 
note), "used to describe an evening passed in the 
company of Londos [a Morean landowner, who 
took part in the first and second Greek Civil 
■"Vars]. at Vostitza (in i8oq\ when both were 
' oung men, with a spirit that rendered the scene 
ui'orthy of a place in Dofi Juan. After supper 
sLondos, who had the face and figure of a chim- 
panzee, sprang upon a table, . . . and com- 
menced singing through his nose Rhiga's Hymn 
to Liberty. A new cadi, passing near the house, 
inquired the cause of the discordant hubbub. 
A native Mussulman replied, 'It is only the young 



The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece ! 
Where burning Sappho loved and 
sung, 
Where grew the arts of War and Peace, 
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus 
sprung ! 
Eternal summer gilds them yet, 
But all, except their Sun, is set. 



The Scian and the Teian muse, 
The Hero's harp, the Lover's lute, 

Have found the fame your shores refuse: 
Their place of birth alone is mute 

To sounds which echo further west 

Than your Sires' " Islands of the Blest." ^ 



The mountains look on Marathon — 
And Marathon looks on the sea; 

And musing there an hour alone, 
I dreamed that Greece might still be 
free; 

For standing on the Persians' grave, 

I could not deem myself a slave. 



A King sate on the rocky brow 

W'hich looks o'er sea-born Salamis; 

And ships, by thousands, lay below, 
And men in nations; — all were his! 

He counted them at break of day — 

And, when the Sun set, where were they ? 



And where are they? and where art 
thou. 

My country? On thy voiceless shore 
The heroic lay is tuneless now — 

The heroic bosom beats no more ! 
And must thy Lyre, so long divine. 
Degenerate into hands like mine ? 



'Tis soinething, in the dearth of Fame, 
Though linked among a fettered race, 
To feel at least a patriot's shame, 

primate Londos, who is drunk, and is singing 
hymns to the new panaghia of the Greeks, whom 
they call Eleutheria.'"] 

' The MaKaptoi' vri<Toi of the Greek poets were 
supposed to have been the Cape de Verd Islands, 
or the Canaries. 



\ 'i 



1048 



DON JUAN 



[Canto hi. 



Even as I sing, suffuse my face; 
For what is left the poet here ? 
For Greeks a blush — for Greece a tear. 



Must -we but weep o'er days more blest ? 

Must we but blush ? — Our fathers 
bled. 
Earth ! render back from out thy breast 

A remnant of our Spartan dead ! 
Of the three hundred grant but three, 
To make a new Thermopylae ! 



What, silent still? and silent all? 

Ah ! no; — the voices of the dead 
Sound like a distant torrent's fall, 

And answer, "Let one living head, 
But one arise, — we come, we come ! ' 
'Tis but the living who are dumb. 



In vain — in vain: strike other chords; 

Fill high the cup with Samian wine ! 
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes, 

And shed the blood of Scio's vine ! 
Hark ! rising to the ignoble call — 
How answers each bold Bacchanal ! 



You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet. 
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? 

Of two such lessons, why forget 
The noblier and the manlier one ? 

You have the letters Cadmus gave — 

Think ye he meant them for a slave ? 



Fill high the bowl with Samian wine ! 

We will not think of themes like these ! 
It made Anacreon's song divine: 

He served — but served Polycrates — 
A Tyrant; but our masters then 
Were still, at least, our countrymen. 



The Tyrant of the Chersonese 

Was Freedom's best and bravest 
friend ; 
That tyrant was Miltiades 1 

Oh! that the present hour would 
lend 
Another despot of the kind I 
Such chains as his were sure to bind. 



13- 
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine ! 

On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore, 
Exists the remnant of a line 

Such as the Doric mothers bore; 
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown, 
The Heracleidan blood might own. 

14. 

Trust not for freedom to the Franks — 
They have a king who buys and sells; 

In native swords, and native ranks. 
The only hope of courage dwells; 

But Turkish force, and Latin fraud. 

Would break your shield, however broad. 



Fill high the bowl with Samian wine ! 

Our virgins dance beneath the shade — 
I see their glorious black eyes shine; 

But gazing on each glowing maid, 
My own the burning tear-drop laves. 
To think such breasts must suckle slaves. 

16. 

Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, 
Where nothing, save the waves and I, 

May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; 
There, swan-like, let me sing and die: 

A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine — 

Dash down yon cup of Samian wine I 



Thus sung, or would, or could, or should 
have sung. 
The modern Greek, in tolerable verse; 
If not like Orpheus quite, when Greece 
was young. 
Yet in these times he might have done 
much worse: 
His strain displayed some feeling — 
right or wrong; 
And feeling, in a poet, is the source 
Of others' feeling; but they are such 

liars, 
And take all colours — like the handy 
of dyers. 

LXXXVIII. 

But words are things, and a small drojl 
of ink, * 

Falling like dew, upon a thouffht, 
produces 



Canto hi.] 



DON JUAN 



1049 



That which makes thousands, perhaps 

millions, think; 
'Tis strange, the shortest letter which 

man uses 
Instead of speech, mav form a lasting 

link 
Of ages; to what straits old Time 

reduces 
Frail man, when paper — even a rag 

like this. 
Survives himself, his tomb, and all 

that's hi§! ^-,^ 



Lk, 



And when his bones are dust, his grave 
a blank, 
His station, generation, even his 
nation. 
Become a thing, or nothing, save to rank 

In chronological commemoration, 
Some dull MS. Oblivion long has sank. 
Or graven stone found in a barrack's 
station 
In digging the foundation of a closet. 
May turn his name up, as a rare deposit. 



And Glory long has made the sages 

smile; 
'Tis something, nothing, words, il- 
lusion, wind — 
Depending more upon the historian's 

style 
Than on the name a person leaves 

behind: 
Troy owes to Homer what whist owes 

to Hoyle: 
The present century was growing 

blind 
To the great Marlborough's skill in 

giving knocks. 
Until his late Life by Archdeacon Coxe. 



Milton's the Prince of poets — so we 
say; 
\ A little heavy, but no less divine: 
y An independent being in his day — 
^, Learned, pious, temperate in love 
.j and wine; 

But, his life falling into Johnson's way, 
We're told this great High Priest of 
all the Nine 



Was whipped at college — a harsh 

sire — odd spouse. 
For the first Mrs Milton left his house. 



All these are, certes, entertaining facts, 
Like Shakespeare's stealing deer, 
Lord Bacon's bribes; 
Like Titus' youth, and Caesar's earliest 
acts; 
Like Burns (whom Doctor Currie 
well describes); 
Like Cromwell's pranks;^ — but al- 
though Truth exacts 
These amiable descriptions from the 
scribes. 
As most essential to their hero's story. 
They do not much contribute to his 
glory. 

XCIII. 

All are not moralists, hke Southey, when 
He prated to the world of "Panti- 
socracy"; ^ 
Or Wordsworth unexcised, unhired, 
who then 
Seasoned his pedlar poems with 
Democracy ; 
Or Coleridge ^ long before his flighty pen 

'["He [Cromwell] was very notorious for 
robbing orchards, a puerile crime . . . but 
grown so scandalous and injurious by the fre- 
quent spoyls and damages of Trees, breaking of 
Hedges, and Inclosures, committed by this 
Apple-Dragon, that m.any solemn complaints 
were made both to his Father and Mother for 
redresse thereof; v>hich missed not their satis- 
faction and expiation out of his hide," etc. — 
Flagellum, by James Heath, 1663, p. 5.] 

' [In The Friend, 1818, ii. 38, Coleridge refers 
to "a plan ... of trying the experiment of 
human perfectibility on the banks of the Sus- 
quehanna"; but the word '' Fantisocracy" is 
not mentioned. It occurs, perhaps, for the first 
time in print, in George Dyer's biographical 
sketch of Southey, which he contributed to 
Public Characters of 17QQ-JS00, p. 225,— 
"Coleridge, no less than Southey, posses-^ed 
a strong passion for poetry. They commenced 
an enthusiastic friendship, and struck out a 
plan for settling in America, and for having all 
things in common. This scheme they called 
Pantisocracy." Hence, the phrase must_ have 
"caught on," for, in a footnote to his review of 
Coleridge's Literary Life {Edin. Ret'., August, 
1817), Jeffrey speaks of "the Pantisocratic or 
Lake School," etc.] 

i [Coleridge began his poetical contributions 
to the Morning Post in January, 1798; his prose 
articles in 1800.] 



I050 



DON JUAN 



[Canto hi. 



Let to the Morning Post its aristoc- 
racy ; 

When he and Southey, following the 
same path, 

Espoused two partners (milliners of 
Bath).^ 

XCIV. 

Such names at present cut a convict 
figure, 
The very Botany Bay in moral 
geography; 
Their loyal treason, renegade rigour. 
Are good manure for their more bare 
biography ; 
Wordsworth's last quarto, by the way, 
is bigger 
Than any since the birthday of 
typography; 
A drowsy, frowzy poem, called the 

"Excursion," 
Writ in a manner which is my aversion. 

xcv. 

He there builds up a formidable dyke 
Between his own and others' intellect; 
But Wordsworth's poem, and his 
followers, like 
Joanna Southcote's Shiloh and her 
sect. 
Are things which in this century don't 
strike 
The public mind, — so few are the 
elect; 
And the new births of both their stale 

Virginities 
Have proved but Dropsies, taken for 
Divinities. 

xcvi. 

But let me to my story: I must own. 
If I have any fault, it is digression, 

' [Coleridge was married to Sarah Fricker, 
October 5; Southey to her younger sister Edith, 
November 15, 1795. In a letter to Murray, 
dated September 11, 1822 (Lcllers, iqoi, vi. 113), 
Byron quotes the authority of "Luttrell," and 
"his friend Mr Nugent," for the statement that 
Mrs Southey and "Coleridge's Sara . . . 
before they were married . . . were milliners or 
dressmaker's apprentices." The story rests 
upon their evidence. It is probable that they 
had been apprenticed to a dressmaker, but it is 
certain that in 1794, when Coleridge appeared 
ujxjn the scene, the sisters earned their living by 
going out to work in the houses of friends, and 
were not. at that time, "milliners of Bath."] 



Leaving my people to proceed alone. 

While I soliloquise beyond expression; 
But these are my addresses from the 
throne, 
Which put off business to the ensuing 
session: — 
Forgetting each omission is a loss to 
The world, not quite so great as Ariosto. 

XCVII. 

I know that what our neighbours call 
"lo7igueurs,^' 
(We've not so good a word, but have 
the thing, 
In that complete perfection which 
insures 
An epic from Bob Southey every 
spring — ) 
Form not the true temptation which 
allures 
The reader; but 'twould not be hard 
to bring 
Some fine examples of the Epopee, 
To prove its grand ingredient is Ennui. 



We learn from Horace, "Homer some- 
times sleeps;" 
We feel without him, — Wordsworth 

sometimes wakes, — ' — " 

To show with what complacency he 
creeps. 
With his dear "Waggotiers," around 
his lakes. ^ 
He wishes for "a boat" to sail the 
deeps -r- 
Of Ocean? — No, of air; and then 
he makes 
Another outcry for "a Httle boat," 
And drivels seas to set it well afloat.^ 

xcix. 

If he must fain sweep o'er the ethereal 
plain. 
And Pegasus runs restive in his 
"Waggon," 

' [Wordsworth's Benjamin the Waggoner, 
was written in 1805, but was not published till 
1810.] 
' [" There's something in a flying horse, 
There's something in a huge balloon; 
But through the clouds I'll never float 
Until I have a little Boat, 
Shaped like the crescent-moon." 

— Wordsworth's Fekr Bell, stanza i.] 



Canto iii.] 



DON JUAN 



105 1 



Could he not beg the loan of Charles's 
Wain ? 
Or pray Medea for a single dragon? 
Or if, too classic for his vulgar brain, 
He feared his neck to venture such 
a nag on, 
And he must needs mount nearer to the 

moon, 
Could not the blockhead ask for a 
balloon ? 

c. 

"Pedlars," and "Boats," and "Wag- 
gons!" Oh! ye shades 
Of Pope and Dryden, are we come 
to this? 
That trash of such sort not alone 
evades 
Contempt, but from the bathos' vast 
abyss 
Floats scumhke uppermost, and these 
Jack Cades 
Of sense and song above your graves 

may hiss — 
he "Httle boatman" and his Peter Bell 
an sneer at him who drew "Achito- 
phel !" ^ 
f i CI. 

T' our tale — The feast was over, the 
slaves gone, 
The dwarfs and dancing girls had all 
retired ; 
The Arab lore and Poet's song were 
done. 
And every sound of revelry expired; 
The lady and her lover, left alone. 
The rosy flood of Twilight's sky 
admired; — 
Ave Maria ! o'er the earth and sea, 
That heavenliest hour of Heaven is 
worthiest thee ! 

CII. 

Ave Maria I blessed be the hour ! 
The time, the chme, the spot, where 
I so oft 

* I [In his "Essay, Supplementary to the Pre- 

• face," to his "Poems" of 1815, Wordsworth, 
T commenting on a passage on Night in Drydcn's 
: Indian Emperor, says, "Dryden's lines are vague, 

'bombastic, and senseless. . . . The verses of 
Dryden once celebrated are forgotten." He is 
not passing any general criticism on "him who 
drew Achitophel."] 



Have felt that moment in its fullest power 
Sink o'er the earth — so beautiful 
and soft — 
While swung the deep bell in the distant 
tower. 
Or the faint dying day-hymn stole 
aloft. 
And not a breath crept through the 

rosy air. 
And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred 
with prayer. 

cm. 

Ave Maria ! 'tis the hour of prayer ! 
Ave Maria ! 'tis the hour of Love ! 
Ave Maria ! may our spirits dare 

Look up to thine and to thy Son's 
above ! 
Ave Maria ! oh that face so fair ! 

Those downcast eyes beneath the 
Almighty Dove — 
What though 'tis but a pictured image? 

— strike — 
That painting is no idol, — 'tis too like. 

CIV. C4v'>^ 

Some kinder casuists are pleased to say, 
In nameless print — that I have no 
devotion ; 
But set those persons down wath me 
to pray. 
And you shall see who has the proper- 
est notion 
Of getting into Heaven the shortest 
way; 
My altars are the mountains and the 
Ocean, 
Earth — air — stars, — all that springs 

from the great Whole, 
Who hath produced, and will receive 
the Soul. 

cv. 

Sweet Hour of Twilight ! — in the 
solitude 
Of the pine forest, and the silent shore 
Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial 
wood, 
Rooted where once the Adrian wave 
flowed o'er, 
To where the last Caesarean fortress 
stood. 
Evergreen forest ! which Boccaccio's 
lore 



1052 



DON JUAN 



[Canto hi. 



And Dryden's lay made haunted ground 

to me, 
How have I loved the twilight hour 

and thee ! 

cvi. 

The shrill cicalas, people of the pine, 
Making their summer lives one cease- 
less song. 
Were the sole echoes, save my steed's 
and mine. 
And Vesper bell's that rose the boughs 
along; 
The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line,^ 
His hell-dogs, and their chase, and 
the fair throng 
Which learned from this example not 

to fly 
From a true lover, — shadowed my 
mind's eye. 

CVII. 

Oh, Hesperus! thou bringest all good 

things — ^ 
Home to the weary, to the hungry 

cheer, 
To the young bird the parent's brood- 
ing wings; 
The welcome stall to the o'erlaboured 

steer; 
Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone 

clings, 
Whate'er our household gods protect 

of dear. 
Are gathered round us by thy look of 

rest; 
Thou bring'st the child, too, to the 

mother's breast. 



' [In Dryden's Theodore and Honoria the 
"spectre-huntsman," the ghost of Guido Caval- 
canto, hunted and tortured "an inexorable 
Dame," who had flouted his love and scorned his 
suit. — ^"From this example," Honoria learned 
"not to fly" from Theodore.] 
' EcTTrepe na-VTa (fiepeti; 
<l>ep€ts OLVOV — (/)epeis atya, 
^epets fxarepL rraida. 

— Fragment of Sappho. 
["Evening, all things thou bringest 

Which dawn spread apart from each other; 
The lamb and the kid thou bringest, 
Thou bringest the boy to his mother." 
— J. A. Symonds. 
Compare Tennyson's Locksley Hall, Sixty 
Years After — 

"Hesper, whom the poet cali'd the Bringer 
home of all good things."] 



CVIII. 

Soft Hour ! which wakes the wish and 
melts the heart 
Of those who sail the seas, on the first 
day 
When they from their sweet friends are 
torn apart; 
Or fills with love the pilgrim on his 
way 
As the far bell of Vesper makes him 
start, 
Seeming to weep the dying day's 
decay; ^ 
Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? 
Ah ! surely Nothing dies but Something 
mourns ! 

cix. 

When Nero perished by the justest 
doom 
Which ever the Destroyer yet de- 
stroyed. 
Amidst the roar of liberated Rome, 
Of nations freed, and the world 
overjoyed, 
Some hands unseen strewed flowers 
upon his tomb : ^ 
Perhaps the weakness of a heart not' 
void 
Of feeling for some kindness done, when 

Power 
Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour. 



But I'm digressing; what on earth has 
Nero, 
Or any such like sovereign buffoons, 
To do with the transactions of my 
hero, 
More than such madmen's fellow man 
— the moon's ? 
Sure my invention must be down at zero, 
And I grown one of many "Wooden 
Spoons" 

^"Era gia I'ora che volge il disio ,i 

Ai naviganti, e intenerisce il cuore; 
Lo di ch'han detto ai dolci amici addio; 
E che lo nuovo peregrin' damore 
Punge, se ode squilla di lontano, 
Che paia il giorno pianger che si more." 
— Dante's Purgatory, canto viii. lines 1-6. i^ 
This last line is the first of Gray's Elegy, taken ^ 
by him without acknowledgment. 

^ See Suetonius for this fact. [De XII. Cms., 
lib. vi. cap. Jvii.l 



Canto iv.] 



DON JUAN 



1053 



Of verse, (the name with which we 

Cantabs please 
To dub the last of honours in degrees). 



I feel this tediousness will never do — 
'Tis being too epic, and I must cut 
down 
(In copying) this long canto into two; 

They'll never find it out, unless I own 

The fact, excepting some experienced 

few; 

And then as an improvement 'twill 

be shown : 

I'll prove that such the opinion of the 

critic is 
From Aristotle passim. — See IIOIH- 
TIKHS 



CANTO THE FOURTH. 



Nothing so difBcult as a beginning 
In poesy, unless perhaps the end; 
For oftentimes when Pegasus seems 
winning 
The race, he sprains a wing, and down 
we tend. 
Like Lucifer when hurled from Heaven 
for sinning; 
Our sin the same, and hard as his to 
mend, 
Being Pride, which leads the mind to 

soar too far. 
Till our own weakness shows us what 
we are. 

11. 

But Time, which brings all beings to 
their level. 
And sharp Adversity, will teach at last 

Man, — and, as we would hope, — per- 
haps the Devil, 
That neither of their intellects are 
vast : 

yhile Youth's hot wishes in our red 

y veins revel, 

^ We know not this — the blood flows 
on too fast; 

Jut as the torrent widens towards the 
Ocean, 

We ponder deeply on each past emotion. 



As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow, 
And wished that others held the same 

opinion ; 
They took it up when my days grew 

more mellow. 
And other minds acknowledged my 

dominion : 
Now my sere Fancy "falls into the 

yellow 
Leaf," and Imagination droops her 

pinion, 
And the sad truth which hovers o'er my 

desk 
Turns what was once romantic to 

burlesque. 

IV. 

And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 
'Tis that I may not weep; and if I 
weep, 
'Tis that our nature cannot always bring 

Itself to apathy, for we must steep 
Our hearts first in the depths of Lethe's 
spring. 
Ere what we least wish to behold will 
sleep : 
Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx; 
A mortal mother would on Lethe fix. 



Some have accused me of a strange 
design 
Against the creed and morals of the 
land, 
And trace it in this poem every line: 
I don't pretend that I quite under- 
stand 
My own meaning when I would be very 
fine; 
But the fact is that I have nothing 
planned. 
Unless it were to be a moment merry — 
A novel word in my vocabulary. 

VI. 

To the kind reader of our sober clime 

This way of writing will appear exotic; 

Pulci was sire of the half-serious rhyme. 

Who sang when Chivalry was more 

quixotic. 

And revelled in the fancies of the time, 

True Knights, chaste Dames, huge 

Giants, Kings despotic; 



I054 



DON JUAN 



[Canto iv. 



But all these, save the last, being 

obsolete, 
I chose a modern subject as more meet. 

VII. 

How I have treated it, I do not know; 
Perhaps no better than they have 
treated me, 
Who have imputed such designs as show 
Not what they saw, but what they 
wished to see: 
But if it gives them pleasure, be it so; 
This is a liberal age, and thoughts are 
free : 
Meantime Apollo plucks me by the ear, 
And tells me to resume my story here. 



Young Juan and his lady-love were left 
To their own hearts' most sweet 
society ; 
Even Time the pitiless in sorrow cleft 
With his rude scythe such gentle 
bosoms; he 
Sighed to behold them of their hours 
bereft, 
Though foe to Love; and yet they 
could not be 
Meant to grow old, but die in happy 

Spring, 
Before one charm or hope had taken 
wing. 

IX. 

Their faces were not made for wrinkles, 
their 
Pure blood to stagnate, their great 
hearts to fail; 
The blank grey was not made to blast 
their hair. 
But like the climes that know nor 
snow nor hail, 
They were all summer; lightning might 
assail 
And shiver them to ashes, but to trail 
A long and snake-like life of dull decay 
Was not for them — they had too little 
clay. 

X. 

They were alone once more ; for them to 
be 
Thus was another Eden; they were 
never 



Weary, unless when separate: the tree 
Cut from its forest root of years — the 

river 
Dammed from its fountain — the child 

from the knee 
And breast maternal weaned at once 

for ever, — 
Would wnther less than these two torn 

apart ; 
Alas ! there is no instinct like the 

Heart — 



The Heart — which may be broken : 

happy they ! 
Thrice fortunate ! who of that fragile 

mould. 
The precious porcelain of human clay, 
Break with the first fall : they can 

ne'er behold 
The long year linked with heavy day on 

day, 
And all which must be borne, and 

never told; 
While Life's strange principle will often 

lie 
Deepest in those who long the most to 

die. 

XII. 

"Whom the gods love die young," was 

said of yore. 
And many deaths do they escape by 

this : 
The death of friends, and that which 

slays even more — 
The death of Friendship, Love, 

Youth, all that is. 
Except mere breath; and since the 

silent shore 
Awaits at last even those who longest 

miss 
The old Archer's shafts, perhaps the 

early grave 
Which men weep over may be meant to 

save. 



Haidee and Juan thought not of the 

dead — 
The Heavens, and Earth, and Air, 

seemed made for them: 
Thev found no fault with Time, save 

"that he fled; 



Canto iv.] 



DON JUAN 



105s 



They saw not in themselves aught to 
condemn : 
Each was the other's mirror, and but 
read 
Joy sparkling in their dark eyes like a 
gem, 
And knew such brightness was but the 

reflection 
Of their exchanging glances of affection. 



The gentle pressure, and the thrilling 

touch. 
The least glance better understood 

than words, 
Which still said all, and ne'er could say 

too much; 
A language, too, but like to that of 

birds, 
Known but to them, at least appearing 

such 
As but to lovers a true sense affords; 
Sweet playful phrases, which would 

seem absurd 
To those who have ceased to hear such, 

or ne'er heard — 



All these were theirs, for they were 
children still. 
And children still they should have 
ever been; 
They were not made in the real world to 
fill 
A busy character in the dull scene, 
But like two beings born from out a rill, 
A Nymph and her beloved, all unseen 
To pass their lives in fountains and on 

flowers, 
And never know the weight of human 
hours. 

XVI. 

Moons changing had rolled on, and 

changeless found 
Those their bright rise had lighted to 

such joys 
As rarely they beheld throughout their 

round ; 
And these were not of the vain kind 

which cloys. 
For theirs were buoyant spirits, never 

bound 



By the mere senses; ^ind that which 

destroys 
Most love — possession — unto them 

appeared 
A thing which each endearment more 

endeared. 

XVII. 

Oh beautiful ! and rare as beautiful ! 
But theirs was Love in which the 

Mind delights 
To lose itself, when the old world grows 

dull. 
And we are sick of its hack sounds 

and sights, 
Intrigues, adventures of the common 

school. 
Its petty passions, marriages, and 

flights'. 
Where Hymen's torch but brands one 

strumpet more. 
Whose husband only knows her not a 

whore. 

XVIII. 

Hard words — harsh truth ! a truth 
which many know. 
Enough. — The faithful and the fairy 
pair. 
Who never found a single hour too slow, 
What was it made them thus exempt 
from care? 
Young innate feelings all have felt below, 
Which perish in the rest, but in them 
were 
Inherent — what w^e mortals call roman- 
tic. 
And always envy, though we deem it 
frantic. 

XIX. 

This is in others a factitious state. 
An opium dream of too much youth 
and reading, 
But was in them their nature or their fate : 
No novels e'er had set their young 
hearts bleeding, 
For Haidee's knowledge was by no 
means great, 
And Juan was a boy of saintly breed- 
ing; 
So that there was no reason for their 

loves 
More than for those of nightingales or 
doves. 



1056 



DON JUAN 



[Canto iv. 



-- XX. 

They gazed upon the sunset; 'tis an 

hour 
Dear unto all, but dearest to their eyes, 
For it had made them what they were : 

the power 
Of Love had first o'erwhelmed them 

from such skies, 
When Happiness had been their only 

dower, 
And Twilight saw them linked in 

Passion's ties; 
Charmed with each other, all things 

charmed that brought 
The past still welcome as the present 

thought. 

XXI. 

I know not why, but in that hour to- 
night, 
Even as they gazed, a sudden tremor 
came. 
And swept, as 'twere, across their hearts' 
delight. 
Like the wind o'er a harp-string, or a 
flame, 
When one is shook in sound, and one in 
sight : 
And thus some boding flashed through 
either frame. 
And called from Juan's breast a faint 

low sigh. 
While one new tear arose in Haidee's 
eye. 

XXII. 

That large black prophet eye seemed to 
dilate 
And follow far the disappearing sun, 
As if their last day of a happy date 
With his broad, bright, and dropping 
orb were gone; 
Juan gazed on her as to ask his 
fate — 
He felt a grief, but knomng cause for 
none, 
His glance inquired of hers for some 

excuse 
For feelings causeless, or at least 
abstruse. 

XXIII. 

She turned to him, and smiled, but in 
that sort 



Which makes not others smile; then 
turned aside: 
Whatever feeling shook her, it seemed 
short, 
And mastered by her wisdom or her 
pride; 
When Juan spoke, too — it might be in 
sport — 
Of this their mutual feeling, she 
replied — 
"If it should be so, — but — it cannot 

be — 
Or I at least shall not survive to see." 



Juan would question further, but she 

pressed 
His lip to hers, and silenced him with 

this, 
And then dismissed the omen from her 

breast. 
Defying augury with that fond kiss; 
And no doubt of all methods 'tis the 

best: 
Some people prefer wine — 'tis not 

amiss ; 
I have tried both — so those who would 

a part take 
May choose between the headache and 

the heartache. 

XXV. 

One of the two, according to your choice, 
Woman or wine, you'll have to 
undergo; 
Both maladies are taxes on our joys : 
But which to choose, I really hardly 
know; 
And if I had to give a casting voice, 
For both sides I could many reasons 
show. 
And then decide, without great wrong 

to either. 
It were much better to have both than 
neither. 

XXVI. 

Juan and Haidee gazed upon each other 
With swimming looks of speechless 
tenderness. 
Which mixed all feelings — friend, child, 
lover, brother — 
All that the best can mingle and 
express 



Canto iv.] 



DON JUAN 



IC57 



When two pure hearts are poured in one 

another, 
And love too much, and yet cannot 

love less; 
But almost sanctify the sweet excess 
By the immortal wish and power to bless. 

XXVII. 

Mixed in each other's arms, and heart 

in heart. 
Why did they not then die ? — they 

had lived too long 
Should an hour come to bid them 

breathe apart; 
Years could but bring them cruel 

things or wrong; 
The World was not for them — nor the 

World's art 
For beings passionate as Sappho's 

song; 
Love was born with them, in them, so 

intense, 
It was their very Spirit — not a sense. 

xxvin. 

They should have lived together deep in 
woods, 
Unseen as sings the nightingale ; they 
were 
Unfit to mix in these thick solitudes 
Called social, haunts of Hate, and 
Vice, and Care : 
How lonely every freeborn creature 
broods ! 
The sweetest song-birds nestle in a 
pair; 
The eagle soars alone ; the gull and crow 
Flock o'er their carrion, just like men 
below, 

xxix. 

Now pillowed cheek to cheek, in loving 
sleep, 
Haidee and Juan their siesta took, 
A gentle slumber, but it was not deep, 
For ever and anon a something shook 
Juan, and shuddering o'er his frame 
would creep; 
And Haidee's sweet lips murmured 
like a brook 
A wordless music, and her face so fair 
Stirred with her dream, as rose-leaves 
with the air. 

3^ 



Or as the stirring of a deep clear stream 
WithinanAlpinehollow,when the wind 
Walks o'er it, was she shaken by the 
dream. 
The mystical Usurper of the mind — 
O'erpowering us to be whate'er may 
seem 
Good to the soul which we no more 
can bind; 
Strange state of being ! (for 'tis still to 

be) 
Senseless to feel, and with sealed eyes to 
see. 



She dreamed of being alone on the sea- 
shore. 
Chained to a rock; she knew not how, 
but stir 
She could not from the spot, and the 
loud roar 
Grew, and each wave rose roughly, 
threatening her; 
And o'er her upper lip they seemed to 
pour, 
Until she sobbed for breath, and soon 
they were 
Foaming o'er her lone head, so fierce 

and high — 
Each broke to drown her, yet she could 
not die. 

xxxii. 

Anon — she was released, and then she 
strayed 
O'er the sharp shingles with her bleed- 
ing feet, 
And stumbled almost every step she 
made: 
And something rolled before her in a 
sheet. 
Which she must still pursue howe'er 
afraid : 
'Twas white and indistinct, nor 
stopped to meet 
Her glance nor grasp, for still she gazed 

and grasped, 
And ran, but it escaped her as she 
clasped. 

xxxiii. 

The dream changed : — in a cave she 
stood, — its walls 



1 058 



DON JUAN 



[Canto iv. 



Were hung with marble icicles; the 
work 
Of ages on its water-fretted halls, 
Where waves might wash, and seals 
might breed and lurk; 
Her hair was dripping, and the very balls 
Of her black eyes seemed turned to 
tears, and mirk 
The sharp rocks looked below each drop 

they caught. 
Which froze to marble as it fell, — she 
thought. 

XXXIV. 

And wet, and cold, and lifeless at her 

feet, 
Pale as the foam that frothed on his 

dead brow, 
Which she essayed in vain to clear, (how 

sweet 
Were once her cares, how idle seemed 

they now !) 
Lay Juan, nor could aught renew the 

beat 
Of his quenched heart: and the sea 

dirges low 
Rang in her sad ears like a Mermaid's 

song, 
And that brief dream appeared a life too 

long. 

XXXV. 

And gazing on the dead, she thought his 

face 
Faded, or altered into something 

new • — 
Like to her Father's features, till each 

trace 
More like and like to Lambro's aspect 

grew — 
With all his keen worn look and Grecian 

grace ; 
And starting, she awoke, and what to 

view? 
Oh! Powers of Heaven! what dark 

eye meets she there? 
'Tis — 'tis her Father's — fixed upon 

the pair! 



Then shrieking, she arose, and shrieking 
fell, ^ 

With joy and sorrow, hope and fear, 
to see 



Him whom she deemed a habitant where 

dwell 
The ocean-buried, risen from death, 

to be 
Perchance the death of one she loved 

too well: 
Dear as her father had been to Haidee, 

It was a moment of that awful kind • 

I have seen such — but must not call 

to mind. 

XXXVII. 

Up Juan sprang to Haidee's bitter 
shriek. 
And caught her falling, and from off 
the wall 
Snatched down his sabre, in hot haste to 
wreak 
Vengeance on him who was the cause 
of all : 
Then Lambro, who till now forebore to 
speak. 
Smiled scornfully, and said, "Within 
my call, 
A thousand scimitars await the word ; 
Put up, young man, put up your silly 
sword." 

XXX vm. 

And Haidee clung around him; "Juan, 
'tis — 
'Tis Lambro — 'tis my father ! Kneel 
with me — 
He will forgive us — yes — it must be 
— yes. 
Oh ! dearest father, in this agony 
Of pleasure and of pain — even while I 
kiss 
Thy garment's hem with transport, 
can it be 
That doubt should mingle with my filial 

joy? 
Deal with me as thou wilt, but spare this 
boy." 

XXXIX. 

High and inscrutable the old man stood, 
Calm in his voice, and calm within 
his eye — 
Not always signs with him of calmest 
mood : 
He looked upon her, but gave no 
reply; 
Then turned to Juan, in w^hose cheek 
the blood 



Canto iv.] 



DON JUAN 



1059 



Oft came and went, as there resolved 

to die; 
In arms, at least, he stood, in act to 

spring 
On the first foe whom Lambro's call 

might bring. 

XL. 

" Young man, your sword ; " so Lambro 
once more said: 
Juan replied, "Not while this arm is 
free." 
The old man's cheek grew pale, but not 
with dread, 
And drawing from his belt a pistol he 
RepHed, "Your blood be then on your 
own head." 
Then looked close at the flint, as if to 
see 
'Twas fresh — for he had lately used 

the lock — 
And next proceeded quietly to cock. 

XLI. 

It has a strange quick jar upon the ear, 
That cocking of a pistol, when you 
know 
A moment more will bring the sight to 
bear 
Upon your person, twelve yards off, 
or so; 
A gentlemanly distance, not too near. 
If you have got a former friend for 
foe; 
But after being fired at once or twice, 
The ear becomes more Irish, and less 
nice. 

XLII. 

Lambro presented, and one instant more 
Had stopped this Canto, and Don 

Juan's breath. 
When Haidee threw herself her boy 

before ; 
Stern as her sire: "On me," she 

cried, "let Death 
Descend — the fault is mine; this fatal 

shore 
He found — but sought not. I have 

pledged my faith; 
I love him — I will die with him : I 

knew 
Your nature's firmness — know your 

daughter's too." 



A minute past, and she had been all 

tears. 
And tenderness, and infancy; but 

now 
She stood as one who championed hu- 
man fears — 
Pale, statue-like, and stern, she wooed 

the blow; 
And tall beyond her sex, and their 

compeers. 
She drew up to her height, as if to 

show 
A fairer mark; and with a fixed eye 

scanned 
Her Father's face — but never stopped 

his hand. 

XLIV. 

He gazed on her, and she on him; 

'twas strange 
How like they looked ! the expression 

was the same; 
Serenely savage, -udth a little change 
In the large dark eye's mutual-darted 

flame; 
For she, too, was as one who could 

avenge. 
If cause should be — a Lioness, 

though tame. 
Her Father's blood before her Father's 

face 
Boiled up, and proved her truly of his 

race. 



I said they were alike, their features and 
Their stature, differing but in sex 
and years; 
Even to the delicacy of their hand 
There was resemblance, such as true 
blood wears; 
And now to see them, thus divided, stand 

In fixed ferocity, when joyous tears 
And sweet sensations should have wel- 
comed both. 
Shows what the passions are in their full 
growth. 

XL VI. 

The father paused a moment, then with- 
drew 
His weapon, and replaced it; but 
stood still, 



io6o 



DON JUAN 



[Canto iv. 



And looking on her, as to look her 
through, 
"Not /," he said, "have sought this 
stranger's ill ! 

Not / have made this desolation: few 
Would bear such outrage, and for- 
bear to kill; 

But I must do my duty — how thou 
hast 

Done thine, the present vouches for the 
past. 

XLVII. 

"Let him disarm; or, by my father's 

head, 
His own shall roll before you Uke a 

ball!" 
He raised his whistle, as the word he 

said, 
And blew; another answered to the 

call, 
And rushing in disorderly, though led. 
And armed from boot to turban one 

and all, 
Some twenty of his train came, rank on 

rank; 
He gave the word, — "Arrest or slav the 

Frank." 

XLVIII. 

Then, with a sudden movement, he 

withdrew 
His daughter; while compressed 

within his clasp, 
'Twixt her and Juan interposed the 

crew; 
In vain she struggled in her father's 

grasp — 
His arms were like a serpent's coil: 

then flew 
Upon their prey, as darts an angry 

asp. 
The file of pirates — save the foremost, 

who 
Had fallen, with his right shoulder half 

cut through. 

XLIX. 

The second had his cheek laid open; but 

The third, a wary, cool old sworder, 

took 

The blows upon his cutlass, and then put 

His own well in; so well, ere you 

could look, 



His man was floored, and helpless at his 

foot. 
With the blood running Uke a little 

brook 
From two smart sabre gashes, deep and 

red — 
One on the arm, the other on the head. 



And then they bound him where he fell, 

and bore 
Juan from the apartment : with a sign 
Old Lambro bade them take him to the 

shore. 
Where lay some ships which were to 

sail at nine. 
They laid him in a boat, and plied the 

oar 
Until they reached some galliots, 

placed in Une; 
On board of one of these, and under 

hatches, 
They stowed him, with strict orders to 

the watches. 

LI. 

The world is full of strange vicissitudes, 
And here was one exceedingly un- 
pleasant: 
A gentleman so rich in the world's goods. 
Handsome and young, enjoying all 
the present. 
Just at the very time when he least 
broods 
On such a thing, is suddenly to sea 
sent. 
Wounded and chained, so that he cannot 

move, 
And all because a lady fell in love. 

LII. 

Here I must leave him, for I grow 
pathetic. 
Moved by the Chinese nymph of tears, 
green tea! 
Than whom Cassandra was not more 
prophetic ; 
For if my pure libations exceed three, 
I feel my heart become so sympathetic. 
That I must have recourse to black 
Bohea; 
'Tis pity wine should be so deleterious. 
For tea and cofi^ee leave us much more 
serious. 



Canto iv.] 



DON JUAN 



1061 



LIII. 

Unless when qualified with thee, 

Cogniac ! 
■ Sweet Naiad of the Phlegethontic rill ! 
Ah ! why the liver wilt thou thus attack, 
And make, like other nymphs, thy 

lovers ill? 
I would take refuge in weak punch, but 

rack 
(In each sense of the word), whene'er 

I fill 
My mild and midnight beakers to the 

brim. 
Wakes me next morning with its 

synonym. 

Liv. 

I leave Don Juan for the present, safe — 
Not sound, poor fellow, but severely 
wounded; 
Yet could his corporal pangs amount to 
half ■ 
Of those with which his Haidee's 
bosom bounded? 
She was not one to weep, and rave, and 
chafe. 
And then give way, subdued because 
surrounded; 
Her mother was a Moorish maid from 

Fez, 
Where all is Eden, or a wilderness. 

LV. 

There the large olive rains its amber store 
In marble fonts; there grain, and 
flower, and fruit. 
Gush from the earth until the land runs 
o'er; 
But there, too, many a poison-tree has 
root. 
And Midnight listens to the lion's roar. 
And long, long deserts scorch the 
camel's foot. 
Or heaving whelm the helpless caravan; 
And as the soil is, so the heart of man. 



Afric is all the Sun's, and as her earth 

Her human clay is kindled; full of 

power 

For good or evil, burning from its birth, 

The Moorish blood partakes the 

planet's hour, 



And Hke the soil beneath it will bring 

forth: 
Beauty and love were Haidee's 

mother's dower; 
But her large dark eye showed deep 

Passion's force. 
Though sleeping like a lion near a 

source. 

LVII. 

Her daughter, tempered with a milder 

ray, 
Like summer clouds all silvery, 

smooth, and fair, 
Till slowly charged with thunder they 

display 
Terror to earth, and tempest to the 

air, 
Had held till now her soft and milky 

way; 
But overwrought with Passion and 

Despair, 
The fire burst forth from her Numidian 

veins, 
Even as the Simoom sweeps the blasted 

plains. 

LVIII. 

The last sight which she saw was 
Juan's gore, 
And he himself o'ermastered and cut 
down ; 
His blood was running on the very floor 
Where late he trod, her beautiful, her 
own ; 
Thus much she viewed an instant and 
no more, — 
Her struggles ceased with one con- 
vulsive groan; 
On her Sire's arm, which until now 

scarce held 
Her writhing, fell she Hke a cedar felled. 



A vein had burst, and her sweet lips' 
pure dyes 
Were dabbled with the deep blood 
which ran o'er; ^ 



' This is no very uncommon effect of the violence 
of conflicting and different passions. The Doge 
Francis Foscari, on his deposition in 1457, hear- 
ing the bells of St Mark announce the election of 
his successor, "mourut subitement d'une hemor- 
ragie causee par une veine qui s'eclata dans sa 
poitrine" [see Sismondi, 1815, x. 46, and Duru, 



io62 



DON JUAN 



[Canto iv. 



And her head drooped, as when the lily 
lies 
O'ercharged with rain: her sum- 
moned handmaids bore 

Their lady to her couch with gushing 
eyes; 
Of herbs and cordials they produced 
their store, 

But she defied all means they could 
employ. 

Like one Life could not hold, nor Death 
destroy. 

LX. 

Days lay she in that state unchanged, 

though chill — 
With nothing livid, still her lips were 

red; 
She had no pulse, but Death seemed 

absent still; 
No hideous sign proclaimed her surely 

dead; 
Corruption came not in each mind to kill 
All hope; to look upon her sweet face 

bred 
New thoughts of Life, for it seemed full 

of soul — 
She had so much, Earth could not claim 

the whole. 

LXI. 

The ruling passion, such as marble 
shows 
When exquisitely chiselled, still lay 
there. 
But fixed as marble's unchanged aspect 
throws 
O'er the fair Venus, but for ever fair; 
O'er the Laocoon's all eternal throes. 

And ever-dying Gladiator's air. 
Their energy like life forms all their 

fame. 
Yet looks not life, for they are still the 
same. — 

1821, ii. 536; see too, The Two Foscari, act v. 
sc. 1, line 306. and Introduction to The Two 
Foscari, Poetical Works, 1901, v. 118, 193], at 
tile age of eiglity years, when ''Who would have 
thought the old man had so much blood in him .?" 
{Macbeth, act v. sc. i, lines 34^36.) Before I 
was sixteen years of age I was witness to a melan- 
choly instance of the same effect of mixed passions 
upon a young person, who, however, did not die 
in consequence, at that time, but fell a victim 
some years afterwards to a seizure of the same 
kind, arising from causes intimately connected 
with agitation of mind. 



She woke at length, but not as sleepers 

wake. 
Rather the dead, for Life seemed 

something new, 
A strange sensation which she must 

partake 
Perforce, since whatsoever met her 

view 
Struck not on memory, though a heavy 

ache 
Lay at her heart, whose earliest beat 

still true 
Brought back the sense of pain without 

the cause, 
For, for a while, the Furies made a 

pause. 

LXIII. 

She looked on many a face with vacant 

eye, 
On many a token without knowing 

what : 
She saw them watch her without asking 

why. 
And recked not who around her pillow 

sat; 
Not speechless, though she spoke not — 

not a sigh 
Relieved her thoughts — dull silence 

and quick chat 
Were tried in vain by those who served; 

she gave 
No sign, save breath, of having left the 

grave. 

LXIV. 

Her handmaids tended, but she heeded 

not; 
Her Father watched, she turned her 

eyes away; 
She recognised no being, and no 

spot. 
However dear or cherished in their 

day; 
They changed from room to room — but 

all forgot — 
Gentle, but without memory she 

lay; 
At length those eyes, which they would 

fain be weaning 
Back to old thoughts, waxed full of 

fearful meaning. 



Canto iv.] 



DON JUAN 



1063 



And then a slave bethought her of a 
harp; 
The harper came, and tuned his 
instrument; 
At the first notes, irregular and sharp, 
On him her flashing eyes a moment 
bent. 
Then to the wall she turned as if to 
warp 
Her thoughts from sorrow through 
her heart re-sent; 
And he began a long low island-song 
Of ancient days, ere Tyranny grew 
strong. 

LXVI. 

Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall 
In time to his old tune: he changed 
the theme. 
And sung of Love; the fierce name 
struck through all 
Her recollection; on her flashed the 
dream 
Of what she was, and is, if ye could 
call 
To be so being; in a gushing stream 
The tears rushed forth from her o'er 

clouded brain. 
Like mountain mists at length dissolved 
in rain. 

LXVII. 

Short solace, vain relief ! — Thought 

came too quick, 
And whirled her brain to madness; 

she arose 
As one who ne'er had dwelt among 

the sick. 
And flew at all she met, as on her foes; 
But no one ever heard her speak or 

shriek, 
Although her paroxysm drew towards 

its close; — 
Hers was a frenzy which disdained to 

rave. 
Even when they smote her, in the hope 

to save. 

LXVIII. 

Yet she betrayed at times a gleam of 
sense; 
Nothing could make her meet her 
Father's face. 



Though on all other things with looks 

intense 
She gazed, but none she ever could 

retrace; 
Food she refused, and raiment; no 

pretence 
Availed for either; neither change of 

place, 
Nor time, nor skill, nor remedy, could 

give her 
Senses to sleep — the power seemed 

gone for ever. 

LXIX. 

Twelve days and nights she withered 

thus; at last, 
Without a groan, or sigh, or glance, 

to show 
A parting pang, the spirit from her 

passed : 
And they who watched her nearest 

could not know 
The very instant, till the change that 

cast 
Her sweet face into shadow, dull and 

slow. 
Glazed o'er her eyes — the beautiful, 

the black — 
Oh ! to possess such lustre — and then 

lack ! 

LXX. 

She died, but not alone; she held, 
within, 
A second principle of Life, which 
might 
Have dawned a fair and sinless child of 
sin; 
But closed its little being without 
light. 
And went down to the grave unborn, 
wherein 
Blossom and bough lie withered 
with one blight; 
In vain the dews of Heaven descend 

above 
The bleeding flower and blasted fruit 
of Love. 

Lxxr. 

Thus lived — thus died she; never 
more on her 
Shall Sorrow light, or Shame. She 
was not made 



1064 



DON JUAN 



[Canto iv. 



Through years or moons the inner 

weight to bear, 
Which colder hearts endure till they 

are laid 
By age in earth: her days and pleasures 

were 
Brief, but delightful — such as had 

not staid 
Long with her destiny; but she sleeps 

well 
By the sea-shore, whereon she loved 

to dwell. 

LXXII. 

That isle is now all desolate and bare, 
Its dwellings down, its tenants passed 
away ; 
None but her own and Father's grave 
is there, 
And nothing outward tells of human 
clay; 
Ye could not know where lies a thing 
so fair. 
No stone is there to show, no tongue 
to say. 
What was; no dirge, except the hollow 

sea's. 
Mourns o'er the Beauty of the Cyclades. 



But many a Greek maid in a loving song 
Sighs o'er her name; and many an 
islander 
With her Sire's story makes the night 
less long; 
Valour was his, and Beauty dwelt 
with her: 
If she loved rashly, her life paid for 
wrong — 
A heavy price must all pay who 
thus err, 
In some shape; let none think to fly 

the danger. 
For soon or late Love is his own avenger. 

LXXIV. 

But let me change this theme, which 
grows too sad, 
And lay this sheet of sorrows on the 
shelf; 
I don't much like describing people 
mad, 
For fear of seeming rather touched 
myself — 



Besides, I've no more on this head to 

add; 
And as my Muse is a capricious elf, 
We'll put about, and try another tack 
With Juan, left half -killed some stanzas 

back. 

LXXV. 

Wounded and fettered, "cabined, 

cribbed, confined," 
Some days and nights elapsed before 

that he 
Could altogether call the past to mind; 
And when he did, he found himself 

at sea. 
Sailing six knots an hour before the 

wind ; 
The shores of Ilion lay beneath their 

lee — 
Another time he might have liked to 

see 'em. 
But now was not much pleased with 

Cape Sigeum. 

LXXVI. 

There, on the green and village-cotted 

hill, is 
(Flanked by the Hellespont, and by 

the sea) 
Entombed the bravest of the brave, 

Achilles; 
They say so — (Bryant ^ says the 

contrary) : 
And further downward, tall and tower- 
ing still, is 
The tumulus — of whom ? Heaven 

knows ! 't may be 
Patroclus, Ajax, or Protesilaus — 
All heroes, who if living still would 

slay us. 

LXXVII. 

High barrows, without marble, or a 
name, 
A vast, unfilled, and mountain- 
skirted plain, 
And Ida in the distance, still the same, 
And old Scamander (if 'tis he) re- 
main; 
The situation seems still formed for 
fame — 

' [Jacob Bryant (1715-1804) published his 
Dissertation concerning the War of Troy., etc.., 
in 1796.] 



Canto iv.] 



DON JUAN 



1665 



A hundred thousand men might 

fight again, 
With ease; but where I sought for 

Ilion's walls, 
The quiet sheep feeds, and the tortoise 

crawls ; 

LXXVIII. 

Troops of untended horses; here and 
there 
Some little hamlets, with new names 
uncouth; 

Some shepherds (unlike Paris) led to 
stare 
A moment at the European youth 
Whom to the spot their school-boy 
feelings bear; 
A Turk, with beads in hand, and 
pipe in mouth, 
Extremely taken with his own religion. 
Are what I found there — but the devil 
a Phrygian. 

LXXIX. 

i Don Juan, here permitted to emerge 
I From his dull cabin, found himself 
a slave; 
I'orlorn, and gazing on the deep blue 
surge, 
O'ershadowed there by many a 
Hero's grave; 
Weak still with loss of blood, he scarce 
could urge 
A few brief questions; and the 
answers gave 
No very satisfactory information 
About his past or present situation. 



He saw some fellow captives, who 
appeared 
To be Italians (as they were in fact) — 
From them, at least, their destiny he 
heard, 
Which was an odd one; a troop 
going to act 
In Sicily — all singers, duly reared 
In their vocation, had not been 
attacked 
In sailing from Livorno by the pirate, 
But sold by the impresario at no high 
rate.* 

' This is a fact. A few years ago a man 
engaged a comimny for some foreign theatre, 



LXXXI. 

By one of these, the buffo of the party, 
Juan was told about their curious 
case; 
For although destined to the Turkish 
mart, he 
Still kept his spirits up — at least his 
face; 
The little fellow really looked quite 
hearty. 
And bore him with some gaiety and 
grace. 
Showing a much more reconciled de- 
meanour. 
Than did the prima donna and the tenor. 

LXXXII. 

In a few words he told their hapless 
story. 
Saying, "Our Machiavelian impre- 
sario, 
Making a signal off some promontory, 
Hailed a strange brig — Corpo di 
Caio Mario! 
We were transferred on board her in a 
hurry, 
Without a single scudo of salario ; 
But if the Sultan has a taste for song. 
We will revive our fortunes before long. 



"The prima donna, though a little old, 
And haggard with a dissipated life. 
And subject, when the house is thin, 
to cold, 
Has some good notes; and then the 
tenor's wife. 
With no great voice, is pleasing to 
behold ; 
Last carnival she made a deal of 
strife. 
By carrying off Count Cesare Cicogna 
From an old Roman Princess at Bologna. 

LXXXIV. 

"And then there are the dancers; 
there's the Nini, 

embarked them at an Italian port, and carrying 
them to Algiers, .sold them all._ One of the 
women, returned from her captivity, I heard 
sing: by a strange coincidence, in Rossini's opera 
of Vlt'aliatia in Algieri, at Venice, in the begin- 
ning of 1817. 



io66 



DON JUAN 



[Canto iv. 



With more than one profession gains 
by all; 
Then there's that laughing slut the 
Pelegrini, 
She, too, was fortunate last Carnival, 
And made at least five hundred good 
zecchini. 
But spends so fast, she has not now 
a paul; 
And then there's the Grotesca — such 

a dancer! 
Where men have souls or bodies she 
must answer. 

LXXXV. 

"As for the figuranti,^ they are like 
The rest of all that tribe; with here 
and there 
A pretty person, which perhaps may 
strike — 
The rest are hardly fitted for a fair; 
There's one, though tall and stiffer 
than a pike, 
Yet has a sentimental kind of air 
Which might go far, but she don't 

dance with vigour — 
The more's the pity, with her face and 
figure. 

LXXXVI. 

"As for the men, they are a middling 
set; 
The mtisico is but a cracked old basin, 
But, being qualified in one way yet. 

May the seraglio do to set his face in. 

And as a servant some preferment 

get; 

His singing I no further trust can 

place in: 

From all the Pope ^ makes yearly 

'twould perplex 
To find three perfect pipes of the third 



' [The figuranti are those dancers of a ballet 
who do not dance singly, but many together, and 
serve to fill up the background during the exhibi- 
tion of individual performers. They correspond 
to the chorus in the opera. — Maria Graham.] 

^ It is strange that it should be the Pope and 
the Sultan, who are the chief encouragers of this 
branch of trade — women being prohibited as 
singers at St Peter's, and not deemed trust- 
worthy as guardians Of the harem. 

["Scarcely a soul of them can read. Pacchie- 
rotti was one of the best informed of the castrali 
. . . Marchesi is so grossly ignorant that he 



LXXXVII. 

"The tenor's voice is spoilt by affecta- 
tion; 
And for the bass, the beast can only 
bellow — 
In fact, he had no singing education. 
An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tune- 
less fellow; 
But being the prima donna's near 
relation. 
Who swore his voice was very rich 
and mellow. 
They hired him, though to hear him 

you'd believe 
An ass was practising recitative. 

LXXXVIII. 

" 'Twould not become myself to dwell 

upon 
My own merits, and though young — 

I see. Sir — you 
Have got a travelled air, which speaks 

you one 
To whom the opera is by no means 

new: 
You've heard of Raucocanti ? — I'm 

the man; 
The time may come when you may 

hear me too; 
You was not last year at the fair of 

Lugo, 
But next, when I'm engaged to sing 

there — do go. 



"Our baritone I almost had forgot, 
A pretty lad, but bursting with con- 
ceit; 
With graceful action, science not a jot, 
A voice of no great compass, and not 
sweet. 
He always is complaining of his lot. 
Forsooth, scarce fit for ballads in the 
street ; 
In lovers' parts his passion more to 

breathe. 
Having no heart to show, he shows his 
teeth." 

wrote the word opera, opperra, but Nature has 
been so bountiful to the animal, that his ignorance 
and insolence were forgotten the moment he 
sang." — Venice, etc., by a Lady of Rank, 1824, 
ii. 86.] 



Canto iv.] 



DON JUAN 



1067 



xc. 

Here Raucocanti's eloquent recital 

Was interrupted by the pirate crew, 
Who came at stated moments to invite 
all 
The captives back to their sad berths ; 
each threw 
A rueful glance upon the waves, (which 
bright all 
From the blue skies derived a double 
blue. 
Dancing all free and happy in the sun,) 
And then went down the hatchway 
one by one. 

xci. 

They heard next day — that in the 

Dardanelles, 

Waiting for his Sublimity's firman. 

The most imperative of sovereign spells. 

Which everybody does without who 

can. 

More to secure them in their naval cells, 

Lady to lady, well as man to man. 
Were to be chained and lotted out per 

couple. 
For the slave market of Constantinople. 

XCII. 

It seems when this allotment was made 

out. 
There chanced to be an odd male, 

and odd female. 
Who (after some discussion and some 

doubt. 
If the soprano might be deemed to be 

male, 
They placed hiin o'er the women as a 

scout) 
Were linked together, and it happened 

the male 
Was Juan, — who, an awkward thing 

at his age. 
Paired off with a Bacchante blooming 

visage. 

XCIII. 

With Raucocanti lucklessly was chained 
The tenor; these two hated with a 
hate 
Found only on the stage, and each 
more pained 
With this his tuneful neighbour than 
his fate; 



Sad strife arose, for they were so cross- 
grained, 
Instead of bearing up without debate, 
That each pulled different ways with 

many an oath, 
"Arcades ambo," id est — blackguards 
both. 

xciv. 

Juan's companion was a Romagnole, 
But bred within the march of old 
Ancona, 
With eyes that looked into the very 
soul 
(And other chief points of a hella 
donna) , 
Bright — and as black and burning as 
a coal; 
And through her clear brunette com- 
plexion shone a 
Great wish to please — a most attrac- 
tive dower, 
Especially when added to the power. 



But all that power was wasted upon 
him. 
For Sorrow o'er each sense held stern 
command ; 
Her eye might flash on his, but found 
it dim : 
And though thus chained, as natural 
her hand 
Touched his, nor that — nor any hand- 
some limb 
(And she had some not easy to with- 
stand) 
Could stir his pulse, or make his faith 

feel brittle; 
Perhaps his recent wounds might help 
a little. 

xcvi. 

No matter; we should ne'er too much 
inquire. 
But facts are facts: no Knight could 
be more true. 
And firmer faith no Ladye-love desire; 
We will omit the proofs, save one or 
two : 
'Tis said no one in hand "can hold 
a fire 
By thought of frosty Caucasus" — 
but few, 



ro68 



DON JUAN 



[Canto iv. 



I really think — yet Juan's then ordeal 
Was more triumphant, and not much 
less real. 

XCVII. 

Here I might enter on a chaste descrip- 
tion, 
Having withstood temptation in my 

youth. 
But hear that several people take 

exception 
At the first two books having too much 

truth ; 
Therefore I'll make Don Juan leave 

the ship soon, 
Because the publisher declares, in 

sooth, 
Through needles' eyes it easier for the 

camel is 
To pass, than those two cantos into 

families. 

XCVIII. 

'Tis all the same to me; I'm fond of 
yielding, 
And therefore leave them to the 
purer page 
jOf Smollett, Prior, Ariosto, Fielding, 

Who say strange things for so correct 
I an age ; 

' I once had great alacrity in wielding 
i' My pen, and liked poetic war to wage. 
And recollect the time when all this cant 
Would have provoked rernarks — 
which now it shan't. 

xcix. 

As boys love rows, my boyhood liked a 
squabble ; 
But at this hour I wish to part in 
peace. 
Leaving such to the literary rabble; 
Whether my verse's fame be doomed 
to cease 
While the right hand which wrote it 
still is able. 
Or of some centuries to take a lease. 
The grass upon my grave will grow as 

long, 
And sigh to midnight winds, but not to 
song. 

c. 

Of poets who come down to us through 
distance 



Of time and tongues, the foster-babes 
of Fame, 
Life seems the smallest portion of 
existence ; 
Where twenty ages gather o'er a 
name, 
'Tis as a snowball which derives assist- 
ance 
From every flake, and yet rolls on 
the same, 
Even till an iceberg it may chance to 

grow; 
But, after all, 'tis nothing but cold 
snow. 

CI. 

And so great names are nothing more 
than nominal. 
And love of Glory's but an airy lust, 
Too often in its fury overcoming all 
Who would as 'twere identify their 
dust 
From out the wide destruction, which, 
entombing all, 
Leaves nothing till "the coming of 
the just" — 
Save change: I've stood upon Achilles' 

tomb. 
And heard Troy doubted; Time will 
doubt of Rome. 

CII. 

The very generations of the dead 

Are swept away, and tomb inherits 
tomb. 
Until the memory of an Age is fled. 
And, buried, sinks beneath its off- 
spring's doom: 
Where are the epitaphs our fathers 
read? 
Save a few gleaned from the sepulchral 
gloom 
Which once-named myriads nameless 

lie beneath. 
And lose their own in universal Death. 

cm. 

I canter by the spot each afternoon 
Where perished in his fame the hero- 
boy. 
Who lived too long for men, but died 
too soon 
For human vanity, the young De 
Foix! 



Canto iv.] 



DO AT JUAN 



1069 



A broken pillar, not uncouthly hewn, 
But which Neglect is hastening to 
destroy, 
Records Ravenna's carnage on its 

face, 
While weeds and ordure rankle round 
the base.^ 

CIV. 

I pass each day where Dante's bones 
are laid: 
A little cupola, more neat than solemn, 
Protects his dust, but reverence here is 
paid 
To the Bard's tomb, and not the 
Warrior's column : 
The time must come, when both alike 
decayed. 
The Chieftain's trophy, and the 
Poet's volume. 
Will sink where lie the songs and wars 

of earth. 
Before Pelides' death, or Homer's birth. 

CV. 

With human blood that column was 
cemented, 
With human filth that column is 
defiled, 
As if the peasant's coarse contempt 
were vented 
To show his loathing of the spot he 
soiled : 
Thus is the trophy used_, and thus 
lamented 
Should ever be those blood-hounds, 
from whose wild 
Instinct of gore and glory Earth has 

known 
Those sufferings Dante saw in Hell 
alone. 

CVI. 

Yet there will still be bards: though 
Fame is smoke. 
Its fumes are frankincense to human 
thought ; 

' The Pillar which records the battle of Ra- 
venna is about two miles from the city, on the 
opposite side of the river to the road towards 
Forli. Gaston de Foix [(1480-15 12) Due de 
Nemours, nephew of Louis XII.], who gained 
the battle, was killed in it: there fell on both 
sides twenty thousand men. The present state 
of the pillar and its site is described in the text. 



And the unquiet feelings, which first 

woke 
Song in the world, will seek what then 

they sought ; 
As on the beach the waves at last are 

broke, 
Thus to their extreme verge the 

passions brought 
Dash into poetry, which is but Passion, 
Or, at least, was so ere it grew a fashion. 

CVII. 

If in the course of such a life as was 
At once adventurous and contempla- 
tive, 
Men who partake all passions as they 
pass. 
Acquire the deep and bitter power to 
give 
Their images again as in a glass. 
And in such colours that they seem 
to live; 
You may do right forbidding them 

to show 'em, 
But spoil (I think) a very pretty poem. 

CVIII. 

Oh ! ye, who make the fortunes of all 
books ! 
Benign Ceruleans of the second sex ! 
Who advertise new poems by your looks, 
Your "Imprimatur" will ye not 
annex ? 
What ! must I go to the oblivious cooks, 
Those Cornish plunderers of Par- 
nassian wrecks? 
Ah ! must I then the only minstrel be, 
Proscribed from tasting your Castalian 
tea! 

CIX. 

What! can I prove "a lion" then no 
more? 
A ball-room bard, a foolscap, hot- 
press darling? 
To bear the compliments of many a 
bore, 
And sigh, "I can't get out," like 
Yorick's starling; ^ 

' [The caged starling, by its repeated cry, "I 
can't get out, I can't get out !" cured Yorick of 
his sentimental yearnings for imprisonment in 
the Bastile. See Sterne's Sentimental Journey, 
ed. 1804, pp. 100-106.] 



1070 



DON JUAN 



[Canto iv. 



Why then I'll swear, as poet Wordy 
swore 
(Because the world won't read him, 
always snarling). 
That Taste is gone, that Fame is but 

a lottery, 
Drawn by the blue-coat misses of a 
coterie. 

ex. 

Oh! "darkly, deeply, beautifully blue," 
As some one somewhere sings about 
the sky, 
And I, ye learned ladies say of you; 
They say your stockings are so — 
(Heaven knows why, 
I have examined few pair of that hue) ; 
Blue as the garters which serenely lie 
Round the Patrician left-legs, which 

adorn 
The festal midnight, and the levee 
morn. 

CXI. 

Yet some of you are most seraphic 
creatures — 
But times are altered since, a rhyming 
lover, 
You read my stanzas, and I read your 
features : 
And — but no matter, all those things 
are over; 
Still T have no dislike to learned natures. 
For sometimes such a world of virtues 
cover; 
I knew one woman of that purple school. 
The loveHest, chastest, best, but — • 
quite a fool.' 

CXII. 

Humboldt, "the first of travellers," 
but not 
The last, if late accounts be accurate. 
Invented, by some name I have forgot, 
As well as the sublime discovery's 
date. 
An airy instrument, with which he 
sought 
To ascertain the atmospheric state. 
By measuring "the intensity of blue" .-"^ 
Oh, Lady Daphne ! let me measure you ! 

'[Probably Lady Charlemont. See "Jour- 
nal," November 22, 1813.] 

' [The cyanometer, an instrument for ascer- 



But to the narrative : — The vessel 
bound 
With slaves to sell off in the capital, 
After the usual process, might be 
found 
At anchor under the seraglio wall; 
Her cargo, from the plague being safe 
and sound, 
Were landed in the market, one and 
all; 
And, there, with Georgians, Russians, 

and Circassians, 
Bought up for different purposes and 
passions. 

cxiv. 

Some went off dearly; fifteen hundred 
dollars 
For one Circassian, a sweet girl, were 
given. 
Warranted virgin; Beauty's brightest 
colours 
Had decked her out in all the hues 
of heaven : 
Her sale sent home some disappointed 
bawlers, 
Who bade on till the hundreds reached 
eleven ; 
But when the offer went beyond, they 

knew 
'Twas for the Sultan, and at once 
withdrew. 

cxv. 

Twelve negresses from Nubia brought 

a price 
Which the West Indian market scarce 

could bring — ■ 
Though Wilberforce, at last, has made 

it twice 
What 'twas ere Abolition; and the 

thing 
Need not seem very wonderful, for Vice 
Is always much more splendid than 

a King: 
The Virtues, even the most exalted, 

Charity, 
Are saving — Vice spares nothing for 

a rarity. 

taining the intensity of the blue colour of the sky, 
was invented by Horace Benedict de Saussure 
(1740-1799); see his Essai sur I'Hygrometrie.] 



Canto v.] 



DON JUAN 



1071 



But for the destiny of this young 

troop, 
How some were bought by Pachas, 

some by Jews, 
How some to burdens were obhged to 

stoop. 
And others rose to the command of 

crews 
As renegadoes; while in hapless 

group. 
Hoping no very old Vizier might 

choose, 
The females stood, as one by one they 

picked 'em, 
To make a mistress, or fourth wife, 

or victim: 

ex VII. 

All this must be reserved for further 

song; 
Also our Hero's lot, howe'er un- 
pleasant 
(Because this Canto has become too 

long), 
Must be postponed discreetly for 

the present; 
I'm sensible redundancy is wrong. 
But could not for the Muse of me 

put less in't : 
And now delay the progress of Don 

Juan, 
Till what is called in Ossian the fifth 

Duan. 



CANTO THE FIFTH. 



When amatory poets sing their loves 
In liquid lines mellifluously bland, 
And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes 
her doves, 
They little think what mischief is in 
hand; 
The greater their success the worse it 
proves, 
As Ovid's verse may give to under- 
stand ; 
Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due 

severity, 
Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity. 



I therefore do denounce all amorous 
writing. 
Except in such a way as not to attract ; 
Plain — simple — short, and by no 
means inviting, 
But with a moral to each error tacked, 
Formed rather for instructing than 
delighting, 
And with all passions in their turn 
attacked ; 
Now, if my Pegasus should not be shod 

ill. 
This poem will become a moral model. 

III. 

The European with the Asian shore 
Sprinkled with palaces — the Ocean 
stream ^ 
Here and there studded with a seventy- 
four, 
Sophia's Cupola with golden gleam, 
The cypress groves, Olympus high and 
hoar. 
The twelve isles, and the more than 
I could dream, 
Far less describe, present the very 

view 
Which charmed the charming Mary 
Montagu. 

IV. 

I have a passion for the name of 
"Mary," 2 
For once it was a magic sound to me ; 
And still it half calls up the realms of 
Fairy, 
Where I beheld what never was to be ; 
All feelings changed, but this was last 
to vary, 
A spell from which even yet I am 
not quite free: 
But I grow sad — and let a tale grow 

cold. 
Which must not be pathetically told. 

' This expression of Homer has been much 
criticized. It hardly answers to our Atlantic 
ideas of the ocean, but is sufficiently applicable 
to the Hellespont, and the Bosphorus, with the 
yEgean intersected with islands. 

[Vide Iliad, xiv. 245, etc. Homer's "ocean- 
stream" was not the Hellespont, but the rim of 
waters which encircled the disk of the world.] 

^ [For Byron's "Marys," vide ante, p. 56, 
note 2.1 



1072 



DON JUAN 



[Canto v 



The wind swept down the Euxine, and 

the wave 
Broke foaming o'er the blue Symple- 

gades ; 
'Tis a grand sight from off "the Giant's 

Grave " ^ 
To watch the progress of those rolling 

seas 
Between the Bosphorus, as they lash 

and lave 
Europe and Asia, you being quite at 

ease: 
There's not a sea the passenger e'er 

pukes in, 
Turns up more dangerous breakers 

than the Euxine. 



Twas a raw day of Autumn's bleak 

beginning, 
When nights are equal, but not so 

the days; 
The Parcae then cut short the further 

spinning 
Of seamen's fates, and the loud tem- 
pests raise 
The waters, and repentance for past 

sinning 
In all, who o'er the great deep take 

their ways: 
They vow to amend their lives, and yet 

they don't ; 
Because if drowned, they can't — if 

spared, they won't. 



A crowd of shivering slaves of every 
nation. 
And age, and sex, were in the market 
ranged ; 
Each bevy with the merchant in his 
station : 
Poor creatures ! their good looks were 
sadly changed. 
All save the blacks seemed jaded with 
vexation, 
From friends, and home, and freedom 
far estranged; 

'The "Giant's Grave" is a height on the 
Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, much frequented 
by holiday parties; like Harrow and Highgate. 



The negroes more philosophy dis- 
played, — 

Used to it, no doubt, as eels are to be 
flayed. 



Juan was juvenile, and thus was full. 
As most at his age are, of hope, and 

health; 
Yet I must own, he looked a little 

dull. 
And now and then a tear stole down 

by stealth; 
Perhaps his recent loss of blood might 

pull 
His spirit down; and then the loss of 

wealth, 
A mistress, and such comfortable 

quarters. 
To be put up for auction amongst 

Tartars, 

IX. 

Were things to shake a Stoic; ne'erthe- 

less, 
Upon the whole his carriage was 

serene : 
His figure, and the splendour of his 

dress. 
Of which some gilded remnants still 

were seen. 
Drew all eyes on him, giving them to 

guess 
He was above the vulgar by his mien; 
And then, though pale, he was so very 

handsome; 
And then — they calculated on his 

ransom. 

X. 

Like a backgammon board the place was 
dotted 
With whites and blacks, in groups on 
show for sale, 
Though rather more irregularly spotted : 
Some bought the jet, while others 
chose the pale. 
It chanced amongst the other people 
lotted, 
A man of thirty, rather stout and hale. 
With resolution in his ,dark grey 

eye, 
Next Juan stood, till some might choose 
to buy. 



ANTO v.] 



DON JUAN 



1073 



[e had an English look; that is, was 
square 
In make, of a complexion white and 
ruddy, 
jood teeth, with curling rather dark 
brown hair, 
And, it might be from thought, or toil, 
or study, 
\.n open brow a little marked with care : 
One arm had on a bandage rather 
bloody ; 
\.nd there he stood with such sangfroid, 

that greater 
I^ould scarce be shown even by a mere 
spectator. 

XII. 

3ut seeing at his elbow a mere lad, 

Of a high spirit evidently, though 
A.t present weighed down by a doom 

which had 
I O'erthrown even men, he soon began 

to show 
A kind of blunt compassion for the sad 
Lot of so young a partner in the woe, 
Which for himself he seemed to deem 



no worse 
Than any other 
course. 



scrape — a thing of 



XIII. 

said he, 



' amidst this 



"My boy!' 

motley crew 
Of Georgians, Russians, Nubians, 
and what not. 
All ragamuffins differing but in hue. 
With whom it is our luck to cast our 
lot, 
The only gentlemen seem I and you; 

So let us be acquainted, as we ought: 
If I could yield you any consolation, 
'Twould give me pleasure. — Pray, 
what is your nation?" 

XIV. 

When Juan answered — "Spanish ! " 
he replied, 
"I thought, in fact, you could not be 
a Greek; 
Those servile dogs are not so proudly 
eyed: 
Fortune has played you here a pretty 
freak, 

3Z 



But that's her way with all men, till 
they're tried; 
But never mind, — she'll turn, per- 
haps, next week; 
She has served me also much the same 

as you. 
Except that I have found it nothing 
new." 

XV. 

"Pray, Sir," said Juan, "if I may 

presume, 
What brought you here?" — "Oh! 

nothing very rare — 
Six Tartars and a drag-chain " — 

"To this doom 
But what conducted, if the question's 

fair, 
Is that which I would learn." — "I 

served for some 
Months with the Russian army here 

and there; 
And taking lately, by Suwarrow's 

bidding, 
A town, was ta'en myself instead of 

Widdin." 

XVI. 

"Have you no friends?" — "I had — 
but, by God's blessing, 
Have not been troubled with them 
lately. Now 

I have answered all your questions with- 
out pressing. 
And you an equal courtesy should 
show." 

"Alas!" said Juan, "'twere a tale dis- 
tressing. 
And long besides." — "Oh! if 'tis 
really so, 

You're right on both accounts to hold 
your tongue; 

A sad tale saddens doubly when 'tis long. 

XVII. 

"But droop not: Fortune at your time 
of life, 
Although a female moderately fickle, 
Will hardly leave you (as she's not your 
wife) 
For any length of days in such a 
pickle. 
To strive, too, with our fate were such 
a strife 



1074 



DON JUAN 



[Canto v. 



As if the corn-sheaf should oppose the 

sickle : 
Men are the sport of circumstances, 

when 
The circumstances seem the sport of 

men." 

XVIII. 

"'Tis not," said Juan, "for my present 
doom 
I mourn, but for the past; — I loved 
a maid:" — 
He paused, and his dark eye grew full 
of gloom; 
A single tear upon his eyelash staid 
A moment, and then dropped; "but to 
resume, 
'Tis not my present lot, as I have said, 
Which I deplore so much; for I have 

borne 
Hardships which have the hardiest 
overworn, 

XIX. 

"On the rough deep. But this last 
blow — " and here 
He stopped again, and turned away 
his face. 
"Aye," quoth his friend, "I thought it 
would appear 
That there had been a lady in the case; 
And these are things which ask a tender 
tear, 
Such as I, too, would shed if in your 
place: 
I cried upon my first wife's dying day, 
And also when my second ran away: 

XX. 

"My third" "Your third!" quoth 

Juan, turning round; 
" You scarcely can be thirty : have you 

three?" 
"No — only two at present above 

ground : 
Surely 'tis nothing wonderful to see 
One person thrice in holy wedlock 

bound ! " 
"Well, then, your third," said Juan; 

"what did she? 
She did not run away, too, — did she. 

Sir?" 
"No, faith." — "What then?" — "I 

ran away from her." 



" You take things coolly, Sir," said Juan. 

"Why," 
Replied the other, "what can a man 

do? 
There still are many rainbows in your 

sky. 
But mine have vanished. All, when 

Life is new, 
Commence with feelings warm, and 

prospects high; 
But Time strips our illusions of their 

hue. 
And one by one in turn, some grand 

mistake 
Casts off its bright skin yearly like the 

snake. 



"'Tis true, it gets another bright and 
fresh. 
Or fresher, brighter; but the year 
gone through. 
This skin must go the wav, too, of all 
flesh. 
Or sometimes only wear a week or 
two; — 
Love's the first net which spreads its 
deadly mesh; 
Ambition, Avarice, Vengeance, Glory, 

The glittering lime-twigs of our latter 

days. 
Where still we flutter on for pence or 

praise." 

XXIII. 

"All this is very fine, and may be 

true," 
Said Juan; "but I really don't see 

how 
It betters present times with me or 

you." 
"No?" quoth the other; "yet you 

will allow 
By setting things in their right point of 

view. 
Knowledge, at least, is gained; for 

instance, now. 
We know what slavery is, and our 

disasters 
May teach us better to behave when 

masters." 



DON JUAN 



XXIV. 

Would we were masters now, if but to 

try 
Their present lessons on our Pagan 
friends here," 
Said Juan, — swallowing a heart-burn- 
ing sigh: 
"Heaven help the scholar, whom his 
fortune sends here!" 
'Perhaps we shall be one dav, by and 
by," 
Rejoined the other, "when our bad 
luck mends here; 
Meantime (yon old black eunuch seems 

to eye us) 

I wish to G — d that somebody would 
buy us. 

XXV. 

" But after all, what is our present state ? 
'Tis bad, and may be better — all 
men's lot: 
Most men are slaves, none more so than 
the great, 
To their own whims and passions, and 
what not; 
Society itself, which should create 
Kindness, destroys what Httle we had 
got: 
To feel for none is the true social art 
Of the world's Stoics — men. without a 
heart." 

XXVI. 

Just now a black old neutral personage 
Of the third sex stepped up, and 
peering over 
The captives seemed to mark their looks 
and age, 
And capabilities, as to discover 
If they were fitted for the purposed 
cage: 
No lady e'er is ogled by a lover. 
Horse by a blackleg, broadcloth by a 

tailor, 
Fee by a counsel, felon by a jailor, 

XXVII. 

As is a slave by his intended bidder. 
'Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow- 
creatures; 
And all are to be sold, if you consider 
Their passions, and are dext'rous; 
some bv features 



Are bought up, others by a warlike 

leader, 
Some by a place — as tend their years 

or natures: 
The most by ready cash — but all have 

prices, 
From crowns to kicks, according to their 

vices. 

XXVIII. 

The eunuch, having eyed them o'er with 
care, 
Turned to the merchant, and began 
to bid 
First but for one, and after for the pair; 
They haggled, wrangled, swore, too 
— so they did ! 
As though they were in a mere Christian 
fair. 
Cheapening an ox, an ass, a lamb, or 
kid; 
So that their bargain sounded like a 

battle 
For this superior yoke of human cattle. 



At last they settled into simple grum- 
bling, 
And pulling out reluctant purses, and 
Turning each piece of silver o'er, and 
tumbling 
Some down, and weighing others in 
their hand, 
And by mistake sequins ^ with paras 
jumbling. 
Until the sum was accurately scanned, 
And then the merchant giving change, 

and signing ^ 

Receipts in full, began to think of dining. 



I wonder if his appetite was good ? 

Or, if it were, if also his digestion ? 
Methinks at meals some odd thoughts 
might intrude. 
And Conscience ask a curious sort of 
question, 
About the right divine how far we should 
Sell flesh and blood. When dinner 
has oppressed one, 

' [The Turkish zecchino is a gold coin, worth 
about seven shillings and sixpence. The para is 
not quite equal to an English halfpenny.] 



.076 



DON JUAN 



[Canto 



I think it is perhaps the gloomiest 
hour 

Which turns up out of the sad twenty- 
four. 

XXXI. 

Voltaire says "No:" he tells you that 
Candide 
Found life most tolerable after meals; 
He's wrong — unless man were a pig, 
indeed, 
Repletion rather adds to what he feels. 
Unless he's drunk, and then no doubt 
he's freed 
From his own brain's oppression while 
it reels. 
Of food I think with Philip's son ^ or 

rather 
Ammon's (ill pleased with one world and 
one father); 

XXXII. 

I think with Alexander, that the act 

Of eating, with another act or two, 
Makes us feel our mortaUty in fact 
Redoubled; when a roast and a ra- 
gout, 
And fish, and soup, by some side dishes 
backed. 
Can give us either pain or pleasure, 
who 
Would pique himself on intellects, whose 

use 
Depends so much upon the gastric 
juice ? 

XXXIII. 

The other evening ('twas on Friday 
last) — 
This is a fact, and no poetic fable — 
Just as my great coat was about me cast, 
My hat and gloves still lying on the 
table, 
I heard a shot — 'twas eight o'clock 
scarce past — 
And, running out as fast as I was able,^ 

' See Plutarch in Alex., Q. Curt. Hist. 
Alexand., and Sir Richard Clayton's "Critical 
Inquiry into the Life of Alexander the Great," 
1763. 

[He used to say that sleep and the commerce 
with the sex were the things that made him most 
sensible of his mortality. ... He was also very 
temi-)erate in eating." — Plutarch's Alexander, 
Langhorne, 1838, p. 473.] 

' [The assassination alluded to took place on 



I found the military commandant 
Stretched in the street, and able scarce 
to pant. 

XXXIV. 

Poor fellow ! for some reason, surely 

bad. 
They had slain him with five slugs; 

and left him there 
To perish on the pavement: so I had 
Him borne into the house and up the 

stair. 
And stripped, and looked to, But 

why should I add 
More circumstances? vain was every 

care; 
The man was gone — in some Italian 

quarrel 
Killed by five bullets from an old gun- 
barrel. 

XXXV. 

I gazed upon him, for I knew him well; 
And though I have seen many corpses, 
never 
Saw one, whom such an accident befell, 
So calm; though pierced through 
stomach, heart, and Hver, 
He seemed to sleep, — for you could 
scarcely tell 
(As he bled inwardly, no hideous 
river 
Of gore divulged the cause) that he was 

dead : 
So as I gazed on him, I thought or said — 



*' Can this be Death ? then what is Life 
or Death? 
Speak!" but he spoke not: "wake!" 
but still he slept: — 
"But yesterday and who had mightier 
breath ? 
A thousand warriors by his word were 
kept 
In awe : he said, as the Centurion saith, 
'Go,' and he goeth; 'come,' and forth 
he stepped. 

the 8th of December, 1820, in the streets of 
Ravenna, not a hundred paces from the residence 
of the writer. The circumstances were as 
described. See Letter to Moore, December 0, 
1820, Letters, igoi, v. 133. The commandant's 
name was Del Pinto {Life, p. 472).] 



Canto v.] 



DON JUAN 



1077 



The trump and bugle till he spake were 

dumb — 
And now nought left him but the muffled 

drum." 

XXXVII. 

And they who waited once and wor- 
shipped — they 
With their rough faces thronged about 

the bed 
To gaze once more on the commanding 

clay 
Which for the last, though not the 

first, time bled; 
And such an end ! that lie who many a 

day 
Had faced Napoleon's foes until they 

fled, — 
The foremost in the charge or in the 

sally. 
Should now be butchered in a civic alley. 

XXXVIII. 

The scars of his old wounds were near 

his new, 
Those honourable scars which 

brought him fame; 
And horrid was the contrast to the 

view 

But let me quit the theme; as such 

things claim 
Perhaps even more attention than is 

due 
From me: I gazed (as oft I have 

gazed the same) 
To try if I could wTench aught out of 

Death 
Which should confirm, or shake, or 

make a faith; 

XXXIX, 

iji.lL it was all a mystery. Here we are. 
And there we go : — but where ? five 
bits of lead. 
Or three, or two, or one, send very far ! 
And is this blood, then, formed but to 
be shed? 

Can every element our elements mar? 
And Air — Earth — Water — Fire 
live — and we dead ? 
We, whose minds comprehend all 

things? No more; 
But let us to the story as before. 



XL. 

The purchaser of Juan and acquaint- 
ance 
Bore off his bargains to a gilded 

boat. 
Embarked himself and them, and oft 

they went thence 
As fast as oars could pull and water 

float; 
They looked like persons being led to 

sentence. 
Wondering what next, till the caique ^ 

was brought 
Up in a little creek below a wall 
O'ertopped with cypresses, dark-green 

and tall. 



Flere their conductor tapping at the 

wicket 
Of a small iron door, 'twas opened, 

and 
He led them onward, first through a low 

thicket 
Flanked by large groves, which 

towered on either hand: 
They almost lost their way, and had to 

pick it — 
For night was closing ere they came 

to land. 
The eunuch made a sign to those on 

board, 
Who rowed off, leaving them without a 

word. 

XLII. 

As they were plodding on their winding 

way 
Through orange bowers, and jasmine, 

and so forth: 
(Of which I might have a good deal to 

say, 
There being no such profusion in the 

North 
Of oriental plants, et cetera, 

But that of late your scribblers think 

it worth 
Their while to rear whole hotbeds in 

their works. 
Because oiie poet travelled 'mongst the 

Turks:) 

I The light and elegant wherries plying about 
the quays of Constantinople are so called. 



1078 



DON JUAN 



[Canto v, 



As they were threading on their way, 

there came 
Into Don Juan's head a thought, 

which he 
Whispered to his companion: — 'twas 

the same 
Which might have then occurred to 

you or me. 
"Methinks," — said he, — "it would be 

no great shame 
If we should strike a stroke to set us 

free; 
Let's knock that old black fellow on the 

head, 
And march away — ■ 'twere e.'isier done 

than said." 

XLIV. 

"Yes," said the other, "and when done, 

what then ? 
How get out ? how the devil got we 

in? 
And when we once were fairly out, and 

when 
From Saint Bartholomew we have 

saved our skin, 
To-morrow'd see us in some other den. 
And worse off than we hitherto have 

been; 
Besides, I'm hungry, and just now would 

take. 
Like Esau, for my birthright a beef- 
steak. 

XLV. 

"We must be near some place of man's 

abode; — 
For the old negro's confidence in 

creeping, 
With his two captives, by so queer a 

road, 
Shows that he thinks his friends have 

not been sleeping; 
A single cry would bring them all 

abroad : 
'Tis better therefore looking before 

leaping — 
And there, you see, this turn has brought 

us through, 
By Jove, a noble palace ! — lighted too." 

XLVI. 

It was indeed a wide extensive building 



Which opened on their view, and o'er 
the front 
There seemed to be besprent a deal of 
gilding 
And various hues, as is the Turkish 
wont, — 
A gaudy taste ; for they are little skilled 
in 
The arts of which these lands were 
once the font: 
Each villa on the Bosphorus looks a 

screen 
New painted, or a pretty opera-scene. 

XL VII. 

And nearer as they came, a genial savour 
Of certain stews, and roast-meats, 

and pilaus, 
Things which in hungry mortals' eyes 

find favour. 
Made Juan in his harsh intentions 

pause. 
And put himself upon his good be- 
haviour: 
His friend, too, adding a new saving 

clause, 
Said, "In Heaven's name, let's get some 

supper now. 
And then I'm with you, if you're for a 

row." 

XLVIII. 

Some talk of an appeal unto some 

passion, 
Some to men's feelings, others to their 

reason ; 
The last of these was never much the 

fashion. 
For Reason thinks all reasoning out 

of season : 
Some speakers whine, and others lay the 

lash on. 
But more or less continue still to tease 

on. 
With arguments according to their 

"forte": 
But no one ever dreams of being short. — • 



But I digress: of all appeals, — al- 
though 
I grant the power of pathos, and of 
gold, 



Canto v.] 



DON JUAN 



1079 



Of beauty, flattery, threats, a shilling, — 
no 
Method's more sure at moments to 
take hold 
Of the best feelings of mankind, which 
grow 
More tender, as we every day behold, 
Than that all-softening, overpowering 

knell. 
The Tocsin of the Soul — the dinner- 
bell. 

L. 

Turkey contains no bells, and yet men 
dine; 
And Juan and his friend, albeit they 
heard 
No Christian knoll to table, saw no line 
Of lackeys usher to the feast pre- 
pared. 
Yet smelt roast-meat, beheld a huge fire 
shine, 
And cooks in motion with their clean 
arms bared, 
And gazed around them to the left and 

right, 
With the prophetic eye of appetite. 



And giving up all notions of resistance, 
They followed close behind their sable 
guide. 
Who little thought that his own cracked 
existence 
Was on the point of being set aside: 
He motioned them to stop at some small 
distance, 
And knocking at the gate, 'twas 
opened wide, 
And a magnificent large hall displayed 
The Asian pomp of Ottoman parade. 



I won't describe; description is my 
"forte," 
But every fool describes in these 
bright days 
His wondrous journey to some foreign 
court, 
And spawns his quarto, and demands 
your praise — 
Death to his publisher, to him 'tis sport; 
While Nature, tortured twenty thou- 
sand wavs. 



Resigns herself with exemplary patience 
To guide-books, rhymes, tours, sketches, 
illustrations. 

LIII. 

Along this hall, and up and down, some, 
squatted 
Upon their hams, were occupied at 
chess ; 
Others in monosyllable talk chatted. 
And some seemed much in love with 
their own dress; 
And divers smoked superb pipes 
decorated 
With amber mouths of greater price 
or less; 
And several strutted, others slept, and 

some 
Prepared for supper with a glass of rum.* 



As the black eunuch entered with his 

brace 
Of purchased Infidels, some raised 

their eyes 
A moment, without slackening from 

their pace; 
But those who sate ne'er stirred in any 

wise: 
One or two stared the captives in the 

face. 
Just as one views a horse to guess his 

price ; 
Some nodded to the negro from their 

station. 
But no one troubled him with conversa- 
tion. 

LV. 

He leads them through the hall, and, 

without stopping. 
On through a farther range of goodly 

rooms. 
Splendid, but silent, save in one, where 

dropping ^ 

' In Turkey nothing is more common than for 
the Mussulmans to take several glasses of strong 
spirits by way of appetiser. I have seen them 
take as many as six of raki before dinner, and 
swear that they dined the better for it: I tried the 
experiment, but fared like the Scotchman, who 
having heard that the birds called kittiwakes 
were admirable whets, ate six of them, and com- 
plained that "he was no hungrier than when he 
began." 

2 A common furniture. I recollect being 
received by All Pacha, in a large room, paved 



io8o 



DON JUAN 



[Canto v. 



A marble fountain echoes through the 
glooms 
Of night which robe the chamber, or 
where popping 
Some female head most curiously 
presumes 
To thrust its black eyes through the door 

or lattice, 
As wondering what the devil noise that 
is! 

LVI. 

Some faint lamps gleaming from the 
lofty walls 
Gave light enough to hint their farther 
way, 
But not enough to show the imperial 
halls 
In all the flashing of their full array; 
Perhaps there's nothing — I'll not say 
appals, 
But saddens more by night as well as 
day 
Than an enormous room without a soul 
To break the lifeless splendour of the 
whole. 



Two or three seem so little, one seems 
nothing: 
In deserts, forests, crowds, or by the 
shore, 
There Solitude, we know, has her full 
growth in 
The spots which were her realms for 
evermore ; 
But in a mighty hall or gallery, both in 
More modern buildings and those 
built of yore, 
A kind of Death comes o'er us all alone. 
Seeing what's meant for many with but 
one. 

LVIII. 

A neat, snug study on a winter's night, 
A book, friend, single lady, or a glass 
Of claret, sandwich, and an appetite, 
Are things which make an English 
evening pass — 
Though certes by no means so grand a 
sight 
As is a theatre lit up by gas — 

with marble, containing a marble basin, and 
fountain playing in the centre, etc., etc. 



/ pass my evenings in long galleries 
solely, 

And that's the reason I'm so melan- 
choly. 

LIX. 

Alas! Man makes that great which 
makes him little — 
I grant you in a church 'tis very well: 
What speaks of Heaven should by no 
means be brittle. 
But strong and lasting, till no tongue 
can tell 
Their names who reared it; but huge 
houses fit ill. 
And huge tombs, worse, Mankind — 
since Adam fell: 
Methinks the story of the tower of Babel 
Might teach them this much better than 
I'm able. 

LX. 

Babel was Nimrod's hunting-box,^ and 
then 
A town of gardens, walls, and wealth 
amazing. 
Where Nabuchadonosor, King of men, 
Reigned, till one summer's day he 
took to grazing. 
And Daniel tamed the lions in their den. 
The people's awe and admiration 
raising; 
'Twas famous, too, for Thisbe and for 

Pyramus, 
And the calumniated queen Semira- 
mis — 

LXI. 

That injured Queen, by chroniclers ^ so 
coarse. 
Has been accused (I doubt not by 
conspiracy) 
Of an improper friendship for her horse 
(Love, like Religion, sometimes runs 
to heresy) : 
This monstrous tale had probably its 
source 
(For such exaggerations here and 
there I see) 

' Babylon was enlarged by Nimrod, strength- 
ened and beautified by Nabuchadonosor, and 
rebuilt by Semiramis. 

' [The Chronicler is Pliny (,Nat. Hist., lib. 
viii. cap. xlii.) who cites Juba, King of Maure- 
tania, as his authority.] 



Tanto v.] 



DON JUAN 



1081 



n writing "Courser" by mistake for 

"Courier" : 
: wish the case could come before a jury 

here.^ 

LXII. 

But to resume, — should there be (what 
may not 
Be in these days?) some infidels, who 
don't, 
Because they can't find out the very spot 
Of that same Babel, or because they 
\ won't 

(^Though Claudius Rich, Esquire, some 
bricks has got, 
And written lately two memoirs 
upon 't). 
Believe the Jews, those unbelievers, who 
Must be believed, though they believe 
not you: 

LXIII. 

Vet let them think that Horace has 
expressed 
Shortly and sweetly the masonic folly 
Df those, forgetting the great place of 
rest, 
Who give themselves to Architecture 
wholly; 
W^e know where things and men must 
end at best : 
A moral (like all morals) melancholy, 
\nd "Et scpulchri immemor struis 

domos" 
shows that we build when we should 
but entomb us. 

LXIV. 

\t last they reached a quarter most 
retired, 
Where Echo woke as if from a long 
slumber; 
rhough full of all things which could be 
desired. 
One wondered what to do with such a 
number 
3f articles which nobody required; 
Here Wealth had done its utmost to 
encumber 

' [Queen Caroline — whose trial (August — 
November, 1820) was proceeding whilst this 
:anto was being written — was charged with 
laving committed adultery with Bartolommeo 
iergami, who had been her courier, and was, 
ifterwards, her chamberlain.] 



With furniture an exquisite apartment, 
Which puzzled Nature much to know 
what Art meant. 



It seemed, however, but to open on 
A range or suite of further chambers, 
which 
Might lead to Heaven knows where; 
but in this one 
The moveables were prodigally rich: 
Sofas 'twas half a sin to sit upon, 
So costly were they; carpets every 
stitch 
Of workmanship so rare, they made you 

wish 
You could glide o'er them like a golden 
fish. 

LXVI. 

The black, however, without hardly 

deigning 
A glance at that which wrapped the 

slaves in wonder, 
Trampled what they scarce trod for fear 

of staining. 
As if the milky way their feet was 

under 
With all its stars; and with a stretch 

attaining 
A certain press or cupboard niched in 

yonder, 
In that remote recess which you may 

see — 
Or if you don't the fault is not in me, — • 

LXVII. 

I wish to be perspicuous — and the 
black, 
I say, unlocking the recess, pulled 
forth 
A quantity of clothes fit for the back 
Of any Mussulman, whate'er his 
worth ; 
And of variety there was no lack — 
And yet, though I have said there was 
no dearth, — 
He chose himself to point out what he 

thought 
Most proper for the Christians he had 
bought. 

LXVIII. 

The suit he thought most suitable to 
each 



[082 



DON JUAN 



[Canto v. 



Was, for the elder and the stouter, first 
A Candiote cloak, which to the knee 

might reach. 
And trousers not so tight that they 

would burst, 
But such as fit an Asiatic breech; 
A shawl, whose folds in Cashmire 

had been nursed, 
Slippers of saffron, dagger rich and 

handy; 
In short, all things which form a Turkish 

Dandy. 

LXIX. 

While he was dressing, Baba, their black 

friend. 
Hinted the vast advantages which 

they 
Might probably attain both in the end, 
If they would but pursue the proper 

way 
Which Fortune plainly seemed to 

recommend; 
And then he added, that he needs 

must say, 
" 'Twould greatly tend to better ' their 

condition. 
If they would condescend to circum- 
cision. 



"For his own part, he really should 
rejoice 
To see them true beUevers, but no less 
Would leave his proposition to their 
choice." 
The other, thanking him for this 
excess 
Of goodness, in thus leaving them a 
voice 
In such a trifle, scarcely could express 
"Sufficiently" (he said) his approbation 
Of all the customs of this poUshed 
nation. • 

LXXI. 

" For his own share — he saw but small 
objection 
To so respectable an ancient rite; 
And, after swallowing down a sHght 
refection 
For which he owned a present appe- 
tite, 
He doubted not a few hours of reflection 



Would reconcile him to the business ^ 

quite." I 

"Will it?" said Juan, sharply: "Strike ' 
me dead. 

But they as soon shall circumcise my I 

head ! I 

LXXII. ' 

"Cut off a thousand heads, before " 

— "Now, pray," 
Replied the other, "do not interrupt: 
You put me out in what I had to 
say. 
Sir ! — as I said, as soon as I have 
supped, 
I shall perpend if your proposal may 

Be such as I can properly accept; 
Provided always your great goodness 

still 
Remits the matter to our own free-will." 

LXXIII. 

Baba eyed Juan, and said, "Be so 

good 
As dress yourself — " and pointed 

out a suit 
In which a Princess with great pleasure 

would 
Array her Hmbs; but Juan standing 

mute, 
As not being in a masquerading 

mood. 
Gave it a sHght kick with his Christian 

foot; 
And when the old negro told him to 

"Get ready," 
Replied, "Old gentleman, I'm not a 

lady." 

LXXIV. 

"What you may be, I neither know 
nor care," 
Said Baba; " but pray do as I desire : 
I have no more time nor many words 
to spare." 
"At least," said Juan, "sure I may 
inquire 
The cause of this odd travesty?" — 
"Forbear," 
Said Baba, "to be curious; 'twill 
transpire, 
No doubt, in proper place, and time, 

and season: 
I have no authority to tell .the reason." 



r\NTO v.] 



DON JUAN 



1083 



'Then if I do," said Juan, "I'll be 
-7— " — "Hold!" 
Rejoined the negro, "pray be not 
provoking ; 
Phis spirit's well, but it may wax too 
bold, 
And you will find us not too fond of 
joking." 

"What, Sir!" said Juan, "shall it e'er 
be told 
That I unsexed my dress?" But 
Baba, stroking 
The things down, said, "Incense me, 

and I call 

Those who will leave you of no sex 
at all. 

LXXVI. 

' I offer you a handsome suit of clothes : 
A woman's, true; but then there is a 
cause 
Why you should wear them." — "What, 
though my soul loathes 
The effeminate garb?" — thus, after 
a short pause, 
Sighed Juan, muttering also some 
slight oaths, 
"What the devil shall I do with all 
this gauze? " 
Thus he profanely termed the finest lace 
Which e'er set off a marriage-morning 
face. 

LXXVII. 

And then he swore; and, sighing, on he 
slipped 
Apairof trousers of flesh-coloured silk; 
Next with a virgin zone he was equipped, 
W^hich girt a slight chemise as white 
as milk; 
But tugging on his petticoat, he tripped. 
Which — as we say — or as the 
Scotch say, whilk, 
(The rhyme obliges me to this; some- 
times 

Monarchs are less imperative than 
rhymes) — 



Whilk, which (or what you please), was 
owing to 
His garment's novelty, and his being 
awkward : 



And yet at last he managed to get 

through 
His toilet, though no doubt a little 

backward: 
The negro Baba helped a little too. 
When some untoward part of raiment 

stuck hard; 
And, wrestling both his arms into a 

gown. 
He paused, and took a survey up and 

down. 

LXXIX. 

One difficulty still remained — his hair 
Was hardly long enough; but Baba 
found 
So many false long tresses all to spare, 
That soon his head was most com- 
pletely crowned, 
After the manner then in fashion there; 
And this addition with such gems 
was bound 
As suited the ensemble of his toilet. 
While Baba made him comb his head 
and oil it. 

LXXX. 

And now being femininely all arrayed. 
With some small aid from scissors, 
paint, and tweezers, 
He looked in almost all respects a 
maid. 
And Baba smilingly exclaimed, "You 
see. Sirs, 
A perfect transformation here displayed ; 
And now, then, you must come along 
with me, Sirs, 
That is — the Lady:" clapping his 

hands twice. 
Four blacks were at his elbow in a trice. 

Lxxxr. 

"You, Sir," said Baba, nodding to 
the one, 
"Will please to accompany those 
gentlemen 
To supper; but you, worthy Christian 
nun. 
Will follow me: no trifling. Sir; for 
when 
I say a thing, it must at once be 
done. 
What fear you? thijik you this a 
lion's den? 



1084 



DON JUAN 



[Canto v. 



Why, 'tis a palace; where the truly 

wise 
Anticipate the Prophet's paradise. 



"You fool! I tell you no one means 
you harm." 
"So much the better," Juan said, 
"for them; 
Else they shall feel the weight of this 
my arm, 
Which is not quite so light as you may 
deem. 
I yield thus far; but soon will break 
the charm, 
If any take me for that which I seem : 
So that I trust for everybody's sake, 
That this disguise may lead to no mis- 
take." 

LXXXIII. 

"Blockhead! come on, and see," 

quoth Baba; while 
Don Juan, turning to his comrade, 

who 
Though somewhat grieved, could scarce 

forbear a smile 
Upon the metamorphosis in view, — 
" Farewell ! " they mutually exclaimed: 

"this soil 
Seems fertile in adventures strange 

and new; 
One's turned half Mussulman, and 

one a maid. 
By this old black enchanter's unsought 

aid." 

LXXXIV. 

"Farewell!" said Juan: should we 

meet no more, 
I wish you a good appetite." — 

"Farewell !" 
Replied the other; "though it grieves 

me sore: 
When we next meet, we'll have a tale 

to tell: 
We needs must follow when Fate puts 

from shore. 
Keep your good name; though Eve 

herself once fell." 
"Nay," quoth the maid, "the Sultan's 

self shan't carry me. 
Unless his Higiiness promises to marry 

me." 



LXXXV. 

And thus they parted, each by separate 

doors; 
Baba led Juan onward, room by 

room. 
Through glittering galleries, and o'er 

marble floors. 
Till a gigantic portal through the 

gloom, 
Haughty and huge, along the distance 

lowers; 
And wafted far arose a rich perfume: 
It seemed as though they came upon 

a shrine, 
For all was vast, still, fragrant, and 

divine. 

LXXXVI. 

The giant door was broad and bright, 

and high, 
Of gilded bronze, and carved in 

curious guise; 
Warriors thereon were battling furiously ; 
Here stalks the victor, there the van- 
quished lies; 
There captives led in triumph droop 

the eye, 
And in perspective many a squadron 

flies: 
It seems the work of times before the 

line 
Of Rome transplanted fell with Con- 

stantine. 

LXXXVII. 

This massy portal stood at the wide 
close 
Of a huge hall, and on its either side 
Two little dwarfs, the least you could 
suppose, 
Were sate, like ugly imps, as if 
allied 
In mockery to the enormous gate which 
rose 
O'er them in almost pyramidic pride: 
The gate so splendid was in all its 

features,^ 
You never thought about those little 
creatures, 

' Features of a gate — a ministerial metaphor: 
"the feature upon which this question hinges." 
See the "Fudge Family," or hear Castlereagh. 

[Phil. Fudge, in his letter to Lord Castlereagh, 



Canto v.] 



DON JUAN 



1085 



LXXXVIII. 

Until you nearly trod on them, and 
then 
You started back in horror to survey 
The wondrous hideousness of those 
small men, 
Whose colour was not black, nor 
white, nor grey, 
But an extraneous mixture, which no pen 
Can trace, although perhaps the 
pencil may; 
They were mis-shapen pigmies, deaf 

and dumb — 
Monsters, who cost a no less monstrous 
sum. 

LXXXIX. 

Their duty was — for they were strong, 
and though 
They looked so little, did strong 
things at tim^es — 
To ope this door, which they could 
really do, 
The hinges being as smooth as Rogers' 
rhymes; 
And now and then, with tough strings 
of the bow, 
As is the custom of those Eastern 
climes. 
To give some rebel Pacha a cravat — 
For mutes are generally used for that. 

xc. 

They spoke by signs — that is, not 

spoke at all; 
And looking like two Incubi, they 

glared 
As Baba with his fingers made them 

fall 
To heaving back the portal folds: it 

scared 
Juan a moment, as this pair so small. 
With shrinking serpent optics on 

him stared; 
It was as if their little looks could 

poison 
Or fascinate whome'er they fixed their 

eyes on. 

"As thou would'st say, my guide and teacher 
In these gay metaphoric fringes, 
I must embark into the fcahire 

On which this letter chiefly hinges." 
— Fudge Family in Paris, Letter II. by 
Thomas Moore.] 



Before they entered, Baba paused to 
hint 
To Juan some slight lessons as his 
guide: 
"If you could just contrive," he said, 
"to stint 
That somewhat manly majesty of 
stride, 
'Twould be as well, and — (though 
there's not much in 't) 
To swing a little less from side to side, 
Which has at times an aspect of the 

oddest; — 
And also could you look a Httle modest, 

XCII. 

" 'Twould be convenient; for these 
mutes have eyes 
Like needles, which may pierce those 
petticoats; 

And if they should discover your dis- 
guise. 
You know how near us the deep 
Bosphorus floats; 

And you and I may chance, ere morning 
rise, 
To find our way to Marmora without 
boats, 

Stitched up in sacks — a mode of navi- 
gation 

A good deal practised here upon occa- 
sion." ^ 

XCIII. 

With this encouragement he led the 
way 
Into a room still nobler than the last; 
A rich confusion formed a disarray 
In such sort, that the eye along it 
cast 
Could hardly carry anything away. 
Object on object flashed so bright 
and fast; 

' A few years ago the wife of Muchtar Pacha 
complained to his father of his son's supposed 
infidelity: he asked with whom, and she had the 
barbarity to give in a list of the twehe hand- 
somest women in Yanina. They were seized, 
fastened up in sacks, and drowned in the lake 
the same night. One of the . guards who was 
present informed me, that not one of the victims 
uttered a cry, or showed a symptom of terror at 
so sudden a "wrench from all we know, from 
all we love." 



:o86 



DON JUAN 



[Canto v. 



A dazzling mass of gems, and gold, 

and glitter, 
Magnificently mingled in a litter. 

xciv. 

Wealth had done wonders — taste not 
much; such things 
Occur in Orient palaces, and even 
In the more chastened domes of Western 
kings 
(Of which I have also seen some six or 
seven). 
Where I can't say or gold or diamond 
flings 
Great lustre, there is much to be for- 
given; 
Groups of bad statues, tables, chairs, 

and pictures, 
On which I cannot pause to make my 
strictures. 

xcv. 

In this imperial hall, at distance lay 
Under a canopy, and there recUned 

Quite in a confidential queenly way, 
A lady; Baba stopped, and kneeling 
signed 

To Juan, who though not much used to 

Knelt down by instinct, wondering in 

his mind 
What all this meant: while Baba bowed 

and bended 
His head, until the ceremony ended. 



The lady rising up with such an air 
As Venus rose with from the wave, 
on them 
Bent like an antelope a Paphian pair 
Of eyes, which put out each surround- 
ing gem; 
And raising up an arm as moonlight 
fair. 
She signed to Baba, who first kissed 
the hem 
Of her deep purple robe, and, speaking 

low. 
Pointed to Juan who remained below. 

XCVII. 

Her presence was as lofty as her state; 
Her beauty of that overpowering 
kind, 



Whose force Description only would 
abate : 
I'd rather leave it much to your own 
mind. 
Then lessen it by what I could relate 
Of forms and features; it would 
strike you blind 
Could I do justice to the full detail; 
So, luckily for both, my phrases fail. 

XCVIII. 

Thus much however I may add, — her 
years 
Were ripe, they might make six- 
and-twenty springs. 
But there are forms which Time to 
touch forbears. 
And turns aside his scythe to vulgar 
things: 
Such as was Mary's, Queen of Scots; 
true — tears 
And Love destroy; and sapping 
Sorrow wrings 
Charms from the charmer, yet some 

never grow 
Ugly; for instance — Ninon de I'En- 
clos.^ 

xcix. 

She spake some words to her attendants, 

who 
Composed a choir of girls, ten or a 

dozen. 
And were all clad aUke; like Juan, 

too, 
Who wore their uniform, by Baba 

chosen : 
They formed a very nymph-like looking 

crew, 
Which might have called Diana's 

chorus "cousin," 
As far as outward show may corre- 
spond — 
I won't be bail for anything beyond. 



They bowed obeisance and withdrew, 
retiring. 
But not by the same door through 
which came in 

' [Legend has credited Ninon de Lenclos 
(1620-1705) with lovers when she had "come to 
fourscore years."] 



Canto v.] 



DON JUAN 



1087 



Baba and Juan, which last stood admir- 
ing, 
At some small distance, all he saw 
within 

This strange saloon, much fitted for 
inspiring 
Marvel and praise; for both or none 
things win; 

And I must say, I ne'er could see the 
very 

Great happiness of the "Nil admirari." 

CI. 

"Not to admire is all the art I know 
(Plain truth, dear Murray, needs 

few flowers of speech) — 
To make men happy, or to keep them 

so" 
(So take it in the very words of 

Creech) — 
Thus Horace wrote we all know long 

ago; 
And thus Pope ^ quotes the precept 

to re-teach 
From his translation; but had none 

admired, 
Would Pope have sung, or Horace 

been inspired? 



Baba, when all the damsels were with- 
drawn, 
Motioned to Juan to approach, and 
then 
A second time desired him to kneel 
down, 
And kiss the lady's foot; which 
maxim when 
He heard repeated, Juan with a 
frown 
Drew himself up to his full height 
again, 

'["Not to admire, is all the Art I know- 
To make men happy, and to keep them so, 
(Plain Truth, dear Murray, needs no flow'rs 

of speech. 
So take it in the very words of Creech)." 
To Mr Murray (Lord Mansfield), Pope's Imita- 
tions of Horace, Book I. epist. vi. lines 1-4. 

Thomas Creech (1659-1701) published his 
Translation of Horace in 1684. In the second 
edition, 1688, p. 487, the lines run — 
"Not to admire, as most are wont to do, 
It is the only method that I know. 
To make Men happy and to keep 'em so."] 



And said, "It grieved him, but he could 

not stoop 
To any shoe, unless it shod the Pope." 



Baba, indignant at this ill-timed pride, 
Made fierce remonstrances, and then 
a threat 
He muttered (but the last was given 
aside) 
About a bow-string — quite in vain ; 
not yet 
Would Juan bend, though 'twere to 
Mahomet's bride: 
There's nothing in the world like 
etiquette 
In kingly chambers or imperial halls, 
As also at the Race and County Balls. 



He stood like Atlas, with a world of 
words 
About his ears, and nathless would 
not bend; 
The blood of all his line's Castilian 
lords 
Boiled in his veins, and, rather than 
descend 
To stain his pedigree, a thousand swords 
A thousand times of him had made 
an end; 
At length perceiving the "foot^' could 

not stand, 
Baba proposed that he should kiss the 
hand. 

cv. 

Here was an honourable compromise, 
A half-way house of diplomatic rest, 
Where they might meet in much more 
peaceful guise; 
And Juan now his willingness ex- 
pressed 
To use all fit and proper courtesies, 
Adding, that this was commonest 
and best, 
For through the South, the custom 

still commands 
The gentleman to kiss the lady's hands. 



And he advanced, though with but a bad 
grace, 



:o88 



DON JUAN 



[Canto v. 



Though on more thorough-bred ^ or 
fairer fingers 
No hps e'er left their transitory trace : 
On such as these the hp too fondly 
lingers, 
And for one kiss would fain imprint a 
brace, 
As you will see, if she you love shall 
bring hers 
In contact; and sometimes even a fair 

stranger's 
An almost twelvemonth's constancy en- 
dangers. 

CVII. 

The lady eyed him o'er and o'er, and 
bade 
Baba retire, which he obeyed in style. 
As if well used to the retreating trade; 
And taking hints in good part all the 
while, 
He whispered Juan not to be afraid, 
And looking on him with a sort of 
smile, 
Took leave, with such a face of satis- 
faction, 
As good men wear who have done a 
virtuous action. 

CVIII. 

When he was gone, there was a sudden 
change : 
I know not what might be the lady's 
thought. 
But o'er her bright brow flashed a 
tumult strange. 
And into her clear cheek the blood 
was brought. 
Blood-red as sunset summer clouds 
which range 
The verge of Heaven; and in her 
large eyes wrought, 
A mixture of sensations might be 

scanned, 
Of half voluptuousness and half com- 
mand. 

cix. 

Her form had all the softness of her sex. 
Her features all the sweetness of the 
Devil, 

' There is nothing, perhaps, more distinctive 
of birth than the hand. It is almost the only 
sign of blood which aristocracy can generate. 



When he put on the Cherub to perplex 
Eve, and paved (God knows how) 
the road to evil; 
The Sun himself was scarce more free 
from specks 
Than she from aught at which the 
eye could cavil; 
Yet, somehow, there was something 

somewhere wanting. 
As if she rather ordered than was grant- 
ing. — 

ex. 

Something imperial, or imperious, threw 
A chain o'er all she did; that is, a 
chain 
Was thrown as 'twere about the neck 
of you, — 
And Rapture's self will seem almost a 
pain 
With aught which looks like despotism 
in view; 
Our souls at least are free, and 'tis in 
vain 
We would against them make the flesh 

obey — 
The spirit in the end will have its way. 

CXI. 

Her very smile was haughty, though so 
sweet ; 
Her very nod was not an inclination ; 
There was a self-will even in her small 
feet, 
As though they were quite conscious 
of her station — 
They trod as upon necks; and to com- 
plete 
Her state (it is the custom of her 
nation), 
A poniard decked her girdle, as the sign 
She was a Sultan's bride (thank Heaven, 
not mine !). 

CXII. 

"To hear and to obey" had been from 
birth 
The law of all around her ; to fulfil 
All phantasies which yielded joy or 
mirth, 
Had been her slaves' chief pleasure, 
as her will; 
Her blood was high, her beauty scarce 
of earth: 



Canto v.] 



DON JUAN 



IC89 



Judge, then, if her caprices e'er stood 
still; 

Had she but been a Christian, I've a 
notion 

We should have found out the "per- 
petual motion." 

CXIII. 

Whate'er she sav^ and coveted was 
brought; 
Whate'er she did not see, if she sup- 
posed 

It might be seen, with diligence was 
sought. 
And when 'twas found straightway 
the bargain closed: 
There was no end unto the things she 
bought. 
Nor to the trouble which her fancies 
caused ; 
Yet even her tyranny had such a 

grace^ 
The women pardoned all except her 
face. 

cxiv. 

Juan, the latest of her whims, had 
caught 
Her eye in passing on his way to sale ; 
She ordered him directly to be bought, 
And Baba, who had ne'er been known 
to fail 
In any kind of mischief to be wrought. 
At all such auctions knew how to 
prevail : 
She had no prudence, but he had — and 

this 
Explains the garb which Juan took 
amiss. 

cxv. 

His youth and features favoured the 
disguise. 
And should you ask how she, a 
Sultan's bride. 
Could risk or compass such strange 
phantasies, 
This I must leave sultanas to decide : 
Emperors are only husbands in wives' 
eyes, 
And kings and consorts oft are 
mystified, 
As we may ascertain, with due precision 
Some by experience, others by tradition. 
4 A 



CXVI. 

But to the main point, where we have 
been tending : — 
She now conceived all difficulties past, 
And deemed herself extremely con- 
descending 
When, being made her property at last. 
Without more preface, in her blue eyes 
blending 
Passion and power, a glance on him 
she cast, 
And merely saying, "Christian, canst 

thou love?" 
Conceived that phrase was quite enough 
to move. 

CXVII. 

And so it was, in proper time and place ; 
But Juan, who had still his mind 
o'erflowing 
With Haidee's isle and soft Ionian face, 
Felt the warm blood, which in his face 
was glowing. 
Rush back upon his heart, which filled 
apace. 
And left his cheeks as pale as snow- 
drops blowing: 
These words went through his soul like 

Arab spears. 
So that he spoke not, but burst into tears. 

CXVIII. 

She was a good deal shocked; not 

shocked at tears. 
For women shed and use them at their 

liking; 
But there is something when man's eye 

appears 
Wet, still more disagreeable and 

striking : 
A woman's tear-drop melts, a man's half 

sears, 
Like molten lead, as if you thrust a 

pike in 
His heart to force it out, for (to be 

shorter) 
To them 'tis a relief, to us a torture. 

cxix. 

And she would have consoled, but knew 
not how: 
Having no equals, nothing which had 
e'er 



logo 



DON JUAN 



[Canto v. 



Infected her with sympathy till now, 
And never having dreamt what 'twas 

to bear 
Aught of a serious, sorrowing kind, 

although 
There might arise some pouting petty 

care 
To cross her brow, she wondered how so 

near 
Her eyes another's eye could shed a tear. 

cxx. 

But Nature teaches more than power 
can spoil, 
And, when a strong although a strange 
sensation 
Moves — female hearts are such a genial 
soil 
For kinder feelings, whatso'er their 
nation 
They naturally pour the "wine and oil," 

Samaritans in every situation; 
And thus Gulbeyaz, though she knew 

not why. 
Felt an odd glistening moisture in her 
eye. 

cxxi. 

But tears must stop like all things else; 
and soon 
Juan, who for an instant had been 
moved 
To such a sorrow by the intrusive tone 
Of one who dared to ask if "he had 
loved," 
Called back the Stoic to his eyes, which 
shone 
^^' bright with the very weakness he 
y^ ' reproved ; 

J And although sensitive to beauty, he 
/ Felt most indignant still at not being 
' free. 

CXXII. 

Gulbeyaz, for the first time in her 
days. 
Was much embarrassed, never having 
met 
In all her life with aught save prayers 
and praise ; 
And as she also risked her life to get 
Him whom she meant to tutor in love's 
ways 
Into a comfortable tete-a-tete, 



To lose the hour would make her quite 

a martyr, 
And they had wasted now almost a 

quarter. 

CXXIII. 

I also would suggest the fitting time 

To gentlemen in any such Hke case, 
That is to say in a meridian cHme — 
With us there is more law given to thCv i 
chase, '' 

But here a small delay forms a great 
crime : 
So recollect that the extremest grace 
Is just two minutes for your declara- 
tion — 
A moment more would hurt your reputa- 
tion. 

CXXIV. 

Juan's was good; and might have been 
still better. 
But he had got Haidee into his head: 
However strange, he could not yet forget 
her. 
Which made him seem exceedingly 
ill-bred. 
Gulbeyaz, who looked on him as her 
debtor 
For having had him to her palace led, 
Began to blush up to the eyes, and 

then 
Grow deadly pale, and then blush back 
again. 

cxxv. 

At length, in an imperial way, she laid 
Her hand on his, and bending on him 

eyes 
Which needed not an empire to per- 
suade. 
Looked into his for love, where none 

repUes: 
Her brow grew black, but she would not 

upbraid. 
That being the last thing a proud 

woman tries; 
She rose, and pausing one chaste 

moment threw 
Herself upon his breast, and there she 

grew. 

CXXVI. 

This was an awkward test, as Juan 
found, 



Canto v.] 



DON JUAN 



IC91 



But he was steeled by Sorrow, Wrath, 
and Pride: 
With gentle force her white arms he 
unwound. 
And seated her all drooping by his 
side, 
I Then rising haughtily he glanced around 
And looking coldly in her face he 
cried, 
"The prisoned eagle will not pair, nor I 
Serve a Sultana's sensual phantasy. 

CXXVII. 

"Thou ask'st, if I can love? be this the 
proof 
. How much I have loved — that I love 
not thee ! 
In this vile garb, the distaff, web, and 
woof, / 

Were fitter for me/^Love is for the 
free ! 
I am not dazzled by this splendid 
roof ; 
Whate'er thy power, and great it 
seems to be. 
Heads bow, knees bend, eyes watch 

around a throne, 
And hands obey — our hearts are still 
our own." 

CXXVIII. 

This was a truth to us extremely trite; 
Not so to her, v.ho ne'er had heard 
such things: 
She deemed her least command must 
yield delight. 
Earth being only made for Queens 
and Kings. 
If hearts lay on the left side or the 
right 
She hardly knew, to such perfection 
brings 
Legitimacy its born votaries, when 
Aware of their due royal rights o'er men. 

cxxix. 

Besides, as has been said, she was so 
fair 
As even in a much humbler lot had 
made 
A kingdom or confusion anywhere. 
And also, as may be presumed, she 
laid 



Some stress on charms, which seldom 

are, if e'er, 
By their possessors thrown into the 

shade : 
She thought hers gave a double "right 

divine"; 
And half of that opinion's also mine. 



Remember, or (if you cannot) imagine, 
Ye ! who have kept your chastity 
when young, 
While some more desperate dowager has 
been waging 
Love with you, and been in the dog- 
days stung 
By your refusal, recollect her raging ! 

Or recollect all that was said or sung 
On such a subject; then suppose the 

face 
Of a young do.wnright beauty, in this 
case! 

cxxxi. 

Suppose, — but you already have sup- 
posed. 
The spouse of Potiphar, the Lady 
Booby,^ 

Phaedra,^ and all which story has dis- 
closed 
Of good examples; pity that so few 
by 

Poets and private tutors are exposed, 
To educate — ye youth of Europe — 
you by ! 

But when you have supposed the few we 
know. 

You can't suppose Gulbeyaz' angry 
brow. 

CXXXII. 

A tigress robbed of young, a lioness, 

Or any interesting beast of prey. 
Are similes at hand for the distress 
Of ladies who cannot have their own 
way ; 
But though my turn will not be served 
with less, 
These don't express one half what I 
should say: 

' [See Fielding's History of the Adventures of 
Joseph Andrews, bk. i. chap, v.] 

" [Phaedra was repulsed by Hipjxilytus, 
"Theseus' son." See Juvenal, Sat. x., 473-480.] 



1092 



DON JUAN 



[Canto v. 



For what is stealing young ones, few or 

many, 
To cutting short their hope of having 

any ? 

CXXXIII. 

The love of offspring's Nature's general 

law, 
From tigresses and cubs to ducks and 

ducklings; 
There's nothing whets the beak, or arms 

the claw 
Like an invasion of their babes and 

sucklings; 
And all who have seen a human nursery, 

saw 
How mothers love their children's 

squalls and chucklings: 
This strong extreme effect (to tire no 

longer 
Your patience) shows the cause must 

still be stronger. , 



If I said fire flashed from Gulbeyaz' eyes 
'Twere nothing — for her eyes flashed 
always fire; 
Or said her cheeks assumed the deepest 
dyes, 
I should but bring disgrace upon the 
dyer, 
So supernatural was her passion's rise; 
For ne'er till now she knew a checked 
desire : 
Even ye who know what a checked 

woman is 
(Enough, God knows !) would much fall 
short of this. 



Her rage was but a minute's, and 'twas 
well — 
A moment's more had slain her; but 
the while 
It lasted 'twas like a short glimpse of 
Hell: 
Nought's more sublime than energetic 
bile. 
Though horrible to see, yet grand to tell, 
Like Ocean warring 'gainst a rocky 
isle; 
And the deep passions flashing through 

her form 
Made her a beautiful embodied storm. 



cxxxvi. 

A vulgar tempest 'twere to a typhoon 
To match a common fury with her 
rage. 
And yet she did not want to reach the 
moon, 
Like moderate Hotspur on the im- 
mortal page; 
Her anger pitched into a lower tune. 
Perhaps the fault of her soft sex and 
age — 
Her wish was but to "kill, kill, kill," 

like Lear's, 
And then her thirst of blood was 
quenched in tears. 

CXXXVII. 

A storm it raged, and like the storm it 
passed. 
Passed without words — in fact she 
could not speak; 
And then her sex's shame broke in at 
last, 
A sentiment till then in her but weak, 
But now it flowed in natural and fast, 

As water through an unexpected leak ; 
For she felt humbled — and humiliation 
Is sometimes good for people in her 
station. 

CXXXVIII. 

It teaches them that they are flesh and 
blood, 
It also gently hints to them that others. 
Although of clay, are yet not quite of 
mud; 
That urns and pipkins are but fragile 
brothers. 
And works of the same pottery, bad or 
good. 
Though not all born of the same sires 
and mothers; 
It teaches — Heaven knows only what 

it teaches. 
But sometimes it may mend, and often 
reaches. 

cxxxix. 

Her first thought was to cut off Juan's 
head; 
Her second, to cut only his — ac- 
quaintance; 

Her third, to ask him where he had been 
bred; 



Canto v.] 



DON JUAN 



IC93 



Her fourth, to rally him into repent- 
ance; 

Her fifth, to call her maids and go to 
bed; 
Her sixth, to stab herself ; her seventh, 
to sentence 

The lash to Baba : — but her grand 
resource 

Was to sit down again, and cry — of 
course. 

CXL. 

She thought to stab herself, but then she 

had 
The dagger close at hand, which made 

it awkward; 
For Eastern stays are little made to 

pad. 
So that a poniard pierces if 'tis struck 

hard: 
She thought of killing Juan — but, poor 

lad! 
Though he deserved it well for being 

so backward, 
The cutting off his head was not the 

art 
Most likely to attain her aim — his 

heart. 

CXLI. 

Juan was moved: he had made up his 
mind 
To be impaled, or quartered as a dish 
For dogs, or to be slain with pangs 
refined. 
Or thrown to lions, or made baits for 
fish. 
And thus heroically stood resigned, 
Rather than sin — except to his own 
wish : 
But all his great preparatives for dying 
Dissolved like snow before a woman 
crying. 

CXLII. 

As through his palms Bob Acres' valour 
oozed. 
So Juan's virtue ebbed, I know not 
how; 
And first he wondered why he had 
refused ; 
And then, if matters could be made 
up now; 
And next his savage virtue he accused, 
Just as a friar may accuse his vow, 



Or as a dame repents her of her oath, 
Which mostly ends in some small breach 
of both. 

CXLIII. 

So he began to stammer some excuses; 
But words are not enough in such a 
matter, 
Although you borrowed all that e'er the 
Muses 
Have sung, or even a Dandy's dandies 
chatter, 
Or all the figures Castlereagh abuses; 

Just as a languid smile began to flatter 
His peace was making, but, before he 

ventured 
Further, old Baba rather briskly entered. 

CXLIV. 

"Bride of the Sun! and Sister of the 
Moon!" 
('Twas thus he spake,) "and Em- 
press of the Earth ! 
Whose frown would put the spheres all 
out of tune, 
Whose smile makes all the planets 
dance with mirth, 
Your slave brings tidings — he hopes 
not too soon — 
Which your sublime attention may be 
worth : 
The Sun himself has sent me like a ray, 
To hint that he is coming up this way." 



"Is it,"" exclaimed Gulbeyaz, " as you 

say? 
I wish to heaven he would not shine 

till morning ! 
But bid my women form the milky way. 
Hence, my old comet ! give the stars 

due warning — 
And, Christian ! mingle with them as 

you may. 
And as you'd have me pardon your 

past scorning " 

Here they were interrupted by a 

humming 
Sound, and then by a cry, "The Sultan's 

coming!" 

CXL VI. 

First came her damsels, a decorous 
file, 



1094 



DON JUAN 



[Canto v. 



And then his Highness' eunuchs, 
black and white; 
The train might reach a quarter of a 
mile: 
His Majesty was always so polite 
As to announce his visits a long while 
Before he came, especially at night; 
For being the last wife of the Emperor, 
She was of course the favourite of the 
four. 

CXLVII. 

His Highness was a man of solemn port. 
Shawled to the nose, and bearded to 
the eyes. 
Snatched from a prison to preside at 
court. 
His lately bowstrung brother caused 
his rise; 
He was as good a sovereign of the sort 

As any mentioned in the histories 
Of Cantemir, or Knoll es, where few 

shine 
Save Solyman, the glory of their Une.^ 

CXLVIII. 

He went to mosque in state, and said his 
prayers 
With more than "Oriental scrupu- 
losity"; ^ 
He left to his vizier all .state affairs. 

And showed but little royal curiosity: 
I know not if he had domestic cares — 
No process proved connubial ani- 
mosity ; 
Four wives and twice five hundred 

maids, unseen. 
Were ruled as calmly as a Christian 
queen. 

CXLIX. 

If now and then there happened a slight 
slip, 

» It may not be unworthy of remark, that 
Bacon, in his essay on "Empire" {Essays, No. 
XX.), hints that Solyman was the last of his line; 
on what authority, I know not. These are his 
words: "The destruction of Mustapha was so 
fatal to Solyman's line; as the succession of the 
Turks from Solyman until this day is suspected 
to be untrue, and of strange blood; for that 
Selymus the second was thouf^ht to be suppositi- 
tious." But Bacon, in his historical authorities, 
is often inaccurate. I could give half a dozen 
instances from his Apophthegms only. 

^ [See Johnso.n'g Lives of the Poets, Life of 
Swift.] 



Little was heard of criminal or crime; 
The story scarcely passed a single lip — 
The sack and sea had settled all in 
time, 
From which the secret nobody could 
rip: 
The public knew no more than does 
this rhyme; 
No scandals made the daily press a 

curse — 
Morals were better, and the fish no 
worse. 

CL. 

He saw with his own eyes the moon was 
round, 
Was also certain that the earth was 
square. 
Because he had journeyed fifty miles, 
and found 
No sign that it was circular anywhere; 
His empire also was without a bound: 
'Tis true, a little troubled here and 
there. 
By rebel pachas, and encroaching 

giaours. 
But then they never came to "the Seven 
Towers"; 

CLI. 

Except in shape of envoys, who were sent 
To lodge there when a war broke out, 
according 
To the true law of nations, which ne'er 
meant 
Those scoundrels, who have never had 
a sword in 
Their dirty diplomatic hands, to vent 
Their spleen in making strife, and 
safely wording 
Their lies, yclept despatches, without 

risk or 
The singeing of a single inky whisker. 

CLII. 

He had fifty daughters and four dozen 
sons. 
Of whom all such as came of age were 
stowed. 
The former in a palace, where like nuns 
They lived till some Bashaw was sent 
abroad, 
When she, whose turn it was, was wed 
at once, 



Canto v.] 



DON JUAN 



1095 



Sometimes at six years old — though 
this seems odd, 
'Tis true; the reason is, that the 

Bashaw- 
Must make a present to his sire-in-law. 

CLIII. 

His sons were kept in prison, till they 
grew 
Of years to fill a bowstring or the 
throne, 
One or the other, but which of the tw^o 
Could yet be known unto the fates 
alone; 
Meantime the education they went 
through 
Was princely, as the proofs have 
always shown; 
So that the heir apparent still was found 
No less deserving to be hanged than 
crowned. 

CLIV. 

His Majesty saluted his fourth spouse 
With all the ceremonies of his rank, 
Who cleared her sparkling eyes and 
smoothed her brows. 
As suits a matron who has played a 
prank; 
These must seem doubly mindful of their 

VOW'S, 

To save the credit of their breaking 

bank: 
To no men are such cordial greetings 

given 
As those whose wives have made them 

fit for Heaven. 

CLV". 

His Highness cast around his great 
black eyes, 
And looking, as he always looked, 
perceived 
Juan amongst the damsels in disguise, 
At which he seemed no whit surprised 
nor grieved, 
But just remarked with air sedate and 
wise, 
While still a fluttering sigh Gulbeyaz 
heaved, 
"I see you've bought another girl; 'tis 

pity 

That a mere Christian should be half so 
pretty." 



This compliment, which drew all eyes 
upon 
The new-bought virgin, made her 
blush and shake. 
Her comrades, also, thought themselves 
undone: 
Oh! Mahomet! that his Majesty 
should take 
Such notice of a giaour, while scarce to 
one 
Of them his lips imperial ever spake I 
There was a general whisper, toss, and 

wriggle. 
But etiquette forbade them all to giggle. 

CLVir. 

The Turks do well to shut — at least, 
sometimes — 
The women up — because, in sad 
reality. 
Their chastity in these unhappy climes 
Is not a thing of that astringent quality 
Which in the North prevents precocious 
crimes, 
And makes our snow less pure than 
our morality; 
The Sun, which yearly melts the polar 

ice. 
Has quite the contrary effect — on vice. 

CLVIII. 

Thus in the East they are extremely 

strict. 
And wedlock and a padlock mean the 

same: 
Excepting only when the former's 

picked 
It ne'er can be replaced in proper 

frame; 
Spoilt, as a pipe of claret is when 

pricked: 
But then their own polygamy's to 

blame; 
Why don't they knead tw^o virtuous 

souls for life 
Into that moral centaur, man and wdf e ? 

CLIX. 

Thus far our chronicle; and now we 
pause. 
Though not for w^ant of matter; 
but 'tis time, 



1096 



DON JUAN 



[Canto v. 



According to the ancient epic laws, 
To slacken sail, and anchor with 

our rhyme. 
Let this fifth canto meet with due 

applause. 
The sixth shall have a touch of the 

sublime; 
Meanwhile, as Homer sometimes sleeps, 

perhaps 
You'll pardon to my muse a few short 

naps. 



PREFACE TO CANTOS VI., VII., 
AND VIII. 

The details of the siege of Ismail in 
two of the following cantos (i.e. the 
seventh and eighth) are taken from a 
French Work, entitled Histoire de la 
Nouvelle Russie} Some of the inci- 
dents attributed to Don Juan really 
occurred, particularly the circumstance 
of his saving the infant, which was the 
actual case of the late Due de Richelieu, 
then a young volunteer in the Russian 
service, and afterward the founder and 
benefactor of Odessa, where his name 
and memory can never cease to be 
regarded with reverence. 

In the course of these cantos, a stanza 
or two will be found relative to the late 
Marquis of Londonderry, but written 
some time before his decease. Had 
that person's oligarchy died with him, 
they would have been suppressed; as 
it is, I am aware of nothing in the 
manner of his death or of his life to 
prevent the free expression of the 
opinions of all whom his whole existence 
was consumed in endeavouring to 
enslave. That he was an amiable man 
in private life, may or may not be true: 
but with this the public have nothing 
to do; and as to lamenting his death, 

I [The Marquis Gabriel de Castelnau, author 
of an Essai sur V Histoire anricnne el moderne de 
la Nouvelle Russie (Sec. Ed. 3 torn. 1827), was, 
at one time, resident at Odessa, where he met 
and made the acquaintance of Armand Emanuel, 
Due de Richelieu, who took part in the siege of 
IsTnail. M. Leon de Crousaz-Cretet describes 
him as "ancien surintendant des theatres sous 
I'Empereur Paul." — Lc Due de Richelieu, 
1897, p. 83.'j 



it will be time enough when Ireland 
has ceased to mourn for his birth. As 
a minister, I, for one of millions, looked 
upon him as the most despotic in inten- 
tion, and the weakest in intellect, that 
ever tyrannised over a country. It is 
the first time indeed since the Normans 
that England has been insulted by a 
minister (at least) who could not speak 
English, and that Parliament permitted 
itself to be dictated to in the language 
of Mrs Malaprop. 

Of the manner of his death little 
need be said, except that if a poor radi- 
cal, such as Waddington or Watson, 
had cut his throat, he would have been 
buried in a cross-road, with the usual 
appurtenances of the stake and mallet. 
But the minister was an elegant lunatic 

— a sentimental suicide — he merely 
cut the "carotid artery," (blessings on 
their learning !) and lo ! the pageant, 
and the Abbey! and "the syllables of 
dolour yelled forth" by the newspapers 

— and the harangue of the Coroner 
in a eulogy over the bleeding body of 
the deceased — (an Anthony worthy of 
such a Caesar) — and the nauseous 
and atrocious cant of a degraded crew 
of conspirators against all that is sincere 
and honourable. In his death he was 
necessarily one of two things by the 
law ^ — a felon or a madman — and 
in either case no great subject for 
panegyric. In his life he was — what 
all the world knows, and half of it will 
feel for years to come, unless his death 
prove a "moral lesson" to the surviving 
Sejani ^ of Europe. It may at least 
serve as some consolation to the nations, 
that their oppressors are not happy, 
and in some instances judge so justly 

' I say by the law of the land — the laws of 
humanity judge more gently; but as the legiti- 
mates have always the law in their mouths, let 
them here make the most of it. 

"^ From this number must be excepted Can- 
ning. Canning is a genius, almost a universal one, 
an orator, a wit, a poet, a statesman; and no 
man of talent can long pursue the path of his late 
predecessor, Lord C. If ever man saved his 
country. Canning can, but will he? I for one, 
hope so. 

[The phrase, "great moral lesson," was em- 
ployed by the Duke of Wellington, a propos of 



Canto vi.] 



DON JUAN 



1097 



of their own actions as to anticipate 
the sentence of mankind. Let us hear 
no more of this man; and let Ireland 
remove the ashes of her Grattan from 
the sanctuary of Westminster. Shall 
the patriot of humanity repose by the 
Werther of politics ! ! ! 

With regard to the objections which 
have been made on another score to 
the already published cantos of this 
poem, I shall content myself with two 
quotations from Voltaire: — "La 
pudeur s'est enfuite des coeurs, et s'est 
refugiee sur les levres." . . . "Plus 
les moeurs sont depraves, plus les 
expressions deviennent mesurees; on 
croit regagner en langage ce qu'on a 
perdu en vertu." 

This is the real fact, as applicable 
to the degraded and hypocritical mass 
which leavens the present English 
generation, and is the only answer they 
deserve. The hackneyed and lavished 
title of Blasphemer — which, with 
Radical, Liberal, Jacobin, Reformer, 
etc., are the changes which the hirelings 
are daily ringing in the ears of those 
who will listen — should be welcome 
to all who recollect on whom it was 
originally bestowed. Socrates and 

Jesus Christ were put to death publicly 
as blasphemers, and so have been and 
may be many who dare to oppose the 
most notorious abuses of the name of 
God and the mind of man. But per- 
secution is not refutation, nor even 
triumph: the "wretched infidel," as 
he is called, is probably happier in his 
prison than the proudest of his assailants. 
With his opinions I have nothing to do 
■ — they may be right or wrong — but 
he has suffered for them, and that very 
suffering for conscience' sake will make 
more proselytes to deism than the 
example of heterodox^ Prelates to 

the restoration of pictures and statues to their 
"rightful owners," in a despatch addressed to 
Castlereagh, under date, Paris, September 19, 
1S15 {The Dispatches, etc. (ed. by Colonel Gur- 
wood), 1847, viii. 270).] 

' When Lord Sandwich said " he did not know 
the difference between orthodoxy and hetero- 
doxy," Warburton, the bishop, replied, "Ortho- 
doxy, my lord, is my doxy, and heterodoxy is 



Christianity, suicide statesmen to oppres- 
sion, or overpensioned homicides to the 
impious alliance which insults the world 
with the name of "Holy!" I have no 
wish to trample on the dishonoured or 
the dead; but it would be well if the 
adherents to the classes from whence 
those persons sprung should abate a 
little of the cant which is the crying sin 
of this double-dealing and false-speak- 
ing time of selfish spoilers, and — but 
enough for the present. 



CANTO THE SIXTH.' 



"There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
Which, — taken at the flood," — you 
know the rest, 
And most of us have found it now and 
then: 
At least we think so, though but few 
have guessed 
The moment, till too late to come again. 
But no doubt everything is for the 
best — 
Of which the surest sign is in the end: 
When things are at the worst they some- 
times mend. 

II. 

There is a tide in the affairs of women, 
Which, taken at the flood, leads — 
God knows where: 
Those navigators must be able seamen 
Whose charts lay down its currents 
to a hair; 
Not all the reveries of Jacob Behmen 
With its strange whirls and eddies 
can compare: 

another man's doxy." A prelate of the present 
day has discovered, it seems, a third kind of doxy, 
which has not greatly exalted in the eyes of the 
elect that which Bentham calls "Church-of- 
Englandism." 

[For the "prelate," see Letters, 1902, vi. 101, 
note 2.] 

' [Cantos VI., VII., and VIII. were written 
in 1822. Thev were published (together with 
the Preface) by John Hunt, July 15, 1823. 
They bore the motto "Thinkest tliou that be- 
cause thou art virtuous there shall be no more 
cakes and ale? Ave ! and ginger shall be hot in 
the mouth too." Twelfth Night, or What You 
Will, Shakespeare, act ii. sc. 3, lines 106-112.] 



1098 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vx 



Men with their heads reflect on this 

and that — 
But women with their hearts on Heaven 

knows what ! 

III. 

And yet a headlong, headstrong, down- 
right She, 
Young, beautiful, and daring — who 

would risk 
A throne — the world — the universe — 

to be 
Beloved in her own way — and 

rather whisk 
The stars from out the sky, than not 

be free 
As are the billows when the breeze 

is brisk — 
Though such a She's a devil (if there 

be one). 
Yet she would make full many a Mani- 

chean. 

IV, 

Thrones, worlds, et cetera, are so oft 
upset 
By commonest ambition, that when 
Passion 
O'erthrows the same, we readily for- 
get, 
Or at the least forgive, the loving 
rash one. 
If Anthony be well remembered yet, 
'Tis not his conquests keep his name 
in fashion, 
But Actium, lost for Cleopatra's eyes, 
Outbalances all Cassar's victories. 



He died at fifty for a queen of forty; 
I wish their years had been fifteen and 

twenty, 
For then wealth, kingdoms, worlds are 

but a sport — I 
Remember when, though I had no 

great plenty 
Of worlds to lose, yet still, to pay my 

court, I 
Gave what I had — a heart; as the 

world went, I 
Gave what was worth a world; for 

worlds could never 
Restore me those pure feelings, gone 

for ever. 



VI. 

'Twas the boy's "mite," and, like the 

"widow's," may 
Perhaps be weighed hereafter, if not 

now; 
But whether such things do or do not 

weigh, 
All who have loved, or love, will still 

allow 
Life has nought like it. God is Love, 

they say. 
And Love's a god, or was before 

the brow 
Of Earth was wrinkled by the sins and 

tears 
Of — but Chronology best knows the 

years. 

VII. 

We left our hero and third heroine in 
A kind of state more awkward than 
uncommon, 
For gentlemen must sometimes risk 
their skin 
For that sad tempter, a forbidden 
woman : 
Sultans too much abhor this sort of sin. 
And don't agree at all with the wise 
Roman, 
Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious. 
Who lent his lady to his friend Hor- 
tensius. 

VIII. 

I know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong; 

I own it, I deplore it, I condemn it; 
But I detest all fiction even in song, 
And so must tell the truth, howe'er 
you blame it. 
Her reason being weak, her passions 
strong, 
She thought that her Lord's heart 
(even could she claim it) 
Was scarce enough; for he had fifty- 
nine 
Years, and a fifteen-hundredth con- 
cubine. 

IX. 

I am not, like Cassio, an "arithmetician," 
But by "the bookish theoric" it 
appears. 

If 'tis summed up with feminine pre- 
cision, 



Canto vi.] 



DON JUAN 



1099 



That, adding to the account his 

Highness' years, 

The fair Sultana erred from inanition; 

For, were the Sultan just to all his 

dears, 

She could but claim the fifteen-hun- 

dreth part 
Of what should be monopoly — the 
heart. 



It is observed that ladies are litigious 

Upon all legal objects of possession. 
And not the least so when they are 
religious, 
Which doubles what they think of 
the trangression : 
With suits and prosecutions they 
besiege us, 
As the tribunals show through many 
a session, 
When they suspect that any one goes 

shares 
In that to which the law makes them 
sole heirs. 

XI. 

Now, if this holds good in a Christian 

land, 
The heathen also, though with lesser 

latitude. 
Are apt to carry things with a high 

hand, 
And take, what Kings call "an impos- 
ing attitude"; 
And for their rights connubial make 

a stand, 
When their liege husbands treat 

them with ingratitude; 
And as four wives must have quadruple 

claims, 
The Tigris hath its jealousies Hke 

Thames. 

XII. 

Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said) 
The favourite; but what's favour 
amongst four? 
Polygamy may well be held in dread, 

Not only as a sin, but as a hore : 
Most wise men with one moderate 
woman wed, 
Will scarcely find philosophy for 
more; 



And all (except Mahometans) forbear 
To make the nuptial couch a "Bed 
of Ware." 

XIII. 

His Highness, the sublimest of man- 
kind, — 
So styled according to the usual 
forms 

Of every monarch, till they are con- 
signed 
To those sad hungry Jacobins the 
worms. 

Who on the very loftiest kings have 
dined, — 
His Highness gazed upon Gulbeyaz' 
charms. 

Expecting all the welcome of a lover 

(A "Highland welcome"^ all the wide 
world over). 



Now here we should distinguish; for 

howe'er 
Kisses, sweet words, embraces, and 

all that. 
May look like what is — neither here 

nor there. 
They are put on as easily as a hat. 
Or rather bonnet, which the fair sex 

wear. 
Trimmed either heads or hearts to 

decorate. 
Which form an ornament, but no more 

part 
Of heads, than their caresses of the 

heart. 

XV. 

A slight blush, a soft tremor, a calm 
kind 
Of gentle feminine delight, and shown 
More in the eyeUds than the eyes, 
resigned 
Rather to hide what pleases most 
unknown. 
Are the best tokens (to a modest 
mind) 
Of Love, when seated on his loveHest 
throne, 
A sincere woman's breast, — for over- 
warm 
Or over-cold annihilates the charm. 



See Waverley [chap. xx.]. 



DO.V JUAN 



[Canto vi. 



For over-warmth, if false, is worse than 

truth; 
If true, 'tis no great lease of its own 

fire; 
For no one, save in very early youth, 
Would Uke (I think) to trust all to 

desire. 
Which is but a precarious bond, in 

sooth, 
And apt to be transferred to the first 

buyer 
At a sad discount: while your over 

chilly 
Women, on t'other hand, seem some- 
what silly. 

XVII. 

That is, we cannot pardon their bad 
taste. 
For so it seems to lovers swift or 
slow. 
Who fain would have a mutual flame 
confessed, 
And see a sentimental passion glow. 
Even were St Francis' paramour their 
guest, 
In his monastic concubine of snow ;^ — 
In short, the maxim for the amorous 

tribe is 
Horatian, ''Medio tu tutissimus ibis."^ 

XVIII. 

The "tu" 's too much, — but let it 
stand, — the verse 
Requires it, that's to say, the EngUsh 
rhyme, 
And not the pink of old hexameters; 
But, after all, there's neither tune 
nor time 
In the last line, which cannot well be 
worse. 
And was thrust in to close the octave's 
chime : 
I own no prosody can ever rate it 
As a rule, but Truth may, if you trans- 
late it. 

'[For St Francis of Assisi, and the "seven 
great balls of snow," of which "the greatest " was 
"his wife,'" see The Golden Legend, igoo, v. 221.] 

2 [The words medio, etc., are to be found in 
Ovid, Metam.,^ lib. ii. line 137; the doctrine, 
Virtus est medium vitiorum, in Horace, Epist., 
lib. I, ep. xviii. line 9.] 



XIX. 

If fair Gulbeyaz overdid her part, 

I know not — it succeeded, and 
success 
Is much in most things, not less in the 
heart 
Than other articles of female dress. 
Self-love in Man, too, beats all female 
art; 
They lie, we lie, all lie, but love no 
less: 
And no one virtue yet, except starvation, 
Could stop that worst of vices — propa- 
gation. 

XX. 

We leave this royal couple to repose: 
A bed is not a throne, and they may 
sleep, 
Whate'er their dreams be; if of joys 
or woes: 
Yet disappointed joys are woes as 
deep 
As any man's clay mixture undergoes. 
Our least of sorrows are such as we 
weep ; 
'Tis the vile daily drop on drop which 

wears 
The soul out (like the stone) with petty 
cares. 

XXI, 

A scolding wife, a sullen son, a bill 
To pay, unpaid, protested, or dis- 
counted 
At a per-centage; a child cross, dog ill, 
A favourite horse fallen lame just 
as he's mounted, 
AJbad-eld-woman maJdn^ a^o_rse.,ivnl]^ 
Which leaves you minus oFuie cash 
you counted 
As certain; these are paltry things, 

and yet 
I've rarely seen the man they did not 
fret. 

XXII. 

I'm a philosopher; confound them all! 
Bills, beasts, and men, and — no ! 
not womankind ! 

» [Lady Noel's will was proved February 22, 
1822. She left to the trustees a portrait of Byron 
. . . with directions that it was not to be shown 
to his daughter Ada until she attained the age of 
twenty-one. — Letters, 1901, vi. 42, note i.] 



Canto vi.] 



DON JUAN 



IIOI 



With one good hearty curse I vent my 

gall, 
And then my Stoicism leaves nought 

behind 
Which it can either pain or evil call, 
And I can give my whole soul up 

to mind; 
Though what is soul, or mind, their 

birth or growth, 
Is more than I know — the deuce take 

them both ! 

XXIII. 

So now all things are damned one feels 
at ease, 
As after reading Athanasius' curse, 
Which doth your true beUever so much 
please: 
I doubt if any now could make it 
worse 
O'er his worst enemy when at his knees, 
'Tis so sententious, positive, and 
terse, 
And decorates the Book of Common 

Prayer, 
As doth a rainbow the just clearing air. 



Gulbeyaz and her lord were sleeping, or 
At least one of them ! — Oh, the 
heavy night. 
When wicked wives, who love some 
bachelor. 
Lie down in dungeon to sigh for 
the light 
Of the grey morning, and look vainly for 
Its twinkle through the lattice dusky 
quite — 
To toss, to tumble, doze, revive, and 

quake 
Lest their too lawful bed-fellow should 
wake ! 

XXV. 

These are beneath the canopy of heaven, 

Also beneath the canopy of beds 
Four-posted and silk-curtained, which 
are given 
For rich men and their brides to lay 
their heads 
Upon, in sheets white as what bards 

call "driven 
Snow," Well! 'tis all hap-hazard 
when one weds. 



Gulbeyaz was an empress, but had been 
Perhaps as wretched if a peasant's 
quean. 

XXVI. 

Don Juan in his feminine disguise, 
With all the damsels in their long 
array, 
Had bowed themselves before th' 
imperial eyes. 
And at the usual signal ta'en their 
way 
Back to their chambers, those long 
galleries 
In the seraglio, where the ladies lay 
Their delicate limbs; a thousand 

bosoms there 
Beating for Love, as the caged bird's 
for air. 

XXVII. 

I love the sex, and sometimes would 

reverse 
The Tyrant's wish, "that Mankind 

only had 
One neck, which he with one fell stroke 

might pierce:" 
My wish is quite as wide, but not so 

bad. 
And much more tender on the whole 

than fierce; 
It being (not noiv, but only while a 

lad) 
That Womankind had but one rosy 

mouth, 
To kiss them all at once from North 

to South. 

XXVIII. 

Oh, enviable Briareus ! with thy hands 
And heads, if thou hadst all things 
multiplied 
In such proportion ! — But my Muse 
withstands 
The giant thought of being a Titan's 
bride, 
Or travelling in Patagonian lands; 

So let us back to Lilliput, and guide 
Our hero through the labyrinth of Love 
In which we left him several Unes above. 

XXIX. 

He went forth with the lovely Oda- 
lisques,^ 

• The ladies of the Seraglio. 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vi. 



At the given signal joined to their 
array ; 
And though he certainly ran many risks, 
Yet he could not at times keep, by 
the way. 
Although the consequences of such 
frisks 
Are worse than the worst damages 
men pay 
In moral England, where the thing's 

a tax), 
From ogling all their charms from 
breasts to backs. 



Still he forgot not his disguise: — along 
The galleries from room to room they 
walked, 
A virgin-like and edifying throng, 
By eunuchs flanked; while at their 
head there stalked 
A dame who kept up discipline among 
The female ranks, so that none 
stirred or talked, 
Without her sanction on their she- 
parades: 
Her title was "the Mother of the 
Maids." 

XXXI. 

Whether she was a "Mother," I know 
not. 
Or whether they were "Maids" who 
called her Mother; 
But this is her Seraglio title, got 

I know not how, but good as any 

other; 

So Cantemir ^ can tell you, or De Tott: ^ 

Her office was to keep aloof or smother 

All bad propensities in fifteen hundred 

Young women, and correct them when 

they blundered. 

XXXII. 

A goodly sinecure, no doubt ! but made 
More easy by the absence of all men — 

' [Demetrius Cantemir, hospodar of Maldavia. 
His work, the History of the Growth and Decay 
of the Olh?nan Empire, was translated into 
English by N. Tyndal, 1734.] 

= [Baron de Tott, in his Memoirs concerning 
the State of the Turkish Empire (1786, i. 72), 
gives the title of this functionary as Kiaya Kadun, 
i.e. Mistress or Governess of the Ladies.l 



Except his Majesty, — who with her aid, 
And guards, and bolts, and walls, 
and now and then 
A slight example, just to cast a shade 
Along the rest, contrived to keep 
this den 
Of beauties cool as an Italian convent. 
Where all the passions have, alas! but 
one vent. 

XXXIII. 

And what is that ? Devotion, doubtless 
— how 
Could you ask such a question ? — 
but we will 
Continue. As I said, this goodly row 

Of ladies of all countries at the will ^ 

Of one good man, with stately march 

and slow, 

Like water-lilies floating down a rill — 

Or rather lake — for rills do not run 

slowly, — 
Paced on most maiden-like and melan- 
choly. 

XXXIV. 

But when they reached their own apart- 
ments, there. 
Like birds, or boys, or bedlamites 
broke loose. 

Waves at spring-tide, or women any- 
where 
When freed from bonds (which are 
of no great use 

After all), or like Irish at a fair. 

Their guards being gone, and as it 
were a truce 

Established between them and bondage, 
they 

Began to sing, dance, chatter, smile, 
and play. 

XXXV. 

Their talk, of course, ran most on the 
new comer; 
Her shape, her hair, her air, her 
everything : 
Some thought her dress did not so 
much become her. 
Or wondered at her ears without a 
ring; 

' [The repetition of the same rhyme-word was 
noted in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 
July, 1823, vol. xiv. p. Qc] 



Canto vi.] 



DON JUAN 



1 103 



Some said her years were getting nigh 

their summer, 
Others contended they were but in 

spring; 
Some thought her rather masculine 

in height, 
While others wished that she had been 

so quite. 

XXXVI. 

But no one doubted on the whole, that 

she 
Was what her dress bespoke, a 

damsel fair. 
And fresh, and "beautiful exceed- 
ingly," 
Who with the brightest Georgians 

might compare: 
They wondered how Gulbeyaz, too, 

could be 
So silly as to buy slaves who might 

share 
(If that his Highness wearied of his 

h)ride) 
Her Throne and Power, and everything 

beside. 

XXXVII. 

But what was strangest in this virgin 
crew, 
Although her beauty was enough 
to vex, 
After the first investigating view. 

They all found out as few, or fewer, 

specks 

In the fair form of their companion 

new. 

Than is the Custom of the gentler sex. 

When they survey, with Christian eyes 

or Heathen, 
In a new face "the ugliest creature 
breathing." 

XXXVIII. 

And yet they had their little jealousies. 
Like all the rest; but upon this occa- 
sion, 
Whether there are such things as 
sympathies 
Without our knowledge or our appro- 
bation. 
Although they could not see through his 
disguise. 
All felt a soft kind of concatenation. 



Like Magnetism, or Devilism, or what 
You please — we will not quarrel about 
that: 

XXXIX. 

But certain 'tis they all felt for their 
new 
Compani m something newer still, as 
'twere 
' A sentimental friendship through and 
■ through, 

j Extrerrely pure, which made them all 
concur 
In %vishing her their sister, save a few 
Who wished rhey had a brother just 
like ht-r, 
Whom, if liiey were at home in sweet 

Circassia, 
They would prefer to Padisha ^ or Pacha. 



Of those who had most genius iox this, 
sort 
Of sentimental friendship, there were 
three, 
Lolah, Katinka, and Dudu — in short 
(To save description), fair as fair can 
be 
Were they, according to the best report. 
Though differing in stature and 
degree, 
And clime and time, and country and 

complexion — 
They all alike admired their new con- 
nection. 

XLI. 

Lolah was dusk as India and as 

warm; 
Katinka was a Georgian, white and 

red. 
With great blue eyes, a lovely hand and 

arm. 
And feet so small they scarce seemed 

made to tread, 
But rather skim the earth; while Dudu's 

form 
Looked more adapted to be put to bed. 
Being somewhat large, and languishing, 

and lazy. 
Yet of a beauty that would drive you 

crazy. 

' Padisha is the Turkish title of the Grand 
Signior. 



II04 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vi. 



A kind of sleepy Venus seemed Dudu, 

Yet very fit to "murder sleep" in those 
Who gazed upon her cheek's transcen- 
dent hue, 
Her Attic forehead, and her Phidian 
nose : 
Few angles were there in her form, 'tis 
true. 
Thinner she might have been, and yet 
scarce lose; 
Yet, after all, 'twould puzzle to say 

where 
It would not spoil some separate charm 
to pare. 

/ XLIII. 

She was not violently lively, but 

Stole on your spirit like a May-day 
breaking; 
Her eyes were not too sparkling, yet, 
half-shut. 
They put beholders in a tender taking; 
She looked (this sinji;',e's quite new) just 
cut 
From marble, like Pygmalion's statue 
waking, 
The mortal and the marble still at strife, 
And timidly expanding into Life. 

XLIV. 

Lolah demanded the new damsel's 

name — 
"Juanna." — Well, a pretty name 

enough. 
Katinka asked her also whence she 

came — 
"From Spain." — "But where is 

Spain?" — "Don't ask such stuff. 
Nor show your Georgian ignorance — 

for shame!" 
Said Lolah, with an accent rather 

rough. 
To poor Katinka: "Spain's an island 

near 
Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier." 

XLV. 

Dudu said nothing, but sat down beside 
Juanna, playing with her veil or hair; 

And, looking at her steadfastly, she 
sighed, 
As if she pitied her for being there, | 



A pretty stranger without friend or guide, 
And all abashed, too, at the general 

stare 
Which welcomes hapless strangers in all 

places, 
With kind remarks upon their mien and 

faces. 

XLVI. 

But here the Mother of the Maids drew 
near, 
With "Ladies, it is time to go to rest. 
I'm puzzled what to do with you, my 
dear!" 
She added to Juanna, their new guest: 
"Your coming has been unexpected 
here, 
And every couch is occupied ; you had 
best 
Partake of mine; but by to-morrow early 
We will have all things settled for you 
fairly." 

XLVII. 

Here Lolah interposed — "Mamma, 
you know 
You don't sleep soundly, and I cannot 
bear 
That anybody should disturb you so; 
I'll take Juanna; we're a slenderer 
pair 
Than you would make the half of; — 
don't say no; 
And I of your young charge will take 
due care." 
But here Katinka interfered, and said, 
"She also had compassion an.d a bed." 



"Besides, I hate to sleep alone," quoth 

she. 
The matron frowned: "Why so?" 

— "For fear of ghosts," 
Replied Katinka; "I am sure I see 
A phantom upon each of the four 

posts; 
And then I have the worst dreams that 

can be. 
Of Guebres, Giaours, and Ginns, and 

Gouls in hosts." 
The dame replied, "Between your 

dreams and you, 
I fear Juanna's dreams would be but 

few. 



Canto vi.] 



DON JUAN 



1 105 



XLIX. 

You, Lolah, must continue still to lie 
Alone, for reasons which don't matter; 
you 
The same, Katinka, until by and by : 

And I shall place Juanna with Dudii, 
Who's quiet, inoffensive, silent, shy. 
And will not toss and chatter the 
night through. 
What say you, child?" — Dudu said 

nothing, as 
Her talents were of the more silent class; 



But she rose up, and kissed the matron's 
brow 
Between the eyes, and Lolah on both 
cheeks, 
Katinka too; and with a gentle bow 
(Curt'sies are neither used by Turks 
nor Greeks) 
She took Juanna by the hand to show 
Their place of rest, and left, to both 
their piques. 
The others pouting at the matron's 

preference 
Of Dudu, though they held their tongues 
from deference. 

LI. 

It was a spacious chamber (Oda is 
The Turkish title), and ranged round 
the wall 
Were couches, toilets — and much more 
than this 
I might describe, as I have seen it all, 
But it suffices — little was amiss; 

'Twas on the whole a nobly furnished 
hall, 
With all things ladies want, save one or 

two, 
And even those were nearer than they 
knew. 

LII. 

Dudii, as has been said, was a sweet 
creature, 
Not very dashing, but extremely 
winning. 
With the most regulated charms of 
feature, 
Which painters cannot catch like faces 
sinning 

4B 



Against proportion — the wild strokes 

of nature 
Which they hit off at once in the 

beginning. 
Full of expression, right or wrong, that 

strike, 
And pleasing, or unpleasing, still are like. 



But she was a soft landscape of mild 

earth. 
Where all was harmony, and calm 

and quiet. 
Luxuriant, budding; cheerful without 

mirth, 
Which, if not happiness, is much more 

nigh it 
Than are your mighty passions and so 

forth. 
Which, some call "the Sublime": I 

wish they'd try it: 
I've seen your stormy seas and stormy 

women, 
And pity lovers rathti more than seamen. 

LIV. 

But she was pensive more than melan- 
choly. 
And serious more than pensive, and 
serene, 

Xt may be, more than either — not 
unholy 
Her thoughts, at least till now, ap- 
pear to have been. 

The strangest thing was, beauteous, she 
was wholly 
Unconscious, albeit turned of quick 
seventeen. 

That she was fair, or dark, or short, 01; 
tall; 

She never thought about herself at all. 



And therefore was she kind and gentle as 
The Age of Gold (when gold was yet 
unknown. 
By which its nomenclature came to 
pass; 
Thus most appropriately has been 
shown 
"Lucus a lion lucendo," not what was 
But what was not; a sort of style 
that's grown 



iio6 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vi. 



Extremely common in this age, whose 

metal 
The Devil may decompose, but never 

settle: 

LVI. 

I think it may be of "Corinthian 
Brass," ^ 
Which was a mixture of all metals, 
but 
The brazen uppermost). Kind reader ! 
pass 
This long parenthesis: I could not 
shut 
It sooner for the soul of me, and class 
My faults even with your own I which 
meaneth, Put 
A kind construction upon them and me : 
But that you won't — then don't — I 
am not less free. 



'Tis time we should return to plain 

narration. 
And thus my narrative proceeds: — 

Dudu, 
With every kindness short of ostentation. 
Showed Juan, or Juanna, through and 

through 
This labyrinth of females, and each 

station , 

Described — what's strange — in 

words extremely few: 
I have but one simile, and that's a 

blunder, 
For wordless women, which is silent 

thunder. 

LVIII. 

And next she gave her (I say her, be- 
cause 
The gender still was epicene, at least 
In outward show, which is a saving 
clause) 
An outline of the customs of the East, 
With all their chaste integrity of laws, 
By which the more a Harem is in- 
creased, 
The stricter doubtless grow the vestal 

duties 
Of any supernumerary beauties. 

» [Hence the title of the satire, The Age of 
Bronze.] 



And then she gave Juanna a chaste kiss: 
Dudii was fond of kissing — which 
I'm sure 
That nobody can ever take amiss, 
Because 'tis pleasant, so that it be 
pure. 
And between females means no more 
than this — 
That they have nothing better near, 
or newer. 
"Kiss" rhymes to "bliss" in fact as well 

as verse — 
I wish it never led to something worse. 



In perfect innocence she then unmade 
Her toilet, which cost Httle, for she 
was 
A child of Nature, carelessly arrayed: 

If fond of a chance ogle at her glass, 

'Twas like the fawn, which, in the lake 

displayed. 

Beholds her own shy, shadowy image 

pass. 

When first she starts, and then returns 

to peep. 
Admiring this new native of the deep. 

LXI, 

And one by one her articles of dress 
Were laid aside; but not before she 
offered 
Her aid to fair Juanna, whose excess 
Of modesty declined the assistance 
proffered : 
Which passed well off — as she could 
do no less; 
Though by this politesse she rather 
suffered. 
Pricking her fingers with those cursed 

pins, 
Which surely were invented for oun 
sins, — 

LXII. 

Making a woman like a porcupine, 
Not to be rashly touched. But still 
more dread, 
Oh ye ! whose fate it is, as once 'twas 
mine, 
In early youth, to turn a lady's 
maid; — 



Canto vi.] 



DON JUAN 



1107 



I did my very boyish best to shine 

In tricJving her out for a masquerade : 
The pins were placed sufficiently, but not 
Stuck all exactly in the proper spot. 

LXIII. 

But these are foolish things to all the wise, 
And I love Wisdom more than she 
loves me; 
My tendency is to philosophise 

On most things, from a tyrant to a 
tree; 
But still the spouseless virgin Knowledge 
flies. 
What are we ? and whence came we ? 
what shall be 
Our ultimate existence? what's our 

present ? 
Are questions answerless, and yet 
incessant. 

LXIV. 

There was deep silence in the chamber: 

dim 
And distant from each other burned 

the lights. 
And slumber hovered o'er each lovely 

limb 
Of the fair occupants: if there be 

sprites 
They should have walked there in their 

sprightliest trim, 
By way of change from their sepul- 
chral sites, 
And shown themselves as ghosts of 

better taste 
Than haunting some old ruin or wild 

waste. 

LXV. 

Many and beautiful lay those around. 
Like flowers of different hue, and 
clime, and root. 
In some exotic garden sometimes found, 
With cost, and care, and warmth 
induced to shoot. 
One with her auburn tresses lightly 
bound. 
And fair brows gently drooping, as the 
fruit 
Nods from the tree, was slumbering with 

soft breath. 
And lips apart, which showed the pearls 
beneath. 



LXVI. 

One with her flushed cheek laid on her 

white arm, 
And raven ringlets gathered in dark 

crowd 
Above her brow, lay dreaming soft and 

warm ; 
And smiling through her dream, as 

through a cloud 
The moon breaks, half unveiled each 

further charm. 
As, slightly stirring in her snowy 

shroud. 
Her beauties seized the unconscious 

hour of night 
All bashfully to struggle into light. 

LXVII. 

This is no bull, although it sounds so; 

for 
'Twas night, but there were lamps, 

as hath been said. 
A third's all pallid aspect offered more 
The traits of sleeping sorrow, and 

betrayed 
Through the heaved breast the dream of 

some far shore 
Beloved and deplored; while slowly 

strayed 
(As night-dew, on a cypress glittering, 

tinges 
The black bough) tear-drops through 

her eyes' dark fringes. 



A fourth as marble, statue-like and still, 
Lay in a breathless, hushed, and stony 
sleep; 
White, cold, and pure, as looks a frozen 
rill. 
Or the snow minaret on an Alpine 
steep. 
Or Lot's wife done in salt, — or what 
you will ; — 
My similes are gathered in a heap. 
So pick and choose — perhaps you'll be 

content 
With a carved lady on a monument. 

LXIX. 

And lo ! a fifth appears ; — and what is 
she? 



[o8 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vi. 



A lady of a "certain age," which 
means 
Certainly aged — what her years might 
be 
I know not, never counting past their 
teens; 
But there she slept, not quite so fair to 
see, 
As ere that awful period intervenes 
Which lays both men and women on the 

3helf, 
To meditate upon their sins and self. 

LXX. 

But all this time how slept, or dreamed, 
Dudu? 
With strict inquiry I could ne'er 
discover, 
And scorn to add a syllable untrue; 
But ere the middle watch was hardly 
over. 
Just when the fading lamps waned dim 
and blue, 
And phantoms hovered, or might seem 
to hover, 
To those who Hke their company, about 
The apartment, on a sudden she 
screamed out: 

LXXI. 

And that so loudly, that upstarted all 
The Oda, in a general commotion: 
Matron and maids, and those whom you 
may call 
Neither, came crowding like the 
waves of Ocean, 
One on the other, throughout the whole 
hall. 
All trembling, wondering, without the 
least notion 
More than I have myself of what could 

make 
The calm Dudii so turbulently wake. 

LXXII. 

But wide awake she was, and round her 
bed, 
With floating draperies and with 
flying hair, 
With eager eyes, and light but hurried 
tread. 
And bosoms, arms, and ankles glanc- 
ing bare, 



And bright as any meteor ever bred 
By the North Pole, — they sought her 
cause of care. 

For she seemed agitated, flushed, and 
frightened — 

Her eye dilated, and her colour height- 
ened. 

LXXIII. 

But what is strange — and a strong 
proof how great 
A blessing is sound sleep — Juanna lay 
As fast as ever husband by his mate 

In holy matrimony snores away. 
Not all the clamour broke her happy j 
state I 

Of slumber, ere they shook her, — so 
they say 
At least, — and then she, too, unclosed 

her eyes. 
And yawned a good deal with discreet 
surprise. 

LXXIV. 

And now commenced a strict investiga- 
tion, 
Which, as all spoke at once, and more 
than once 
Conjecturing, wondering, asking a 
narration. 
Alike might puzzle either wit or dunce 
To answer in a very clear oration. 
Dudii had never passed for wanting 
sense, 
But being "no orator as Brutus is," 
Could not at first expound what was 
amiss. 

LXXV. 

At length she said, that in a slumber 

sound 
She dreamed a dream, of walking in a 

wood — 
A "wood obscure," like that where 

Dante found 
Himself in at the age when all grow 

good; 
Life's half-way house, where dames with 

virtue crowned 
Run much less risk of lovers turning 

rude ; 
And that this wood was full of pleaj<ri3<; 

fruits, '^ 

And trees of goodly growth and spread 

ing roots; 



DON JUAN 



11C9 



LXXVI. 

And in the midst a golden apple grew, — 
A most prodigious pipin — but it 
hung 

Rather too high and distant; that she 
threw 
Her glances on it, and then, longing, 
flung 

Stones and whatever she could pick up, 
to 
Bring down the fruit, which still 
perversely clung 
To its own bough, and dangled yet in 

sight. 
But always at a most provoking height; 

LXXVII. 

That on a sudden, when she least had 
hope, 
It fell down of its own accord before 
Her feet; that her first movement was 
to- stoop 
And pick it up, and bite it to the core ; 
That just as her young lip began to 
ope 
Upon the golden fruit the vision bore, 
A bee flew out, and stung her to the 

heart. 
And so — she woke with a great scream 
and start. 

LXXVIII. 

All this she told with some confusion and 
Dismay, the usual consequence of 

dreams 
Of the unpleasant kind, with none at 

hand 
To expound their vain and visionary 

gleams. 
I've known some odd ones which 

seemed really planned 
Prophetically, or that which one 

deems 
A "strange coincidence," to use a 

phrase 
By which such things are settled now- 

a-days.^ 

[One of the advocates employed for Queen 
Caroline in the House of Lords spoke of some of 
the most puzzling passages in the history of her 
intercourse with Bergami, as amounting to "odd 
instances of strange coincidence." — Ed. 1833, 
svi. 160.] 



LXXIX. 

The damsels, who had thought of some 
great harm. 
Began, as is the consequence of fear, 
To scold a little at the false alarm 

That broke for nothing on their 
sleeping ear. 
The matron, too, was wroth to leave 
her warm 
Bed for the dream she had been 
obliged to hear, 
And chafed at poor Dudu, who only 

sighed, 
And said, that she was sorry she had 
cried. 

LXXX. 

"I've heard of stories of a cock and 
bull; 
But visions of an apple and a bee, 
To take us from our natural rest, and 
pull 
The whole Oda from their beds at 
half-past three, 
Would make us think the moon is at 
its full. 
You surely are unwell, child ! we 
must see, 
To-morrow, w^hat his Highness's phy- 
sician 
Will say to this hysteric of a vision. 

LXXXI. 

"And poor Juanna, too, the child's 

first night 
Within these walls, to be broke in 

upon 
With such a clamour — I had thought 

it right 
That the young stranger should 

not lie alone. 
And, as the quietest of all, she might 
With you, Dudu, a good night's rest 

have known: 
But now I must transfer her to the 

charge 
Of Lolah — though her couch is not so 

large." 

LXXXII. 

Lolah's eyes sparkled at the proposition ; 
But poor Dudu, with large drops in 
her own, 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vi. 



Resulting from the scolding or the 

vision, 
Implored that present pardon might 

be shown 
For this first fault, and that on no 

condition 
(She added in a soft and piteous tone) 
Juanna should be taken from her, and 
Her future dreams should be all kept 

in hand. 

LXXXIII. 

She promised never more to have a 

dream. 
At least to dream so loudly as just 

now; 
She wondered at herself how she could 

scream — 
'Twas foolish, nervous, as she must 

allow, 
A fond hallucination, and a theme 
For laughter — but she felt her 

spirits low. 
And begged they would excuse her; 

she'd get over 
This weakness in a few hours, and 

recover. 

LXXXIV. 

And here Juanna kindly interposed, 
And said she felt herself extremely 
well 
Where she then was, as her sound sleep 
disclosed, 
"When all around rang like a tocsin 
bell; 
She did not find herself the least disposed 
To quit her gentle partner, and to 
dwell 
Apart from one who had no sin to show, 
Save that of dreaming once "mal-a- 
propos." 

LXXXV. 

As thus Juanna spoke, Dudu turned 
round 
And hid her face within Juanna's 
breast : 
Her neck alone was seen, but that was 
found 
The colour of a budding rose's crest. 
I can't tell why she blushed, nor can 
expound 
The mystery of this rupture of their 
rest; 



All that I know is, that the facts I 

state 
Are true as Truth has ever been of late, 

LXXXVI. 

And so good night to them, — or, if you 
will, 
Good morrow — for the cock had 
crown, and light 
Began to clothe each Asiatic hill. 

And the mosque crescent struggled 
into sight 
Of the long caravan, which in the chill 
Of dewy dawn wound slowly round 
each height 
That stretches to the stony belt, which 

girds 
Asia, where Kaff looks down upon the 
Kurds.i 

LXXXVII. 

With the first ray, or rather grey of 

morn, 
Gulbeyaz rose from restlessness; 

and pale 
As Passion rises, with its bosom worn. 
Arrayed herself with mantle, gem, 

and veil. 
The Nightingale that sings with the 

deep thorn. 
Which fable "places in her breast of 

wail. 
Is lighter far of heart and voice than 

those 
Whose headlong passions form their 

proper woes. 



And that's the moral of this compo- 
sition. 
If people would but see its real drift ; — 
But that they will not do without sus- 
picion. 
Because all gentle readers have the 
gift 
Of closing 'gainst the light their orbs 
of vision : 
While gentle writers also love to lift 

> [Byron used Kaff for Caucasus. But there 
may be some allusion to the fabulous Kaff, 
"anciently imagined by the Asiatics to surrounc 
the world, to bind the horizon on all sides." 
There was a proverb "From Kaf to Kaf," i.e. 
"the wide world through."] 



DON JUAN 



Their voices 'gainst each other, which 
i is natural, 

The numbers are too great for them to 
flatter all. 

LXXXIX. 

Rose the Sultana from a bed of splen- 
dour, 
Softer than the soft Sybarite's, who 
cried 

A.loud because his feelings were too 
tender 
To brook a ruffled rose-leaf by his 
side, — 

?o beautiful that Art could little mend 
her. 
Though pale with conflicts between 
Love and Pride ; — 
5o agitated was she with her error. 
She did not even look into the mirror. 

xc. 

Also arose about the self-same time, 
Perhaps a little later, her great Lord, 
Master of thirty kingdoms so sublime. 
And of a wife by whom he was 
abhorred ; 

A thing of much less import in that 
clime — 
At least to those of incomes which 
afford 
The filling up their whole connubial 

cargo — 

Than where two wives are under an 
embargo. 

xci. 

He did not think much on the matter, 
nor 
Indeed on any other : as a man 
He liked to have a handsome paramour 
At hand, as one may like to have a fan. 
And therefore of Circassians had good 
store. 
As an amusement after the Divan ; 
Though an unusual fit of love, or duty. 
Had made him lately bask in his bride's 
beauty. 

xcii. 

And now he rose; and after due ablu- 
tions 

Exacted by the customs of the East, 
And prayers and other pious evolutions. 

He drank six cups of coffee at the least, 



And then withdrew to hear about the 
Russians, 
Whose victories had recently increased 
In Catherine's reign, whom Glory still 

adores. 
As greatest of all sovereigns andw s. 



But oh, thou grand legitimate Alexander 
Her son's son, let not this last phrase 

offend 
Thine ear, if it should reach — and now 

rhymes wander 
Almost as far as Petersburgh, and 

lend 
A dreadful impulse to each loud 

meander 
Of murmuring Liberty's wide waves, 

which blend 
Their roar even with the Baltic's — so 

you be 
Your father's son, 'tis quite enough for 

me. 

xciv. 

To call men love-begotten, or pro- 
claim 
Their mothers as the antipodes of 

Timon, 
That hater of Mankind, would be a 

shame, 
A libel, or whate'er you please to 

rhyme on: 
But people's ancestors are History's 

game; 
And if one Lady's slip could leave a 

crime on 
All generations, I should like to know 
What pedigree the best would have to 

show ? 



Had Catherine and the Sultan under- 
stood 
Their own true interests, which Kings 
rarely know, 
Until 'tis taught by lessons rather 
rude, 
There was a way to end their strife, 
although 
Perhaps precarious, had they but 
thought good, 
Without the aid of Prince or Plenipo : 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vr. 



She to dismiss her guards and he his 

Harem, 
And for their other matters, meet and 

share 'em. 

xcvi. 

But as it was, his Highness had to hold 
His daily council upon ways and 
means 
How to encounter with this martial 
scold, 
This modern Amazon and Queen of 
queans; 
And the perplexity could not be told 
Of all the pillars of the State, which 
leans 
Sometimes a little heavy on the backs 
Of those who cannot lay on a new tax. 

XCVII. 

Meantime Gulbeyaz when her King was 
gone, 
Retired into her boudoir, a sweet place 
For love or breakfast; private, pleasing, 
lone, 
And rich with all contrivances which 
grace 
Those gay recesses : — many a precious 
stone 
Sparkled along its roof, and many a 
vase 
Of porcelain held in the fettered flowers. 
Those captive soothers of a captive's 
hours. 

XCVIII. 

Mother of pearl, and porphyry, and 
marble 
Vied with each other on this costly 
spot ; 
And singing birds without were heard 
to warble; 
And the stained glass which lighted 
this fair grot 
Varied each ray ; — but all descriptions 
garble 
The true effect, and so we had better 
not 
Be too minute; an outline is the best, — 
A lively reader's fancy does the rest. 

xcix. 

And here she summoned Baba, and re- 
quired 



Don Juan at his hands, and informa- 
tion 
Of what had passed since all the slaves 
retired. 
And whether he had occupied their 
station : 
If matters had been managed as desired. 
And his disguise with due considera- 
tion 
Kept up; and above all, the where and 

how 
He had passed the night, was what she 
wished to know. 



Baba, with some embarrassment, replied 
To this long catechism of questions, 
asked 

More easily than answered, — that he 
had tried 
His best to obey in what he had been 
tasked ; 

But there seemed something that he 
wished to hide. 
Which Hesitation more betrayed than 
masked; 

He scratched his ear, the infallible re- 
source 

To which embarrassed people have re- 
course. 

CI. 

Gulbeyaz was no model of true patience, 
Nor much disposed to wait in word or 

deed; 
She Hked quick answers in all conversa- 
tions; 
And when she saw him stumbling like 

a steed 
In his replies, she puzzled him for fresh 

ones; 
And as his speech grew still more 

broken-kneed. 
Her cheek began to flush, her eyes to 

sparkle, 
And her proud brow's blue veins to 

swell and darkle. 

CII. 

When Baba saw these symptoms, which 
he knew 
To bode him no great good, he depre- 
cated 



' Canto vi.] 



DON JUAN 



1113 



Her anger, and beseeched she'd hear 
him through — 
He could not help the thing which he 
related: 
Then out it came at length, that *to 
Dudu 
Juan was given in charge, as hath 
been stated; 
But not by Baba's fault, he said, and 

swore on 
The holy camel's hump, besides the 
Koran. 

cm. 

The chief dame of the Oda, upon 

whom 
The discipline of the whole Harem 

bore. 
As soon as they re-entered their own 

room, 
For Baba's function stopped short at 

the door, 
Had settled all; nor could he then pre- 
sume 
(The aforesaid Baba) just then to do 

more, 
Without exciting such suspicion as 
Might make the matter still worse than 

it was. 

CIV. 

He hoped, indeed he thought, he could 
be sure, 
Juan had not betrayed himself; in 
fact 
'Twas certain that his conduct had 
been pure, 
Because a foolish or imprudent act 
Would not alone have made him in- 
secure, 
But ended in his being found out and 
sacked, 
And thrown into the sea. — Thus Baba 

spoke 
Of all save Dudu's dream, which was no 
joke. 

cv. 
This he discreetly kept in the back 
ground. 
And talked away — and might have 
talked till now. 
For any further answer that he found, 
So deep in anguish wrung Gulbeyaz' 
brow: 



Her cheek turned ashes, ears rung, brain 
whirled round, 
As if she had received a sudden blow, 
And the heart's dew of pain sprang fast 

and chilly 
O'er her fair front, like Morning's on a 
lily. 

cvi. 

Although she was not of the fainting 

sort, 
Baba thought she would faint, but 

there he erred — 
It was but a convulsion, which though 

short 
Can never be described; we all have 

heard. 
And some of us have felt thus "all 

amort," 
When things beyond the common 

have occurred ; — 
Gulbeyaz proved in that brief agony 
What she could ne'er express — then 

how should I? 



She stood a moment as a Pythoness 
Stands on her tripod, agonised, and 
full 
Of inspiration gathered from distress, 
When all the heart-strings like wild 
horses pull 
The heart asunder; — then, as more or 
less 
Their speed abated or their strength 
grew dull, 
She sunk down on her seat by slow 

degrees. 
And bowed her throbbing head o'er 
trembling knees. 



Her face declined and was unseen; her 
hair 
Fell in long tresses like the weeping 
willow, 
Sweeping the marble underneath her 
chair, 
Or rather sofa (for it was all pillow, 
A low, soft ottoman), and black De- 
spair 
Stirred up and down her bosom like 
a billow, 



III4 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vi. 



Which rushes to some shore whose 

shingles check 
Its farther course, but must receive its 

wreck. 

Cix, 

Her head hung down and her long hair 
in stooping 
Concealed her features better than a 
veil; 
And one hand o'er the ottoman lay 
drooping, 
White, waxen, and as alabaster pale : 
Would that I were a painter ! to be 
grouping 
All that a poet drags into detail ! 
Oh that my words were colours ! but 

their tints 
May serve perhaps as outlines or slight 
hints. 

ex. 

Baba, who knew by experience when to 
talk 
And when to hold his tongue, now 
held it till 
This passion might blow o'er, nor 
dared to balk 
Gulbeyaz' taciturn or speaking will. 
At length she rose up, and began to walk 
Slowly along the room, but silent still. 
And her brow cleared, but not her 

troubled eye; 
The wind was down, but still the sea 
ran high. 

CXI. 

She stopped, and raised her head to 
speak — but paused 
And then moved on again with rapid 
pace; 
Then slackened it, which is the march 
most caused 
By deep emotion : — you may some- 
times trace 
A feeling in each footstep, as disclosed 
By Sallust in his Catiline, who, chased 
By all the demons of all passions, showed 
Their work even by the way in which he 
trode.^ 

' ["His guilty soul, at enmity with gods and 
men. could find no rest; so violently was his 
mind torn and distracted by a consciousness of 
guilt. Accordingly his countenance was pale, his 
eyes ghastly, his pace one while quick, another 



Gulbeyaz stopped and beckoned Baba: 

— "Slave! 
Bring the two slaves!" she said in a 

low tone, 
But one which Baba did not Hke to 

brave, 
And yet he shuddered, and seemed 

rather prone 
To prove, reluctant, and begged leave to 

crave 
(Though he well knew the meaning) 

to be shown 
What slaves her Highness wished to 

indicate. 
For fear of any error, like the late. 



"The Georgian and her paramour," 
replied 
The Imperial Bride — and added, 
"Let the boat 
Be ready by the secret portal's side: 
You know the rest." The words 
stuck in her throat. 
Despite her injured love and fiery pride; 
And of this Baba willingly took note. 
And begged by every hair of Mahomet's 

beard, 
She would revoke the order he had 
heard. 

cxiv. 

"To hear is to obev," he said; "but 
still. 
Sultana, think upon the consequence: 
It is not that I shall not all fulfil 

Your orders, even in their severest 
sense; 
But such precipitation may end ill. 
Even at your own imperative ex- 
pense: 
I do not mean destruction and exposure, 
In case of any premature disclosure; 

cxv. 

"But your own feelings. Even should 
all the rest 
Be hidden by the rolling waves, which 
hide 

slow [citus modo, modo tardus incessus]: indeed, 
in all his looks there was an air of distraction." — 
Sallust, Catilina, cap. xv. sf.] 



Canto vii.] 



DON JUAN 



"15 



Already many a once love-beaten breast 

Deep in the caverns of the deadly 

tide — 

You love this boyish, new, Seraglio 

guest, 

And if this violent remedy be tried — 

Excuse my freedom, when I here assure 

you, 
That killing him is not the way to cure 
you." 

cxvi. 

"What dost thou know of Love or feel- 
ing? — Wretch ! 
Begone!" she cried, with kindling 
eyes — "and do 
My bidding!" Baba vanished, for to 
stretch 
His own remonstrance further he well 
knew 
Might end in acting as his own " Jack 
Ketch"; 
And though he wished extremely to 
get through 
, This awkward business wnthout harm 
to others, 
He still preferred his own neck to 
i another's. 



Away he went then upon his commission. 
Growling and grumbling in good 
Turkish phrase 
Against all women of whate'er condition, 

Especially Sultanas and their ways; 
Their obstinacy, pride, and indecision, 
Their never knowing their own mind 
two days, 
The trouble that they gave, their immor- 
ality, 
Which made him daily bless his own 
neutrality. 

CXVIII. 

And then he called his brethren to his 
aid. 
And sent one on a summons to the 
pair, 
That they must instantly be well arrayed. 
And above all be combed even to a 
hair, 
And brought before the Empress, who 
had made 
Inquiries after them with kindest care: 



At which Dudii looked strange, and 

Juan silly; 
But go they must at once, and will I — 

nill I. 

CXIX. 

And here I leave them at their prepara- 
tion 
For the imperial presence, wherein 
whether 
Gulbeyaz showed them both commis- 
eration. 
Or got rid of the parties altogether, 
Like other angry ladies of her nation, — 
Are things the turning of a hair or 
feather 
May settle; but far be't from me to 

anticipate 
In what way feminine caprice may 
dissipate. 

cxx. 

I leave them for the present with good 
wishes, 
Though doubts of their well doing, to 
arrange 

Another part of History; for the dishes 
Of this our banquet we must some- 
times change; 

And trusting Juan may escape the 
fishes, 
(Although his situation now seems 
strange. 

And scarce secure), — as such digres- 
sions are fair. 

The Muse will take a little touch at 
warfare. 



CANTO THE SEVENTH. 



O Love ! O Glory ! what are ye who fly 

Around us ever, rarely to alight? 
There's not a meteor in the polar sky 
Of such transcendent and more fleet- 
ing flight. 
Chill, and chained to cold earth, we lift 
on high 
Our eyes in search of either lovely 
light; 
A thousand and a thousand colours they 
Assume, then leave us on our freezing 
way. 



iii6 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vii. 



And such as they are, such my present 
tale is, 
A nondescript and ever-varying 
rhyme, 
A versified Aurora Borealis, 

Which flashes o'er a waste and icy 

cUme. 

When we know what all are, we must 

bewail us. 

But ne'ertheless I hope it is no crime 

To laugh at all things — for I wish to 

know 
What, after all, are all things — but a 
show ? 



They accuse me — Me — the present 

writer of 
The present poem — of — I know 

not what — 
A tendency to under-rate and scoff 
At human power and virtue, and all 

that; 
And this they say in language rather 

rough. 
Good God ! I wonder what they 

would be at ! 
I say no more than hath been said in 

Dante's 
Verse, and by Solomon and by Cer- 
vantes; 

IV. 

By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefou- 
cault, 
By Fenelon, by Luther, and by Plato; 
By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau, 
Who knew this life was not worth a 
potato. 
'Tis not their fault, nor mine, if this be 
so, — 
For my part, I pretend not to be 
Cato, 
Nor even Diogenes. — We live and die. 
But which is best, you know no more 
than I. 



Socrates said, our only knowledge was 
"To know that nothing could be 
known;" a pleasant 
Science enough, which levels to an ass 



Each man of wisdom, future, past, or 
present. 
Newton (that proverb of the mind), 
alas! 
Declared, with all his grand dis- 
coveries recent. 
That he himself felt only "like a youth j 
Picking up shells by the great ocean — 
Truth." 

VI. 

Ecclesiastes said, "that all is vanity" — 
Most modern preachers say the same, 
or show it 
By their examples of true Christianity: 
In short, all know, or very soon may 
know it; 
And in this scene of all-confessed inanity, 
By Saint, by Sage, by Preacher, and 
by Poet, 
Must I restrain me, through the fear of 

strife. 
From holding up the nothingness of 
Life? 

VII. 

Dogs, or men ! — for I flatter you in 
saying 
That ye are dogs — your betters far 
— ye may 

Read, or read not, what I am now essay- 
ing 
To show ye what ye are in every way. 

As little as the moon stops for the 
baying 
Of wolves, will the bright Muse with- 
draw one ray 

From out her skies — then howl your 
idle wrath ! 

While she still silvers o'er your gloomy 
path. 

VIII. 

"Fierce loves and faithless wars" — I 
am not sure 
If this be the right reading — 'tis no 
matter; 
The fact's about the same, I am secure; 
I sing them both, and am about to 
batter 
A town which did a famous siege en- 
dure, 
And was beleaguered both by land and 
water 



Canto vii.] 



DON JUAN 



1117 



By Souvaroff,^ or Anglice Suwarrow, 
Who loved blood as an alderman loves 



The fortress is called Ismail, and is 

placed 
Upon the Danube's left branch and 

left bank, 
With buildings in the Oriental taste. 
But still a fortress of the foremost 

rank, 
Or was at least, unless 'tis since de- 
faced. 
Which with your conquerors is a 

common prank: 
It stands some eighty versts from the 

high sea. 
And measures round of toises thousands 

three. 



Within the extent of this fortification 
A borough is comprised along the 
height 
Upon the left, which from its loftier 
station 
Commands the city, and upon its site 
A Greek had raised around this elevation 

A quantity of palisades upright, 
So placed as to impede the fire of those 
Who held the place, and to assist the 
foe's. 

XI. 

This circumstance may serve to give a 
notion 
Of the high talents of this new 
Vauban: 

But the town ditch below was deep as 
Ocean, 
The rampart higher than you'd wish 
to hang: 

But then there was a great want of pre- 
caution 

' [Aleksandr Vasilievitch Suvoroff (1729- 
1800) opened his attack on Ismail, November 30, 
1790. His forces, including Kossacks, exceeded 
27,000 men. — Essai siir VHistoire An-cienne et 
Moderne de la Nouvelle Russie, par le Marquis 
Gabriel de Castelnau, 1827, ii. 201. The para- 
graphs in the Marquis de Castelnau's Essai 
(vol. ii.) which Byron versified and worked into 
Cantos vii. and viii. are quoted in full in the 
Works of 1832-1833 (vol. xvi.); •in the one 
volume edition (1837, and onwards), and in 
vol. vi. of the edition of 1898-IQ03.] 



(Prithee, excuse this engineering 
slang). 

Nor work advanced, nor covered way 
was there, 

To hint, at least, "Here is no thorough- 
fare." 

XII. 

But a stone bastion, with a narrow 

gofge. 
And walls as thick as most skulls 

born ks yet; 
Two batteries, cap-a-pie as our St 

George, 
Casemated one, and t'other "a 

barbette," 
Of Danube's bank took formidable 

charge ; 
While two-and-twenty cannon duly 

set 
Rose over the town's right side, in 

bristling tier, 
Forty feet high, upon a cavaher. 



But from the river the town's open 

quite. 
Because the Turks could never be 

persuaded 
A Russian vessel e'er would heave in 

sight; 
And such their creed was till they 

were invaded, 
When it grew rather late to set things 

right : 
But as the Danube could not well be 

waded, 
They looked upon the Muscovite 

flotilla 
And only shouted, "Allah!" and "Bis 

Millah!" 

XIV. 

The Russians now were ready to attack; 
But oh, ye 8,oddesses of War and 
Glory ! 
How shall I spell the name of each 
Cossacque 
Who were immortal, could one tell 
their story? 
Alas ! what to their memory can 
lack ? 
Achilles' self was not more grim and 
gory 



iii8 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vii. 



Than thousands of this new and 

polished nation, 
Whose names want nothing but — 

pronunciation. 



Still I'll record a few% if but to increase 
Our euphony : there was Strongenoff 
and Strokonoff, 
Meknop, Serge Lwow, Arseniew of 
modern Greece, 
And Tschitsshakoff, and Roguenoff, 
and Chokenoff, 
And others of twelve consonants apiece ; 
And more might be found out, if I 
could poke enough 
Into gazettes; but Fame (capricious 

strumpet), 
It seems, has got an ear as well as 
trumpet, 

XVI. 

And cannot tune those discords of 
narration. 
Which may be names at Moscow, 
into rhyme; 

Yet there were several worth com- 
memoration. 
As e'er was virgin of a nuptial chime; 

Soft words, too, fitted for the perora- 
tion 
Of Londonderry drawling against 
time. 

Ending in "ischskin," "ousckin," 
"iffskchy," "ouski," 

Of whom we can insert but Rousa- 
mouski, 

XVII. 

Scherematoff and Chrematoff , Koklophti 
Koclobski, Kourakin, and Mouskin 

Pouskin, 
All proper men of weapons, as e'er 

scoffed high 
Against a foe, or ran a sabre through 

skin; 
Little cared they for Mahomet or 

Mufti, 
Unless to make their kettle-drums a 

new skin 
Out of their hides, if parchment had 

grown dear, 
And no more handy substitute been 

near. 



Then there were foreigners of much 
renown. 
Of various nations, and all volunteers; 
Not fighting for their country or its 
crown. 
But wishing to be one day brigadiers; 
Also to have the sacking of a town; — 
A pleasant thing to young men at their 
years. 
'Mongst them were several Englishmen 

of pith. 
Sixteen called Thomson, and nineteen 
named Smith. 



Jack Thomson and Bill Thomson; — 
all the rest 
Had been called ^^ Jemmy " after the 
great bard; 
I don't know whether they had arms 
or crest. 
But such a godfather's as good a card. 
Three of the Smiths were Peters; but 
the best 
Amongst them all, hard blows to 
' inflict or ward. 
Was he, since so renowned "in country 

quarters 
At Halifax;"^ but now he served the 
Tartars. 

XX. 

The rest were Jacks and Gills and Wills 
and Bills, 
But when I've added that the elder 
Jack Smith 
Was born in Cumberland among the 
hills, 
And that his father was an honest 
blacksmith, 
I've said all / know of a name that 
fills 
Three lines of the despatch in taking 
" Schmacksmith," 
A village of Moldavia's waste, wherein 
He fell, immortal in a bulletin. 

' [Captain Smith, in the song — 
"A Captain bold, in HaUfax, 
That dwelt in country quarters, 
Seduc'd a maid who hang'd herself 
One JV^onday in her garters." 
See George Colman's farce, Love Laughs at 
Locksmiths, 1818, p. 31.] 



Canto vie.] 



DON JUAN 



1119 



I wonder (although Mars no doubt's a 
god I 
Praise) if a man's name in a bulletin 
May make up for a bullet in his body ? 

I hope this httle question is no sin, 
Because, though I am but a simple 
noddy, 
I think one Shakespeare puts the 
same thought in 
The mouth of some one in his plays so 

doting, 
Which many people pass for wits by 
quoting. 

XXII. 

Then there were Frenchmen, gallant, 
young, and gay; 
But I'm too great a patriot to record 
Their GalHc names upon a glorious day; 
I'd rather tell ten lies than say a word 
Of truth; — such truths are treason; 
they betray 
Their country; and as traitors are 
abhorred, 
Who name the French in English, save 

to show 
How Peace should make John Bull the 
Frenchman's foe. 

XXIII. 

The Russians, having built two bat- 
teries on 
An isle near Ismail, had two ends in 

view ; 
The first was to bombard it, and knock 

down 
The public buildings and the private 

too, 
No matter what poor souls might be 

undone. 
The city's shape suggested this, 'tis 

true. 
Formed like an amphitheatre — each 

dwelling 
Presented a fine mark to throw a shell in. 



The second object was to profit by 
The moment of the general consterna- 
tion, 

To attack the Turk's flotilla, which lay 
nigh, 



Extremely tranquil, anchored at its 
station ; 
But a third motive was as probably 

To frighten them into capitulation; 
A phantasy which sometimes seizes 

warriors, 
Unless they are game as bull-dogs and 
fox-terriers. 

XXV. 

A habit rather blameable, which is 
That of despising those we combat 
with. 
Common in many cases, was in this 
The cause of kilhng Tchitchitzkoff 
and Smith — 
One of the valorous "Smiths" whom 
we shall miss 
Out of those nineteen who late 
rhymed to "pith"; 
But 'tis a name so spread o'er "Sir" 

and "Madam," 
That one would think the first who 
bore it "Adam." 

XXVI. 

The Russian batteries were incomplete. 
Because they were constructed in a 
hurry ; 
Thus the same cause which makes a 
verse want feet, 
And throws a cloud o'er Longman 
and John Murray, 
When the sale of new books is not so fleet 
As they who print them think is 
necessary. 
May likewise put off for a time what 

story 
Sometimes calls "Murder," and at 
others "Glorv." 



Whether it was their engineer's stu- 
pidity. 
Their haste or waste, I neither know 
nor care. 
Or some contractor's personal cupidity, 
Saving his soul by cheating in the ware 
Of homicide, but there was no solidity 
In the new batteries erected there; 
They either missed, or they were never 

missed. 
And added greatly to the missing list. 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vit. 



XXVIII. 

A sad miscalculation about distance 
Made all their naval matters in- 
correct ; 
Three fireships lost their amiable 
existence 
Before they reached a spot to take 
effect; 
The match was lit too soon, and no 
assistance 
Could remedy this lubberly defect; 
They blew up in the middle of the 

river, 
While, though 'twas dawn, the Turks 
slept fast as ever. 

XXIX. 

At seven they rose, however, and sur- 
veyed 
The Russ flotilla getting under way; 
'Twas nine, when still advancing un- 
dismayed. 
Within a cable's length their vessels 
lay 
Off Ismail, and commenced a cannonade. 
Which was returned with interest, 
I may say, 
And by a fire of musketry and grape. 
And shells and shot of every size and 
shape. 

XXX. 

For six hours bore they without inter- 
mission 
The Turkish fire, and, aided by their 

own 
Land batteries, worked their guns with 

great precision; 
At length they found mere cannonade 

alone 
By no means would produce the town's 

submission. 
And made a signal to retreat at one. 
One bark blew up, a second near the 

works 
Running aground, was taken by the 

Turks. 

XXXI. 

The Moslem, too, had lost both ships 

and men; 
But when they saw the enemy retire, 
Their Delhis manned some boats, and 

sailed again, 



And galled the Russians with a heavy 

fire, 
And tried to make a landing on the 

main ; 
But here the efi"ect fell short of their 

desire: 
Count Damas drove them back into the 

water 
Pell-mell, and with a whole gazette of 

slaughter. 



''If" (says the historian here) "I could 

report 
All that the Russians did upon this 

day, 
I think that several volumes would 

fall short, 
And I should still have many things 

to say;" 
And so he says no more — but pays his 

court 
To some distinguished strangers in 

that fray; 
The Prince de Ligne, and Langeron,^ 

and Damas, 
Names great as any that the roll of 

Fame has. 

XXXIII. 

This being the case, may show us what 
Fame is: 
For out of these three '' preux Chev- 
aliers,^* how 
Many of common readers give a guess 
That such existed? (and they may 
live now 
For aught we know.) Renown's all hit 
or miss; 
There's fortune even in Fame, we 
must allow. 

I [Andrault, Corate de Langeron (i 763-1831) 
on the outbreak of the Revolution (1700) took 
service in the Russian Army. He commanded 
a division of the Russian Army in the German 
campaign of 1813, and entered Paris with 
Blijcher, March 30, 1814. He was afterwards 
Governor of Odessa and of New Russia; and, a 
second time, fought against the Turks in 1828. 
Joseph Elizabeth Roger, Comte de Damas 
dAntigny (1765-1823) owed his commission in 
the Russian Army to the influence of the Prince 
de Ligne. He fought against the Turks in 1787 
-88, and was distinguished for bravery and 
daring.] 



Canto vii.] 



DON JUAN 



II2I 



'Tis true, the Memoirs of the Prince 

de Ligne ^ 
Have half withdrawn from him Obhv- 



lon s screen. 



But here are men who fought in gallant 
actions 
As gallantly as ever heroes fought, 
But buried in the heap of such trans- 
actions 
Their names are rarely found, nor 
often sought. 
Thus even good fame may suffer sad 
contractions, 
And is extinguished sooner than she 
ought : 
Of all our modern battles, I will bet 
You can't repeat nine names from 
each Gazette. 

XXXV. 

In short, this last attack, though rich 

in glory. 
Showed that somewhere, somehow, 

there was a fault, 
And Admiral Ribas (known in Russian 

story) 
Most strongly recommended an 

assault; 
In which he was opposed by young and 

hoary, 
Which made a long debate; but I 

must halt. 
For if I wrote down every warrior's 

speech, 
I doubt few readers e'er would mount 

the breach, 

XXXVI. 

There was a man, if that he was a 
man, 
Not that his manhood could be called 
in question, 
For had he not been Hercules, his span 
Had been as short in youth as indi- 
gestion 

I [Charles Joseph, Prince de Ligne (1735- 
1814)- In 1782 he visited St Petersburg as 
envoy of the Emperor Joseph II., won Catherine's 
favour, and vi^as appointed Field Marshal in the 
Russian Arm}'. His Melanges Militaires, etc., 
were first published in 1795.] 

4C 



Made his last illness, when, all worn 

and wan. 
He died beneath a tree, as much 

unblest on 
The soil of the green province he had 

wasted. 
As e'er was locust on the land it blasted. 



This was Potemkin ^ — a great thing 
in days 
When homicide and harlotry made 
great; 
If stars and titles could entail long 
praise. 
His glory might half equal his estate. 
This fellow, being six foot high, could 
raise 
A kind of phantasy proportionate 
In the then Sovereign of the Russian 

people, 
Who measured men as you would do 
a steeple. 

XXXVIII. 

While things were in abeyance, Ribas 
sent 
A courier to the Prince, -and he suc- 
ceeded 
In ordering matters after his own bent; 
I cannot tell the way in which he 
pleaded, 
But shortly he had cause to be content. 
In the mean time, the batteries pro- 
ceeded. 
And fourscore cannon on the Danube's 

border 
Were briskly fired and answered in 
due order. 

XXXIX. 

But on the thirteenth when already part 

Of the troops were embarked, the 

siege to raise, 

A courier on the spur inspired new heart 

Into all panters for newspaper praise, 

As well as dilettanti in War's art. 

By his despatches (couched in pithy 
phrase) 

' fPrince (Gregor Alexandrovitch) Potemkin, 
born 1736, died October 15, 1701- "He alighted 
from his carriage in the midst of the highway, 
threw himself on the grass, and died under a tree" 
{Life of Catherine II., by W. Tooke, 1800, iii. 
324).] 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vii. 



Announcing the appointment of that 

lover of 
Battles to the command, Field-Marshal 

Souvaroff. 

XL. 

The letter of th.e Prince to the same 

Marshal 
Was worthy of a Spartan, had the 

cause 
Been one to which a good heart could 

be partial — 
Defence of freedom, country, or of 

laws; 
But as it was mere lust of Power to o'er- 

arch all 
With its proud brow, it merits slight 

applause. 
Save for its style, which said, all in a trice, 
"You will take Ismail at whatever 

price." 

XLI. 

"Let there be Light! said God, and 
there was Light !" 
"Let there be Blood !" says man, and 
there's a sea ! 
The fiat of this spoiled child of the Night 
(For Day ne'er saw his merits) could 
decree 
More evil in an hour, than thirty bright 
Summers could renovate, though 
they should be 
Lovely as those which ripened Eden's 

fruit; 
For War cuts up not only branch, but 
root. 

. XLII. 

Our friends, the Turks, who with loud 
"Allahs" now 
Began to signalise the Russ retreat. 
Were damnably mistaken ; few are slow 
In thinking that their enemy is beat, 
(Or beaten, if you insist on grammar, 
though 
I never think about it in a heat,) 
But here I say the Turks were much 

mistaken, 
Who hating hogs, yet wished to save 
their bacon. 

XLIII. 

For, on the sixteenth, at full gallop, 
drew 



In sight two horsemen, who were 
deemed Cossacques 
For some time, till they came in nearer 
view: 
They had but little baggage at their 
backs. 
For there were but three shirts between 
the two; 
But on they rode upon two Ukraine 
hacks. 
Till, in approaching, were at length 

descried 
In this plain pair, Suwarrow and his 
guide. 

XLIV. 

" Great joy to London now !" says some 
great fool. 
When London had a grand illumina- 
tion. 

Which to that bottle-conjurer, John 
Bull, 
Is of all dreams the first hallucina- 
tion; 

So that the streets of coloured lamps 
are full. 
That sage (said John) surrenders at 
discretion 

His purse, his soul, his sense, and even 
his nonsense, 

To gratify, like a huge moth, this one 
sense. 

XLV. 

'Tis strange that he should further 
"Damn his eyes," 
For they are damned; that once all- 
famous oath 

Is to the Devil now no further prize. 
Since John has lately lost the use of 
both. 

Debt he calls Wealth, and taxes Para- 
dise; 
And Famine, with her gaunt and 
bony growth. 

Which stare him in the face, he won't 
examine. 

Or swears that Ceres hath begotten 
Famine. 

XLVI. 

But to the tale; — great joy unto the 



camp 



To Russian, Tartar, English, French, 
Cossacquc, 



Canto vii. 



DON JUAN 



1123 



O'er whom Suwarrow shone Hke a gas 
lamp, 
Presaging a most luminous attack; 
Or like a wisp along the marsh so damp, 
Which leads beholders on a boggy 
walk, 
He flitted to and fro a dancing light, 
Which all who saw it followed, wrong 
or right. 

XLVII. 

But, certes, matters took a different face ; 
There was enthusiasm and much 
applause. 
The fleet and camp saluted with great 
grace, 
And all presaged good fortune to their 
cause. 
Within a cannon-shot length of the place 
They drew, constructed ladders, 
repaired flaws 
In former works, made new, prepared 

fascines, 
And all kinds of benevolent machines. 

XLVIII. 

'Tis thus the spirit of a single mind 
Makes that of multitudes take one 
direction, 
As roll the waters to the breathing 
wind. 
Or roams the herd beneath the bull's 
protection ; 
Or as a little dog will lead the blind. 
Or a bell-wether form the flocks 
connection 
By tinkling sounds, when they go forth 

to victual; 
Such is the sway of your great men o'er 
little. 

XLIX. 

The whole camp rung with joy; you 
would have thought 
That they were. going to a marriage 
feast 
(This metaphor, I think, holds good 
as aught 
Since there is discord after both at 
least) : 
There was not now a luggage boy but 
sought 
Danger and spoil with ardour much 
increased; 



And why ? because a little — odd — old 

man. 
Stripped to his shirt, was come to lead 

the van. 

L. 

But so it was; and every preparation 
Was made with all alacrity : the first 
Detachment of three columns took its 
station, 
And waited but the signal's voice to 
burst 
Upon the foe: the second's ordination 
Was also in three columns, with a 
thirst 
For Glory gaping o'er a sea of Slaughter; 
The third, in columns two, attacked 
by water. 

LI. 

New batteries were erected, and was 
held 
A general council, in which Una- 
nimity 

That stranger to most councils, here 
prevailed, 
As sometimes happens in a great 
extremity; 

And every difllicuity being dispelled. 
Glory began to dawn with due sub- 
limity. 

While Souvaroff, determined to obtain 
it, 

Was teaching his recruits to use the 
bayonet.^ 

LII. 

It is an actual fact, that he, commander 
In chief, in proper person deigned 
to drill 
The awkward squad, and could afford 
to squander 
His time, a corporal's duty to fulfil; 
Just as you'd break a suckling sala- 
mander 
To swallow flame, and never take it 
ill: 
He showed them how to mount a ladder 

(which 
Was not like Jacob's) or to cross a ditch. 



Also he dressed up, for the nonce, 
fascines 

' Fact: SuwaroflF did this in person. 



II24 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vii. 



Like men with turbans, scimitars, 
and dirks, 
And made them charge with bayonet 
these machines. 
By way of lesson against actual 
• Turks; 
And when well practised in these mimic 
scenes. 
He judged them proper to assail the 
works, — 
(At which your wise men sneered in 

phrases witty). 
He made no answer — but he took 
the city. 

LIV. 

Most things were in this posture on the 
eve 
Of the assault, and all the camp 
was in 
A stern repose — which you would 
scarce conceive; 
Yet men resolved to dash through 
thick and thin 
Are very silent when they once believe 
That all is settled : — there was 
little din. 
For some were thinking of their home 

and friends, 
And others of themselves and latter ends. 



Suwarrow chiefly was on the alert, 
Surveying, drilling, ordering, jesting, 
pondering; 
For the man was, we safely may assert, 
A thing to wonder at beyond most 
wondering; 
Hero, bufi"oon, half-demon, and half- 
dirt. 
Praying, instructing, desolating, plun- 
dering — 
Now Mars, now Momus — and when 

bent to storm 
A fortress. Harlequin in uniform. 

LVI. 

The day before the assault, while 

upon drill — 
For this great conqueror played the 

corporal — 
Som.e Cossacques, hovering like hawks 

round a hill, 



Had met a party towards the Twi- 
light's fall, 

One of whom spoke their tongue — or 
well or ill, 
'Twas much that he was understood 
at all; 

But whether from his voice, or speech, 
or manner. 

They found that he had fought beneatli 
their banner. 

LVII. 

Whereon immediately at his request 
They brought him and his comrades 
to head-quarters; 
Their dress was Moslem, but you might 
have guessed 
That these were merely masquerading 
Tartars, 
And that beneath each Turkish-fash- 
ioned vest 
Lurked Christianity — which some- 
times barters 
Her inward grace for outward show, 

and makes 
It difficult to shun some strange mistakes. 



Suwarrow, who was standing in his 

shirt 
Before a company of Calmucks, 

drilling. 
Exclaiming, fooling, swearing at the 

inert, 
And lecturing on the noble art of 

killing, — 
For deeming human clay but common 

dirt. 
This great philosopher was thus 

instilling 
His maxims, which, to martial compre- 
hension, 
Proved death in battle equal to a 

pension; — 

LIX. 

Suwarrow, when he saw this company 
Of Cossacques and their prey, turned 
round and cast 
Upon them his slow brow and piercing 
eye: — 
"Whence come ye?" — "From Con- 
stantinople last, 



Canto vii.] 



DON JUAN 



"25 



Captives just now escaped," was the 

reply. 
"What are ye?" — "What you see 

us." Briefly passed 
This dialogue; for he who answered 

knew 
To whom he spoke, and made his words 

but few. 

LX. 

"Your names?" — "Mine's Johnson, 

and my comrade's Juan ; 
The other two are women, and the 

third 
Is neither man nor woman." The 

Chief threw on 
The party a slight glance, then said, 

'T have heard 
Your name before, the second is a new 

one: 
To bring the other three here was 

absurd : 
But let that pass: — I think I have heard 

your name 
In the Nikolaiew regiment?" — "The 

same." 



" You served at Widdin ? " — " Yes." — 

"You led the attack?" 
" I did." — "What next ? " — " I really 

hardly know" — 
"You were the first i' the breach?" — 

" I was not slack 
At least to follow those who might 

be so" — 
"What followed?" — "A shot laid me 

on my back, 
And I became a prisoner to the foe" — 
" You shall have vengeance, for the 

town surrounded 
Is twice as strong as that where you were 

wounded. 

LXII. 

"Where will you serve?" — "Where- 
e'er 5'ou please." — "I know 
You like to be the hope of the forlorn, 
And doubtless would be foremost on the 
foe 
After the hardships you've already 
borne. 
And this young fellow — say what can 
he do? 



He with the beardless chin and 

garments torn?" — 
"Why, Genera!, if he hath no greater 

fault 
In War than Love, he had better lead 

the assault" — 

LXIII. 

"He shall if that he dare." Here 

Juan bowed 
Low as the compliment deserved. 

Suwarrow 
Continued : " Your old regiment's 

allowed, 
By special providence, to lead to- 
morrow, 
Or, it may be, to-night, the assault: 

I have vowed 
To several Saints, that shortly plough 

or harrow 
Shall pass o'er what was Ismail, and 

its tusk 
Be unimpeded by the proudest mosque. 

LXIV. 

"So now, my lads, for Glory!" — 

Here he turned 
And drilled away in the most classic 

Russian, 
Until each high heroic bosom burned 
For cash and conquest, as if from a 

cushion 
A preacher had held fortlf (who nobly 

spurned 
All earthly goods save tithes) and 

bade them push on 
To slay the Pagans who resisted, bat- 
tering 
The armies of the Christian Empress 

Catherine. 



Johnson, who knew by this long col- 
loquy 
Himself a favourite, ventured to 
address 
Suwarrow, though engaged with accents 
high 
In his resumed amusement. "I con- 
fess 
My debt in being thus allowed to die 
Among the foremost; but if you'd 
express 



II26 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vii. 



Explicitly our several posts, my friend 
And self would know what duty to 
attend." 

LXVI. 

" Right ! I was busy, and forgot. Why, 

you 
Will join your former regiment, which 

should be 
Now under arms. IIo ! Katskofif, take 

him to" — 
(Here he called up a Polish orderly) 
"His post, I mean the regiment Niko- 

laiew: 
The stranger stripling may remain 

with me; 
He's a fine boy. The women may be 

sent 
To the other baggage, or to the sick 

tent." 

LXVII. 

But here a sort of scene began to 

ensue: 
The ladies, — who by no means had 

been bred 
To be disposed of in a way so new, 
Although their Harem education 

led, 
Doubtless, to that of doctrines the 

most true. 
Passive obedience, — now raised up 

the head. 
With flashing eyes and starting tears, 

and flung 
Their arms, as hens their wings about 

their young, 

LXVIII. 

O'er the promoted couple of brave 

men 
Who were thus honoured by the 

greatest Chief 
That ever peopled Hell with heroes 

slain, 
Or plunged a province or a realm 

in grief. 
Oh, foolish mortals! Always taught in 

vain ! 
Oh, glorious Laurel ! since for one 

sole leaf 
Of thine imaginary deathless tree. 
Of blood and tears must flow the 

unebbing sea. 



LXIX. 

Suwarrow, who had small regard for 
tears, 
And not much sympathy for blood, 
surveyed 
The women with their hair about their 
ears. 
And natural agonies, with a slight 
shade 
Of feeling: for however Habit sears 
Men's hearts against whole millions, 
when their trade 
Is butchery, sometimes a single sorrow 
Will touch even heroes — and such 
was Suwarrow. 

LXX. 

He said, — and in the kindest Calmuck 
tone, — 
"Why, Johnson, what the devil do 
you mean 
By bringing women here? They shall 
be shown 
All the attention possible, and seen 
In safety to the waggons, where alone 
In fact they can be safe. You should 
have been 
Aware this kind of baggage never 

thrives; 
Save wed a year, I hate recruits with 
wives" — 

LXXI. 

"May it please your Excellency," thus 
replied 
Our British friend, "these are the 
wives of others, 
And not our own. I am too qualified 
By service with my military brothers 
To break the rules by bringing one's 
own bride 
Into a camp: I know that nought 
so bothers 
The hearts of the heroic on a charge 
As leaving a small family at large. 

LXXII. 

"But these are but two Turkish ladies, 

who 

With their attendant aided our escape. 

And afterwards accompanied us through 

A thousand perils in this dubious 

shape. 



Canto vii.] 



DON JUAN 



1127 



To me this kind of life is not so new; 
To them, poor things, it is an awk- 
ward scrape: 

I therefore, if you wish me to fight 
freely, 

Request that they may both be used 
genteelly." 



Meantime these two poor girls, with 

swimming eyes, 
Looked on as if in doubt if they could 

trust 
Their own protectors; nor was their 

surprise 
Less than their grief (and truly not 

less just) 
To see an old man, rather wild than 

wise 
In aspect, plainly clad, besmeared 

with dust, 
Stripped to his waistcoat, and that 

not too clean, 
More feared than all the Sultans ever 

seen. 

LXXIV. 

For everything seemed resting on his 
nod. 
As they could read in all eyes. Now 
to them. 
Who were accustomed, as a sort of god. 
To see the Sultan, rich in many a gem, 
Like an imperial peacock stalk abroad 
(That royal bird, whose tail's a 
diadem,) 
With all the pomp of Power, it was 

a doubt 

How Power could condescend to do 
without, 

LXXV. 

John Johnson, seeing their extreme 
dismay. 
Though little versed in feelings 
oriental. 
Suggested some slight comfort in his 
way: 
Don Juan, who was much more 
sentimental. 
Swore they should see him by the dawn 
of day, 
Or that the Russian army should 
repent all: 



And, strange to say, they found some 

consolation 
In this — for females like exaggeration. 

LXXVI. 

And then with tears, and sighs, and 
some slight kisses, 
They parted for the present — these 
to await, 
According to the artillery's hits or 
misses. 
What sages call Chance, Providence, 
or Fate — 
(Uncertainty is one of many blisses, 
A mortgage on Humanity's estate;) — 
While their beloved friends began to 

arm, 
To burn a town which never did them 
harm, 

LXXVII. 

Suwarrow, — who but saw things in the 
gross. 
Being much too gross to see them in 
detail. 
Who calculated life as so much dross. 
And as the wind a widowed nation's 
wail, 
And cared as little for his army's loss 
(So that their efforts should at length 
prevail) 
As wife and friends did for the boils of 

Job, — 
What was't to him to hear two women 
sob? 

LXXVIII. 

Nothing. — The work of Glory still 
went on 
In preparations for a cannonade 
As terrible as that of Ilion, 

If Homer had found mortars ready 
made; 
But now, instead of slaying Priam's son. 

We only can but talk of escalade. 
Bombs, drums, guns, bastions, batteries, 

bayonets, bullets — 
Hard words, which stick in the soft 
Muses' gullets, 

LXXIX. 

Oh, thou eternal Homer! who couldst 
charm 
All ears, though long; all ages, though 
so short, 



II28 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vir 



By merely wielding with poetic arm 
Arms to which men will never more 

resort, 
Unless gunpowder should be found to 

harm 
Much less than is the hope of every 

court, 
Which now is leagued young Freedom 

to annoy; 
But they will not find Liberty a Troy : — 

LXXX. 

Oh, thou eternal Homer! I have now 
To paint a siege, wherein more men 
were slain, 
With deadlier engines and a speedier 
blow. 
Than in thy Greek gazette of that 
campaign; 
And yet, like all men else, I must allow. 
To vie with thee would be about as 
vain 
As for a brook to cope with Ocean's 

flood, — 
But still we moderns equal you in 
blood : 

LXXXI. 

If not in poetry, at least in fact; 

And fact is Truth, the grand desidera- 
tum ! 

Of which, howe'er the Muse describes 
each act. 
There should be ne'ertheless a slight 
substratum. 

But now the town is going to be at- 
tacked ; 
Great deeds are doing — how shall I 
relate 'em? 

Souls of immortal Generals! Phoebus 
watches 

To colour up his rays from your de- 
spatches. 

LXXXII. 

Oh, ye great bulletins of Bonaparte ! 
Oh, ye less grand long lists of killed 
and wounded ! 
Shade of Leonidas, who fought so 
hearty. 
When my poor Greece was once, as 
now, surrounded ! 
Oh, Caesar's Commentaries I now im- 
part, ye 



Shadows of Glory ! (lest I be con 
founded), 
A portion of your fading twilight hues — 
So beautiful, so fleeting — to the Muse 



When I call "fading" martial immor- 
tality, 
I mean, that every age and every year 
And almost every day, in sad reality. 
Some sucking hero is compelled to 
rear, 
Who, when we come to sum up the 
totality 
Of deeds to human happiness most 
dear. 
Turns out to be a butcher in great busi- 
ness, 
Afflicting young folks with a sort of 
dizziness. 

LXXXIV. 

Medals, rank, ribands, lace, embroidery, 
scarlet. 
Are things immortal to immortal man, 
As purple to the Babylonian harlot: 

An uniform to boys is like a fan 
To women; there is scarce a crimson 
varlet 
But deems himself the first in Glory's 
van. 
But Glory's glory ; and if you would find 
What that is — ask the pig who sees the 
wind ! 

LXXXV, 

At least he feels it, and some say he sees, 
Because he runs before it like a pig; 
Or, if that simple sentence should dis- 
please. 
Say, that he scuds before it like a brig, 
A schooner, or — but it is time to ease 
This Canto, ere my Muse perceives 
fatigue. 
The next shall ring a peal to shake all 

people. 
Like a bob-major from a village steeple. 

LXXXVI. 

Hark ! through the silence of the cold, 

dull night, 
The hum of armies gathering rank on 

rank ! 
Lo ! dusky masses steal in dubious sight 



ANTO viir.] 



DON JUAN 



1129 



\long the leaguered wall and bris- 
tling bank 

I he armed river, while with strag- 
gling light 
I'he stars peep through the vapours 
dim and dank, 

■( h curl in various wreaths: — how 
soon the smoke 
< M Hell shall pall them in a deeper cloak. 

LXXXVII. 

1 11 !(■ pause we for the present — as even 

then 
That awful pause, dividing Life from 

Death, 
Struck for an instant on the hearts of 

men, — 
Thousands of whom were drawing 

their last breath ! 
A moment — and all will be Life again ! 
The march ! the charge ! the shouts 

of either faith, 
Hurrah ! and Allah ! and one moment 

more — 
The death-cry drowning in the Battle's 

roar. 



CANTO THE EIGHTH. 

I. 

Oh, blood and thunder ! and oh, blood 
and wounds ! 
These are but vulgar oaths, as you 
may deem, 
Too gentle reader ! and most shocking 
sounds : — 
And so they are; yet thus is Glory's 
dream 
Unriddled, and as my true Muse ex- 
pounds 
At present such things, since they are 
her theme. 
So be they her inspirers! Call them 

Mars, 

Bellona, what you will — they mean but 
wars. 

II. 

All was prepared — the fire, the sword, 
the men 
To wield them in their terrible 
array, — 



The army, like a lion from his den, 
Marched forth with nerve and sinews 
bent to slay, — 
A human Hydra, issuing from its fen 
To breathe destruction on its winding 
way, 
Whose heads were heroes, which cut off 

in vain 
Immediately in others grew again. 



History can only take things in the 

gross ; 
But could we know them in detail, 

perchance 
In balancing the profit and the loss, 
War's merit it by no means might 

enhance, 
To waste so much gold for a little 

dross. 
As hath been done, mere conquest to 

advance. 
The drying up a single tear has 

more 
Of honest fame, than shedding seas of 

gore. 

IV. 

And why? — because it brings self- 
approbation ; 
Whereas the other, after all its glare. 
Shouts, bridges, arches, pensions from 
a nation. 
Which (it may be) has not much left 
to spare, 
A higher title, or a loftier station, 

Though they may make Corruption 
gape or stare. 
Yet, in the end, except in Freedom's 

battles. 
Are nothing but a child of Murder's 
rattles. 

V. 

And such they are — and such they will 
be found: 
Not so Leonidas and Washington, 
Whose every battle-field is holy ground, 
Which breathes of nations saved, not 
worlds undone. 
How sweetly on the ear such echoes 
sound ! 
While the mere victor's may appal or 
stun 



II30 



DON JUAN 



[Canto viir. 



The servile and the vain — such names 

will be 
A v^-atchword till the Future shall be 

free. 

VI. 

The night was dark, and the thick mist 

allowed 
Nought to be seen save the artillery's 

flame, 
Which arched the horizon like a fiery 

cloud, 
And in the Danube's waters shone the 

same — 
A mirrored Hell ! the volleying roar, 

and loud 
Long booming of each peal on peal, 

o'ercame 
The ear far more than thunder; for 

Heaven's flashes 
Spare, or smite rarely — Man's make 

millions ashes ! 

VII. 

The column, ordered on the assault, 

scarce passed 
Beyond the Russian batteries a few 

toises. 
When up the bristling Moslem rose at 

last, 
Answering the Christian thunders 

with like voices: 
Then one vast fire, air, earth, and 

stream embraced. 
Which rocked as 'twere beneath the 

mighty noises; 
While the whole rampart blazed like 

Etna, when 
The restless Titan hiccups in his den; 

VIII. 

And one enormous shout of "Allah!" 
rose 
In the same moment, loud as even 
the roar 
Of War's most mortal engines, to their 
foes 
Hurling defiance: city, stream, and 
shore 
Resounded "Allah!" and the clouds 
which close 
With thickening canopy the conflict 
o'er, 



Vibrate to the Paternal name. Hark ! 

through 
All sounds it picrceth — "Allah ! Allah 

Hu!"i 

IX. 

The columns were in movement one 

and all. 
But of the portion which attacked by 

water, 
Thicker than leaves the lives began to 

fall, 
Though led by Arseniew, that great 

son of slaughter. 
As brave as ever faced both bomb and 

ball. 
" Carnage" (so Wordsworth tells you) 

"is God's daughter:" ^ 
If he speak truth, she is Christ's sister, 

and 
Just now behaved as in the Holy Land. 



The Prince de Ligne was wounded in 
the knee; 
Count Chapeau-Bras, too, had a ball 
between 
His cap and head, which proves the 
head to be 
Aristocratic as was ever seen. 
Because it then received no injury 
More than the cap; in fact, the ball 
could mean 
No harm unto a right legitimate head; 
"Ashes to ashes" — why not lead to 
lead? 

XI. 

Also the General Markow, Brigadier, 
Insisting on removal of the Prince 

' .\llah Hu I is properly the war-cry of the 
Mussulmans, and they dwell on the last syllable, 
which i^ives it a wild and peculiar effect. 
' ■' But Thy * most dreaded instrument, 
In working out a pure intent, 
Is Man — arrayed for mutual slaughter, — 
Yea, Carnage is thy daughter!" 
— Wordsworth's Thanksgiving Ode (January 18, 

1816) [stanza xii. lines 20, 23. 
Wordsworth omitted the lines in the last edition 
of his poems, which was revised by his own hand]. 



* To wit, the Deity's: this is perhaps as pretty 
a pedigree for murder as ever was found out by 
Garter King at Arms. — What would have been 
said, had any free-spoken people discovered such 
a lineage? 



Canto viii.] 



DON JUAN 



1131 



Amidst some groaning thousands dying 

near, — 
All common fellows, who might writhe 

and wince, 
And shriek for water into a deaf ear, — 
The General Markow, who could thus 

evince 
His sympathy for rank, by the same 

token, 
To teach him greater, had his own leg 

broken. 

XII. 

Three hundred cannon threw up their 
emetic. 
And thirty thousand muskets flung 
their pills 
Like hail, to make a bloody Diuretic. 
Mortality ! thou hast thy monthly 
bills: 

Thy plagues — thy famines — thy phy- 
sicians — yet tick, 
Like the death-watch, within our cars 
the ills 
Past, present, and to come; — but all 

may yield 
To the true portrait of one battle-field ; 

XIII. 

There the still varying pangs, which 
multiply 
Until their very number makes men 
hard 
By the infinities of agony, 

Which meet the gaze, whate'er it may 
regard — 
The groan, the roll in dust, the 3.\\-white 
eye 
Turned back within its socket, — 
these reward 
Your rank and file by thousands, while 

the rest 
May win perhaps a riband at the breast ! 

XIV. 

Yet I love Glory; — Glory's a great 
thing: — 
Think what it is to be in your old age 
Maintained at the expense of your good 
King: 
A moderate pension shakes full many 
a sage, 
lAnd Heroes are but made for bards to 
sing. 



Which is still better — thus, in verse, 
to wage 
Your wars eternally, besides enjoying 
Half-pay for life, make Mankind worth 
destroying. 

XV. 

The troops, already disembarked, 
pushed on 
To take a battery on the right: the 
others, 
Who landed lower down, their landing 
done. 
Had set to work as briskly as their 
brothers : 
Being grenadiers, they mounted one by 
one, 
Cheerful as children climb the breasts 
of mothers. 
O'er the intrenchment and the palisade, 
Quite orderly, as if upon parade. 

XVI. 

And this was admirable : for so hot 
The fire was, that were red Vesuvius 
loaded, 
Besides its lava, with all sorts of shot 
And shells or'hells, it could not more 
have goaded. 
Of ofllcers a third fell on the spot, 
A thing which Victory by no means 
boded 
To gentlemen engaged in the assault: 
Hounds, when the huntsman tumbles, 
are at fault. 

XVII. 

But here I leave the general concern 
To track our Hero on his path of 
Fame: 
He must his laurels separately earn — 
For fifty thousand heroes, name by 
name, 
Though all deserving equally to turn 

A couplet, or an elegy to claim. 
Would form a lengthy lexicon of 

Glory, 
And, what is worse still, a much longer 
story : 

XVIII. 

And therefore we must give the greater 
number 
To the Gazette — which doubtless 
fairly dealt 



II32 



DON JUAN 



[Canto viii. 



By the deceased, who lie in famous 

slumber 
In ditches, fields, or wheresoe'er thev 

felt 
Their clay for the last time their souls 

encumber; — 
Thrice happy he whose name has 

been well spelt 
In the despatch : I knew a man whose 

loss 
Was printed Grove, although his narae 

was Grose.^ 

XIX. 

Juan and Johnson joined a certain corps, 
And fought away with might and 
main, not knowing 
The way which they had never trod 
before, 
And still less guessing where they 
might be going; 
But on they marched, dead bodies 
trampling o'er, 
Firing, and thrusting, slashing, sweat- 
ing, glowing, 
But fighting thoughtlessly enough to win 
To their two selves, one whole bright 
bulletin. 

XX. 

Thus on they wallowed in the bloody 
mire 
Of dead and dying thousands, — 
sometimes gaining 
A yard or two of ground, which brought 
them nigher 
To some odd angle for which all were 
straining; 
At other times, repulsed by the close fire. 
Which really poured as if all Hell w-ere 
raining 

* A fact: see the Waterloo Gazettes. I rec- 
ollect remarking at the time to a friend: — 
''There is fame! a man is killed, his name is 
Grose, and they print it Grove." I was at 
college with the deceased, who was a very ami- 
able and clever man, and his society in great 
request for bis wit, gaiety, and "Chansons a 
boire." 

[In the London Gazette Extraordinary of June 
22, i8t5, Captain Grove, ist Guards, 'is among 
the list of killed. In the supplement to the 
London Gazelle, published July 3, 1815, the 
mistake was corrected, and the entrv runs, " ist 
Guards, 3d Batt. Lieut. Edward Grose, (Cap- 
tain)."] 



Instead of Heaven, they stumbled back- 
wards o'er 

A wounded comrade, sprawling in his 
gore. 

XXI. 

Though 'twas Don Juan's first of fields, 
and though 
The nightly muster and the silent 
march 
In the chill dark, when Courage does 
not glow 
So much as under a triumphal arcli, 
Perhaps might make him shiver, yawn, 
or throw 
A glance on the dull clouds (as thick 
as starch. 
Which stiffened Heaven) as if he wished 

for day; — 
Yet for all this he did not run away. 

XXII. 

Indeed he could not. But what if he 

had? 
There have been and are heroes who 

begun 
With something not much better, or as 

bad: 
Frederick the Great from Molwitz 

deigned to run, 
For the first and last time; for, like a 

pad. 
Or hawk, or bride, most mortals after 

one 
Warm bout are broken in to their new 

tricks, 
And fight Hke fiends for pay or politics. 

XXIII. 

He was what Erin calls, in her sublime 
Old Erse or Irish, or it may be 

Punic; — 
(The antiquarians^ — who can settle] 

Time, 

' See General Valancey and Sir Lawrence] 
Parsons. 

[General Charles Valancey (1721-1812) pub-j 
lished an "Essay on the Celtic Language," etc.,| 
in 1782. Sir Laurence Parsons (i 758-1841) 
second Earl of Rosse, in a pamphlet entitle 
Defence of the Anlient History of Ireland, in lyosj 
maintains (p. 158) "that the Carthaginian 
the Irish language being originally the same 
either the Carthaginians must have been de 
sccnded from the Irish, or the Irish from 
Carthaginians."] 



*l 



Canto viii.] 



DON JUAN 



^^2,3 



Which settles all things, Roman, 
Greek, or Runic — 
Swear that Pat's language sprung from 
the same clime 
With Hannibal, and wears the Tyrian 
tunic 
Of Dido's alphabet — and this is ra- 
tional 
As any other notion, and not national ;) — 

XXIV. 

But Juan was quite " a broth of a 
boy," 
A thing of impulse and a child of song; 
Now swimming in the sentiment of 

Or the sensation (if that phrase seem 
wrong), 
And afterward, if he must needs destroy, 
In such good company as always 
throng 
To battles, sieges, and that kind of 

pleasure, 
No less delighted to employ his leisure; 

XXV. 

But always without malice : if he warred 
Or loved, it was with what we call 

"the best 
Intentions," which form all Mankind's 

trump card, 
To be produced when brought up to 

the test. 
The statesman — hero — harlot — 

lawyer — ward 
Off each attack, when people are in 

quest 
Of their designs, by saying they meant 

well ; 
'Tis pity "that such meaning should 

pave Hell." 

XXVI. 

I almost lately have begun to doubt 
Whether Hell's pavement — if it be 
so paved — 
Must not have latterly been quite worn 
out, 
Not by the numbers good intent hath 
saved 

But by the mass who go below without 
Those ancient good intentions, w'hich 
once shaved 



And smoothed the brimstone of that 

street of Hell 
Which bears the greatest likeness to Pall 

Mall. 

XXVII. 

Juan, by some strange chance, which oft 

divides 
Warrior from warrior in their grim 

career, 
Like chastest wives from constant hus- 
bands' sides 
Just at the close of the first bridal 

year, 
By one of those odd turns of Fortune's 

tides, 
Was on a sudden rather puzzled here. 
When, after a good deal of heavy 

firing. 
He found himself alone, and friends 

retiring. 

XXVIII. 

I don't know how the thing occurred — 
it might 
Be that the greater part were killed or 
wounded. 
And that the rest had faced unto the 
right 
About; a circumstance which has 
confounded 
Ca:sar himself, who, in the very sight 
Of his whole army, which so much 
abounded 
In courage, was obliged to snatch a 

shield, 
And rally back his Romans to the field. 

XXIX. 

Juan, who had no shield to snatch, and 
was 
No Caesar, but a fine young lad, who 
fought 
He knew not why, arriving at this pass, 
Stopped for a minute, as perhaps he 
ought 
For a much longer time; then, like an 
ass 
(Start not, kind reader, since great 
Homer * thought 

' ["As near a field of com, a stubborn ass . . . 
E'en so great Aiax son of Telamon." 
— The Iliad, Lord Derby's translation, 
bk. xi. lines 639, 645.] 



II34 



DON JUAN 



[Canto viii. 



This simile enough for Ajax, Juan 
Perhaps may find it better than a new 
one); 

XXX. 

Then, like an ass, he went upon his 
way, 
And, what was stranger, never looked 
behind; 
But seeing, flashing forward, like the day 

Over the hills, a fire enough to blind 
Those who dislike to look upon a 
fray. 
He stumbled on, to try if he could find 
A path, to add his own slight arm and 

forces 
To corps, the greater part of which were 
corses. 



Perceiving then no more the command- 
ant 
Of his own corps, nor even the corps, 
which had 
Quite disappeared — the gods know 
how ! (I can't 
Account for everything which may 
look bad 
In history; but we at least may grant 

It was not marvellous that a mere lad, 
In search of Glory, should look on 

before, 
Nor care a pinch of snuff about his 
corps:) — 

XXXII. 

Perceiving nor commander nor com- 
manded, 
And left at large, like a young heir,' 
to make 

His way to — where he knew not — 
single handed; 
As travellers follow over bog and 
brake 

An "ignis fatuus," or as sailors stranded 
Unto the nearest hut themselves 
betake. 

So Juan, following Honour and his 
nose. 

Rushed where the thickest fire an- 
nounced most foes. 



' [In the Preface to Childe Harold Byron con- 
pares his hero to a " poetical Zeluco" — a " young 
heir," left to his own devices.] 



He knew not where he was, nor greatly 

cared. 
For he was dizzy, busy, and his 

veins 
Filled as with lightning — for his spirit 

shared 
The hour, as is the case with lively 

brains; 
And where the hottest fire was seen and 

heard, 
And the loud cannon pealed his 

hoarsest strains. 
He rushed, while earth and air were 

sadly shaken 
By thy humane discovery, Friar 

Bacon ! ^ 

XXXIV. 

And as he rushed along, it came to pass 

he 
Fell in with what was late the second 

column. 
Under the orders of the General Lascy, 
But now reduced, as is a bulky 

volume 
Into an elegant extract (much less 

massy) 
Of heroism, and took his place with 

solemn 
Air 'midst the rest, who kept their 

valiant faces 
And levelled weapons still against the 

Glacis. 



Just at this crisis up came Johnson 

too, 
Who had "retreated," as the phrase 

is when 
Men run away much rather than go 

through 
Destruction's jaws into the Devil's 

den; 
But Johnson was a clever fellow, who 
Knew when and how "to cut and 

come again," 
And never ran away, except when run- 
ning 
Was nothing but a valorous kind of 

cunning. 

' Gunpowder is said to have been discovered 
by this friar. 



DON JUAN 



"35 



XXXVI. 

,\nd so, when all his corps were dead or 
dying, 
Except Don Juan, a mere novice, 
whose 
More virgin valour never dreamt of 
flying. 
From ignorance of danger, which 
indues 
[ts votaries, like Innocence relying 
On its own strength, with careless 
nerves and thews, — 
Johnson retired a little, just to rally 
Those who catch cold in "shadows of 
Death's valley." 

XXXVII. 

\nd there, a little sheltered from the 
shot, 
Which rained from bastion, battery, 
parapet. 
Rampart, wall, casement, house — for 
there was not 
In this extensive city, sore beset 
By Christian soldiery, a single spot 
Which did not combat like the Devil, 
as yet, — 
Ee found a number of Chasseurs, all 

scattered 

By the resistance of the chase they bat- 
tered. 

XXXVIII. 

\nd these he called on; and, what's 

strange, they came 
Unto his call, unlike "the spirits 

from 

The vasty deep," to whom you may ex- 
claim. 
Says Hotspur, long ere they will leave 

their home: — 
rheir reasons were uncertainty, or 

shame 
At shrinking from a bullet or a bomb, 
A.nd that odd impulse, which in wars or 

creeds 
(Makes men, like cattle, follow him who 

leads. 

XXXIX, 

By Jove ! he was a noble fellow, John- 
son, 
And though his name, than Ajax or 
Achilles, 



Sounds less harmonious, underneath the 

sun soon 
We shall not see his likeness: he 

could kill his 
Man quite as quietly as blows the 

Monsoon 
Her steady breath (which some 

months the same still is) : 
Seldom he varied feature, hue, or 

muscle. 
And could be very busy without bustle; 

XL. 

And therefore, when he ran away, he 
did so 
Upon reflection, knowing that behind 
He would find others who would fain be 
rid so 
Of idle apprehensions, which like 
wind 
Trouble heroic stomachs. Though their 
lids 
Oft are soon closed, all heroes are not 
blind. 
But when they light upon immediate 

death. 
Retire a little, merely to take breath. 



But Johnson only ran ofl^, to return 

With many other warriors, as we said, 
Unto that rather somewhat misty 
bourne, 
Which Hamlet tells us is a pass of 
dread. 
To Jack, howe'er, this gave but slight 
concern: 
His soul (like galvanism upon the 
dead) 
Acted upon the living as on wire, 
And led them back into the heaviest fire. 



Egad ! they found the second time what 
they 
The first time thought quite ternble 
enough 
To fly from, malgre all which people say 
Of Glory, and all that immortal stuff 
Which fills a regiment (besides their 
pay. 
That daily shilling which makes 
warriors tough) — 



II36 



DON JUAN 



[Canto viii. 



They found on their return the self- 
same welcome, 

Which made some think, and others 
know, a hell come. 

XLIII. 

They fell as thick as harvests beneath 

hail, 
Grass before scythes, or corn below 

the sickle, 
Proving that trite old truth, that Life's 

as frail 
As any other boon for which men 

stickle. 
The Turkish batteries thrashed them 

like a flail. 
Or a good boxer, into a sad pickle 
Putting the very bravest, who were 

knocked 
Upon the head before their guns were 

cocked. 

XLIV. 

The Turks behind the traverses and 

flanks 
Of the next bastion, fired away Uke 

devils. 
And swept, as gales sweep foam away, 

whole ranks: 
However, Heaven knows how, the 

Fate who levels 
Towns — nations — worlds, in her re- 
volving pranks, 
So ordered it, amidst these sulphury 

revels, 
That Johnson, and some few who had 

not scampered, 
Reached the interior "talus" of the 

rampart. 

XLV. 

First one or two, then five, six, and a 
dozen 
Came mounting quickly up, for it was 
now 
All neck or nothing, as, like pitch or 
rosin. 
Flame was showered forth above, as 
well's below, 
So that you scarce could say who best 
had chosen, 
The gentlemen that were the first to 
show 



Their martial faces on the parapet. 
Or those who thought it brave to wait 
as yet. 

XL VI. 

But those who scaled, found out that 

their advance 
Was favoured by an accident or 

blunder: 
The Greek or Turkish Cohorn's ^ 

ignorance 
Had pahsadoed in a way you'd 

wonder 
To see in forts of Netherlands or 

France — 
(Though these to our Gibraltar must 

knock under) — 
Right in the middle of the parapet 
Just named, these palisades were primly 

set: 

XLVII. 

So that on either side some nine or ten 
Paces were left, whereon you could 

contrive 
To march; a great convenience to our 

men. 
At least to all those who were left 

alive. 
Who thus could form a Hne and fight 

again ; 
And that which further aided them to 

strive 
Was, that they could kick down the 

palisades. 
Which scarcely rose much higher than 

grass blades. 

XL VIII. 

Among the first, — I will not say the 
first, 
For such precedence upon such occa- 
sions 

Will oftentimes make deadly quarrels 
burst 
Out between friends as well as allied 
nations: 

The Briton must be bold who really 
durst 

' [Baron Menno van Coehoom {circ. 1641- 
1704), a Dutch military engineer, the contem- 
porary and rival of Vauban, invented a mortar 
which bore his name. He was the author of 
a celebrated work on fortification, published in 
1692.] 



JAXTO VIII.] 



DON JUAN 



"37 



Put to such trial John Bull's partial 
; patience, 

A ; ^ay that Wellington at Waterloo 
\ as beaten, — though the Prussians say 
so too; — 

XLIX. 

'ind that if Blucher, Bulow, Gneisenau, 
And God knows who besides in "au" 
and "ow," 
lad not come up in time to cast an 
awe 
Into the hearts of those who fought 
till now 
i.s tigers combat with an empty craw, 
The Duke of Wellington had ceased 
to show 
lis Orders — also to receive his pen- 
sions, 

Vhich are the heaviest that our history 
mentions. 

L. 

!ut never mind; — "God save the 
King ! " and Kings 1 
For if he don't I doubt if men will 

longer — 
think I hear a little bird, who 

sings 
The people by and by will be the 

stronger : 
he veriest jade will wince whose har- 
ness wrings 
So much into the raw as quite to 
wrong her 
Jeyond the rules of posting, — and the 

mob 
It last fall sick of imitating Job. 



W. first it grumbles, then it swears, and 
then. 
Like David, flings smooth pebbles 
'gainst a Giant; 
^it last it takes to weapons such as men 
Snatch when Despair makes human 
hearts less pliant. 
Then comes "the tug of war"; — 'twill 
come again. 
I rather doubt; and I would fain sav 
"fie on't," 
'f I had not perceived that Revolution 
Vlone can save the earth from Hell's 
pollution. 
4D 



LII. 

But to continue: — I say not the first. 
But of the first, our little friend Don 
Juan 
Walked o'er the walls of Ismail, as if 
nursed 
Amidst such scenes — though this 
was quite a new one 
To him, and I should hope to most. 
The thirst 
Of Glory, which so pierces through 
and through one, 
Pervaded him — although a generous 

creature. 
As warm in heart as feminine in feature. 



And here he was — who upon Woman's 
breast. 
Even from a child, felt like a child; 
howe'er 

The Man in all the rest might be con- 
fessed, 
To him it was Elysium to be there; 

And he could even withstand that awk- 
ward test 
Which Rousseau points out to the 
dubious fair, 

"Observe your lover when he leaves 
your arms;" 

But Juan never lejt them — while they 
had charms, 

LIV. 

Unless compelled by Fate, or wave, or 
wind. 
Or near relations who are much the 
same. 
But here he was ! — where each tie that 
can bind 
Humanity must yield to steel and 
flame: 
And he whose very body was all mind. 
Flung here by Fate or Circumstance, 
which tame 
The loftiest, hurried by the time and 

place. 
Dashed on like a spurred blood-horse 
in a race. 

LV. 

So was his blood stirred while he found 
resistance. 
As is the hunter's at the five-bar gate, 



II38 



DON JUAN 



[Canto viii. 



Or double post and rail, where the ex- 
istence 
Of Britain's youth depends upon 
their weight — 

The lightest being the safest: at a dis- 
tance 
He hated cruelty, as all men hate 

Blood, until heated — and even then his 
own 

At times would curdle o'er some heavy 
groan. 

LVI. 

The General Lascy, who had been hard 
pressed. 
Seeing arrive an aid so opportune 
As were some hundred youngsters all 
abreast. 
Who came as if just dropped down 
from the moon 
To Juan, who was nearest him, ad- 
dressed 
His thanks, and hopes to take the city 
soon. 
Not reckoning him to be a "base 

Bezonian" 
(As Pistol calls it), but a young Livonian. 



Juan, to whom he spoke in German, 
knew 
As much of German as of Sanscrit, 
and 
In answer made an inclination to 
The General who held him in com- 
mand; 
For seeing one with ribands, black and 
blue. 
Stars, medals, and a bloody sword in 
hand. 
Addressing him in tones which seemed 

to thank. 
He recognised an officer of rank, 

LVIII. 

Short speeches pass between two men 
who speak. 
No common language; and besides, 
in time 
Of war and taking towns, when many a 
shriek 
Rings o'er the dialogue, and many a 
crime 
Is perpetrated ere a word can break 



Upon the ear, and sounds of horror 

chime 
In like church-bells, with sigh, howl, 

groan, yell, prayer. 
There cannot be much conversation 

there. 

LIX. 

And therefore all we have related in 
Two long octaves, passed in a little 
minute; 
But in the same small minute, every sin 
Contrived to get itself comprised 
within it. 
The very cannon, deafened by the din, 
Grew dum.b, for you might almost j 
hear a linnet, j 

As soon as thunder, 'midst the general 

noise 
Of Human Nature's agonising voice ! 



^^he town was entered. Oh Eternity ! — i 
"God made the country, and man 
made the town," 
So Cowper says — and I begin to be 

Of his opinion, when I see cast down 
Rome — Babylon — Tyre — Carthage 
— Nineveh — 
All walls men know, and many never . 
known ; 
And pondering on the present and the 

past. 
To deem the woods shall be our home 
at last: — 

LXI, j 

Of all men, saving Sylla, the man-] 

slayer, , 

Who passes for in life and death most 

lucky, I 

Of the great names which in our faces 

stare, 

The rjpnppl V^r^nn ^ back-woodsman 

of Kentucky,(^.,,^.^ ■ ^^JVV.- 

I [Daniel Boone (1735-1820) was the grandson 
of an English settler, George Boone, of Exeter. 
His great work in life was the conquest of Ken- 
tucky. He constructed a fort, which he named 
Boonesborough, and carried on a protracted 
campaign with varying but final success against 
the Indians. In 1705 he removed to Missouri, 
then a Spanish possession. Napoleon wrested 
Missouri from the Spaniards, only to sell the 
territory to the United States, with the result 
that in 1810 he was confirmed in the possession 



Canto viii. 



DON JUAN 



"39 



Was happiest amongst mortals any- 
where; 
For killing nothing but a bear or 
buck, he 

Enjoyed the lonely, vigorous, harmless 
days 

Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze. 

LXII. 

Crime came not near him — she is not 

the child 
Of solitude; Health shrank not from 

him — for 
Her home is in the rarely trodden 

wild, 
Where if men seek her not, and death 

be more 
Their choice than life, forgive them, as 

beguiled 
By habit to what their own hearts 

abhor. 
In cities caged. The present case in 

point I 
Cite is, that Boon lived hunting up to 

ninety ; 

LXIII. 

And, what's still stranger, left behind a 
name 
For which men vainly decimate the 
throng. 

Not only famous, but of that good fame. 
Without which Glory's but a tavern 
song — 

Simple, serene, the antipodes of Shame, 
Which Hate nor Envy e'er could tinge 
with wrong; 
A.n active hermit, even in age the child 
Of Nature — or the Man of Ross run 
'\v^ld. 

LXIV. 

Tis true he shrank from men even of 

his nation, — 
When they built up unto his darling 

trees, 
He moved some hundred miles off, for a 

station 



bf 850 out of the 8000 acres which he had ac- 
nuired in 17Q5. "Boone was then seventy-five 
kars of age, hale and strong. The charm of 
he hunter's Hfe clung to him to the last, and in 
bis eighty-second year he went on a hunting ex- 
rursion to the mouth of the Kansas river." — 
|\ppleton's Encyclopedia, etc., art. "Boone."] 



Where there were fewer houses and 
more ease; 

TheJacQilYeniencejQf xivilis»tton 

Is, that you neither can be pleased nor 
please; 
But where he met the individual man. 
He showed himself as kind as mortal 
can. 

LXV. 

He was not all alone: around him grew 
A sylvan tribe of children of the chase, 
Whose young, unwakened world was 
ever new. 
Nor sword nor sorrow yet had left a 
trace 
On her unwrinkled brow, nor could 
you view 
A frown on Nature's or on human 
face; 
The free-born forest found and kept 

them free. 
And fresh as is a torrent or a tree. 



.A.nd tall, and strong, and swift of foot 
were they, 
Z Beyond the dwarfing city's pale 
' abortions. 

Because their thoughts had never been 
the prey 
Of care or gain: the green woods 
were their portions; 
No sinking spirits told them they grew 
grey, _ 
No fashion made them apes of her 
distortions; 
Simple they were, not savage — and 

their rifles, 
Though very true, were not yet used 
for trifles. 

LXVII. 

Motion was in their days. Rest in their 
slumbers. 
And Cheerfulness the handmaid of 
their toil; 
Nor yet too many nor too few their 
numbers; 
Corruption could not make their 
hearts her soil; 
The lust which stings, the splendour 
which encumbers, 
With the free foresters divide no spoil ; 



11:40 



DON JUAN. 



[Canto viir 



Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes 
Of this unsighing people of the 
woods. 

LXVIII. 

So much for Nature : — by way of 
variety, 
Now back to thy great joys, Civilisa- 
tion ! 
And the sweet consequence of large 
society, 
War — pestilence — the despot's 
desolation, 
The kingly scourge, the lust of notoriety, 
The millions slain by soldiers for their 
ration, 
The scenes like Catherine's boudoir at 

threescore, 
With Ismail's storm to soften it the more. 



The town was entered: first one column 

made 
Its sanguinary way good — then 

another; 
The reeking bayonet and the flashing 

blade 
Clashed 'gainst the scimitar, and^ 

babe and mother 
With distant shrieks were heard Heaven 

to upbraid: — 
Still closer sulphury clouds began to 

smother 
The breath of morn and man, where 

foot by foot 
The maddened Turks their city still 

dispute. 

LXX. 

Koutousow, he who afterwards beat 

back 
(With some assistance from the frost 

and snow) 
Napoleon on his bold and bloody 

track, 
It happened was himself beat back 

just now: 
He was a jolly fellow, and could 

crack 
His jest alike in face of friend or foe. 
Though Life, and Death, and Victory 

were at stake; 
But here it seemed his jokes had ceased 

to take: 



LXXI. 

For having thrown himself into a ditch, 
Followed in haste by various grena- 
diers. 
Whose blood the puddle greatly did 

enrich, 
He climbed to where the parapet 

appears; 
But there his project reached its utmost 

pitch 
('Mongst other deaths the General 

Ribaupierre's 
Was much regretted), for the Moslem 

men 
Threw them all down into the ditch 

again. 

LXXII. 

And had it not been for some stray 

troops landing 
They knew not where, being carried 

by the stream 
To some spot, where they lost their 

understanding, 
And wandered up and down as in a 

dream. 
Until they reached, as daybreak was 

expanding. 
That which a portal to their eyes 

did seem, — 
The great and gay Koutousow might 

have lain 
Where three parts of his column yet 

remain. 1 

LXXIII. 

And scrambling round the rampart, 
these same troops, 
After the taking of the "Cavalier,"" 
Just as Koutousow's most "forlorn" 
of "hopes" 
Took, like chameleons, some slight- 
tinge of fear, 
Opened the gate called "Kilia," to the 
groups 
Of baffled heroes, who stood shyly 
near. 
Sliding knee-deep in lately frozen mud, 
Now thawed into a marsh of human 
blood. 



The Kozacks, or, if so you please, 
Cossacques — 



Canto viii.] 



DON JUAN 



1141 



(I don't much pique myself upon 
orthography, 
So that I do not grossly err in facts, 
Statistics, tactics, politics and geog- 
raphy) — 
Having been used to serve on horses' 
backs, 
And no great dilettanti in topography 
Of fortresses, but fighting where it 

pleases 
Their chiefs to order, — were all cut 
to pieces. 

LXXV. 

Their column, though the Turkish 

batteries thundered 
Upon them, ne'ertheless had reached 

the rampart. 
And naturally thought they could have 

plundered 
The city, without being farther 

hampered ; 
But as it happens to brave men, they 

blundered — 
The Turks at first pretended to 

have scampered. 
Only to draw them 'twixt two bastion 

corners. 
From whence they sallied on those 

Christian scorners. 



Then being taken by the tail — a 

taking 
Fatal to bishops as to soldiers — 

these 
Cossacques were all cut off as day was 

breaking, 
And found their lives were let at a 

short lease — 
But perished without shivering or 

shaking, 
Leaving as ladders their heaped 

carcasses. 
O'er which Lieutenant-Colonel Yesou- 

skoi 
Marched with the brave battalion of 

Polouzki: — 

I.XXVII. 

This valiant man killed all the Turks 
he met, 
But could not eat them, being in his 
turn 



Slain by some Mussulmans, who would 

not yet, 
Without resistance, see their city 

burn. 
The walls were won, but 'twas an 

even bet 
Which of the armies would have 

cause to mourn : 
'Twas blow for blow, disputing inch 

by inch. 
For one would not retreat, nor 'tother 

flinch. 

LXXVIII. 

Another column also suffered much: — 
And here we may remark with the 
historian, 
You should but give few cartridges to 
such 
Troops as are meant to march with 
greatest glory on: 
When matters must be carried by the 
touch 
Of the bright bayonet, and they 
all should hurry on. 
They sometimes, with a hankering for 

existence, 
Keep merely firing at a foolish distance. 

LXXIX. 

A junction of the General Meknop's 

men 
(Without the General, who had 

fallen some time 
Before, being badly seconded just 

then) 
Was made at length with those who 

dared to climb 
The death-disgorging rampart once 

again; 
And, though the Turk's resistance 

was sublime. 
They took the bastion, which the 

Seraskier 
Defended at a price extremely dear. 

LXXX. 

Juan and Johnson, and some volunteers, 

Among the foremost, offered him 

good quarter, 

A word which little suits with Seraskiers, 

Or at least suited not this valiant 

Tartar. 



1 142 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vii 






He died, deserving well his country's 
tears, 
A savage sort of military martyr: 
An English naval officer, who wished 
To make him prisoner, was also dished : 



For all the answer to his proposition 
Was from a pistol-shot that laid him 
dead; 
On which the rest, without more inter- 
mission. 
Began to lay about with steel and 
lead — 
The pious metals most in requisition 

On such occasions: not a single head 
Was spared; — three thousand Moslems 

perished here, 
And sixteen bayonets pierced the Seras- 
kier. 

LXXXII. 

The city's taken — only part by part — 
And Death is drunk with gore: 
there's not a street 
Where fights not to the last some des- 
perate heart 
For those for whom it soon shall 
cease to beat. 
Here War forgot his own destructive art 
In more destroying Nature; and the 
heat 
Of Carnage, like the Nile's sun-sodden 

slime. 
Engendered monstrous shapes of every 
crime. 

LXXXIII. 

A Russian officer, in martial tread 

Over a heap of bodies, felt his heel 
Seized fast, as if 'twere by the serpent's 
head 
Whose fangs Eve taught her human 
seed to feel ; 
In vain he kicked, and swore, and 
writhed, and bled. 
And howled for help as wolves do for 
a meal — 
The teeth still kept their gratifying hold, 
As do the subtle snakes described of old. 

LXXXIV. 

A dying Moslem, who had felt the 
foot 



Of a foe o'er him, snatched at it, anc 
bit 
The very tendon which is most acute — 
(That which some ancient Muse oA 
modern wit ^ 

Named after thee, Achilles!) and quite 
through 't 
He made the teeth meet, nor relin- 
quished it 
Even with his life — for (but they lie) 

'tis said 
To the live leg still clung the severed 
head. 

LXXXV. 

However this may be, 'tis pretty sure 

The Russian officer for life was lamed. 
For the Turk's teeth stuck faster than a 
skewer. 
And left him 'midst the invalid and 
maimed: 
The regimental surgeon could not cure 
His patient, and, perhaps, was to be 
blamed 
More than the head of the inveterate foe, 
Which was cut off, and scarce even then 
let go. 

LXXXVI. 

But then the fact's a fact — and 'tis 
the part 
Of a true poet to escape from fiction 
Whene'er he can ; for there is little art 
In leaving verse more free from the 
restriction 
Of Truth than prose, unless to suit the 
mart 
For what is sometimes called poetic 
diction, 
And that outrageous appetite for lies J 
Which Satan angles with for souls, like I 
flies. ■ 

Lxxxvir. 
The citv's taken, but not rendered ! — 
No'! 
There's not a Moslem that hath 
yielded sword: 
The blood may gush out, as the Dan- 
ube's flow 
Rolls by the city wall; but deed nor 
word 
Acknowledge aught of dread of Death 
or foe : 
In vain the yell of victory is roared 



Canto viil] 



DON JUAN 



1143 



By the advancing Muscovite — the 

groan 
Of the last foe is echoed by his own. 

LXXXVIII. 

The bayonet pierces and the sabre 

cleaves, 

And human lives are lavished every- 
where, 
As the year closing whirls the scarlet 

leaves 
When the stripped forest bows to the 

bleak air, 
And groans; and thus the peopled city 

grieves, 
Shorn of its best and loveliest, and 

left bare; 
But still it falls in vast and awful 

splinters, 
As oaks blown down with all their 

thousand winters. 

LXXXIX. 

It is an awful topic — but 'tis not 

My cue for any time to be terrific: 
For checkered as is seen our human lo': 
With good, and bad, and worse, alike 
prolific 
Of melancholy merriment, to quote 
Too much of one sort would be 
soporific; — 
Without, or with, offence to friends or 

foes, 
I sketch vour world exactlv as it goes. 



And one good action in the midst of 
crimes 
Is "quite refreshing," in the affected 
phrase 
Of these ambrosial, Pharisaic times, 
With all their pretty milk-and-water 
ways. 
And may serve therefore to bedew these 
rhymes, 
A Httle scorched at present with the 
blaze 
Of conquest and its consequences, which 
Make Epic poesy so rare and rich. 

xci. 

Upon a taken bastion, where there 
lay 



Thousands of slaughtered men, a 
yet warm group 
Of murdered women, who had found 
their way 
To this vain refuge, made the good 
heart droop 
And shudder; — while, as beautiful 
as May, 
A female child of ten years tried to 
stoop 
And hide her little palpitating "breast 
Amidst the bodies lulled in bloody rest. 

XCII. 

Two villanous Cossacques pursued the 

child 
With flashing eyes and weapons: 

matched with them, 
The rudest brute that roams Siberia's 

wild 
Has feelings pure and polished as a 

gem, — 
The bear is civilised, the wolf is mild; 
And whom for this at last must we. 

condemn ? 
Their natures? or their sovereigns, 

who employ 
All arts to teach their subjects to 

destroy ? 

XCIII. 

Their sabres glittered o'er her little 
head, 
Whence her fair hair rose twining 
with affright. 
Her hidden face was plunged amidst 
the dead: 
When Juan caught a glimpse of this 
sad sight, 
J shall not say exactly what he said, 
Because it might not solace "ears 
polite"; 
But what he did, was to lay on their 

backs. 
The readiest way of reasoning with 
Cossacques. 

xciv. 

One's hip he slashed, and split the 

other's shoulder, 
And drove them with their brutal 

yells to seek 
If there might be chirurgeons who could 

solder 



1 144 



DON JUAN 



[Canto viii. 



The wounds they richly merited, and 
shriek 
Their baffled rage and pain; while 
waxing colder 
As he turned o'er each pale and gory 
cheek, 
Don Juan raised his little captive from 
The heap a moment more had made 
her tomb. 

xcv. 
And she was chill as they, and on her 
face 
A slender streak of blood announced 
how near 
Her fate had been to that of all her race; 
For the same blow which laid her 
mother here 
Had scarred her brow, and left its 
crimson trace, 
As the last Unk with all she had held 
dear; 
But else unhurt, she opened her large 

eyes. 
And gazed on Juan with a wild surprise. 



Just at this instant, while their eyes were 
fixed 
Upon each other, with dilated glance. 
In Juan's look, pain, pleasure, hope, 
fear, mixed 
With joy to save, and dread of some 
mischance 
Unto his protegee; while hers, trans- 
fixed 
With infant terrors, glared as from 
a trance, 
A pure, transparent, pale, yet radiant 

face. 
Like to a lighted alabaster vase: — 

XCVII. 

Up came John Johnson (I will not say 
" Jack,'^ 
For that were vulgar, cold, and 
commonplace 
On great occasions, such as an attack 
On cities, as hath been the present 
case) : 
Up Johnson came, with hundreds at his 
back. 
Exclaiming — " Juan ! Juan ! On, 
boy ! brace 



Your arm, and I'll bet Moscow to a i 
dollar, "H I 

That you and I will win St. George's 
collar.^ 

XCVIII. 

"The Seraskier is knocked upon the 

head. 
But the stone bastion still remains, 

wherein 
The old Pacha sits among some hun- 
dreds dead. 
Smoking his pipe quite calmly 'midst 

the din 
Of our artillery and his own: 'tis 

said 
Our killed, already piled up to the 

chin, 
Lie round the battery; but still it 

batters. 
And grape in volleys, like a vineyard, 

scatters. :- — ,^ ' » 

"Then up with me!" — But Juan 
answered, "Look 
Upon this child — I saved her — - 
must not leave 
Her life to chance; but point me out 
■ some nook 
O^ safety, where she less may shrink 
and grieve, 
And I am with you." — Whereon John- 
son took 
A glance around — and shrugged — 
and twitched his sleeve 
And black silk neckcloth — and rephed, 

"You're right; 
Poor thing! what's to be done? I'm 
puzzled quite." 



Said Juan — "Whatsoever is to be 
Done, I'll not quit her till she seems 
secure 
Of present life a good deal more than 
we." — 
Quoth Johnson — ^^ Neither will I 
quite insure; 
But at the least you may die glori- 
ously." — 
Juan replied — "At least I will endure 

» A Russian military order. 



Canto viii.] 



DON JUAN 



"45 



Wtate'er is to be borne — but not 
resign 
This child, who is parcntless, and 
therefore mine." 



Johnson said — "Juan, we've no time 

to lose; 
The child's a pretty child — a very 

pretty — 
I never saw such eyes — but hark ! now 

choose 
Between your fame and feelings, pride 

and pity: — 
Hark ! how the roar increases ! — no 

excuse 
Will serve when there is plunder in a 

city; — 
I should be loath to march without you, 

but, 
By God ! we'll be too late for the first 

cut." 

CII. 

But Juan was immovable; until 

Johnson, who really loved him in his 
way. 
Picked out amongst his followers with 
some skill 
Such as he thought the least given 
up to prey, 
And, swearing, if the infant came 
to ill 
That they should all be shot on the 
next day, — 
But if she were deHvered safe and sound. 
They should at least have fifty rubles 
round, 

cin. 

And all allowances besides of plunder 
In fair proportion with their com- 
rades; — then 
Juan consented to march on through 
thunder. 
Which thinned at every step their 
ranks of men : 
And yet the rest rushed eagerly — no 
wonder. 
For they were heated by the hope of 
gain, 
A thing which happens everywhere 

each day — 
No hero trusteth wholly to half pay. 



CIV. 

And such is Victory, and such is Man ! 
At least nine tenths of what we call 
so: — God 
May have another name for half we scan 
As human beings, or his ways are odd. 
But to our subject: a brave Tartar 
Khan — 
Or "Sultan," as the author (to whose 
nod 
In prose I bend my humble verse) doth 

call 
This chieftain — somehow would not 
yield at all: 

cv. 

But flanked hy five brave sons (such is 
polygamy, 
That she spawns warriors by the 
score, where none 
Are prosecuted for that false crime 
bigamy), 
He never would believe the city won 
While Courage clung but to a single 
twig. — Am I 
Describing Priam's, Peleus', or Jove's 
son? 
Neither — but a good, plain, old, tem- 
perate man, 
Who fought with his five children in 
the van. 

CVI. 

To take him was the point. — The 
truly brave, 
When they behold the brave oppressed 
with odds, 

Are touched with a desire to shield and 
save ; — 
A mixture of wild beasts and demi- 
gods 

Are they — now furious as the sweeping 
wave. 
Now moved with pity: even as some- 
times nods 

The rugged tree unto the summer wind. 

Compassion breathes along the savage 
mind. 

CVII. 

But he would not be tahen, and replied 

To all the propositions of surrender 
By mowing Christians down on every 
side, 



II46 



DON JUAN 



[Canto vrii. 



As obstinate as Swedish Charles at 
Bender. 
His five brave boys no less the foe 
defied; 
Whereon the Russian pathos grew 
less tender 
As being a virtue, like terrestrial patience, 
Apt to wear out on trifling provocations. 

CVIII. 

And spite of Johnson and of Juan, who 
Expended all their Eastern phrase- 
ology 
In begging him, for God's sake, just to 

show 
So much less fight as might form an 

apology 
For them in saving such a desperate 

foe — 
He hewed away, like Doctors of 

Theology 
When they dispute with sceptics; and 

with curses 
Struck at his friends, as babies beat 

their nurses. 

cix. 

Nay, he had wounded, though but 
' slightly, both 

Juan and Johnson; whereupon they 
fell, 
The first with sighs, the second with an 
oath. 
Upon his angry Sultanship, pell-mell, 
And all around were grown exceeding 
wroth 
At such a pertinacious infidel. 
And poured upon him and his sons like 

rain. 
Which they resisted like a sandy plain 

ex. 

That drinks and still is dry. At last 
they perished — 
His second son was levelled by a shot; 
His third was sabred; and the fourth, 
most cherished 
Of all the five, on bavonets met his 
lot; 
The fifth, who, by a Christian mother 
nourished. 
Had been neglected, ill-used, and 
what not. 



Because deformed, yet died all game . 

and bottom, ] 

To save a Sire who blushed that he ''• 

begot him. 

CXI. 

The eldest was a true and tameless 

Tartar, 
As great a scorner of the Nazarene 
As ever Mahomet picked out for a 

martyr, 
Who only saw the black-eyed girls 

in green, 
Who make the beds of those who won't 

take quarter 
On earth, in Paradise; and when oik c 

seen. 
Those houris, like all other pretty 

creatures, 
Do just whate'er they please, by dint 

of features. 

CXII. 

And what they pleased to do with the 

young Khan 
In Heaven I know not, nor pretend 

to guess; 
But doubtless they prefer a fine young 

man 
To tough old heroes, and can do no 

less; 
And that's the cause no doubt why, 

if we scan 
A field of battle's ghastly wilderness, 
For one rough, weather-beaten, veteran 

body. 
You'll find ten thousand handsome 

coxcombs bloody. 



Your houris also have a natural pleasure 
In lopping off your lately married 
men, 
Before the bridal hours have danced 
their measure 
And the sad, second moon grows dim 
again. 
Or dull Repentance hath had dreary 
leisure 
To wish him back a bachelor now 
and then: 
And thus your Hour (it may be) disputes 
Of these brief blossoms the immediate 
fruits. 



DON JUAN 



1147 



cxiv. 

Thus the young Khan, with Houris in 
his sight, 
Thought not upon the charms of four 
young brides, 
But bravely rushed on his first heavenly 
night. 
In short, hovve'er our better faith 
derides. 
These black-eyed virgins make the 
Moslems fight, 
As though there were one Heaven 
and none besides — 
^Vhereas, if all be true we hear of 

Heaven 
\nd Hell, there must at least be six or 
seven. 

cxv. 

50 fully flashed the phantom on his 
eyes. 
That when the very lance was in his 
heart, 
Ele shouted "Allah!" and saw Paradise 
With all its veil of mystery drawn 
apart, 
And bright Eternity without disguise 
On his soul, like a ceaseless sunrise, 
dart: — 
With Prophets — Houris — Angels — 

Saints, descried 
In one voluptuous blaze, — and then 
he died, — 

cxvi. 

But with a heavenly rapture on his face. 
The good old Khan, who long had 
ceased to see 
Houris, or aught except his florid race, 
Who grew like cedars round him 
gloriously — 
When he beheld his latest hero grace 
The earth, which he became like a 
felled tree, 
Paused for a moment from the fight, 

and cast 

A glance on that slain son, his first and 
last. 

CXVII. 

The soldiers, who beheld him drop his 
point. 
Stopped as if once more willing to con- 
cede 



Quarter, in case he bade them not 

"aroynt !" 
As he before had done. He did not 

heed 
Their pause nor signs: his heart was 

out of joint, 
And shook (till now unshaken) like 

a reed. 
As he looked dowm upon his children 

gone. 
And felt — though done with life — he 

was alone. 

CXVIII. 

But 'twas a transient tremor: — with a 

spring 
Upon the Russian steel his breast he 

flung. 
As carelessly as hurls the moth her 

wing 
Against the light wherein she dies: 

he clung 
Closer, that all the deadlier they might 

wring. 
Unto the bayonets which had pierced 

his young; 
And throwing back a dim look on his 

sons, 
In one wide wound poured forth his 

soul at once. 

CXIX. 

'Tis strange enough — the rough, tough 
soldiers, who 
Spared neither sex nor age in their 
career 
Of carnage, when this old man was 
pierced through, 
And lay before them with his children 
near. 
Touched by the heroism of him they 
slew. 
Were melted for a moment; though 
no tear 
Flowed from their bloodshot eyes, all 

red with strife. 
They honoured such determined scorn 
of Life. .„,,^^ 

cxx. ^/^"^ 
But the stone bastion still kept up its 
fire. 
Where the chief Pacha calmly held 
his post: 



1 148 



DON JUAN 



[Canto Vt: 



i 



Some twenty times he made the Russ 
retire, 
And baffled the assaults of all their 
host; 
At length he condescended to inquire 

If yet the city's rest were won or lost; 
And being told the latter, sent a Bey 
To answer Ribas' summons to give way. 

cxxi. 

In the mean time, cross-legged, with 
great sang-froid, 
Among the scorching ruins he sat 
smoking 
Tobacco on a little carpet ; — Troy 
Saw nothing like the scene around; — 
yet looking 
With martial Stoicism, nought seemed 
to annoy 
His stem philosophy; but gently 
stroking 
His beard, he puffed his pipe's ambrosial 

gales, 
As if he had three lives, as well as tails. 

CXXII. 

The town was taken — whether he 

might yield 
Himself or bastion, little mattered 

now: 
His stubborn valour was no future 

shield. 
Ismail's no more! The Crescent's 

silver bow 
Sunk, and the crimson Cross glared o'er 

the field, 
But red with no redeeming gore: the 

glow 
Of burning streets, like moonlight on 

the water, 
Was imaged back in blood, the sea of 

slaughter. 

CXXIII. 

All that the mind would shrink from of 
excesses — 
AH that the body perpetrates of bad ; 
All that we read — hear — dream, of 
man's distresses — 
All that the Devil would do if run 
stark mad; 
All that defies the worst which pen ex- 
presses, — • 



All by which Hell is peopled, or as sad 
As Hell — mere mortals, who thfet 

power abuse — 
Was here (as heretofore and since) let 
loose. 

cxxiv. 

If here and there some transient trait of 
pity 
Was shown, and some more noble 
heart broke through 
Its bloody bond, and saved, perhaps, 
some pretty 
Child, or an aged, helpless man of 
two — 
What's this in one annihilated city. 
Where thousand loves, and ties, anc 
duties grew? 
Cockneys of London ! Muscadins o^ 

Paris ! 
Just ponder what a pious pastime War is^ 

CXXV. 

Think how the joys of reading a" 
Gazette 
Are purchased by all agonies and 
crimes: 
Or if these do not move you, don't 
forget 
Such doom mdy be your own in after- 
times. 
Meantime the Taxes, Castlereagh, and 
Debt, 
Are hints as good as sermons, or as 
rhymes. 
Read your own hearts and Ireland's 

present story. 
Then feed her famine fat with Welles- 
ley's glory. 

cxxvi. 

But still there is unto a patriot nation, 
Which loves so well its country and 
its King, 
A subject of sublimest exultation — 
Bear it, ye Muses, on your brightest 
wing ! 
Howe'er the mighty locust, Desolation, 
Strip your green fields, and to your 
harvests cling. 
Gaunt famine never shall approach the 

throne — 
Though Ireland starve, great George 
weighs twenty stone. 



\NTO VIII.] 



DON JUAN 



1149 



cxxvii. 

It let me put an end unto my 

theme : 
There was an end of Ismail — hapless 

town ! 
ir flashed her burning towers o'er 

Danube's stream, 
And redly ran his blushing waters 

down, 
he horrid war-whoop and the shriller 

scream 
Rose still ; but fainter were the thun- 
ders grown : 
f forty thousand who had manned the 

wall, 
ome hundreds breathed — the rest 

were silent all ! 



CXXVIII. 

In one thing ne'ertheless 'tis fit to 
praise 
The Russian army upon this occasion, 
l virtue much in fashion now-a- 
days, 
And therefore worthy of commemora- 
tion : 

The topic's tender, so shall be my 
phrase — 
Perhaps the Season's chill, and their 
long station 
[n Winter's depth, or want of rest and 

victual. 
Had made them chaste; — they ravished 
very little. 



Much did they slay, more plunder, and 
no less 
Might here and there occur some 
violation 

In the other line ; — but not to such 
excess 
As when the French, that dissipated 
nation, 

Take towns by storm : no causes can I 
guess. 
Except cold weather and commisera- 
tion; 

But all the ladies, save some twenty 
score. 

Were almost as much virgins as be- 
fore. 



Some odd mistakes, too, happened in 
the dark, 
Which showed a want of lanterns, or 
of taste — 
Indeed the smoke was such they scarce 
could mark 
Their friends from foes, — besides 
such things from haste 
Occur, though rarely, when there is a 
spark 
Of light to save the venerably chaste : 
But six old damsels, each of seventy 

years. 
Were all deflowered by different grena- 
diers. 

cxxxi. 

But on the whole their continence was 
great ; 
So that some disappointment there 
ensued 

To those who had felt the inconvenient 
state 
Of "single blessedness," and thought 
it good 

(Since it was not their fault, but only 
fate. 
To bear these crosses) for each wan- 
ing prude 

To make a Roman sort of Sabine wed- 
ding. 

Without the expense and the suspense 
of bedding. 

cxxxii. 

Some voices of the buxom middle-aged 
Were also heard to wonder in the din 
(Widows of forty were these birds long 
caged) 
"Wherefore the ravishing did not 
begin!" 
But while the thirst for gore and plunder 
raged, 
There was small leisure for super- 
fluous sin; 
But whether they escaped or no, lies 

hid 
In darkness — I can only hope they did. 

CXXXIII. 
Suwarrow now was conqueror — a 
match 



II50 



DON JUAN 



[Canto viii. 



For Timour or for Zinghis in his 
trade. 
While mosques and streets, beneath his 
eyes, like thatch 
Blazed, and the cannon's roar was 
scarce allayed, 
With bloody hands he wrote his first 
despatch; 
And here exactly follows what he 
said : — 
"Glory to God and to the Empress!" 

{Powers 
Eternal! such names mingled!) ''Is- 
mail's ours." ^ 

cxxxiv. 

Methinks these are the most tremendous 
words. 
Since "Mene, Mene, Tekel," and 
"Upharsin," 
Which hands or pens have ever traced 
of swords. 
Heaven help me ! I'm but little of a 
parson : 
What Daniel read was short-hand of the 
Lord's, 
Severe, sublime; the prophet wrote 
no farce on 
The fate of nations; — but this Russ so 

witty 
Could rhyme, like Nero, o'er a burning 
city. 

cxxxv. 

He wrote this Polar melody, and' 
set it, 
Duly accompanied by shrieks and 
groans. 
Which few will sing, I trust, but none 
forget it — 
For I will teach, if possible, the 
stones 
To rise against Earth's tyrants. Never 
let it 
Be said that we still truckle unto 
thrones; — 

I In the original Russian — 

"Slava bogu ! slava vam ! 
Krepost vzata i ya tarn;" 
a kind of couplet; for he was a poet. 

[According to Spalding (Suvoroff, 1890, pp. 42, 
43), the words, which were written on a scrap of 
paper, and addressed to Soltikoff, ran thus: 
"Your Excellency, we have conquered. Glory 
to God ! Glory to you ! Alexander Suvoroff."] 



But ye — our children's children ! think 

how we 
Showed what things were before the 

World was free ! 



cxxxvi. 



I 



That hour is not for us, but 'tis for you : 
And as, in the great joy of your 

Millennium, 
You hardly will believe such things were 

true 
As now occur, I thought that I would 

pen you 'em; 
But may their very memory perish 

too! 

Yet if perchance remembered, still 

disdain you 'em 
More than you scorn the savages of 

yore, 
Who painted their bare limbs, but not 

with gore. 

CXXXVII. 

And when you hear historians talk of 
thrones, 
And those that sate upon them, let 
it be 
As we now gaze upon the mammoth's 
bones. 
And wonder what old world such 
things could see. 
Or hieroglyphics on Egyptian stones, 
The pleasant riddles of futurity — 
Guessing at what shall happily be 

hid. 
As the real purpose of a pyramid. 

CXXXVIII. 

Reader ! I have kept my word, — at 

least so far 
As the first Canto promised. You 

have now 
Had sketches of Love — Tempest — 

Travel — War, — 
All very accurate, you must allow, 
And Epic, if plain truth should prove no 

bar; 
For I have drawn much less with a 

long bow 
Than my forerunners. Carelessly I 

sing, 
But Phoebus lends me now and then a 

string. 



Canto ix.] 



DON JUAN 



5^ 



With which I still can harp, and carp, 

and fiddle. 
What further hath befallen or may 

befall 
The hero of this grand poetic 

riddle, 
I by and by may tell you, if at 

all: 
But now I choose to break off in the 

middle, 
Worn out with battering Ismail's 

stubborn wall. 
While Juan is sent off with the de- 
spatch. 
For which all Petersburgh is on the 

watch. 



This special honour was conferred, 

because 
He had behaved with courage and 

humanity — 
Which last men like, when they have 

time to pause 
From their ferocities produced by 

vanity. 
His little captive gained him some 

applause 
For saving her amidst the wild in- 
sanity 
Of carnage, — and I think he was more 

glad in her 
Safety, than his new order of St. 

Vladimir. 

CXLI. 

The Moslem orphan went with her 
protector, 
For she was homeless, houseless, 
helpless; all 
• Her friends, like the sad family of 
Hector, 
Had perished in the field or by the 
wall: 
Her very place of birth was but a 
spectre 
Of what it had been; there the 
Muezzin's call 
To prayer was heard no more ! — and 

Juan wept, 
And made a vow to shield her, which he 
kept. 



CANTO THE NINTH.^ 



Oh, Wellington ! (or " Villainton" ^ — 
for Fame 
Sounds the heroic syllables both ways; 
France could not even conquer your 
great name, 
But punned it down to this facetious 
phrase — ■ 
Beating or beaten she will laugh the 
same,) 
You have obtained great pensions 
and much praise: 
Glory like yours should any dare gain- 
say. 
Humanity would rise, and thunder 
"Nay!" 3 

II. 

I don't think that you used Kinnaird 
quite well 
In Marinet's affair'* — in fact, 'twas 
shabby. 
And like some other things won't do 
to tell 
Upon your tomb in Westminster's old 
Abbey. 

' [Cantos ix., x., and xi. were written in 
September-October, 1822. They were pub- 
lished (by John Hunt), August 29, 1823.] 

^ [The following epigram dates from the occu- 
pation of Paris by the Allies in 1815^1816: — 
"These French petit-maitres who the spectacle 

throng, 
Say of Wellington's dress qu'il fait znlain ion! 
But, at Waterloo, Wellington made the French 

stare 
When their army he ckessed a la mode Angle- 

terre/"] 

3 Query, Ney ? — Printer's Devil. [Michel 
Ney, Duke of Elchingen, "the bravest of the 
brave" (see Ode from the French, stanza i.), 
born January 10, 1769, was arrested August 5, 
and shot December 7, 181 5.] 

4 [A fraudulent official, Nicholle or Marinet by 
name, revealed to Lord Kinnaird, then (January 
30, 1818) at Brussels, the existence of a plot to 
assassinate the Duke of Wellington. On Febru- 
ary II there was an attempt to carry out the plot. 
The authorities urged Kinnaird to disclose the 
name of his informant. This he declined to do, 
but, on the strength of an implied promise of 
safe conduct, started for Paris, taking Marinet 
with him. At Paris, and, while Kinnaird was the 
Duke's guest, the man was arrested, and his 
identity established. This was regarded as a 
breach of faith on the part of the French Govern- 
ment, and, by inference, of the Duke, who must 



II53 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ix 



Upon the rest 'tis not worth while to 

dwell, 
Such tales being for the tea-hours of 

some tabby; 
But though your years as man tend fast 

to zero, 
In fact your Grace is still but a young 

Hero. 



Though Britain owes (and pays you too) 
so much, 
Yet Europe doubtless owes you 
greatly more: 
You have repaired Legitimacy's crutch, 
A prop not quite so certain as before : 
The Spanish, and the French, as well as 
Dutch, 
Have seen, and felt, how strongly you 
restore ; 
And Waterloo has made the world your 

debtor 
(I wish your bards would sing it rather 
better). 

IV. 

You are "the best of cut-throats": do 
not start; 
The phrase is Shakespeare's, and not 
misapplied : — 
War's a brain-spattering, windpipe- 
slitting art. 
Unless her cause by right be sanctified. 
If you have acted once a generous 
part, 
The World, not the World's masters, 
will decide. 
And I shall be delighted to learn who, 
Save you and yours, have gained by 
Waterloo ? 



I am no flatterer — you've supped full 
of flattery: 
They say you like it too — 'tis no 
great wonder. 
He whose whole life has been assault 
and battery. 
At last may get a little tired of thunder; 
And swallowing eulogy much more than 
satire, he 

have been privy to the transaction. See his 
LetUr to tlie Duke, etc., on the Arrest of M. 
Marinet, iSi8.] 



May like being praised, for ever) 
lucky blunder, 

Called "Saviour of the Nations" — noi 
yet saved, — 

And "Europe's Liberator" — still en- 
slaved.^ 

VI. 

I've done. Now go and dine from ofi , 
the plate 
Presented by the Prince of the Brazils, 
And send the sentinel before your gate 
A slice or two from your luxurious 
meals: 
He fought, but has not fed so well of 
late. 
Some hunger, too, they say the people 
feels : — 
There is no doubt that you deserve your 

ration. 
But pray give back a little to the nationl 



I don't mean to reflect — a man sg| 

great as 
You, my lord Duke ! is far above 

reflection : 
The high Roman fashion, too, of Cir^- 

cinnatus. 
With modern history has but small 

connection : 
Though as an Irishman you love 

potatoes, 
You need not take them under your 

direction : 
And half a million for your Sabine farm 
Is rather dear! — I'm sure I mean no 

harm. 

VIII. 

Great men have always scorned great 
recompenses : 
Epaminondas saved his Thebes, and 
died. 
Not leaving even his funeral expenses : 
George Washington had thanks, and 
nought beside, 
Except the all-cloudless glory (which few 
men's is) 
To free his country : Pitt too had his 
pride, 

' Vidf speeches in Parliament, after the battle 
of Waterloo. 



A\TO IX.] 



DON JUAN 



IIS3 



ind as a high-souled Minister of 
^tate is 

ivvned for ruining Great Britain 
gratis. 

IX. 

iTever had mortal man such oppor- 
tunity, 
Except Napoleon, or abused it 
more: 

^ou might have freed fallen Europe 
from the unity 
Of Tyrants, and been blest from 
shore to shore: 
fVnd now — what is your fame ? Shall 
the Muse tune it ye? 
Now — that the rabble's first vain 
shouts are o'er? 
JGo ! hear it in your famished country's 

cries ! 

OBehold the World! and curse your 
victories ! 

X. 

As these new cantos touch on warlike 

feats. 
To you the unflattering Muse deigns 

to inscribe 
Truths, that you will not read in the 

Gazettes, 
But which 'tis time to teach the hire- 
ling tribe 
Who fatten on their country's gore, and 

debts, 
Must be recited — and without a 

bribe. 
You did great things, but not being 

great in mind. 
Have left undone the greatest — and 

mankind. 

XI. 

Death laughs — Go ponder o'er the 
skeleton 
With which men image out the un- 
known thing 
That hides the past world, like to a set 
sun 
Which still elsewhere may rouse a 
brighter spring — 
Death laughs at all you weep for ! — 
look upon 
This hourly dread of all! whose 
threatened sting 
4E 



Turns Life to terror, even though in its 

sheath : 
Mark! how its lipless mouth grins 

without breath ! 

XII. 

Mark ! how it laughs and scorns at all 

you are ! 
And yet was what you are; from ear 

to ear 
It laughs not — there is now no fleshy 

bar 
So called ; the Antic long hath ceased 

to hear, 
But still he smiles; and whether near 

or far, 
He strips from man that mantle (far 

more dear 
Than even the tailor's), his incarnate 

skin, 
White, black, or copper — the dead 

bones will grin. 

XIII. 

And thus Death laughs, — it is sad 
merriment. 
But still it is so; and with such 
example 
Why should not Life be equally content 
With his Superior, in a smile to 
trample 
Upon the nothings which are daily spent 
Like bubbles on an Ocean much less 
ample 
Than the Eternal Deluge, which devours 
Suns as rays — worlds like atoms — 
years like hours? 

XIV. 

"To be, or not to be? that is the 
question," 
Says Shakespeare, who just now is 
much in fashion. 
I am neither Alexander nor Hephaestion, 
Nor ever had for abstract fame much 
passion ; 
But would much rather have a sound 



could 



digestion 
Than Buonaparte's cancer: 

I dash on 
Through fifty victories to shame or 

fame — 
Without a stomach what were a good 

name? 



II54 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ix. 



f 



XV, 

"O dura ilia messoruni!" — "Oh 

Ye rigid guts of reapers ! " I translate 
For the great benefit of those who know 
What indigestion is — that inward 
fate 
Which makes all Styx through one small 
liver flow. 
A peasant's sweat is worth his lord's 
estate : 
Let this one toil for bread — that rack 

for rent, 
He who sleeps best may be the most 
content. 

XVI. 

"To be, or not to be?" — Ere I decide, 
I should be glad to know that which is 
being. 
'Tis true we speculate both far and 
wide. 
And deem, because we see, we are 
all- seeing : 
For my part, I'll enlist on neither side, 
Until I see both sides for once agree- 
ing../ 
For me, I sometimes think that Life is 

Death, 
Rather than Life a mere affair of breath. 

XVII. 

"Qwe scais-je?" was the motto of 
Montaigne, 
As also of the first academicians: 
That all is dubious which man may 
attain, 
Was one of their most favourite 
positions. 
There's no such thing as certainty, 
that's plain 
As any of Mortality's conditions; 
So little do we know what we're about in 
This world, I doubt if doubt itself be 
N^ doubting. 

XVIII. 

It is a pleasant voyage perhaps to float, 
Like Pyrrho, on a sea of speculation; 
But what if carrying sail capsize the 
boat? 
Your wise men don't know much of 
navigation; 
And swimming long in the abyss of 
thought 



Is apt to tire: a calm and shallow 

station 
Well nigh the shore, where one stoops i 

down and gathers 
Some pretty shell, is best for moderate 

bathers. 

XIX. 

"But Heaven," as Cassio says, "is 

above all — 
No more of this, then, let us pray!" 

We have 
Souls to save, since Eve's slip and 

Adam's fall. 
Which tumbled all mankind into the 

grave. 
Besides fish, beasts, and birds. "The 

sparrow's fall 
Is special providence," though how 

it gave 
Oft'ence we know not; probably it 

perched 
Upon the tree which Eve so fondly 

searched. 

XX. 

Oh ! ye immortal Gods ! what is 
Theogony ? 
Oh ! thou, too, mortal man ! what is 
Philanthropy ? 

Oh ! World, which was and is, what is 
Cosmogony ? 
Some people have accused me of Mis- 
anthrophy; 

And yet I know no more than the 
mahogany 
That forms this desk, of what they 
mean ; — Lykanthropy 

I comprehend, for without transforma- 
tion 

Men become wolves on any slight occa- 
sion. 

XXI. 

But I, the mildest, meekest of man- 
kind. 
Like Moses, or Melancthon, who 
have ne'er 
Done anything exceedingly unkind, — 
And (though I could not now and 
then forbear 
Following the bent of body or of 
mind) 
Have always had a tendency to 
spare, — 



Canto ix.] 



DON JUAN 



"55 



Why do they call me Misanthrope? 
' Because 

^hey hate me, not I them : — and here 
we'll pause. 

XXII. 

'Tis time we should proceed with our 
good poem, — 
For I maintain that it is really good, 
Not only in the body but the proem. 

However little both are understood 
Just now, — but by and by the Truth 
will show 'em 
Herself in her sublimest attitude: 
And till she doth, I fain must be content 
To share her beauty and her banish- 
ment. 

XXIII. 

Our hero (and, I trust, kind reader ! 
yours) 
Was left upon his way to the chief city 
Of the immortal Peter's polished boors, 
Who still have shown themselves more 
brave than witty. 
I know its mighty Empire now allures 
Much flattery — even Voltaire's, and 
that's a pity. 
For me, I deem an absolute autocrat 
Not a barbarian, but much worse than 
that. 

XXIV. 

And I will war, at least in words (and — 

should 
My chance so happen — deeds), with 

all who war 
With Thought; — and of Thought's foes 

by far most rude, 
Tyrants and sycophants have been 

and are. 
I know not who may conquer: if I 

could 
Have such a prescience, it should be 

no bar 
To this my plain, sworn, downright 

detestation 
Of every despotism in every nation. 

XXV. 

It is not that I adulate the people: 
Without vw, there are demagogues 
enough. 
And infidels, to pull down every steeple. 



And set up in their stead some proper 
stuff. 
Whether they may sow scepticism to 
reap Hell, 
As is the Christian dogma rather 
rough, 
I do not know ; — I wish men to be free 
As much from mobs as kings — from 
you as me. 

XXVI. 

The consequence is, being of no party, 
I shall offend all parties: — never 
mind ! 
My words, at least, are more sincere and 
hearty 
Than if I sought to sail before the 
wind. 
He who has nought to gain can have 
small art: he 
Who neither wishes to be bound or 
bind. 
May still expatiate freely, as will I, 
Nor give my voice to slavery's jackal cry. 



That's an appropriate simile, that 
jackal; — 
I've heard them in the Ephesian 
ruins howl ^ 
By night, as do that mercenary pack all, 
Power's base purveyors, who for 
pickings prowl. 
And scent the prey their masters would 
attack all. 
However, the poor jackals are less foul 
(As being the brave lions' keen pro- 
viders) 
Than human insects, catering for 
spiders. 

XXVIII. 

Raise but an arm ! 'twill brush their 
web away, 
And without that, their poison and 
their claws 
Are useless. Mind, good people ! what 
I say — 
(Or rather Peoples) go on without 
pause ! 
The web of these Tarantulas each day 

' In Greece I never saw or heard these ani- 
mals; but among the ruins of Ephesus I have 
heard them by hunf-'reds. 



iiS6 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ix. 



Increases, till you shall make common 

cause : 
None, save the Spanish Fly and Attic 

Bee, 
As yet are strongly stinging to be free. 



Don Juan, who had shone in the late 

slaughter, 
Was left upon his way with the 

despatch, 
Where blood was talked of as we would 

of water; 
And carcasses that lay as thick as 

thatch 
O'er silenced cities, merely served to 

flatter 
Fair Catherine's pastime — who 

looked on the match 
Between these nations as a main of 

cocks. 
Wherein she liked her own to stand Uke 

rocks. 

XXX. 

And there in a kihitka he rolled on, 
(A cursed sort of carriage without 

springs, 
Which on rough roads leaves scarcely a 

whole bone,) 
Pondering on Glory, Chivalry, and 

Kings, 
And Orders, and on all that he had 

done — 
And wishing that post-horses had the 

wings 
Of Pegasus, or at the least post- 
chaises 
Had feathers, when a traveller on deep 

ways is. 

XXXI. 

At every jolt — and they were many — 
still 
He turned his eyes upon his little 
charge, 
As if he wished that she should fare less 
ill 
Than he, in these sad highways left at 
large 
To ruts, ^nd flints, and lovely Na,ture's 
skill. 
Who is no paviour, nor adrnits a 
barge 



On her canals, where God takes sea and 

land. 
Fishery and farm, both into his own 

hand. 

XXXII. 

At least he pays no rent, and has best 

right 
To be the first of what we used to 

call 
"Gentlemen farmers" — a race worn 

out quite. 
Since lately there have been no rents 

at all. 
And "gentlemen" are in a piteous 

plight, 
And "farmers" can't raise Ceres from 

her fall: 
She fell with Buonaparte. What strange 

thoughts 
Arise, when we see Emperors fall with 

oats! 

XXXIII. 

But Juan turned his eyes on the sweet 

child 
Whom he had saved from slaughter — 

what a trophy ! 
Oh ! ye who build up monuments^ 

defiled 
With gore, like Nadir Shah, that 

costive Sophy, 
Who, after leaving Hindostan a wild, 
And scarce to the Mogul a cup of 

coffee 
To soothe his woes withal, was slain, 

the sinner ! 
Because he could no more digest his 

dinner;^ — 

XXXIV. 

Oh ye ! or we ! or he 1 or she ! reflect, 
That oiie life saved, especially if young 
Or pretty, is a thing to recollect 

Far sweeter than the greenest laurels 
sprung 
From the manure of human clay, though 
decked 
With all the praises ever said or sung: 

I He was killed in a conspiracy, after his 
temper had been exasperated by his extreme 
costivity to a decree of insanity. [Nadir Shah, 
or Thamas Kouli Khan, born November, 1688, 
invaded India, 1739-40, was assassinated June 
19, 1747.] 



~!anto IX.] 



DON JUAN 



"57 



Though hymned by every harp, unless 

within 
i^our heart joins chorus, Fame is but a 

din. 

XXXV. 

Oh! ye great authors luminous, 
voluminous ! 
Ye twice ten hundred thousand daily 
scribes ! 

Whose pamphlets, volumes, newspapers, 
illumine us ! 
Whether you're paid by government 
in bribes, 

To prove the public debt is not con- 
suming us — 
Or, roughly treading on the "courtier's 
kibes" 

With clownish heel, your popular circu- 
lation 

Feeds you by printing half the realm's 
starvation: — 

XXXVI. 

Oh ye great authors ! — A propos des 
hottes, — 
I have forgotten what I meant to say, 
As sometimes have been greater sages' 
lots; — 
'Twas something calculated to allay 
All wrath in barracks, palaces, or 
cots: 
Certes it would have been but thrown 
away, 
And that's one comfort for my lost 

advice. 
Although no doubt it was beyond all 
price. 

XXXVII. 

But let it go: — it will one day be found 
With other relics of "a former 
World," 
When this World shall be former, under- 
ground. 
Thrown topsy-turvy, twisted, crisped, 
and curled, 
Baked, fried, or burnt, turned inside- 
out, or drowned. 
Like all the worlds before, which 
have been hurled 
First out of, and then back again to 

chaos — 
The superstratum which will overlay us. 



So Cuvier says: — and then shall come 
again 
Unto the new creation, rising out 
From our old crash, some mystic, ancient 
strain 
Of things destroyed and left in airy 
doubt ; 
Like to the notions we now entertain 
Of Titans, giants, fellows of about 
Some hundred feet in height, not to say 

miles, 
And mammoths, and your winged 
crocodiles. 

XXXIX. 

Think if then George the Fourth should 



be di 



up! 



How the new worldlings of the then 
new East 
Will wonder where such animals could 
sup! 
(For they themselves will be but of 
the least: 
Even worlds miscarry, when too oft 
they pup. 
And every new creation hath decreased 
In size, from overworking the material — 
Men are but maggots of some huge 
Earth's burial.) 

XL. 

How will — to these young people, just 

thrust out 
From some fresh Paradise, ^nd set to 

plough. 
And dig, and sweat, and turn themselves 

about, 
And plant, and reap, and spiri, and 

grind, and sow. 
Till all the arts at length are brought 

about. 
Especially of War and taxing, — 

how, 
I say, will these great relics, when they 

see 'em. 
Look like the monsters of a new 

Museum ! 

XLI. 

But I am apt to grow too metaphysical: 
"The time is out of joint," — and so 
am I; 



II58 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ix. 



1 



I quite forget this poem's merely 

quizzical, 
And deviate into matters rather dry. 
I ne'er decide what I shall say, and this 

I call 
Much too poetical: men should know 

why 
They write, and for what end; but, note 

or text, 
I never know the word which will come 

next. 

XLII. 

So on I ramble, now and then narrating. 
Now pondering: — it is time we 
should narrate. 
I left Don Juan with his horses baiting — 
Now we'll get o'er the ground at a 
great rate: 
I shall not be particular in stating 
His journey we've so many tours of 
late : 
Suppose him then at Petersburgh; 

suppose 
That pleasant capital of painted snows; 

XLIII. 

Suppose him in a handsome uniform — 
A scarlet coat, black facings, a long 
plume, 
Waving, like sails new shivered in a 
storm. 
Over a cocked hat in a crowded room, 
And brilliant breeches, bright as a Cairn 
Gorme, 
Of yellow casimire we may presume. 
White stockings drawn uncurdled as 

new milk 
O'er limbs whose symmetry set off the 
silk; 

XLIV. 

Suppose him sword by side, and hat in 
hand, 
Made up by Youth, Fame, and an 
army tailor — 
That great enchanter, at whose rod's 
command 
Beauty springs forth, and Nature's 
self turns paler. 
Seeing how Art can make her work 
more grand 
(When she don't pin men's limbs in 
like a gaoler), — 



Behold him placed as if upon a pillar! 

He 
Seems Love turned a Lieutenant of 

Artillery ! 

XLV. 

His bandage slipped down into a cra- 
vat — 
His wings subdued to epaulettes — 

his quiver 
Shrunk to a scabbard, with his arrows 

at 
His side as a small sword, but sharp 

as ever — 
His bow converted into a cocked hat — 
But still so like, that Psyche were 

more clever 
Than some wives (who make blunders 

no less stupid) 
If she had not mistaken him for 

Cupid. 

XLVI. 

The courtiers stared, the ladies whis- 
pered, and 
The Empress smiled: the reigning 
favourite frowned — 

I quite forget which of thern was in 
hand 
Just then, as they are rather numer- 
ous found, ^ 

Who took, by turns, that difficult com- 
mand 
Since first her Majesty was singly 
crowned : ^ 

But they were mostly nervous six- 
foot fellows. 

All fit to make a Patagonian jealous. 



Juan was none of these, but slight and 

slim. 
Blushing and beardless; and, yet, 

ne'ertheless. 
There was a something in his turn of 

limb, 

' [C. F. P. Masson, in his Memoires Secrets, 
etc., 1880, i. 150-178, gives a list of twelve 
favourites, and in this Canto, Don Juan takes 
upon himself the characteristics of at least three, 
Lanskoi, Zoritch (or Zovitch). and Plato Zoubof.] 

= [After the death or murder of her husband, 
Peter III., Catherine Alexievna (1720-1796) 
(born Sophia Augusta"), daughter of the Prince of 
.•\nha't Zcrbst, was solemnly crowned (September, 
1762) Empress of all the Russias,] 



Canto ix.] 



DON JUAN 



1159 



And still more in his eye, which 
seemed to express, 
That, though he looked one of the 
Seraphim, 
There lurked a man beneath the 
Spirit's dress. 
Besides, the Empress sometimes liked 

a boy, 
And had just buried the fair-faced 
Lanskoi.^ 

XLViir. 

No wonder then that Yermoloff, or 
Momonoff,^ 
Or Scherbatoff, or any other ojf 
Or on, might dread her Majesty had 
not room enough 
Within her bosom (which was not 
too tough), 
For a new flame; a thought to cast of 
gloom enough 
Along the aspect, whether smooth 
or rough. 
Of him who, in the language of his 

station. 
Then held that "high official situation." 

XLIX. 

O gentle ladies ! should you seek to know 

The import of this diplomatic phrase, 

Bid Ireland's Londonderry's Marquess ^ 

show 

His parts of speech, and in the strange 

displays 

' He was the grande passion of the grande 
Catherine. See her Lives under the head of 
"Lanskoi." 

["Of all Catherine's favourites, Lanskoi was 
the man whom she loved the most. In 1784 he 
was attacked with a fever, and perished in the 
arms of her Majesty. When he was no more, 
Catherine gave herself up to the most poignant 
grief. . . . She afterwards raised a superb 
monument to his memorv." (See Life of Cath- 
erine II., by \V. Tookc, 1800, iii. 88, 89.)] 

' [Ten months after the death of Lanskoi, the 
Empress consoled herself with lermolof, de- 
scribed as "a modest refined young man, who 
cultivates the society of serious people." In less 
than a year he was, in turn, displaced by Dmi- 
trief Mamonof. But Mamonof suffered from 
"scruples of conscience," and, after a while, 
with Catherine's consent, was happily married 
to the Prince.ss Shtcherbatof, a maid of honour, 
and not, as Byron supposed, a rival "favourite." 
— See The Story of a Throne, by K. Waliszewski, 
1895, ii. 135, sq.] 

3 This was written long before the suicide of 
that person. 



Of that odd string of words, all in a row, 
Which none divine, and every one 
obeys. 
Perhaps you may pick out some queer 

no meaning, — 
Of that weak wordy harvest the sole 
gleaning. 

L. 

I think I can explain myself without 

That sad inexplicable beast of prey — 
That Sphinx, whose words would ever 
be a doubt, 
Did not his deeds unriddle them each 
day — 
That monstrous hieroglyphic -^ that 
long spout 
Of blood and water — leaden Castle- 
reagh ! 
And here I must an anecdote relate. 
But luckily of no great length or weight. 

LI. 

An English lady asked of an Italian, 
What were the actual and official 
duties 

Of the strange thing some women set a 
value on, 
W^hich hovers oft about some married 
beauties. 

Called "Cavalier Servente?" — a Pyg- 
malion 
Whose statues warm (I fear, alas ! 
too true 'tis) 

Beneath his art : — the dame, pressed 
to disclose them, 

Said — "Lady, I beseech you to sup- 
pose them." 

LII. 

And thus I supplicate your suppo- 
sition, 
And mildest, matron-like interpre- 
tation. 
Of the imperial favourite's condition. 
'Twas a high place, the highest in the 
nation 
In fact, if not in rank; and the sus- 
picion 
Of any one's attaining to his station. 
No doubt gave pain, where each new 

pair of shoulders. 
If rather broad, made stocks rise — and 
their holders. 



ii6o 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ix. 



LIII. 

Juan, i said, was a most beauteous boy. 
And had retained his boyish look 
beyond 
The usual hirsute seasons whicli destroy 
With beards and whiskers, and the 
like, the fond 
Parisian aspect, which upset old Troy 
And founded Doctors' Commons: — • 
I have conned 
The history of divorces, which, though 

chequered. 
Calls Ilion's the first damages on record. 

LIV. 

And Catherine, who loved all things 
(save her Lord, 
Who was gone to his place), and 
passed for much. 
Admiring those (by dainty dames 
abhorred) 
Gigantic gentlemen, yet had a touch 
Of sentiment ; and he she most adored 
Was the lamented Lanskoi, who was 
such 
A lover as had cost her many a tear, 
And yet but made a middling grenadier. 



Oh thou " teterrima catcsa^' of all 

"belli" — ' 
Thou gate of Life and Death — thou 

nondescript ! 
Whence is our exit and our entrance, — 

well I 
May pause in pondering how all 

souls are dipped 
In thy perennial fountain : — how man 

felll 
Know not, since Knowledge saw her 

branches stripped 
Of her first fruit ; but how he falls and 

rises 
Since, — thou hast settled beyond all 

surmises. 

LVI. 

Some call thee "the worst cause of War, 
but I 
Maintain thou art the best: for after 
all, 

' Hor., Sat., lib. i. sat. iii. lines 107, 108. 



From thee we come, to thee we go, atid 

why 
To get at thee not batter down a 

wall, 
Or waste a World ? since no one can 

deny 
Thou dost replenish worlds both 

great and small: 
With — or wfthout thee — all things at 

a stand 
Are, or would be, thou sea of Life's 

dry land ! 

LVII. 

Catherine, who was the grand Epitome 
Of that great cause of War, or Peace,' 
or what 
You please (it causes all the things 
which be, 
So you may take your choice of this 
or that) — 
Catherine, I say, was very glad to see 
The handsome herald, on whose 
plumage sat 
Victory; and, pausing as she saw him 

kneel 
With his despatch, forgot to break the 
seal. 

LVIII. 

Then recollecting the whole Empress nor 
Forgetting quite the Woman (which 

composed 
At least three parts of this great whole) 

she tore 
The letter open with an air vi'hich 

posed 
The Court, that watched each lobk 

her visage wore, 
Until a royal smile at length dis- 
closed 
Fair weather for the day. Though 

rather spacious. 
Her face was noble, her eyes fine, mouth 

gracious. 

LIX. 

Great joy was hers, or rather joys: 
the first 
Was a ta'en city, thirty thousand 
slain : 
Glory and triumph o'er her aspfect burst, 
As an East Indian sunrise on the 
main : — 



Canto ix.] 



DON JUAN 



1161 



These quenched a moment her Ambi- 
tion's thirst — ^ 
So Arab deserts drink in Summers 
rain : 

In vain ! — As fall the dews on quench- 
less sands, 

Blood only serves to wash Ambition's 
hands 1 

LX. 

Her next amusement was more fanciful; 
She smiled at mad Suwarrow's 
rhymes, who threw 
Into a Russian couplet rather dull 
The whole gazette of thousands whom 
he slew : 
Her third was feminine enough to 
annul 
The shudder which runs naturally 
through 
Our veins, when things called Sovereign 

think it best 
To kill, and Generals turn it into 
jest. 

LXI. 

The two first feelings ran their course 
complete, 
And Hghted first her eye, and then 
her mouth: 
The whole court looked immediately 
most sweet, 
Like flowers well watered after a 
long drouth : — 
But when on the Lieutenant at her feet 
Her Majesty, who liked to gaze on 
vouth 
Almost as much as on a new despatch, 
Glanced mildly, — all the world was 
on the watch. 

LXII. 

Though somewhat large, exuberant, 
and truculent. 
When i£T(>//t — while pleased, she 
was as fine a figure 
As those who like things rosy, ripe, 
and succulent. 
Would wish to look on, while they 
are in vigour. 
She could repay each amatory look you 
lent 
With interest, and, in turn, was wont 
with rigour 



To exact of Cupid's bills the full amount 
At sight, nor would permit you to 
discount. 

LXIII. 

With her the latter, though at times 
convenient. 
Was not so necessary; for they tell 
That she was handsome, and though 
fierce looked lenient, 
And always used her favourites too 
well. 
If once beyond her boudoir's precincts 
in ye went, ^ 

Your "fortune" was in a fair way ' to 
swell 
A man" (as Giles says) ; for though she 

would widow all 
Nations, she liked Man as an individual. 

LXIV. 

What a strange thing is Man! and 
what a stranger 
Is Woman ! What a whirlwind is her 
head , 

And what a whirlpool full of depth and 
danger 
Is all the rest about her! Whether 
wed, 
Or widow — maid — or mother, she 
can change her 
Mind like the wind : whatever she has 
said 
Or done, is light to what she 11 say or 
do;— , , 

The oldest thing on record, and yet new ! 

LXV. 

Oh Catherine ! (for of all interjections. 
To thee both oh! and ah! belong, 
of right, 
In Love and War) how odd are the 
connections 
Of human thoughts, which jostle in 
their flight! 
Just now yours were cut out in different 
sections : 
First Ismail's capture caught your 
fancy quite; 
Next of new knights, the fresh and 

glorious batch: 
And thirdly he who brought you the 
despatch ! 



Il62 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ix. 



Shakespeare talks of "the herald 

Mercury 
New lighted on a heaven-kissing 

hill": 
And some such visions crossed her 

Majesty, 
While her young herald knelt before 

her still. 
'Tis very true the hill seemed rather 

high, 
For a Lieutenant to climb up; but 

skill 
Smoothed even the Simplon's steep, 

and by God's blessing. 
With Youth and Health all kissses are 

"Heaven-kissing." 



Her Majesty looked down, the youth 

looked up — 
And so they fell in love ; — she with 

his face, 
His grace, his God-knows-what : for 

Cupid's cup 
With the first draught intoxicates 

apace, 
A quintessential laudanum or "Black 

Drop," 
Which makes one drunk at once, 

without the base 
Expedient of full bumpers; for the 

eye 
In love drinks all Life's fountains 

(save tears) dry. 

LXVIII. 

He, on the other hand, if not in 

love, 
Fell into that no less imperious pas- 
sion, 
Self-love — which, when some sort of 

thing above 
Ourselves, a singer, dancer, much in 

fashion. 
Or Duchess — Princess — Empress, 

"deigns to prove" 
('Tis Pope's phrase) a great longing 

though a rash one, 
For one especial person out of many, 
Makes us believe ourselves as good as 

any. 



Besides, he was of that delighted age 
Which makes all female ages equal — 
when 
We don't much care with whom we may 
engage, 
As bold as Daniel in the lions' den, 
So that we can our native sun assuage ., 
In the next ocean, which may flow 
just then — 
To make a twilight in, just as Sol's 

' heat is 
Quenched in the lap of the salt sea, or 
Thetis. 



And Catherine (we must say thus much 
for Catherine), 
Though bold and bloody, was the 
kind of thing 
Whose temporary passion was quite 
flattering. 
Because each lover looked a sort of 
King, 
Made up upon an amatory pattern, 

A royal husband in all save the.riii^i— 
Which, (being the damnedest part..xi£. 

matrimony,) 
Seemed taking out the sting to leave the 
honey : 

LXXI. 

And when you add to this, her Woman- 
hood 
In its meridian, her blue eyes or 
gray — 
(The last, if they have soul, are quite 
as good. 
Or better, as the best examples say : 
Napoleon's Mary's (Queen of Scotland), 
should 
Lend to that colour a transcendent 
ray; 
And Pallas also sanctions the same hue, 
Too wise to look through optics black 
or blue) — 

LXXII. 

Her sweet smile, and her then majestic 
figure. 
Her plumpness, her imperial con- 
descension, 

Her preference of a boy to men much 
bigger 



Canto ix.] 



DON JUAN 



1 163 



(Fellows whom Messalina's self would 
pension), 
Her prime of life, just now in juicy vigour, 
With other extras, which we need not 
mention, — 
All these, or any one of these, explain 
Enough to make a stripling very vain. 

LXXIII. 

And that's enough, for Love is vanity, 

Selfish in its beginning as its end, 
Except where 'tis a mere insanity, 
A maddening spirit which would 
strive to blend 
Itself with Beauty's frail inanity, 

On which the Passion's self seems to 
depend; 
And hence some heathenish philosophers 
Make Love the main-spring of the 
Universe. 

LXXIV. 

Besides Platonic love, besides the love 
Of God, the love of sentiment, the 

loving 
Of faithful pairs — (I needs must rhyme 

with dove. 
That good old steam-boat which 

keeps verses moving 
'Gainst reason — Reason ne'er was 

hand-and-glove 
With rhyme, but always leant less to 

improving 
The sound than sense") — besides all 

these pretences 
To Love, there are those things which 

words name senses; 

LXXV. 

Those movements, those improvements 

in our bodies 
Which make all bodies anxious to 

get out 
Of their own sand-pits, to mix with a 

goddess. 
For such all women are at first no 

doubt. 
How beautiful that moment ! and how 

odd is 
That fever which precedes the languid 

rout 
Of our sensations ! What a curious way 
The whole thing is of clothing souls in 

clav ! 



LXXVI. 

The noblest kind of love is love Platoni- 

cal. 
To end or to begin with; the next 

grand 
Is that which may be christened love 

canonical. 
Because the clergy take the thing in 

hand; 
The third sort to be noted in our 

chronicle 
As flourishing in every Christian land, 
Is when chaste matrons to their other 

ties 
Add what may be called marriage in 

disguise. 

LXXVII. 

Well, we won't analyse — our story 

must 
Tell for itself: the Sovereign was 

smitten, 
Juan much flattered by her love, or 

lust; — 
I cannot stop to alter words once 

written, 
And the two are so mixed with human 

dust. 
That he who names one, both per- 
chance may hit on: 
But in such matters Russia's mighty 

Empress 
Behaved no better than a common 

sempstress. 

LXXVIII. 

The whole court melted into one wide 
whisper, 
And all lips were applied unto all ears ! 
The elder ladies' wrinkles curled much 
crisper 
As they beheld; the younger cast 
some leers 
On one another, and each lovely lisper 
Smiled as she talked the matter o'er; 
but tears 
Of rivalship rose in each clouded eye 
Of all the standing army who stood by. 

LXXIX. 

All the ambassadors of all the powers 
Inquired, Who was this very new 
young man. 



1 164 



DON JUAN 



[Canto ix. 



Who promised to be great in some few- 
hours ? 
Which is full soon (though Life is 
but a span). 
Already they beheld the silver showers 

Of rubles rain, as fast as specie can, 
. Upon his cabinet, besides the presents 
Of several ribands, and some thousand 
peasants.* 

LXXX. 

Catherine was generous, — all such 

ladies are: 
Love — that great opener of the 

heart and all 
The ways that lead there, be they near 

or far. 
Above, below, by turnpikes great or 

small, — 
Love — (though she had a cursed taste 

for War, 
And was not the best wife unless we 

call 
Such Clytemnestra, though perhaps 'tis 

better 
That one should die — than two drag 

on the fetter) — 

LXXXI. 

Love had made Catherine make each 
lover's fortune, 
Unlike our own half-chaste Elizabeth, 
Whose avarice all disbursements did 
importune. 
If History, the grand liar, ever saith 
The truth; and though grief her old 
age might shorten. 
Because she put a favourite to death, 
Her vile, ambiguous method of flirtation, 
And stinginess, disgrace her sex and 
station. 

LXXXII. 

But when the levee rose, and all was 
bustle 
In the dissolving circle, all the nations' 
Ambassadors began as 'twere to hustle 
Round the young man with their con- 
gratulations. 
Also the softer silks were heard to rustle 
Of gentle dames, among whose recre- 
ations 

* A Russian estate is always valued by the 
number of the slaves upon it. 



It is to speculate on handsome faces, 
Especially when such lead to high 
places. 

LXXXIII. 

Juan, who found himself, he knew not 
how, 
A general object of attention, made 
His answers with a very graceful bow. 
As if born for the ministerial trade. 
Though modest, on his unembarrassed 
brow 
Nature had written "Gentleman!" 
He said 
Little, but to the purpose; and his 

manner 
Flung hovering graces o'er him hke a 
banner. 

LXXXIV. 

An order from her Majesty consigned 
Our young Lieutenant to the genial 
care 
Of those in office: all the world looked 
kind, 
(As it will look sometimes with the 
first stare. 
Which Youth would qot act ill to keep 
- in mind,) 

As also did Miss Protasoff * then 
there, 
Named from her mystic office "I'Eprou- 

veuse," 
A term inexplicable to the Muse. 



With her then, as in humble duty 

bound, 
Juan retired, — and so will I, until 
My Pegasus shall tire of touching 

ground. 
We have just lit on a "heaven-kissing 

hill," 
So lofty that I feel my brain turn 

round. 
And all my fancies whirling like a 

mill; 
W^hich is a signal to my nerves and 

brain. 
To take a quiet ride in some green 

lane. 

' [The "Protassova" (bom 1744) was a cousin 
of the Orlofs. She is named V e prouveuse in a 
note to the Memoires Secrets, 1800, i. 148.] 



Canto x.] 



DON JUAN 



1 165 



CANTO THE TENTH. 



When Newton saw an apple fall, he 
found 
In that slight startle from his con- 
templation — 
'Tis said (for I'll not answer above 
ground 
For any sage's creed or calculation) — 
A mode of proving that the Earth 
turned round 
In a most natural whirl, called ''gravi- 
tation"; 
And this is the sole mortal who could 

grapple, 
Since Adam — with a fall — or with an 
apple. 

II. 

Man fell with apples, and with apples 
rose, 
If this be true; for we must deem 
the mode 
In which Sir Isaac Newton could dis- 
close 
Through the then unpaved stars <he 
turnpike road, 
A thing to counterbalance human woes: 
For, ever since, immortal man hath 
glowed 
With all kinds of mechanics, and full 

soon 
Steam-engines will conduct him to the 
moon. 

III. 

And wherefore this exordium ? — Why, 

just now, 

In taking up this paltry sheet of paper, 

My bosom underwent a glorious glow, 

And my internal spirit cut a caper: 

And though so much inferior, as I know, 

To those who, by the dint of glass and 

vapour, 

Discover stars, and sail in the wind's 

eye, 
I wish to do as much by Poesy. 



In the wind's eye I have sailed, and 
sail; but for 
The stars, I own my telescope is dim; 



But at the least I have shunned the 

common shore. 
And leaving land far out of sight, 

would skim 
The Ocean of Eternity : ^ the roar 

Of breakers has not daunted my 

slight, trim. 
But still sea-worthy skiff; and she may 

float 
Where ships have foundered, as doth 

many a boat. 

V. 

We left our hero, Juan, in the bloom 
Of favouritism, but not yet in the 
blush ; — 
And far be it from my Muses to presume 
(For I have more than one Muse at 
a push). 
To follow him beyond the drawing- 
room : 
It is enough that Fortune found him 
flush 
Of Youth, and Vigour, Beauty, and 

those things 
Which for an instant clip Enjoyment's 
wings. ' 

i^,:,j -' :' U' vi. . 

l^ut soon they grow again and leave 

their nest. 
" Oh ! " saith the Psalmist, "that I had 

a dove's 
Pinions to flee away, and be at rest!" 
And who that recollects young years 

and loves, — 
Though hoary now, and with a withering 

breast. 
And palsied Fancy, which no longer 

roves 
Beyond its dimmed eye's sphere, — 

but would much rather 
Sigh like his son, than cough Jijce his 

grandfather ? 

VII. 

But sighs subside, and tears (even 
widows') shrink. 
Like Arno ^ in the summer, to a 
shallow, 

'[Shelley entitles him "The Pilgrim of Eter- 
nity," in his AJonais (stanza .\xx. line 3), which 
was written and published at Pisa in 182 1.] 

' [Byron left Pisa (Palazzo Lanfranchi on the 
Arno) for the Villa Saluzzo at Genoa, in the 
autumn of 1822.] 



[66 



DON JUAN 



[Canto x. 



So narrow as to shame their wintry 
brink, 
Which threatens inundations deep 
and yellow ! 
Such difference doth a few months 
make. You'd think 
Grief a rich field which never would 
lie fallow; 
No more it doth — its ploughs but 

change their boys, 
Who furrow some new soil to sow for 
joys. 

VIII. 

But coughs will come when sighs 

depart — and now 
And then before sighs cease; for oft 

the one 
Will bring the other, ere the lake-like 

brow 
Is ruffled by a wrinkle, or the Sun 
Of Life reached ten o'clock: and while 

a glow. 
Hectic and brief as summer's day 

nigh done, 
O'erspreads the cheek which seems too 

pure for clay. 
Thousands blaze, love, hope, die, — 

how happy they ! — 



But Juan was not meant to die so 
soon: — 
We left him in the focus of such glory 
As may be won by favour of the moon 

Or ladies' fancies — rather transitory 

Perhaps; but who would scorn the 

month of June, 

Because December, with his breath 

so hoary, 

Must come? Much rather should he 

court the ray, 
To hoard up warmth against a wintry 
day. 

X. 

Besides, he had some qualities which 
fix 
Middle-aged ladies even more than 
young : 
The former know what's what; while 
new-fledged chicks 
Know little more of Love than what 
is sung 



In rhymes, or dreamt (for Fancy will 

play tricks) 
In visions of those skies from whence 

Love sprung. 
Some reckon women by their suns or 

years, 
I rather think the Moon should date 

the dears. 

XI. 

And why? because she's changeable 
and chaste: 
I know no other reason, whatsoe'er 
Suspicious people, who find fault in 
haste, 
May choose to tax me with; which 
is not fair, 
Nor flattering to "their temper or their 
taste," 
As my friend Jeffrey writes with such 
an air: 
However, I forgive him, and I trust 
He will forgive himself; — if not, I must. 



Old enemies who have become new 

friends 
Should so continue — 'tis a point of 

honour; 
And I know nothing which could make 

amends 
For a return to Hatred: I would shun 

her 
Like garlic, howsoever she extends 
Her hundred arms and legs, and 

fain outrun her. 
Old flames, new wives, become our 

bitterest foes — 
Converted foes should scorn to join 

with those. 

XIII. 

This were the worst desertion: — 
renegadoes, 
Even shuffling Southey, that incar- 
nate lie, 
Would scarcely join again the "reforma- 
does, " ^ 
Whom he forsook to fill the Laureate's 
sty; 

'" Reformers." or rather "Reformed." The 
Baron Bradwardinc in Wavcrley is authority for 
the word [not the Baron, but Reginald Lowe- 
stoffe, in the Fortunes ojf Nigel.] 



Canto x.] 



DON JUAN 



1 167 



i And honest men from Iceland to Bar- 

badoes, 
j Whether in Caledon or Italy, 
J Should not veer round with every breath, 
j nor seize 

1 To pain, the moment when you cease to 

please. 

XIV. 

The lawyer and the critic but behold 

The baser sides of literature and life, 
And nought remains unseen, but much 
untold, 
By those who scour those double 
vales of strife; 
While common men grow ignorantly old, 
The lawyer's brief is like the surgeon's 
knife, 
Dissecting the whole inside of a ques- 
tion, 
And with it all the process of digestion. 



A legal broom's a moral chimney- 
sweeper, 
And that's the reason he himsclf's so 

dirty ; 
The endless soot ^ bestows a tint far 

deeper , 

Than can be hid by altering his shirt; 

he 
Retains the sable stains of the dark 

creeper. 
At least some twenty-nine do out of 

thirty, 
In all their habits; — not so you, I own; 
As Cxsar wore his robe you wear your 

gown. 

XVI. 

And all our little feuds, at least all mine, 
Dear Jeffrey, once my most redoubted 
foe 
(As far as rhyme and criticism combine 
To make such puppets of us things 
below). 
Are over: Here's a health to "Auld 
Lang Syne !" 
I do not know you, and may never 
know 
Your face — but you have acted on the 

whole 
Most nobly, and I own it from my soul. 

' Query, suit ? — Printer's Devil. 



And when I use the phrase of "Auld 
Lang Syne !" 
'Tis not addressed to you — the 
more's the pity 
For me, for I would rather take my wine 
With you, than aught (save Scott) in 
your proud city : 
But somehow it may seem a schoolboy's 
whine 
And yet I seek not to be grand nor 
witty. 
But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred 
A whole one, and my heart flies to my 
head, — 

XVIII. 

As "Auld Lang Syne" brings Scotland, 

one and all, 
Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue 

hills, and clear streams, 
The Dee — the Don — Balgounie's 

brig's black wall — ^ 
All my boy feelings, all my gentler 

dreams 
Of what I then dreamt, clothed in their 

own pall, — 
Like Banquo's off"spring — floating 

past me seems 
My childhood, in this childishness of 

mine : — 
I care not — 'tis a glimpse of " Auld 

Lang Syne." 

XIX. 

And though, as you remember, in a fit 
Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile 
and curly, 
I railed at Scots to show my wrath and 
wit, 
W^hich must be owned was sensitive 
and surly, 

• The brig of Don, near the "auld toun" of 
Aberdeen, with its one arch, and its black deep 
salmon stream below, is in my memory as yester- 
day. I still remember, though perhaps I may 
misquote, the awful proverb which made me 
pause to cross it, and yet lean over it with a 
childish delight being an only son, at least by 
the mother's side. The saying as recollected 
by me Vvas this, but I have never heard or seen 
it since I was nine years of age : — 

"Brig of Balgounie, black's your iva', 

Wi' a wife's ae son, and a mear's ae foal, 

Doun ye shall fa' 1" 



:6B 



DON JUAN 



[Canto x. 



Yet 'tis in vain such sallies to permit, 
They cannot quench young feelings 

fresh and early : 
I "scotched not killed" the Scotchman in 

my blood, 
And love the land of "mountain and of 

flood." 



Don Juan who was real, or ideal, — 
For both are much the same, since 
what men think 
Exists when the once thinkers are less 
real 
Than what they thought, for Mind 
can never sink. 
And 'gainst the Body makes a strong 
appeal ; 
And yet 'tis very puzzling on the 
brink 
Of what is called Eternity to stare, 
And know no more of what is here, than 
there ; — 

XXI. 

Don Juan grew a very polished Rus- 
sian — 
How we won't mention, why we need 

not say: 
Few youthful minds can stand the 

strong concussion 
Of any slight temptation in their way ; 
But his just now were spread as is a 

cushion 
Smoothed for a Monarch's seat of 

honour: gay 
Damsels, and dances, revels, ready 

money. 
Made ice seem Paradise, and winter 

sunny. 

XXII. 

The favour of the Empress was agree- 
able ; " 
And though the duty waxed a little 
hard, 
Young people at his time of life should 
be able 
To come off handsomely in that 
regard. 
He was now grovdng up like a green 
tree, able 
For Love, War, or Ambition, which 
reward 



Their luckier votaries, till old Age's 

tedium 
Make some prefer the circulating 

medium. 

XXIII. 

About this time as might have been 
anticipated, 
Seduced by Youth and dangerous 
examples, 

Don Juan grew, I fear, a little dissi- 
pated ; 
Which is a sad thing, and not only 
tramples 

On our fresh feelings, but — as being 
participated 
With all kinds of incorrigible samples 

Of frail humanity — must make us 
selfish. 

And shut our souls up in us like a shell- 
fish. 

XXIV. 

This we pass over. We will also pass 
The usual progress of intrigues be- 
tween 
Unequal matches, such as are, alas ! 
A young Lieutenant's with a not old 
Queen, 
But one who is not so youthful as she 
was 
In all the royalty of sweet seventeen. 
Sovereigns may sway materials, but not 
matter, 

And wrinkles, the d d democrats ! 

won't flatter. 



And Death, the Sovereign's Sovereign, 
though the great 
Gracchus of all mortality, who levels, 
With his Agrarian laws,^ the high estate 
Of him who feasts, and fights, and 
roars, and revels, 
To one small grass-grown patch (which 
must await 
Corruption for its crop) with the poor 
devils 

' Tiberius Gracchus, being tribune of the 
people, demanded in their name the execution of 
the Agarian law; by which all persons possessing 
above a certain number of acres were to be de- 
prived of the surplus 2or the benefit of the poor 
citizens. 



Canto x.] 



DON JUAN 



1169 



Who never had a foot of land till 

now, — 
Death's a reformer — all men must 

allow. 

XXVI. 

He lived (not Death, but Juan) in a 

hurry 
Of waste, and haste, and glare, and 

gloss, and glitter. 
In this gay clime of bear-skins black 

and furry — 
Which (though I hate to say a thing 

that's bitter) 
Peep out sometimes, when things are in 

a flurry, 
Though all the "purple and fine 

linen," fitter 
For Babylon's than Russia's royal 

harlot — 
And neutralise her outward show of 

scarlet. 

XXVII. 

And this same state we won't describe: 

we would 
Perhaps from hearsay, or from 

recollection ; 
But getting nigh grim Dante's "obscure 

wood," ^ 
That horrid equinox, that hateful 

section 
Of human years — that half-way house 

— that rude 
Hut, whence wise travellers drive with 

circumspection 
Life's sad post-horses o'er the dreary 

frontier 
Of Age, and looking back to Youth, give 

one tear ; — 

XXVIII. 

I won't describe, — that is, if I can help 
Description; and I won't reflect, — 
that is. 
If I can stave of! thought, which — as 
a whelp 
Clings to its teat — sticks to me 
through the abyss 
Of this odd labyrinth; or as the kelp 
Holds by the rock ; or as a lover's kiss 

»"Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura." 

— Inferno, Canto I. line 2. 

4F 



Drains its first draught of lips : — but, as 

I said, 
I wo^i't philosophise, and "wiU be read. 

XXIX. 

Juan, instead of courting courts, was 

courted, — 
A thing which happens rarely: this 

he owed 
Much to his ■ youth, and much to his 

reported 
Valour; much also to the blood he 

showed. 
Like a race-horse; much to each dress 

he sported. 
Which set the beauty off in which he 

glowed. 
As purple clouds befringe the sun ; but 

most 
He owed to an old woman and his post. 



He wrote to Spain ; — and all his near 
relations, 
Perceiving he was in a handsome way 
Of getting on himself, and finding sta- 
tions 
For cousins also, answered the same 
day. 
Several prepared themselves for emigra- 
tions; 
And eating ices, were o'erheard to say, 
That with the addition of a slight 

pelisse, 
Madrid's and Moscow's climes were of a 
piece. 

XXXI. 

His mother, Donna Inez, finding, too. 
That in the lieu of drawing on his 

banker. 
Where his assets were waxing rather 

few. 
He had brought his spending to a 

handsome anchor, — 
Replied, "that she was glad to see him 

through 
Those pleasures after which wild 

youth will hanker; 
As the sole sign of Man's being in his 

senses 
Is — learning to reduce his past ex- 
penses. 



lyo 



DON JUAN 



[Canto x. 



XXXII. 

"She also recommended him to God, 
And no less to God's Son, as well as 
Mother, 
Warned him against Greek worship, 
which looks odd 
In Catholic eyes; but told him too, to 
smother 
Outward dislike, which don't look well 
abroad ; 
Informed him that he had a little 
brother 
Born in a second wedlock; and above 
All, praised the Empress's maternal 
love. 

XXXIII. 

"She could not too much give her 

approbation 
Unto an Empress, who preferred 

young men 
Whose age, and what was better still, 

whose nation 
And climate, stopped all scandal 

(now and then) ; — 
At home it might have given her some 

vexation ; 
But where thermometers sink down 

to ten, 
Or five, or one, or zero, she could never 
Believe that Virtue thawed before the 

river." 

XXXIV. 

Oh for a forty-parson power ^ to chant 
Thy praise, Hypocrisy ! Oh for a 
hymn 
Loud as the virtues thou dost loudly 
vaunt. 
Not practise ! Oh for trump of 
Cherubim ! 
Or the ear-trumpet of my good old aunt, 
Who, though her spectacles at last 
grew dim. 
Drew quiet consolation through its 

hint, 
When she no more could read the pious 
print. 

'A metaphor taken from the "forty-horse 
power" of a steam-engine. That mad wag, the 
Reverend Sydney Smith, sitting by a brother 
clergyman at dinner, observed afterwards that 
his dull neighbour had a '"twelve-parson power" 
of conversation. 



She was no Hypocrite at least, poor 
soul 
But went to heaven in as sincere a way 
As anybody on the elected roll. 

Which portions out upon the Judg- 
ment Day 
Heaven's freeholds, in a sort of Dooms- 
day scroll. 
Such as the conqueror William did 
repay 
His knights with, lotting others' proper- 
ties 
Into some sixty thousand new knights' 
fees. 

XXXVI. 

I can't complain, whose ancestors are 

there, 
Erneis, Radulphus — eight-and-forty 

manors . 
(If that my memory doth not greatly err) 
Were their reward for following 

Billy's banners: 
And though I can't help thinking 'twas 

scarce fair 
To strip the Saxons of their hydes,^ 

like tanners; 
Yet as they founded churches with the 

produce. 
You'll deem, no doubt, they put it to a 

good use. 

XXXVII. 

The gentle Juan flourished, though at 

times 
He felt like other plants called sensir 

tive. 
Which shrink from touch, as Monarchs 

do from rhymes. 
Save such as Southey can afford to 

give. 
Perhaps he longed in bitter frosts for 

climes 
In which the Neva's ice would cease 

to live 
Before May-day : perhaps, despite his 

duty, 
In Royalty's vast arms he sighed for 

Beauty : 

' "Hyde." — I believe a hyde of land to be a 
legitimate word, and, as such, subject to the tax 
of a quibble. 



Canto x.] 



DON JUAN 



1171 



XXXVIII. 

Perhaps — but, sans perhaps, we need 

not seek 
For causes young or old : the canker- 
worm 
Will feed upon the fairest, freshest 

cheek, 
As well as further drain the withered 

form: 
Care, like a housekeeper, brings every 

week 
His bills in, and however we may 

storm, 
They must be paid : though six days 

smoothly run, 
The seventh will bring blue devils or a 

dun. 

XXXIX. 

I don't know how it was, but he grew 
sick: 
The Empress was alarmed, and her 
physician 

(The same who physicked Peter) found 
the tick 
Of his fierce pulse betoken a condi- 
tion 

Which augured of the dead, however 
quick 
Itself, and showed a feverish disposi- 
tion; 

At which the whole Court was extremely 
troubled, 

The Sovereign shocked, and all his 
medicines doubled. 

XL. 

Low were the whispers, manifold the 
rumours : 
Some said he had been poisoned by 
Potcmkin; 

Others talked learnedly of certain 
tumours, 
Exhaustion, or disorders of the same 
kin; 

Some said 'twas a concoction of the 
humours, 
Which with the blood too readily will 
claim kin: 

Others again were ready to main- 
tain, 

*"Twas only the fatigue of last cam- 
paign." 



But here is one prescription out of 

many: 
"SodcB sulphat. 3vj 3Js. Manna 

optim. 
Aq. fervent. F. ^iJs- 3y. tinct. Senna 
Haustus" (And here the surgeon 

came and cupped him) 
"R Ptilv. Com. gr. iij. Ipecactianhcs" 
(With more beside if Juan had not 

stopped 'em). 
"Bolus PotasscB Sulphuret. sumendus, 
Et haustus ter in die capiendus." 

XLII. 

This is the way physicians mend or end 
us. 
Secundum artem: but although we 
sneer 
In health — when ill, we call them to 
attend us, 
Without the least propensity to jeer; 
While that "hiatus maxime deflendus" 
To be filled up by spade or mattock's 
near, 
Instead of gliding graciously down 

Lethe, 
We tease mild Baillie,^ or soft Abernethy. 

XLIU. 

Juan demurred at this first notice to 
Quit; and though Death had threat- 
ened an ejection, 
His youth and constitution bore him 
through, 
And sent the doctors in a new direc- 
tion . 
But still his state was delicate : the hue 
Of health but flickered with a faint 
reflection 
Along his wasted cheek, and seemed to 

gravel 
The faculty — who said that he must 
travel. 

XLIV. 

The chmate was too cold, they said, for 
him, 

' [Matthew Baillie {1761-1823), the nephew of 
William Hunter, the brotlier of Agnes and Joanna 
Baillie, was a celebrated anatomist. "Mild" 
Baillie, and "soft" Abernethy must be taken 
per contra.] 



II72 



DON JUAN 



[Canto x. 



Meridian-born, to bloom in. This 
opinion 
Made the chaste Catherine look a little 
grim, 
Who did not like at first to lose her 
minion : 
But when she saw his dazzling eye wax 
dim. 
And drooping like an eagle's with 
cHpt pinion, 
She then resolved to send him on a 

mission. 
But in a style becoming his condition. 



There was just then a kind of a discus- 
sion, 
A sort of treaty or negotiation. 
Between the British cabinet and 
Russian, 
Maintained with all the due prevari- 
cation 
With which great states such things are 
apt to push on; 
Something about the Baltic's naviga- 
tion. 
Hides, train-oil, tallow, and the rights of 

Thetis, 
Which Britons deem their uti possidetis. 

XL VI. 

So Catherine, who had a handsome 
way 
Of fitting out her favourites, conferred 
This secret charge on Juan, to display 
At once her royal splendour, and 
reward 
His services. He kissed hands the next 
day. 
Received instructions how to play his 
card. 
Was laden with all kinds of gifts and 

honours, 
Which showed what great discernment 
was the donor's. 



But she was lucky, and luck's all. 
Your Queens 
Are generally prosperous in reign- 
ing — 

Which puzzles us to know what Fortune 
means : — 



But to continue — though her years 
were waning. 
Her climacteric teased her like her 
teens; 
And though her dignity brooked no 
complaining, 
So much did Juan's setting off distress 

her. 
She could not find at first a fit successor. 



But Time, the comforter, will come at 
last; 
And four-and-twenty hours, and twice 
that number 
Of candidates requesting to be placed, 
Made Catherine taste next night a 
quiet slumber: — 
Not that she meant to fix again in haste. 
Nor did she find the quantity en- 
cumber. 
But always choosing with deliberation. 
Kept the place open for their emulation. 



While this high post of honour's in 
abeyance. 
For one or two days, reader, we re- 
quest 
You'll mount with our young hero the 
conveyance 
Which wafted him from Petersburgh : 
the best 
Barouche, which had the glory to dis- 
play once 
The fair Czarina's autocratic crest. 
When, a new Iphigene, she went to 

Tauris, 
Was given to her favourite,* and now 
hore his. 

L. 

A bull-dog, and a bullfinch, and an 
ermine. 
All private favourites of Don Juan ; — 
for 
(Let deeper sages the true cause 
determine) 
He had a kind of inclination, or 
Weakness, for what most people deem 
mere vermin, 

' The empress went to the Crimea, accom- 
panied by the Emperor Joseph, in the year — 
I forget which. 



Ganto X.] 



DON JUAN 



1173 



Live animals: an old maid of three- 
score 

For cats and birds more penchant ne'er 
displayed, 

Although he was not old, nor even a 
maid ; — 

LI. 

The animals aforesaid occupied 

Their station : there were valets, 
secretaries, 
In other vehicles ; but at his side 

Sat little Leila, who survived the 
parries 
He made 'gainst Cossacque sabres in 
the wide 
Slaughter of Ismail. Though my 
wild Muse varies 
Her note, she don't forget the infant 

girl 
Whom he preserved, a pure and living 
pearl. 

LII. 

Poor little thing ! She was as fair as 
docile, 
And with that gentle, serious char- 
acter. 
As rare in living beings as a fossile 
Man, 'midst thy mouldy mammoths, 
"grand Cuvier !" 
Ill fitted was her ignorance to jostle 
With this o'erwhelming world, where 
all must err: 
But she was yet but ten years old, and 

therefore 
Was tranquil, though she knew not why 
or wherefore. 



Don Juan loved her, and she loved him, 
as 
Nor brother, father, sister, daughter 
love. — 
I cannot tell exactly what it was; 
He was not yet quite old enough to 
prove 
Parental feelings, and the other class, 
Called brotherly affection, could not 
move 
His bosom, — for he never had a 

sister : 
Ah ! if he had — how much he would 
have missed her 1 



LIV. 

And still less was it sensual; for 
besides 
That he was not an ancient debauchee, 
(Who like sour fruit, to stir their veins' 
salt tides. 
As acids rouse a dormant alkali,) 
Although {t'will happen as our planet 
guides) 
His youth was not the chastest that 
might be. 
There was the purest Platonism at 

bottom 
Of all his feelings — only he forgot 'em. 



Just now there was no peril of tempta- 
tion; 
He loved the infant orphan he had 
saved, 
As patriots (now and then) may love a 
nation; 
His pride, too, felt that she was not 
enslaved 
Owing to him; — as also her salvation 
Through his means and the Church's 
might be paved. 
But one thing's odd, which here must be 

inserted, 
The little Turk refused to be converted. 



'Twas strange enough she should retain 

the impression 
Through such a scene of change, and 

dread, and slaughter; 
But though three Bishops told her the 

transgression. 
She showed a great dislike to holy 

water ; 
She also had no passion for confession; 
Perhaps she had nothing to confess: 

— no matter, 
Whate'er the cause, the Church made 

little of it — 
She still held out that Mahomet was a 

prophet. 

LVII. 

In fact, the only Christian she could 
bear 
Was Juan; whom she seemed to have 
selected 



II74 



DON 'JUAN 



[Canto x. 



In place of what her home and friends 
once were. 
He naturally loved what he protected : 

And thus they formed a rather curious 
pair, 
A guardian green in years, a ward con- 
nected 

In neither clime, time, blood, with her 
defender; 

And yet this want of ties made theirs 
more tender, 

LVIII. 

They journeyed on through Poland and 

through Warsaw, 
Famous for mines of salt and yokes 

of iron: 
Through Courland also, which that 

famous farce saw 
Which gave her dukes the graceless 

name of "Biron." ^ 
'Tis the same landscape which the 

modern Mars saw, 
Who marched to Moscow, led by 

Fame, the Siren ! 
To lose by one month's frost some 

twenty years 
Of conquest, and his guard of Grena- 
diers. 

LIX. 

Let this not seem an anti-climax : — 

"Oh! 
My guard! my old guard!" ex- 
claimed that god of clay. 
Think of the Thunderer's falling down 

below 
Carotid-artery-cutting Castlereagh ! 
Alas ! that glory should be chilled by 

snow ! 
But should we wish to warm us on 

our way 
Through Poland, there is Kosciusko's 

name 
Might scatter fire through ice, like 

Hecla's flame. 

' In the Empress Anne's time, Biren, her 
favourite, assumed the name and arms of the 
"Birons" of France; which families are yet 
extant with that of England. There are still 
the daughters of Courland of that name; one 
of them I remember seeing in England in the 
blessed year of the Allies (1814) — the Duchess 
of S. — to whom the English Duchess of Somer- 
set presented me as a namesake. 



LX. 

From Poland they came on through 
Prussia Proper, 
And Konigsberg, the capital, whose 
vaunt, 
Besides some veins of iron, lead, or 
copper, 
Has lately been the great Professor 
Kant. 
Juan, who cared not a tobacco-stopper 
About philosophy, pursued his jaunt 
To Germany, whose somewhat tardy 

millions 
Have princes who spur more than their 
postilions. 

LXI. 

And thence through Berlin, Dresden, 
and the like, 
Until he reached the castellated 
Rhine : — 
Ye glorious Gothic scenes ! how much 
ye strike 
All phantasies not even excepting 
mine ! 
A grey wall, a green ruin, rusty pike. 
Make my soul pass the equinoctial 
line 
Between the present and past worlds, 

and hover 
Upon their airy confines, half-seas-over. 

LXII. 

But Juan posted on through Mannheim, 
Bonn, 
Which Drachenfels frowns over like 
a spectre 
Of the good feudal times for ever gone. 
On which I have not time just now to 
lecture. 
From thence he was drawm onwards to 
Cologne, 
A city which presents to the inspector 
Eleven thousand maiden heads of bone. 
The greatest number flesh hath ever 
known. ^ 



From thence to Holland's Hague and 
Helvoetsluys, 

' St Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins 
were still extant ia 1816, and may be so yet, as 

much as ever. 



Canto x.] 



DON JUAN 



1175 



That water-land of Dutchmen and of 
ditches, 
Where juniper expresses its best juice, 
The poor man's sparkHng substitute 
for riches. 
Senates and sages have condemned its 
use — 
But to deny the mob a cordial, which 
is 
Too often all the clothing, meat, or fuel. 
Good government has left them, seems 
but cruel. 

LXIV. 

Here he embarked, and with a flowing 

sail 
Went bounding for the Island of the 

free. 
Towards which the impatient wind blew 

half a gale; 
High dashed the spray, the bows 

dipped in the sea. 
And sea-sick passengers turned some- 
what pale; 
But Juan, seasoned, as he well might 

be, 
By former voyages, stood to watch the 

skiffs 
Which passed, or catch the first glimpse 

of the cliffs. 



At length they rose, like a white wall 

along 
The blue sea's border; and Don Juan 

felt — 
What even young strangers feel a little 

strong 
At the first sight of Albion's chalkv 

belt — 
A kind of pride that he should be 

among 
Those haughty shopkeepers, who 

sternly dealt 
Their goods and edicts out from pole to 

pole. 
And made the very billows pay them 

toll. 

LXVI. 

I've no great cause to love that spot of 
earth. 
Which holds what might have been the 
noblest nation; 



But though I owe it little but my birth, 

I feel a mixed regret and veneration 
For its decaying fame and former worth. 
Seven years (the usual term of 
transportation) 
Of absence lay one's old resentments 

level. 
When a man's country's going to the 
devil. 

LXVII. 

Alas ! could she but fully, truly, know 
How her great name is now through- 
out abhorred; 
How eager all the Earth is for the blow 
Which shall lay bare her bosom to the 
sword ; 
How all the nations deem her their worst 
foe 
That worse than worst of foes, the 
once adored 
False friend, who held out Freedom to 

Mankind, "-' 

And now would chain them — to the 
very mind ; — 

LXVIII. 

Would she be proud, or boast herself the 
free. 
Who is but first of slaves? The 
nations are 
In prison, — but the gaoler, what 
is he? 
No less a victim to the bolt and bar. 
Is the poor privilege to turn the key 
Upon the captive. Freedom ? He's 
as far ^ ' ' 

From the enjoyment of the earth and air 
Who watches o'er the chain, as they who 
wear. 

LXIX. 

Don Juan now saw Albion's earliest 
beauties, 
Thy cliffs, dear Dover ! harbour, and 
hotel ; 
Thy custom-house, with all its delicate 
duties; 
Thv w^aiters running mucks at every 
bell; 
Thy packets, all whose passengers are 
booties 
To those who upon land or water 
dwell ; 



:j6 



DON JUAN 



[Canto 



And last, not least, to strangers unin- 

structed. 
Thy long, long bills, whence nothing is 

deducted. 



Juan, though careless, young, and 

magnifique, 
And rich in rubles, diamonds, cash, 

and credit, 
Who did not limit much his bills per 

week. 
Yet stared at this a little, though he 

paid it, — 
(His Maggior Duomo, a smart, subtle 

Greek, 
Before him summed the awful scroll 

and read it) : 
But, doubtless, as the air — though sel- 
dom sunny — 
Is free, the respiration's worth the 

money. 

LXXI. 

On with the horses ! Off to Canterbury ! 
Tramp, tramp o'er pebble, and splash, 
splash through puddle; 
Hurrah ! how swiftly speeds the post so 
merry ! 
Not like slow Germany, wherein they 
muddle 
Along the road, as if they went to bury 
Their fare; and also pause besides, 
to fuddle 
With "schnapps" — sad dogs! whom 

"Hundsfot," or "Verflucter," 
Affect no more than lightning a con- 
ductor. 



Now there is nothing gives a man such 
spirits. 
Leavening his blood as cayenne doth 
a curry, 
As going at full speed — no matter 
where its 
Direction be, so 'tis but in a hurry. 
And merely for the sake of its own 
merits; 
For the less cause there is for all this 
flurry, 
The greater is the pleasure in arriving 
At the great efid of travel — which is 
driving. 



LXXIII. 

They saw at Canterbury the cathedral;^ 
Black Edward's helm, and Becket's' 
bloody stone, 
Were pointed out as usual by the bedral 
In the same quaint, uninterestec 
tone : — 

There's glory again for you, gentl< 

reader ! All 

Ends in a rusty casque and dubious 

bone, 

Half-solved into these sodas or mag 

nesias. 

Which form that bitter draught, th 
human species. 



The effect on Juan was of course sub 

lime: 
He breathed a thousand Cressys, as h( 

saw 
That casque, which never stooped excep 

to Time. 
Even the bold Churchman's tomb 

excited awe. 
Who died in the then great attempt to 

climb 
O'er Kings, who now at least must 

talk of Law 
Before they butcher. Little Leila 

gazed, 
And asked why such a structure had 

been raised : 

LXXV. 

And being told it was "God's House," 
she said 
He was well lodged, but only wondered 
how 
He suffered Infidels in his homestead. 
The cruel Nazarenes, who had laid 
low 
His holy temples in the lands which bred 
The True Believers; — and her in- 
• fant brow 
Was bent with grief that Mahomet 

should resign 
A mosque so noble, flung like pearls to 
swine. 

LXXVI. 

On ! on ! through meadows, managed 
like a garden, 



Canto x.] DON 


JUAN 1177 


A paradise of hops and high produc- 


Such is the shortest way to general 


tion; 


curses. 


For, after years of travel by a bard in 


They hate a murderer much less than a 


Countries of greater heat, but lesser 


claimant 


suction. 


On that sweet ore which everybody 


A green field is a sight which makes him 


nurses. — 


pardon 


Kill a man's family, and he may brook 


The absence of that more sublime 


it, 


construction, 


But keep your hands out of his breeches' 


Which mixes up vines — olives — preci- 


pocket : 


pices — 


LXXX. 


Glaciers — volcanoes — oranges and 


So said the Florentine: ye monarchs, 


ices. 


hearken 


LXXVII. 


To your instructor. Juan now was 


And when I think upon a pot of beer 


borne, 


But I won't weep ! — and so drive on. 


Just as the day began to wane and 


postilions ! 


darken, 


As the smart boys spurred fast in their 


O'er the high hill, which looks with 


career. 


pride or scorn 


Juan admired these highways of free 


Toward the great city. — Ye who have 


milHons — 


a spark in 


A country in all senses the most dear 


Your veins of Cockney spirit, smile or 


To foreigner or native, save some 


mourn 


silly ones, 


According as you take things well or 


Who "kick against the pricks" just at 


ill;- 


this juncture. 


Bold Britons, we are now on Shooter's 


And for their pains get only a fresh 


Hill! 


puncture. 


LXXXI. 


LXXVIII. 


The Sun went down, the smoke rose up, 


What a delightful thing's a turnpike 


as from 


road! 


A half-unquenched volcano, o'er a 


So smooth, so level, such a mode of 


space 


shaving 


Which well beseemed the "Devil's 


The Earth, as scarce the eagle in the 


drawing-room," 


broad 


As some have qualified that wondrous 


Air can accomplish, with his wide 


place : 


wings waving. 


But Juan felt, though not approaching 


Had such been cr.t in Phaeton's time. 


Home, 


the god 


As one who, though he were not of 


Had told his son io .satisfy his 


the race. 


craving 


Revered the soil, of those true sons the 


With the York mail ; — but onward as 


mother, 


we roll, 


Who butchered half the earth, and 


Surg it amari aliquid — the toll ! 


bullied t'other. 


LXXIX. 


LXXXII. 


Alas! how deeply painful is all pay- 


A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and 


ment ! 


shipping, 


Take lives — take wives — take aught 


Dirty and dusky, but as wide as 


except men's purses: 


eye 


As Machiavel shows those in purple 


Could reach, w^ith here and there a sail 


raiment, 


just skipping 



iiyS 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xi. 



In sight, then lost amidst the forestry 

Of masts; a wilderness of steeples 

peeping 

On tiptoe through their sea-coal 

canopy ; 

A huge, dun Cupola, like a foolscap 

crown 
On a fool's head — and there is London 
Town! 

LXXXIII. 

But Juan saw not this: each wreath of 

smoke 
Appeared to him but as the magic 

vapour 
Of some alchymic furnace, from whence 

broke 
The wealth of worlds (a wealth of 

tax and paper) : 
The gloomy clouds, which o'er it as a 

yoke 
Are bowed, and put the Sun out like 

a taper, 
Were nothing but the natural atmos- 
phere, 
Extremely wholesome, though but rarely 

clear. 

LXXXIV. 

He paused — and so will I; as doth a 

crew 
Before they give their broadside. 

By and by. 
My gentle countrymen, we will renew 
Our old acquaintance; and at least 

I'll try 
To tell you truths you will not take as 

true, 
Because thev are so; — a male Mrs. 

Fry, 
With a soft besom will I sweep vour 

halls, 
And brush a web or two from off the 

walls. 

LXXXV. 

Oh Mrs. Frv ! Whv go to Newgate ? 
Why 
Preach to poor rogues r And where- 
fore not begin 
With Carlton, or with other houses? 
Try 
Your hand at hardened and imperial 
Sin. 



To mend the People 's an absurdity, 

A jargon, a mere philanthropic din, 
Unless you make their betters better : — 

Fie! 
I thought you had more religion, Mrs. 

Fry. 

LXXXVI. 

Teach them the decencies of good three- 
score ; 
Cure them of tours, hussar and high- 
land dresses; 
Tell them that youth once gone returns 
no more, 
That hired huzzas redeem no land's 
distresses ; 
Tell them Sir William Curtis is a bore. 
Too dull even for the dullest of ex- 
cesses — 
The witless Falstaff of a hoary Hal, 
A fool whose bells have ceased to ring 
at all. 

LXXXVII. 

Tell them, though it may be, perhaps, 

too late — 
On Life's worn confine, jaded, 

bloated, sated — 
To set up vain pretence of being great, 
'Tis not so to be good; and, be it 

stated. 
The worthiest kings have ever loved 

least state: 
And tell them But you won't, and 

I have prated 
Just now enough; but, by and by, I'll 

prattle 
Like Roland's horn in Roncesvalles' 

battle. 



CANTO THE ELEVENTH. 



When Bishop Berkeley said "there was 

no matter," 
And proved it — 'twas no matter 

what he said: 
They say his system 'tis in vain to 

batter. 
Too subtle for the airiest human 

head; 
And yet who can believe it? I would 

shatter 



Canto xi.] 



DON JUAN 



1179 



Gladly all matters down to stone or 
lead, 
Or adamant, to find the World a spirit, 
And wear my head, denying that I 
wear it. 

II. 

What a sublime discovery 'twas to 

make the 
Universe universal egotism, 
That all's ideal — all ourselves! — I'll 

stake the 
World (be it what you will) that 

that^s no schism. 
Oh Doubt ! — if thou be'st Doubt, for 

which some take thee. 
But which I doubt extremely — thou 

sole prism 
Of the Truth's rays, spoil not my 

draught of spirit ! 
Heaven's brandy, though our brain 

can hardly bear it. 



For ever and anon comes Indigestion 
(Not the most "dainty Ariel"), and 
perplexes 
Our soarings with another sort of 
question: 
And that which after all my spirit 
(^<^ vexes, 

Is, that I find no spot where Man can 
rest eye on, 
Without confusion of the sorts and 
sexes. 
Of Beings, Stars, and this unriddled 
^^ wonder, 

^ The World, which at the worst's a 
glorious blunder — 

IV. 

If it be chance — or, if it be according 
To the old text, still better: — lest 
it should 
Turn out so, we'll say nothing 'gainst 
the wording. 
As several people think such hazards 
rude. 
They're right; our days are too brief 
for affording 
Space to dispute what no one ever 
could 
Decide, and everybody one day will 
Know very clearly — or at least lie still. 



And therefore will I leave off meta- 
physical 
Discussion, which is neither here nor 

there : 
If I agree that what is, is; — then this 

I call 
Being quite perspicuous and extremely 

fair; 
The truth is, I've grown lately rather 

phthisical: 
I don't know what the reason is — 

the air 
Perhaps; but as I suffer from the 

shocks 
Of illness, I grow much more orthodox. 

VI. 

The first attack at once proved the 
Divinity 
(But that I never doubted, nor the 
Devil) ; 
The next, the Virgin's mystical vir- 
ginity ; 
The third, the usual Origin of Evil; 
The fourth at once established the 
whole Trinity 
On so uncontrovertible a level. 
That I devoutly wished the three were 

four — 
On purpose to believe so much the more. 

VII. 

To our theme. — The man who has 
stood on the Acropolis, 
And looked down over Attica; or he 
Who has sailed where picturesque 
Constantinople is, 
Or seen Timbuctoo, or hath taken tea 
In small-eyed China's crockery-ware 
metropolis. 
Or sat amidst the bricks of Nineveh, 
May not think much of London's first 

appearance -^ 
But ask him what he thinks of it a 
year hence ! 

VIII. 

Don Juan had got out on Shooter's 

Hill; 
Sunset the time, the place the same 

declivity 
Which looks along that vale of Good 

and 111 



ii8o 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xi. 



Where London streets ferment in full 

activity, 
While everything around was calm and 

still, 
Except the creak of wheels, which 

on their pivot he 
Heard, — and that bee-like, bubbling, 

busy hum 
Of cities, that boil over with their 

scum: — 

IX. 

I say, Don Juan, wrapped in contem- 
plation, 
Walked on behind his carriage, o'er 
the summit, 
And lost in wonder of so great a nation, 
Gave way to 't, since he could not 
overcome it. 
"And here," he cried, "is Freedom's 
chosen station ; 
Here peals the People's voice nor can 
entomb it 
Racks — prisons — inquisitions; Resur- 
rection 
Awaits it, each new meeting or election. 

X. 

"Here are chaste wives, pure lives; 
here people pay 
But what they please; and if that 
r--^ things be dear, 
I 'Tis only that they love to throw away 
Their cash, to show how much they 
have a-year. 
-; Here laws are all inviolate — none lay 
^ Traps for the traveller — every high- 
way's clear — 
Here" — he was interrupted by a knife. 
With — " Damn your eyes ! your money 
or your life ! " — 

XI. 

These free-born sounds proceeded from 
four pads 
In ambush laid, who had perceived 
him loiter 
Behind his carriage; and, like handy 
lads. 
Had seized the lucky hour to recon- 
noitre 
In which the heedless gentleman who 



Upon the road, unless he prove a 

fighter 
May find himself within that isle of 

riches 
Exposed to lose his life as well as 

breeches. 

XII. 

Juan, who did not understand a word 
Of English, save their shibboleth, 
"God damn !" 
And even that he had so rarely heard. 
He sometimes thought 'twas only 
their "Salam," 
Or " God be with you ! " — and 'tis not 
absurd 
To think so, — for half English as 
I am 
(To my misfortune), never can I say 
I heard them wish "God with you," 
save that way; — 

XIII. 

Juan yet quickly understood their 

gesture. 
And being somewhat choleric and 

sudden. 
Drew forth a pocket pistol from his 

vesture, 
And fired it into one assailant's 

pudding — 
Who fell, as rolls an ox o'er in his 

pasture, 
And roared out,, as he writhed his 

native mud in, 
Unto his nearest follower or henchman, 
"Oh Jack! I'm floored by that ere 

bloody Frenchman!" 

XIV. 

On which Jack and his train set off at 
speed, 
And Juan's suite, late scattered at a 
distance. 
Came up, all marvelling at such a deed, 
And offering, as usual, late assistance. 
Juan, who saw the moon's late minion 
bleed 
As if his veins would pour out his 
existence. 
Stood calling out for bandages and lint. 
And wished he had been less hasty 
with his flint. 



Canto xi.] 



DON JUAN 



1181 



XV. 

"Perhaps," thought he, "it is the 
country's wont 
To welcome foreigners in this way: 
now 
I recollect some innkeepers who don't 
Differ, except in robbing with a bow, 
In lieu of a bare blade and brazen 
front — 
But what is to be done? I can't 
allow 
The fellow to lie groaning on the road: 
So take him up — I'll help vou with the 
load." 

XVI. 

But ere they could perform this pious 

duty. 
The dying man cried, "Hold! I've 

got my gruel ! 
Oh! for a glass of max!^ We've 

missed our booty; 
Let me die where I am!" And as 

the fuel 
Of Life shrunk in his heart, and thick 

and sooty 
The drops fell from his death-wound, 

and he drew ill 
His breath, — he from his swelling 

throat untied 
A kerchief, crying, "Give Sal that!" — 

and died. 

XVII. 

The cravat stained with bloody drops 
fell down 
Before Don Juan's feet: he could 
not tell 
Exactly why it was before him thrown, 
Nor what the meaning of the man's 
farewell. 
Poor Tom was once a kiddy upon town, 
A thorough varmint, and a real swell, 
Full flash, ^ all fancy, until fairly diddled, 
His pockets first and then his body 
riddled. 

' rCin.] 

» [According to the Vocabulary of the Flash 
Language, compiled by James Hardy Vaux, in 
1812, a kiddy, or "flash-kiddy," is a thief of the 
lower orders, who, when he is breeched by a 
course of successful depredation dresses in the 
extreme of vulgar gentility, and affects a knowing- 
ness in his air and conversation. A "swell "or 
"rank swell" {''real swell" appears in Egan's 



XVIII. 

Don Juan, having done the best he could 

In all the circumstances of the case. 
As soon as "Crowner's quest" allowed, 
pursued 
His travels to the capital apace ; — 
Esteeming it a little hard he should 
In twelve hours' time, and very little 
space. 
Have been obliged to slay a free-born 

native 
In self-defence: this made him medi- 
tative. 



He from the world had cut off a great 

man. 
Who in his time had made heroic 

bustle. 
Who in a row like Tom could leave 

the van. 
Booze in the ken, or at the spellken 

hustle? 
Who queer a flat ? ' Who (spite of 

Bowstreet's ban) 
On the high toby-spice so flash the 

muzzle? 
Who on a lark with black-eyed Sal 

(his blowing). 
So prime — so swell — so nutty — and 

so knowing ? ^ 

Life in London) is a swell mob man; and " flash" 
is "fly." "down," or "awake," i.e. knowing, not 
easily imposed upon.] 

"["Ken" is a house s.c. a thieves' lodging- 
house; "spellken," a play-house; "high toby- 
spice" is robbery on horseback, as distinguished 
from "spice," i.e. footpad robbery; to "flash the 
muzzle" is to show off the face, to swagger 
openly; "blowing" or "blowen" is a doxy or 
trull; and "nutty" is, conjointly, amorous and 
fascinating.] 

^ The advance of science and of language has 
rendered it unnecessary to translate the above 
good and true English, spoken in its original 
purity by the select mobility and their patrons. 
The following is a stanza of a song which was 
very popular at lea.st in my early days: — 
"On the high toby-spice flash the muzzle, 

In spite of each gallows old scout; 
If you at the spellken can't hustle, 

You'll be hobbled in making a clout. 
"Then your blowing will wax gallows haughty, 

When she hears of your scaly mistake, 
She'll surely turn snitch for the forty — 

That her Jack may be regular weight." 
If there be any gemman so ignorant as to 
require a traduction, I refer him to my old friend 



Il82 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xi. 



XX. 

But Tom's no more — and so no more 

of Tom. 
Heroes must die; and by God's 

blessing 'tis 
Not long before the most of them go 

home. 
Hail! Thamis, hail! Upon thy 

verge it is 
That Juan's chariot, rolling like a 

drum 
In thunder, holds the way it can't 

well miss. 
Through Kennington and all the other 

"tons," 
Which make us wish ourselves in 

town at once; — 



Through Groves, so called as being 
void of trees, 
(Like Iticus from no light) ; through 
prospects named 
Mount Pleasant, as containing nought 
to please, 
Nor much to climb; through Httle 
boxes framed 
Of bricks, to let the dust in at your 
ease, 
With "To be let," upon their doors 
proclaimed; 

and corporeal pastor and master, John Jackson, 
Esq., Professor of Pugilism; who, I trust, still 
retains the strength and symmetry of his model 
of a form, together with his good humour, and 
athletic as well as mental accomplishments. 

[Gentleman Jackson was of good renown. 
"Servility," says Egan {Life in London, 1823, 
p. 217), "is not known to him. Flattery he 
detests. Integrity, impartiality, good-nature, 
and manliness, are the corner-stones of his 
understanding." Hints from Horace, line 638, 
note I, vide ante, p. 143. As to the stanza quoted 
by Egan {Anecdotes of tJn' Turf, 1827, p. 44), but 
not traduced or interpreted, "To be hobbled for 
making a clout" is to be taken into custody for 
stealing a handkerchief, to "turn snitch" is 
to inform, and the "forty" is the ;iC4o offered 
for the detection of a capital crime, and shared 
by the police or Bow Street runners. Danger- 
ous characters were let alone and tacitly encour- 
aged to continue their career of crime, until the 
measure of their iniquity was full, and they 
"weighed forty." If Jack was clumsy enough 
to be detected in a trifling theft, his "blowen" 
would go over to the enemy, and betray him for 
the sake of the Government reward (see Classical 
Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, by Francis 
Grose, 1823, art. "Weigh forty").] 



Through "Rows" most modestly called 

"Paradise," 
Which Eve might quit without much 

sacrifice; — 

XXII. 

Through coaches, drays, choked turn- 
pikes, and a whirl 
Of wheels, and roar of voices,- and 

confusion; 
Here taverns wooing to a pint of "purl," 
There mails fast flying off like a 

delusion; 
There barbers' blocks with periwigs in 

curl 
In windows; here the lamplighter's 

infusion 
Slowly distilled into the glimmering 

glass 
(For in those days we had not got to 

gas — ) ; 

XXIII. 

Through this, and much, and more, is 

the approach 
Of travellers to mighty Babylon: 
Whether they come by horse, or chaise, 

or coach, 
With slight exceptions, all the ways 

seem one. 
I could say more, but do not choose to 

encroach 
Upon the Guide-book's privilege. 

The Sun 
Had set some time, and night was on 

the ridge 
Of twilight, as the party crossed the 

bridge. 

XXIV. 

That's rather fine, the gentle sound 

of Thamis — 
Who vindicates a moment, too, his 

stream — 
Though hardly heard through multi- 
farious "damme's:" 
The lamps of Westminster's more 

regular gleam. 
The breadth of pavement, and yon 

shrine where Fame is 
A spectral resident — whose pallid 

beam 
In shape of moonshine hovers o'er the 

pile — 
Make this a sacred part of Albion's isle. 1 



Canto xi.] 



DON JUAN 



1183 



XXV, 

The Druids' groves are gone — so 

much the better: 
Stonehenge is not — but what the 

devil is it ? — 
But Bedlam still exists with its sage 

fetter, 
That madmen may not bite you on 

a visit; 
The Bench too seats or suits full many 

a debtor; 
The Mansion House, too (though 

some people quiz it), 
To me appears a stiff yet grand erection ; 
But then the Abbey's worth the whole 

collection, 

XXVI. 

The line of lights, too, up to Charing 
Cross, 
Pall Mall, and so forth, have a corus- 
cation 

Like gold as in comparison to dross. 
Matched with the Continent's illumi- 
nation, 

Whose cities Night by no means deigns 
to gloss. 
The French were not yet a lamp- 
lighting nation, 

And when they grew so — on their new- 
found lantern. 

Instead of wicks, they made a wicked 
man turn.* 

XXVII. 

A row of Gentlemen along the streets 

Suspended may illuminate mankind. 
As also bonfires made of country seats; 
But the old way is best for the pur- 
blind: 
The ether looks like phosphorus on 
sheets, 
A sort of ignis fatuiis to the mind, 
Which, though 'tis certain to perplex 

and frighten, 
Must burn more mildly ere it can 
enlighten. 

- [Joseph Frangois Foulon, army commis- 
sioner, provoked the penalty of the "lantern" 
{i.e. an improvised gallows on the yard of a 
lamp-post at the corner of the Rue de la Van- 
ncric) by his heartless sneer, "Eh bicn ! si cette 
canaille n'a pas de pain, elle mangera du foin." 
He was hanged, July 22, 1789,] 



XXVIII, 

But London 's so well lit, that if Diogenes 
Could recommence to hunt his honest 
man, 
And found him not amidst the various 
progenies 
Of this enormous City's spreading 
span 
'Twere not for want of lamps to aid 
his dodging his 
Yet undiscovered treasure. What I 
can, 
I've done to find the same throughout 

Life's journey, 
But see the World is only one attorney. 

XXIX. 

Over the stones still rattling, up Pall 

Mall, 
Through crowds and carriages, but 

waxing thinner 
As thundered knockers broke the long 

sealed spell 
Of doors 'gainst duns, and to an early 

dinner 
Admitted a small party as night fell, — 
Don Juan, our young diplomatic 

sinner, 
Pursued his path, and drove past some 

hotels, 
St James's Palace, and St James's 

"Hells." 1 

XXX. 

They reached the hotel : forth streamed 
from the front door 
A tide of well-clad waiters, and 
around 
The mob stood, and as usual several 
score 
Of those pedestrian Paphians who 
abound 
In decent London when the daylight's 
o'er; 
Commodious but immoral, they are 
found 

' "Hells." gaming-houses. What their num- 
ber may now be in this life, I know not. Before 
I was of age 1 knew them pretty accurately, both 
"gold" and "silver." I was once nearly called 
out by an acquaintance, h)ecause when he asked 
me where I thought that his soul would be found 
hereafter, I answered, "In Silver Hell." [A 
certain Captain Wallace.] 



ii84 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xi. 



Useful, like Malthus, in promoting mar- 
riage. — 

But Juan now is stepping from his 
carriage 

XXXI. 

Into one of the sweetest of hotels, 
Especially for foreigners — and 

mostly 
For those whom favour or whom For- 
tune swells, 
And cannot find a bill's small items 

costly. 
There many an envoy either dwelt or 

dwells 
(The den of many a diplomatic lost 

lie), 
Until to some conspicuous square they 

pass. 
And blazon o'er the door their names 

in brass. 

XXXII. 

Juan, whose was a delicate commission, 
Private, though publicly important, 
bore 
No title to point out with due precision 
The exact affair on which he was 
sent o'er. 
*Twas merely known, that on a secret 
mission 
A foreigner of rank had graced our 
shore, 
Young, handsome, and accomplished, 

who was said 
(In whispers) to have turned his Sov- 
ereign's head. 

XXXIII. 

Some rumour also of some strange 
adventures 
Had gone before him, and his wars 
and loves; 

And as romantic heads are pretty paint- 
ers. 
And, above all, an Englishwoman's 
roves 

Into the excursive, breaking the inden- 
tures 
Of sober reason, wheresoe'er it moves. 

He found himself extremely in the 
fashion. 

Which serves our thinking people for 
a passion. 



XXXIV. 

I don't mean that they are passionless, 
but quite 
The contrary; but then 'tis in the 
head; 
Yet as the consequences are as bright 
As if they acted with the heart instead. 
What after all can signify the site 

Of ladies' lucubrations ? So they lead 
In safety to the place for which you 

start, 
What matters if the road be head or 
heart ? 



Juan presented in the proper place, 
To proper placement, every Russ 

credential ; 
And was received with all the due 

grimace 
By those who govern in the mood 

potential, 
Who, seeing a handsome stripling with 

smooth face, 
Thought (what in state affairs is most 

essential). 
That they as easily might do the young- 
ster. 
As hawks may pounce upon a woodland 

songster. 



They erred, as aged men will do; 

but by 
And by we'll talk of that; and if 

we don't, 
'Twill be because our notion is not 

high 
Of politicians and their double front. 
Who live by lies, yet dare not boldly 

lie: — 
Now, what I love in women is, they 

won't 
Or can't do otherwise than lie — but 

do it 
So well, the very Truth seems false- 
hood to it. 

XXXVII. 

And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but 
The truth in masquerade; and I defy 
Historians — heroes — lawyers — 
priests, to put 



Canto xi.] 



DON JUAN 



ii8s 



A fact without some leaven of a 
lie. 
The very shadow of true Truth would 
shut 
Up annals — revelations — poesy, 
And prophecy — except it should be 

dated 
Some years before the incidents related. 

xxxvin. 
Praised be all liars and all lies! Who 
now 
Can tax my mild Muse with misan- 
thropv? 
She rings the World's "Te Deum, 
and her brow 
Blushes for those who will not: — 
but to sigh 
Is idle; let us like most others bow, 
Kiss hands — feet — any part of 
Majesty, 
After the good example of "Green 

Erin," 
Whose shamrock now seems rather 
worse for wearing. 

XXXIX. 

Don Juan was presented, and his dress 
And mien excited general admira- 
tion — . 

I don't know which was more admired 
or less: 
One monstrous diamond drew much 
observation. 

Which Catherine in a moment of 
"ivresse" 
(In Love or Brandy's fervent fer- 
mentation), 

Bestowed upon him, as the public 
learned ; 

And, to say truth, it had been fairiy 
earned. 

XL. 

Besides the ministers and under- 
lings, 
Who must be courteous to the ac- 
credited 
Diplomatists of rather wavering Kings, 

Until their royal riddle's fully read. 
The very clerks, — those somewhat 
dirtv springs 
Of Office, or the House of Office, fed 

4G 



By foul corruption into streams, — 

even they 
Were hardly rude enough to earn their 

pay: 

XLI. 

And insolence no doubt is what they 
are 
Employed for, since it is their daily 
labour, 
In the dear offices of Peace or War; 
And should you doubt, pray ask of 
your next neighbour, 
When for a passport, or some other bar 
To freedom, he applied (a grief and 
a bore). 
If he found not this spawn of tax-born 

riches. 
Like lap-dogs, the least civil sons of 
b s. 

XLII. 

But Juan was received with much 
'^ etnpressement :" — 
These phrases of refinement I must 
borrow 
From our next neighbours' land, where, 
like a chessman, 
There is a move set down for joy 
or sorrow. 
Not only in mere talking, but the press. 
Man 
In Islands is, it seems, downright and 
thorough. 
More than on Continents — as if the 

(See Billingsgate) made even the tongue 
more free. 

XLIII. 

And yet the British "Damme" 's rather 
Attic, 
Your continental oaths are but incon- 
tinent. 
And turn on things which no aristocratic 
Spirit would name, and therefore even 
I won't anent ^ 
This subject quote; as it would be 
schismatic 
In politesse, and having a sound 
affronting in't; — 

» "Anent" was a Scotch phrase meaning "con- 
cerning" — "with regard to": it has been mad( 
English by the Scotch novels- and, as the French 
man said, "If it be not, ought to be English. 



ii86 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xi. 



But "Damme" 's quite ethereal, though 
too daring — - 

Platonic blasphemy — the soul of swear- 
ing. 

XLIV. 

For downright rudeness, ye may stay 
at home; 
For true or false politeness (and 
scarce that 
Now) you may cross the blue deep and 
white foam — 
The first the emblem (rarely though) 
of what 
You leave behind, the next of much 
you come 
To meet. However, 'tis no time 
to chat 
On general topics : poems must confine 
Themselves to unity, like this of mine. 



In the great world, — which, being 
interpreted, 
Meaneth the West or worst end of a 
city. 
And about twice two thousand people 
bred 
By no means to be very wise or witty, 
But to sit up while others lie in bed. 
And look down on the Universe with 
pity, — 
Juan, as an inveterate patrician, 
Was well received by persons of con- 
dition. 

XL VI. 

He was a bachelor, which is a matter 
Of import both to virgin and to bride. 

The former's hymeneal hopes to flatter; 
And (should she not hold fast by 
Love or Pride) 

'Tis also of some moment to the latter : 
A rib's a thorn in a wed gallant's side, 

Requires decorum, and is apt to double 

The horrid sin — and what's still 
worse, the trouble. 



But Juan was a bachelor — of arts, 
And parts, — and hearts : he danced 
and sung, and had 

An air as sentimental as Mozart's 
Softest of melodies; and could be sad 



Or cheerful, without any "flaws or 

starts," 
Just at the proper time: and though 

a lad, 
Had seen the world — which is a curious 

sight. 
And very much unlike what people 

write. 

XLVIII. 

Fair virgins blushed upon him; wedded 

dames 
Bloomed also in less transitory hues; 
For both commodities dwell by the 

Thames, 
The painting and the painted ; Youth, 

Ceruse, 
Against his heart preferred their usual 

claims. 
Such as no gentleman can quite 

refuse : 
Daughters admired his dress, and pious 

mothers 
Inquired his income, and if he had 

brothers. 

XLIX. 

The milliners who furnish "drapery 
Misses "^ 
Throughout the season, upon specu- 
lation 
Of payment ere the Honeymoon's last 
kisses 
Have waned into a crescent's corus- 
cation. 
Thought such an opportunity as this 
is, 
Of a rich foreigner's initiation, 

'"Drapery Misses." — This term is prob- 
ably anything now but a mystery. It was, how- 
ever, almost so to me when I first returned from 
the East in 1811-1812. It means a pretty, a 
high-born, a fashionable young female, well 
instructed by her friends, and furnished by her 
milliner with a wardrobe upon credit, to be re- 
paid, when married, by the husband. The 
riddle was first read to me by a young and pretty 
heiress, on my praising the "drapery" of the 
'' untochered" but "pretty virginities" (like Mrs 
Anne Page) of the then day, which has now been 
some years yesterday: she assured me that the 
thing was common in London; and as her own 
thousands, and blooming looks, and rich sim- 
plicity of array, put any suspicion in her own 
case out of the question, I confess I gave some 
credit to the allegation. If necessary, authorities 
might be cited ; in which case I could quote both 
"drapery" and the wearers. Let us hope, 
however, that it is now obsolete. 



Canto xi.] 



DON JUAN 



1187 



Not to be overlooked — and gave such 

credit, 
That future bridegrooms swore, and 

sighed, and paid it. 



The Bhies, that tender tribe, who sigh 
o'er sonnets. 
And with the pages of the last Review 
Line the interior of their heads or 
bonnets, 
Advanced in all their azure's highest 
hue: 
They talked bad French or Spanish, 
and upon its 
Late authors asked him for a hint 
or two; 
And which was softest, Russian or 

Castilian ? 
And whether in his travels he saw Ilion ? 

LI. 

Juan, who was a little superficial. 

And not in literature a great Draw- 
cansir, 
Examined by this learned and especial 
Jury of matrons, scarce knew what 
tc answer: 
His duties warlike, loving or official. 

His steady application as a dancer, 
Had kept him from the brink of Hip- 

pocrene. 
Which now he found was blue instead 
of green. 

LII. 

However, he replied at hazard, with 
A modest confidence and calm assur- 
ance. 
Which lent his learned lucubrations pith, 
And passed for arguments of good , 
endurance. 
That prodigy. Miss Araminta Smith 
(Who at sixteen translated "Hercules 
Furens" 
Ii.to as furious English), with her best 

look. 
Set down her sayings in her common- 
place book. 

LIII. 

Juan knew several languages — as well 
He might — and brought them up 
with skill, in time 



To save his fame with each accomplished 
belle, 
Who still regretted that he did not 
rhyme. 

There wanted but this requisite to swell 
His qualities (with them) into sub- 
lime : 

Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss Maevia 
Mannish, 

Both longed extremely to be sung in 
Spanish. 

LIV. 

However, he did pretty well, and was 

Admitted as an aspirant to all 
The coteries, and, as in Banquo's glass. 
At great assemblies or in parties 
small. 
He saw ten thousand living authors 
pass, 
That being about their average num- 
eral; 
Also the eighty "greatest living poets," 
As every paltry magazine can show it's. 

LV. 

In twice five years the "greatest living 
poet," 
Like to the champion in the fisty ring, 
Is called on to support his claim, or 
show it, 
Although 'tis an imaginary thing. 
Even I — albeit I'm sure I did not 
know it. 
Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be 
king, — 
Was reckoned, a considerable time. 
The grand Napoleon of the realms of 
rhyme. 

LVI. 

But Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero 
My Leipsic, and my Mont Saint Jean 
seems Cain: 
La Belle Alliance of dunces down at 
zero. 
Now that the Lion's fallen, may rise 
again: 
But I will fall at least as fell my 
Hero; 
Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign; 
Or to some lonely isle of gaolers go. 
With turncoat Southey for my turnkey 
Lowe. 



ii88 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xi. 



LVII. 

Sir Walter reigned before me; Moore 

and Campbell 
Before and after; but now grown 

more holy, 
The Muses upon Sion's hill must 

ramble 
With poets almost clergymen, or 

wholly; 
And Pegasus has a psalmodic amble 
Beneath the very Reverend Rowley 

Powley,^ 
Who shoes the glorious animal with 

stilts, 
A modern Ancient Pistol — "by these 

hilts!" 

LVIII. 

Still he excels that artificial hard 

Labourer in the same vineyard, though 
the vine 
Yields him but vinegar for his reward, — 
That neutralised dull Dorus of the 
Nine; 
That swarthy Sporus, neither man nor 
bard; 
That ox of verse, who ploughs for 
every Hne: — 
Cambyses' roaring Romans beat at least 
The howling Hebrews of Cybele's 
priest. — 2 

LIX. 

Then there's my gentle Euphues, — ^ 
who, they say, 
Sets up for being a sort of moral me; 
He'll find it rather diflScult some day 

To turn out both, or either, it may be. 
Some persons think that Coleridge hath 
the sway; 
And Wordsworth has supporters, two 
or three; 

' [The Reverend George Croly. D.D. (1870- 
1860). He wrote, inter alia, Paris in 1815, a 
poem; and Salathiel, a novel, 1827. In lines 7, 
8, Byron seems to refer to The Angel of the 
World, An Arabian Poem, published in 1820.] 

' [Stanza Iviii. was first published in 1837. 
The reference is to Henry Hart Miiman (1701- 
1868). Byron was under the impression that 
Miiman had influenced Murray against con- 
tinuing the publication of Don Juan. Hence 
the virulence of the attack. The "roaring 
Romans" (1. 7) are "The soldiery" who .shout 
"All, All," in Croly's Catiline, act v. sc. 2.] 

3 [Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall), 
1787-1874.] 



And that deep-mouthed Boeotian "Sav- 
age Landor" 

Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's 
gander. 

LX. 

John Keats, who was killed off by one 

critique,^ 
Just as he really promised something 

great. 
If not intelligible, without Greek 

Contrived to talk about the gods of 1 

late. 
Much as they might have been supposed 

to speak. 
Poor fellow ! His was an untoward 

fate; 
'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery 

particle,^ 
Should let itself be snuff"ed out by an 

article. 

LXI. 

The list grows long of live and dead 

pretenders 
To that which none will gain — or 

none will know 
The conqueror at least; who, ere Time 

renders 
His last award, will have the long 

grass grow 
Above his burnt-out brain, and sapless 

cinders. 
If I might augur, I should rate but low 
Their chances; — they're too numer- 
ous, like the thirty 
Mock tyrants, when Rome's annals 

waxed but dirty. 

LXII. 

This is the literary lower empire, 

Where the praetorian bands take up 
the matter; — 
A "dreadful trade," like his who 
"gathers samphire," 

' [Croker's article in the Quarterly (April, 
1818 [pub. September], vol. xix. pp. 204-208) 
did not "kill John Keats." See a letter to 
George and Georgiana Keats, October, 1818. 
Byron adopts Shelley's belief that the Reviewer, 
"miserable man," "one of the meanest," had 
"wantonly defaced one of the noblest speci- 
mens of the workman.ship of God." See Pref- 
ace to Adonais, and stanzas xxxvi., xxxvii.] 

' "Divinae particulam aurae" [Hor., Sat. ii. 2. 
79]. 



Canto xi.] 



DON JUAN 



1 189 



The insolent soldiery to soothe and 
flatter, 

With the same feelings as you'd coax a 
vampire. 
Now, were I once at home, and in 
good satire, 

I'd try conclusions with those Jani- 
zaries, 

And show them what an intellectual war 
is. 

LXIII. 

I think I know a trick or two, would 

turn 
Their flanks; — but it is hardly worth 

mv while. 
With such small gear to give myself 

concern: 
Indeed I've not the necessary bile; 
My natural temper's really aught but 

stern. 
And even my Muse's worst reproof's 

a smile; 
And then she drops a brief and modern 

curtsv, 
And glides away, assured she never 

hurts ye. 

LXIV. 

My Juan, whom I left in deadly peril 
Amongst live poets and blue ladies, 
passed 
With some small profit through that 
field so sterile, 
Being tired in time — and, neither 
least nor last, 
Left it before he had been treated very 
ill; 
And henceforth found himself more 
gaily classed 
Amongst the higher spirits of the day. 
The Sun's true son, no vapour, but a ray. 

LXV. 

His morns he passed in business — 
which dissected. 
Was, like all business, a laborious 
nothing 
That leads to lassitude, the most infected 
And Centaur Nessus garb of mortal 
clothing, 
And on our sofas makes us lie dejected. 
And talk in tender horrors of our 
loathing 



All kinds of toil, save for our country's 

good — 
Which grows no better, though 'tis 

time it should. 

LXVI. 

His afternoons he passed in visits, 
luncheons. 
Lounging and boxing; and the twi- 
light hour 

In riding round those vegetable punch- 
eons 
Called "Parks," where there is 
neither fruit nor flower 

Enough to gratify a bee's slight munch- 
ings; 
But after all it is the only "bower" 

(In Moore's phrase) where the fashion- 
able fair 

Can form a slight acquaintance with 
fresh air. 

LXVII. 

Then dress, then dinner, then awakes 
the world ! 
Then glare the lamps, then whirl the 
wheels, then roar 
Through street and square fast flushing 
chariots hurled 
Like harnessed meteors; then along 
the floor 
Chalk mimics painting; then festoons 
are twirled; 
Then roll the brazen thunders of the 
door, 
Which opens to the thousand happy few 
An earthly Paradise of Or Molu. 

LXVIII. 

There stands the'noble hostess, nor shall 
sink 
With the three-thousandth curtsy; 
there the waltz. 
The only dance which teaches girls to 
think. 
Makes one in love even with its very 
faults. 
Saloon, room, hall, o'erflow beyond 
their brink. 
And long the latest of arrivals hahs, 
'Midst royal dukes and dames con- 
demned to climb, 
And gain an inch of staircase at a time. 



190 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xi. 



LXIX. 

Thrice happy he who, after a survey 
Of the good company, can win a 
corner, 
A door that's in or boudoir out of the 
way, 
Where he may fix himself like small 
" Jack Horner," 
And let the Babel round run as it may. 
And look on as a mourner, or a 
scorner, 
Or an approver, or a mere spectator. 
Yawning a Httle as the night grows later. 

LXX. 

But this won't do, save by and by; and 

he 
Who, like Don Juan, takes an active 

share. 
Must steer with care through all that 

glittering sea 
Of gems and plumes and pearls and 

silks, to where 
He deems it is his proper place to be; 
Dissolving in the waltz to some soft 

air, 
Or proudlier prancing with mercurial 

skill. 
Where Science marshals forth her own 

quadrille. 

LXXI. 

Or, if he dance not, but hath higher 
views 
Upon an heiress or his neighbour's 
bride 
Let him take care that that which he 
pursues 
Is not at once too palpably descried: 
Full many an eager gentleman oft 
rues 
His haste ; Impatience is a blundering 
guide 
Amongst a people famous for reflection. 
Who like to play the fool with circum- 
spection. 

LXXII. 

But, if you can contrive, get next at 

supper; 
Or, if forestalled, get opposite and 

ogle: — 
Oh, ye ambrosial moments! always 

upper 



In mind, a sort of sentimental bogle, ^ 
Which sits for ever upon Memory's 
crupper. 
The ghost of vanished pleasures once 
in vogue ! Ill 
Can tender souls relate the rise and fall 
Of hopes and fears which shake a single 
ball. 

LXXIII. 

But these precautionary hints can touch 
Only the common run, who must pur- 
sue. 
And watch and ward; whose plans a 
word too much 
Or little overturns; and not the few 
Or many (for the number's sometimes 
such) 
Whom a good mien, especially if new, 
Or fame — or name — for Wit, War, 

Sense, or Nonsense, 
Permits whate'er they please, — or did 
not long since. 

LXXIV. 

Our Hero — as a hero — young and 

handsome, 
Noble, rich, celebrated, and a 

stranger, 
Like other slaves of course must pay his 

ransom. 
Before he can escape. from so much 

danger 
As will environ a conspicuous man. 

Some 
Talk about poetry, and "rack and 

manger," 
And ugliness, disease, as toil and 

trouble; — 
I wish they knew the life of a young 

noble. 

LXXV. 

They are young, but know not Youth — 

it is anticipated; 
Handsome but wasted, rich without a 

sou; 
Their vigour in a thousand arms is 

dissipated ; 
Their cash comes from, their wealth 

goes to a Jew; 
Both senates see their nightly votes 

participated 

' Scotch for goblin. 



Canto xi.] 



DON JUAN 



1191 



Between the Tyrant's and the Trib- 
unes' crew; 

And having voted, dined, drunk, gamed 
and whored, 

The family vault receives another Lord. 

LXXVI. 

"Where is the World?" cries Young, 
"at eighty'' — "Where 
The World in which a man was 
born?" Alas! 
Where is the world of eight years past ? 
' 'Twos there — 

j I look for it — 'tis gone, a globe of 
1 glass ! 

/ Cracked, shivered, vanished, scarcely 
j gazed on, ere 

; A silent change dissolves the glittering 
I mass. 

Statesmen, Chiefs, Orators, Queens, 

Patriots, Kings, 
And Dandies — all are gone on the 
Wind's wings. 

Lxxvn. 
Where is Napoleon the Grand? God 
knows ! 
Where little Castlereagh? The devil 
can tell ! 
Where Grattan, Curran, Sheridan — all 
those 
Who bound the Bur or Senate in their 
spell ? 
Where is the unhappy Queen, with all 
her woes? 
And where the Daughter, whom the 
Isles loved well? 
Where are those martyred saints the 

Five per Cents? 
And where — oh, where the devil are 
the Rents? 

LXXVIII. 

Where's Brummell? Dished. Where's 
Long Pole Welleslev ? ' Diddled. 
Where's Whitbread ? Romilly ? 

Where's George the Third? 

I [For William Welleslev Pole Tvlney Long 
Welleslev (1788-1857). "^"if^e ante, The Wallz, 
line 21, p. 157, n<Jte i. Samuel Whitbread, 
born 1758, committed suicide July 6. 1815. 
Sir Samuel Romilly, born 1758, committed 
suicide November 2, 1818.] 



Where is his will ? (That's not so soon 
unriddled.) 
And where is "Fum" the Fourth, our 
"royal bird" ? ^ 

Gone down, it seems, to Scotland to be 
fiddled 
Unto by Sawney's violin, we have 
heard : 

"Caw me, caw thee" — for six months 
hath be'en hatching 

This scene of royal itch and loyal scratch- 
ing. 

LXXIX. 

Where is Lord This? And where my 
Lady That ? 
The Honourable Mistresses and 
Misses ? 
Some laid aside like an old Opera hat. 
Married, unmarried, and remarried: 
(this is 
An evolution oft performed of late). 
Where are the Dublin shouts — and 
London hisses? 
Where are the Grenvilles? Turned as 

usual. Where 
IMy friends the Whigs ? Exactly where 
they were. 

LXXX. 

Where are the Lady Carolines and 

Franceses ? 
Divorced or doing thereanent. Ye 

annals 
So brilliant, where the list of routs and 

dances is, — 
Thou Morning Post, sole record of the 

panels 
Broken in carriages, and all the phan- 
tasies 
Of fashion, — say what strean^s now 

fill those channels? 
Some die, some fly, some languish on 

the Continent, 
Because the times have hardly left them 

one tenant. 

LXXXI. 

Some who once set their caps at cautious 

dukes. 
Have taken up at length with younger 
brothers: 

? [See Moore's Fum and Hunt, the Two Birds 
of Royally, appended to his Fudge Family.] 



1 192 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xi. 



Some heiresses have bit at sharpers' 
hooks: 
Some maids have been made wives, 
some merely mothers: 

Others have lost their fresh and fairy 
looks: 
In short, the list of alterations 
bothers. 

There's little strange in this, but some- 
thing strange is 

The unusual quickness of these common 
changes. 

LXXXII. 

Talk not of seventy years as age; in 
seven 
I have seen more changes, dovi^n from 
monarchs to 
The humblest individuals under Heaven, 
Than might suffice a moderate cen- 
tury through. 
I knew that nought was lasting, but now 
even 
Change grows too changeable, with- 
out being new: 
Nought's permanent among the human 

race. 
Except the Whigs not getting into place. 

LXXXIII. 

I have seen Napoleon, who seemed quite 

a Jupiter, 
Shrink to a Saturn. I have seen a 

Duke 
(No matter which) turn politician 

stupider. 
If that can well be, than his wooden 

look. 
But it is time that I should hoist my 

"blue Peter," 
And 'sail for a new theme: — I have 

seen — and shook 
To see it — the King hissed, and then 

caressed ; 
But don't pretend to settle which was 

best. 

LXXXIV. 

I have seen the Landholders without a 

rap — 
I have seen Joanna Southcote — I 

have seen 
The House of Commons turned to a 

tax-trap — 



I have seen that sad affair of the late 

Queen — 
I have seen crowns worn instead of a 

fool's cap — 
I have seen a Congress doing all 

that's mean — 
I have seen some nations, like o'er- 

loaded asses, 
Kick off their burthens — meaning the 

high classes. 

LXXXV. 

I have seen small poets, and great 

prosers, and 
Interminable — not eternal — speak- 
ers — 
I have seen the funds at war with house 

and land — 
I have seen the country gentlemen turn 

squeakers — 
I have seen the people ridden o'er like 

sand 
By slaves on horseback — I have seen 

malt liquors 
Exchanged for "thin potations" by 

John Bull — 
I have seen John half detect himself a 

fool. — 

LXXXVI. 

But "carpe diem," Juan, "carpe,carpe !" 
To-morrow sees another race as gay 
And transient, and devoured by the 
same harpy. 
"Life's a poor player," — then "play 
out the play, 
Ye villains ! " and above all keep a sharp 
eye 
Much less on what you do than what 
you say: 
Be hypocritical, be cautious, be 
Not what you seem, but always what 
you see. 

LXXXVII. 

But how shall I relate in other cantos 
Of what befell our hero in the land, 
Which 'tis the common cry and lie to 
vaunt as 
A moral country? But I hold my 
hand — 
For I disdain to write an Atalantis; ^ 

■ [See the Secret Memoirs and Manners of 
several Persons of Quality, of Both Sexes, from 
the New Atalantis, i7og, a work in which the 



Canto xii.] 



DON JUAN 



"93 



But 'tis as well at once to understand, 
Your are not a moral people, and you 

know it, 
Without the aid of too sincere a poet. 

LXXXVIII. 

What Juan saw and underwent shall be 
My topic, with of course the due 
restriction 
Which is required by proper courtesy; 

And recollect the work is only fiction, 

And that I sing of neither mine nor me, 

Though every scribe, in some slight 

turn of diction. 

Will hint allusions never meant. Ne'er 

doubt 
This — when I speak, I don't hint, but 
speak out. 

LXXXIX. 

Whether he married with the third or 
fourth 
Offspring of some sage husband- 
hunting countess. 
Or whether with some virgin of more 
worth 
(I mean in Fortune's matrimonial 
bounties). 
He took to regularly peopling Earth, 
Of which your lawful, awful wedlock 
fount is, — 
Or whether he was taken in for dam- 
ages. 
For being too excursive in his hom- 
ages, — 

xc. 

Is yet within the unread events of Time. 
Thus far, go forth, thou Lay, which I 
will back 
Against the same given quantity of 
rhyme. 
For being as much the subject of 
attack 
As ever yet was any work sublime, 
By those who love to say that white is 
black. 
So much the better ! — I may stand 

alone, 
But would not change my free thoughts 
for a throne. 



authoress, Mrs Manley, satirises the distin- 
guished characters of her day.] 



too young, at 



CANTO THE TWELFTH.^ 



Of all the barbarous middle ages, that 
Which is most barbarous is the middle 
age 
Of man 1 it is — I really scarce know 
what; 
But when we hover between fool and 
sage, 
And don't know justly what we would 
be at — 
A period something like a printed page, 
Black letter upon foolscap, while our 

hair 
Grows grizzled, and we are not what we 
were ; — 

II. 

Too old for Youth, 
thirty-five, 
To herd with boys, or hoard with 
good threescore, — 
I wonder people should be left alive; 
But since they are, that epoch is a 
bore: 
Love lingers still, although 'twere late 
to wive : 
And as for other love, the illusion's 
o'er; 
And Money, that most pure imagina- 
tion. 
Gleams only through the dawn of its 
creation. 

III. 

O Gold ! Why call we misers miserable ? 
Theirs is the pleasure that can never 
pall; 
Theirs is the best bower anchor, the 
chain cable 
Which holds fast other pleasures great 
and small. 
Ye who but see the saving man at table. 
And scorn his temperate board, as 
none at all, 
And wonder how the wealthy can be 

sparing, 
Know not what visions spring from each 
cheese-paring. 

» [Cantos xii., xiii., xiv. were written, January 
—March, 1823. They were published (by John 
Hunt) December 17, 1823.] 



1194 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xii. 



Love or lust makes Man sick, and wine 

much sicker; 
Ambition rends, and gaming gains a 

loss ; 
But making money, slowly first, then 

quicker. 
And adding still a little through each 

cross 
(Which will come over things), beats 

Love or liquor. 
The gamester's counter, or the states- 
man's dross. 
O Gold ! I still prefer thee unto paper, 
Which makes bank credit like a bank of 

vapour. 

V, 

Who hold the balance of the World ? 

Who reign 
O'er congress, whether royalist or 

liberal ? 
Who rouse the shirtless patriots of 

Spain ? ^ 
(That make old Europe's journals 

"squeak and gibber" all) 
Who keep the World, both old and new, 

in pain 
Or pleasure? Who make politics 

run glibber all? 
The shade of Buonaparte's noble 

daring? — 
Jew Rothschild, and his fellow-Chris- 
tian, Baring. 

VI. 

Those, and the truly liberal Lafittc,^ 
Are the true Lords of Europe. Every 
loan 
Is not a merely speculative hit. 

But seats a Nation or upsets a Throne. 
Republics also get involved a bit; 

Columbia's stock hath holders not 
unknown 
On 'Change; and even thy silver soil, 

Peru, 
Must get itself discounted by a Jew. 

' [The Descamisados, or Sansculottes of the 
Spanish Revolution of 1820-1823.] 

' [Jacques Laffitte (1767-1844), as Governor 
of the Bank of France, advanced sums to Pari- 
sians to meet their enforced contributions to the 
allies, and, in 1817, advocated liberal measures 
as a Deputy.] 



VII. 

Why call the miser miserable ? as 

I said before : the frugal life is his, 
Which in a saint or cynic ever was 
The theme of praise : a hermit would 
not miss 
Canonisation for the self-same cause, 
And wherefore blame gaunt Wealth's 
austerities ? 
Because, you'll say, nought calls for 

such a trial; — 
Then there's more merit in his self- 
denial. 

VIII. 

He is your only poet ; — Passion, pure 
And sparkling on from heap to heap, 

displays. 
Possessed, the ore, of which mere hopes 

allure 
Nations athwart the deep : the golden 

rays 
Flash up in ingots from the mine 

obscure : 
On him the Diamond pours its 

brilliant Ijlaze, 
While the mild Emerald's beam shades 

down the dies 
Of other stones, to soothe the miser's 

eyes. 

IX. 

The lands on either side are his; the 
ship 
From Ceylon, Inde, or far Cathay, 
unloads 
For him the fragrant produce of each 
trip; 
Beneath his cars of Ceres groan the 
roads. 
And the vine blushes like Aurora's lip; 
His very cellars might be King's 
abodes; 
While he, despising every sensual 

call, 
Commands — the intellectual Lord of 
all. 

X. 

Perhaps he hath great projects in his 

mind, 
To build a college, or to found a race, 
A hospital, a church, — and leave 

behind 



Canto xii.] 



DON JUAN 



"95 



Some dome surmounted by his 

meagre face: 

Perhaps he fain would liberate Mankind 

Even with the very ore which makes 

them base; 

Perhaps he would be wealthiest of his 

nation, 
Or revel in the joys of calculation. 

XI. 

But whether all, or each, or none of 

these 
May be the hoarder's principle of 

action, 
The fool will call such mania a dis- 
ease : — 
What is his ozc'w ? Go — look at each 

transaction, 
Wars, revels, loves — do these bring 

men more ease 
Than the mere plodding through each 

"vulgar fraction" ? 
Or do they benefit Mankind ? Lean 

Miser ! 
Let spendthrifts' heirs inquire of yours 

— who's wiser ? 

XII. 

JIow beauteous are rouleaus ! how 

charming chests 
Containing ingots, bags of dollars, 

coins 
(Not of old victors, all whose heads and 

crests 
Weigh not the thin ore where their 

visage shines, 
But) of fine undipped gold, where dully 

rests 
Some likeness, which the glittering 

cirque confines, 
Of modern, reigning, sterling, stupid 

stamp ! — 
Yes! ready money is Aladdin's lamp. 



"Love rules the Camp, the Court, the 
Grove, — for Love 
Is Heaven, and Heaven is Love:" — 
so sings the bard; 
Which it were rather difficult to prove 

(A thing with poetry in general hard). 
Perhaps there may be something in "the 
Grove," 



At least it rhymes to "Love": but 

I'm prepared 
To doubt (no less than landlords of their 

rental) 
If "Courts" and "Camps" be quite so 

sentimental. 

XIV. 

But if Love don't. Cash does, and Cash 
alone : 
Cash rules the Grove, and fells it too 
besides ; 
Without cash, camps were thin, and 
courts were none; 
Without cash, Malthus tells you — 
"take no brides." 
\ So Cash rules Love the ruler, on his own 
High ground, as virgin Cynthia sways 
the tides: 
And as for "Heaven being Love," why 

not say honey 
Is wax? Heaven is not Love, 'tis 
Matrimony. 

XV. 

Is not all Love prohibited whatever, 
E.xcepting Marriage ? which is Love, 
no doubt, 
After a sort ; but somehow people never 
With the same thought the two words 
have helped out. 
Love may exist with Marriage, and 
should ever, 
And Marriage also may exist without; 
But Love sans banns is both a sin and 

shame. 
And ought to go by quite another name. 



Now if the "Court," and "Camp," and 

"Grove," be not 

Recruited all with constant married 

men, 

Who never coveted their neighbour's lot, 

I say that line's a lapsus of the pen ; — 

Strange too in my hiwn camerado Scott, 

So celebrated for his morals, when 
My Jeffrey held him up as an example 
To me ; — of whom these morals are a 
sample. 

XVII. 

Well, if I don't succeed, I have suc- 
ceeded, 



1 196 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xii. 



And that's enough; — succeeded in 
my youth, 
The only time when much success is 
needed : 
And my success produced what I, in 
sooth, 
Cared most about; it need not now be 
pleaded — 
Whate'er it was, 'twas mine; I've 
paid, in truth. 
Of late, the penalty of such success, 
.But have not learned to wish it any less. 

XMII. 

That suit in Chancery, — which some 
persons plead 
In an appeal to the unborn, whom 
they. 
In the faith of their procreative creed, 
Baptize Posterity, or future clay, — 
To me seems but a dubious kind of reed 

To lean on for support in any way; 
Since odds are that Posterity will know 
No more of them, than they of her, I 
trow. 

XIX. 

Why, I'm Posterity — and so are you; 
And whom do we remember ? Not a 
hundred. 
Were every memorywritten down all true. 
The tenth or twentieth name would 
be but blundered; 
Even Plutarch's Lives have but picked 
out a few. 
And 'gainst those few your annalists 
have thundered; 
And Mitford ^ in the nineteenth centurv 
Gives, with Greek truth, the good old 
Greek the lie. 



Good people all, of every degree, 

Ye gentle readers and ungentle 
writers, 

• See [William] Mitford's Greece (1829, v. 314, 
315)- "Griecia Verax." His great pleasure 
consists in praising tyrants, abusing Plutarch, 
spelling oddly, and writing quaintly; and what 
is strange, after all, his is the best modern history 
of Greece in any language, and he is perhaps the 
best of all modern historians whatsoever. Hav- 
ing named his sins, it is but fair to state his 
virtues — learning, labour, research, wTath, 
and partiality. I call the latter virtues in a 
writer, because they make him write in earnest. 



In this twelfth Canto 'tis my wish to be 

As serious as if I had for inditers 
Malthus and Wilberforce : — the last 

set free 
The Negroes, and is worth a million 

fighters : 
While Wellington has but enslaved the 

Whites, 
And Malthus ^ does the thing 'gainst 

which he writes. 

XXI. 

I'm serious — so are all men upon 
paper; 
And why should I not form my specu- 
lation. 
And hold up to the Sun my little taper ? 
Mankind just now seem wrapped in 
meditation 
On constitutions and steam-boats of 
vapour; 
While sages write against all procrea- 
tion. 
Unless a man can calculate his means 
Of feeding brats the moment his wife 
weans. 

XXII. 

That's noble! That's romantic! For 

my part, 
I think that "Philo-genitiveness" 

is — 
(Now here's a word quite after my own 

heart. 
Though there's a shorter a good deal 

than this. 
If that politeness set it not apart; 

But I'm resolved to say nought that's 

amiss) — 
I say, methinks that "Philo-genitive- 

ness" 
Might meet from men a little more for- 
giveness. 

XXIII. 

And now to business. — O my gentle 
Juan ! 

' [Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), 
author of the Essay on the Principle of Popula- 
tion, married, in 1804, Harriet, daughter of 
John Eckersall of Claverton House, near Bath. 
There were three children of the marriage, of 
whom two survived him. Byron may be allud- 
ing to the apocryphal story of "his eleven daugh- 
ters," related , by J. L. A. Cherbuliez, in the 
Journal dcs Economistes (1850, vol. xxv. p. 135).] 



Canto xii.] 



DON JUAN 



1197 



Thou art in London — in that pleasant 
place, 
Where every kind of mischief's daily 
brewing, 
Which can await warm Youth in its 
wild race. 
'Tis true, that thy career is not a new 
one; 
Thou art no novice in the headlong 
chase 
Of early life; but this is a new land, 
Which foreigners can never understand. 



What with a small diversity of climate, 

Of hot or cold, mercurial or sedate, 
I could send forth my mandate like a 
Primate 
Upon the rest of Europe's social state; 
But thou art the most difficult to rhyme 
at. 
Great Britain, which the Muse may 
penetrate. 
All countries have their "Lions," but 

in thee 
There is but. one superb menagerie. 



But I am sick of politics. Begin — 

"Paulo Majora." Juan, undecided 
Amongst the paths of being "taken 
in," 
Above the ice had like a skater glided : 
When tired of play, he flirted without 
sin 
With some of those fair creatures who 
have prided 
Themselves on innocent tantalisation. 
And hate all vice except its reputation. 

XXVI. 

But these are few, and in the end they 
make 
Some devilish escapade or stir, which 
shows 
That even the purest people may mis- 
take 
Their way through Virtue's primrose 
paths of snows; 
And then men stare, as if a new ass 
spake 
To Balaam, and from tongue to ear 
o'erflows 



Quicksilver small talk, ending (if you 

note it) 
With the kind World's Amen — "Who 

would have thought it?" 

XXVII. 

The little Leila, with her Orient eyes, 
And taciturn Asiatic disposition, 

(Which saw all Western things with 
small surprise. 
To the surprise of people of condition, 

Who think that novelties are butterflies 
To be pursued as food for inanition,) 

Her charming figure and romantic his- 
tory 

Became a kind of fashionable mystery. 

XXVIII. 

The women much divided — as is usual 
Amongst the sex in little things or 
great — 
Think not, fair creatures, that I mean 
to abuse you all, 
I have always liked you better than 
I state — 
Since I've grown moral, still I must 
accuse you all 
Of being apt to talk at a great rate; 
And now there was a general sensation 
Amongst you, about Leila's education. 

XXIX. 

In one point only were you settled — 
and 
You had reason ; 'twas that a young 
child of grace, 
As beautiful as her own native land, 

And far away, the last bud of her race, 

Howe'er our friend Don Juan might 

command 

Himself for five, four, three, or two 

years' space. 

Would be much better taught beneath 

the eye 
Of peeresses whose follies had run dry. 



So first there was a generous emulation, 
And then there was a general competi- 
tion. 

To undertake the orphan's education: 
As Juan' was a person of condition. 

It had been an affront on this occasion 



iipS 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xii. 



To talk of a subscription or petition; 
But sixteen dowagers, ten unwed she 

sages, 
Whose tale belongs to "Hallam's Middle 

Ages," 

XXXI. 

And one or two sad, separate wives, 

without 
A fruit to bloom upon their withering 

bough — 
Begged to bring up the little girl, and 

''out," — 
For that's the phrase that settles all 

things now, 
Meaning a virgin's first blush at a 

rout, 
And all her points as thorough-bred to 

show: 
And I assure you, that like virgin 

honey 
Tastes their first season (mostly if they 

have money). 

XXXII. 

How all the needy honourable misters, 
Each out-at-elbow peer, or desperate 

dandy, 
The watchful mothers, and the careful 

sisters, 
(Who, by the by, when clever, are 

more handy 
At making matches, where "'tis gold 

that glisters," 
Than their he relatives), like flies o'er 

candy 
Buzz round "the Fortune" with their 

busy battery, 
To turn her head with waltzing and 

with flattery ! 

XXXIII. 

Each aunt, each cousin, hath her specu- 
lation ; 
Nay, married dames will now and then 
discover 
Such pure disinterestedness of passion, 
I've known them court an heiress for 
their lover. 
"Tantcene/" Such the virtues of high 
station. 
Even in the hopeful Isle, whose out- 
let's "Dover" ! 



While the poor rich wretch, object of 

these cares, 
Has cause to wish her sire had had male 

heirs. 

XXXIV. 

Some are soon bagged, and some reject 

three dozen : 
'Tis fine to see them scattering re- 
fusals 
And wild dismay o'er every angry 

cousin 
(Friends of the party), who begin 

accusals. 
Such as — " Unless Miss Blank meant 

to have chosen 
Poor Frederick, why did she accord 

perusals 
To his billets? Why waltz with him? 

Why, I pray. 
Look ' Yes' last night, and yet say 'No' 

to-day ? 

XXXV. 

"Why ? — Why ? — Besides, Fred really 
was attached; 
'Twas not her fortune — he has 
enough without; 
The time will come she'll wish that she 
had snatched 
So good an opportunity, no doubt : — 
But the old Marchioness some plan had 
hatched, 
As I'll tell Aurea at to-morrow's rout : 
And after all poor Frederick may do 

better — 
Pray did you see her answer to his let- 
ter?" 

XXXVI. 

Smart uniforms and sparkling coronets 
Are spurned in turn, until her turn 
arrives, 
After male loss of time, and hearts, and 
bets 
Upon the sweepstakes for substantial 
wives ; 
And when at last the pretty creature 
gets 
Some gentleman, who fights, or writes, 
or drives. 
It soothes the awkward squad of the 

rejected 
To find how very badly she selected. 



Canto xii.] 



DON JUAN 



1199 



For sometimes they accept some long 
pursuer, 
Worn out with importunity; or fall 
(But here perhaps the instances are 
fewer) 
To the lot of him w^ho scarce pursued 
at all. 
A hazy widower turned of forty 's sure ^ 

(If 'tis not vain examples to recall) 
To draw a high prize: now, howe'er he 

got her, I 
See nought more strange in this than 
'tother lottery. 

XXXVIII. 

I, for my part — (one "modern in- 
stance" more, 
"True, 'tis a pity — pity 'tis, 'tis 
true") — 
Was chosen from out an amatory score. 
Albeit my years were less discreet 
than few; 
But though I also had reformed before 
Those became one who soon were to 
be two, 
I'll not gainsay the generous public's 

voice, 
That the young lady made a monstrous 
choice. 

XXXIX. 

Oh, pardon my digression — or at least 
Peruse ! 'Tis always with a moral 
end 
That I dissert, like grace before a feast: 
P'or like an aged aunt, or tiresome 
friend, 
A rigid guardian, or -a zealous priest. 
My Muse by exhortation means to 
mend 
Ail people, at all times, and in most 

places. 
Which puts my Pegasus to these grave 
paces. 

XL. 

But now I'm going to be immoral; now 
I mean to show things really as they 
are, 
Not as they ought to be: for I avow, 

» This line may puzzle the commentators 
more than the present generation. 



That till we see what's what in fact, 
we're far 
From much improvement with that 
virtuous plough 
Which skims the surface, leaving 
scarce a scar 
Upon the black loam long manured by 

Vice, 
Only to keep its corn at the old price. 



But first of little Leila we'll dispose, 
For like a day-dawn she was young 
and pure — 
Or like the old comparison of snows, 
(Which are more pure than pleasant, 
to be sure, 
Like many people everybody knows), — 

Don Juan was delighted to secure 
A goodly guardian for his infant charge, 
Who might not profit much by being at 
large. 

XLII. 

Besides, he had found out he was no 
tutor 
(I wish that others would find out the 
same). 
And rather wished in such things to 
stand neuter. 
For silly wards will bring their 
guardians blame: 
So when he saw each ancient dame a 
suitor 
To make his little wild Asiatic tame, 
Consulting "the Society for Vice 
Suppression," Lady Pinchbeck was his 
choice. 

XLIII. 

Olden she was — but had been very 
young; 
Virtuous she was — and had been, I 
believe; 
Although the World has such an evil 
tongue 

That but my chaster ear wall not 

receive 
An echo of a syllable that's wrong; 
In fact, there's nothing makes me so 
much grieve. 
As that abominable tittle-tattle, 
Which is the cud eschewed by human 
cattle. 



I200 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xii. 



XLIV. 

Moreover I've remarked (and I was 
once 
A slight observer in a modest way), 
And so may every one except a dunce, 

That ladies in their youth a little gay, 

Besides their knowledge of the World, 

and sense 

Of the sad consequence of going 

astray. 

Are wiser in their warnings 'gainst the 

woe 
Which the mere passionless can never 
know. 

XLV. 

While the harsh prude indemnifies her 

virtue 
By railing at the unknown and envied 

passion. 
Seeking far less to save you than to hurt 

you. 
Or, what's still worse, to put you out 

of fashion, — 
The kinder veteran with calm words will 

court you. 
Entreating you to pause before you 

dash on; 
Expounding and illustrating the riddle 
Of epic Love's beginning — end — and 

middle. 

XL VI. 

Now whether it be thus, or that they are 

stricter. 
As better knowing why they should 

be so, 
I think you'll find from many a family 

picture 
That daughters of such mothers as 

may know 
The World by experience rather than by 

lecture, 
Turn out much better for the Smith- 
field Show 
Of vestals brought into the marriage 

mart, 
Than those bred up by prudes without 

a heart. 

XLVII. 

I said that Lady Pinchbeck had been 
talked about — 
As who has not, if female, young, and 
pretty ? 



But now no more the ghost of Scandal 
stalked about; 
She merely was deemed amiable and 
witty. 
And several of her best hons-mots were 
hawked about: 
Then she was given to charity and 

pity, 

And passed (at least the latter years of 

life) 
For being a most exemplary wife. 

XLVIII. 

High in high circles, gentle in her own, 
She was the mild reprover of the 
young. 
Whenever — which means every day — 
they'd shown 
An awkward inclination to go wrong. 
The quantity of good she did 's un- 
known. 
Or at the least would lengthen out 
my song: 
In brief, the little orphan of the East 
Had raised an interest in her, — which 
increased. 

XLIX. 

Juan, too, was a sort of favourite with 
her. 
Because she thought him a good heart 
at bottom, 
A little spoiled, but not so altogether; 
Which was a wonder, if you think 
who got him. 
And how he had been tossed, he scarce 
knew whither: 
Though this might ruin others, it did 
not him. 
At least entirely — for he had seen too 

many 
Changes in Youth, to be surprised at 
any. 

L. 

And these vicissitudes tell best in youth ; 
For when they happen at a riper age. 
People are apt to blame the Fates, for- 
sooth. 
And wonder Providence is not more 
sage. 
Adversity is the first path to Truth: 
He who hath proved War — Storm — 
or Woman's rage, 



Canto xii.] 



DON JUAN 



Whether his winters be eighteen or 

eighty, 
Hath won the experience which is 

deemed so weighty. 



How far it profits is another matter. — 
Our hero gladly saw his little charge 
Safe with a lady, whose last grown-up 
daughter 
Being long married, and thus set at 
large, 
Had left all the accomplishments she 
taught her 
To be transmitted, like the Lord 
Mayor's barge, 
To the next comer; or — ^s it will tell 
More Muse-like — like to Cytherea's 
shell. 

LII. 

I call such things transmission ; for there 
is 
A floating balance of accomplishment, 
Which forms a pedigree from Miss to 
Miss, 
According as their minds or backs are 
bent. 
Some waltz — some draw — some 
fathom the abyss 
Of Metaphysics; others are content 
With Music; the most moderate shine 

as wits; — 
While others have a genius turned for 
fits. 

LIII. 

But whether fits, or wits, or harpsi- 
chords — 
Theology — fine arts — or finer stays, 
May be the baits for Gentlemen or 
Lords 
With regular descent,'in these our days, 
The last year to the new transfers its 
hoards; 
New vestals claim men's eyes with the 
same praise 
Of " elegant" et cater a, in fresh batches — 
All matchless creatures — and yet bent 
on matches. 



LIV 



'Tis 



But now I will begin my poem. ± i= 
Perhaps a little strange, if not quite 
new, 

4H 



That from the first of Cantos up to this 
I've not begun what we have to go 
through. 
These first twelve books are merely 
flourishes, 
Preludios, trying just a string or two 
Upon my lyre, or making the pegs sure; 
And when so, you shall have, the over- 
ture. 

LV, 

My Muses do not care a pinch of rosin 
About what's called success, or not 

succeeding: 
Such thoughts are quite below the strain 

they have chosen; 
'Tis a "great moral lesson" they are 

reading. 
I thought, at setting off, about two 

dozen 
Cantos would do; but at Apollo's 

pleading. 
If that my Pegasus should not be 

foundered, 
I think to canter gently through a 

hundred. 

LVI, 

Don Juan saw that Microcosm on stilts, 
Yclept the Great World; for it is the 
least. 
Although the highest: but as swords 
have hilts 
By which their power of mischief is 
increased. 
When Man in battle or in quarrel filts, 
Thus the low world, north, south, or 
west, or east. 
Must still obey the high — which is their 

handle. 
Their Moon, their Sun, their gas, their 
farthing candle. 

LVir. 

He had many friends who had many 

wives, and was 
Well looked upon by both, to that 

extent 
Of friendship which you may accept or 

pass, 
It does nor good nor harm; being 

merely meant 
To keep the wheels going of the higher 

class, 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xii. 



And draw them nightly when a ticket's 

sent; 
And what with masquerades, and fetes, 

and balls, 
For the first season such a life scarce 

palls. 

LVIII. 

A young unmarried man, with a good 
name 
And fortune, has an awkward part to 
play; 
For good society is but a game, 

"The royal game of Goose," as I may 
say. 
Where everybody has some separate 
aim. 
An end to answer, or a plan to lay — 
The single ladies wishing to be double 
The married ones to save the virgins 
trouble. 

LIX. 

I don't mean this as general, but par- 
ticular 
Examples may be found of such pur- 
suits: 

Though several also keep their perpen- 
dicular 
Like poplars, with good principles for 
roots; 

Yet many have a method more reticu- 
lar — 
"Fishers for men," like Sirens with 
soft lutes: 

Foi^talk six times with the same single 
lady. 

And you may get the wedding-dresses 
ready. 

LX. 

Perhaps you'll have a letter from the 
mother. 
To say her daughter's feelings are 
trepanned; 
Perhaps you'll have a visit from the 
brother, 
All strut, and stays, and whiskers, to 
demand 
What "your intentions are"? — One 
way or other 
It seems the virgin's heart expects 
your hand: 
And between pity for her case and yours. 
You'll add to Matrimony's list of cures. 



I've known a dozen weddings made even 

thus, 
And some of them high names: I 

have also known 
Young men who — though they hated 

to discuss 
Pretensions which they never dreamed 

to have shown — 
Yet neither frightened by a female 

fuss. 
Nor by mustachios moved, were let 

alone, 
And lived, as did the broken-hearted 

fair. 
In happier plight than if they formed a 

pair. 

LXII. 

There's also nightly, to the uninitiated, 
A peril — not indeed like Love or 
Marriage, 

But not the less for this to be depre- 
ciated : 
It is — I meant and mean not to dis- 
parage 

The show of Virtue even in the viti- 
ated — 
It adds an outward grace unto their 
carriage — 

But to denounce the amphibious sort of 
harlot, 

Coukur de rose, who's neither white nor 
scarlet. 

LXIII. 

Such is your cold coquette, who can't 
say "No," 
And won't say "Yes," and keeps you 
on and off-ing 
On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow — 
Then sees your heart wrecked, with 
an inward scoffing. 
This works a world of sentimental woe. 
And sends new Werters yearly to 
their coffin; 
But yet is merely innocent flirtation 
Not quite adultery, but adulteration. 

LXIV. 

"Ye gods, I grow a talker!" Let us 
prate. 
The next of perils, though I place it 
sterjiest, 



Canto xii.] 



DON JUAN 



1203 



Is when, without regard to Church or 

State, 
A wife makes or takes love in upright 

earnest. 
Abroad, such things decide few women's 

fate — 
(Such, early Traveller ! is the truth 

thou learnest) — 
But in old England, when a young bride 

errs. 
Poor thing ! Eve's was a trifling case to 

hers. 

LXV. 

For 'tis a low, newspaper, humdrum 

lawsuit 
Country, where a young couple of the 

same ages 
Can't form a friendship, but the world 

o'erawes it. 
Then there's the vulgar trick of those 

d — d damages ! 
A verdict — grievous foe to those who 

cause it ! — 
Forms a sad climax to romantic 

homages; 
Besides those soothing speeches of the 

pleaders. 
And evidences which regale all readers. 

LXVI. 

But they who blunder thus are raw 
beginners; 
A little genial sprinkling of hypocrisy 
Has saved the fame of thousand splendid 
sinners, 
The loveliest oligarchs of our Gy- 
I nocracy ; 

' You may see such at all the balls and 
dinners. 
Among the proudest of our aris- 
tocracy, 
So gentle, charming, charitable, chaste — 
And all by having tact as well as taste. 

LXVII. 

Juan, who did not stand in the predica- 
ment 
Of a mere novice, had one safeguard 
more; 
For he was sick — no, 'twas not the 
word sick I meant — 
But he had seen so much good love 
before, 



That he was not in heart so very weak; 

— I meant 
But thus much, and no sneer against 

the shore 
Of white cliffs, white necks, blue eyes, 

bluer stockings — 
Tithes, taxes, duns — and doors with 

double knockings. 

LX\'III. 

But coming young from lands and 

scenes romantic. 
Where lives, not lawsuits, must be 

risked for Passion, 
And Passion's self must have a spice of 

frantic, 
Into a country where 'tis half a 

fashion. 
Seemed to him half commercial, half 

pedantic, 
Howe'er he might esteem this moral 

nation: 
Besides (alas! his taste — forgive and 

pity !) 
At first he did not think the women 

pretty. 

LXIX. 

I sav at frst — for he found out at 

'last, 
But by degrees, that they were fairer 

far 
Than the more glowing dames whose 

lot is cast 
Beneath the influence of the Eastern 

Star. 
A further proof we should not judge in 

haste; 
Yet inexperience could not be his bar 
To taste: — the truth is, if men would 

confess. 
That novelties please less than they 

impress. 

LXX. 

Though travelled, I have never had the 
luck to 
Trace up those shufl!Iing negroes, 
Nile or Niger, 
To that impracticable place Tirabuctoo, 
Where Geography finds no one to 
oblige her 
With such a chart as may be safely 
stuck to — 



I204 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xii. 



For Europe ploughs in Afric like "605 

piger" : 
But if I had been at Timbuctoo, there 
No doubt I should be told that black is 

fair. 

LXXI. 

It is. I will not swear that black is 
white, 
But I suspect in fact that white is 
black, 
And the whole matter rests upon eye- 
sight: — 
Ask a blind man, the best judge. 
You'll attack 
Perhaps this new position — but I'm 
right; 
Or if I'm wrong, I'll not be ta'en 
aback: — 
hath ] 
dark 

Within — and what seest thou ? A 
dubious spark I 



But I'm relapsing into Metaphysics, 
That labyrinth, whose clue is of the 
same 
Construction as your cures for hectic 
phthisics, 
Those bright moths fluttering round 
a dying flame: 
And this reflection brings me to plain 
Physics, 
And to the beauties of a foreign dame. 
Compared with those of our pure pearls 

of price. 
Those polar summers, all Sun, and some 
ice. 

LXXIII. 

Or say they are like virtuous mermaids, 
whose 
Beginnings are fair faces, ends mere 
fishes; — 
Not that there's not a quantity of those 
Who have a due respect for their own 
wishes. 
Like Russians rushing from hot baths 
to snows ^ 

' The Russians, as is well known, run out 
from their hot baths to plunge into the Neva; 
a pleasant practical antithesis, which it seems 
does them no harm. 



Are they, at bottom virtuous even 

when vicious: 
They warm into a scrape, but keep of 

course. 
As a reserve, a plunge into remorse. 

LXXIV. 

But this has nought to do with theit 
outsides. 
I said that Juan did not think them 
pretty 
At the first blush; for a fair Briton hides 
Half her attractions — probably from 
pity — 
And rather calmly into the heart glides, 
Than storms it as a foe would take a 
city; 
But once there (if you doubt this, prithee 

try) 
She keeps it for you like a true ally. 



She cannot step as does an Arab barb. 
Or Andalusian girl from mass return- 
ing, 
Nor wear as gracefully as Gauls her 

garb. 
Nor in her eye Ausonia's glance is 

burning; 
Her voice, though sweet, is not so fit to 

warb- 
le those hravuras (which I still am 

learning 
To like, though I have been seven years 

in Italy, 
And have, or had, an ear that served me 

prettily); — 

LXXVI. 

She cannot do these things, nor one or 
two 
Others, in that off-hand and dashing 
style 
Which takes so much — to give the 
Devil his due; 
Nor is she quite so ready with her 
smile. 
Nor settles all things in one interview, 
(A thing approved as saving time and 
toil); — 
But though the soil may give you time 

and trouble, 
Well cultivated, it will render double. 



Canto xii.] 



DON JUAN 



LXXVII. 

And if in fact she takes to a grande 
passion, 
It is a very serious thing indeed: 
Nine times in ten 'tis but caprice or 
fashion, 
Coquetry, or a wish to take the lead, 
The pride of a mere child with a new 
sash on, 
Or wish to make a rival's bosom 
bleed: 
But the tenth instance will be a tornado. 
For there's no saying what they will or 
may do. 

LXXVIII. 

The reason is obvious: if there's an 
eclat, 
They lose their caste at once, as do 
the Parias; 
And when the delicacies of the Law 
Have filled their papers with their 
comments various. 
Society, that china without flaw, 

(The Hypocrite !) will banish them 
like Marius, 
To sit amidst the ruins of their guilt: 
For Fame's a Carthage not so soon 
rebuilt. 

LXXIX. 

Perhaps this is as it should be; — it is 
A comment on the Gospel's "Sin no 
more. 
And be thy sins forgiven:" — but 
upon this 
I leave the Saints to settle their own 
score. 
Abroad, though doubtless they do much 
amiss, 
An erring woman finds an opener 
door 
For her return to Virtue — as they call 
That Lady, who should be at home to all. 

LXXX. 

For me, I leave the matter where I 
find it. 
Knowing that such uneasy virtue 
leads 
People some ten times less in fact to 
mind it, 
And care but for discoveries, and 
not deeds. 



And as for Chastity, you'll never bind 

it 
By all the laws the strictest lawyer 

pleads. 
But aggravate the crime you have not 

prevented, 
By rendering desperate those who had 

else repented. 

LXXXI. 

But Juan was no casuist, nor had pon- 
dered 
Upon the moral lessons of mankind: 
Besides, he had not seen of several hun- 
dred 
A lady altogether to his mind. 
A little blase — 'tis not to be wondered 
At, that his heart had got a tougher 
rind : 
And though not vainer from his past 

success. 
No doubt his sensibilities were less. 

LXXXII. 

He also had been busy seeing sights — 
The Parliament and all the other 
houses; 
Had sat beneath the Gallery at nights. 
To hear debates whose thunder roused 
(not rouses) 
The World to gaze upon those Northern 
Lights, 
Which flashed as far as where the 
musk-bull browses;^ 
He had also stood at times behind the 

Throne — 
But Grey was not arrived, and Chatham 
gone. 

Lxxxiir. 
He saw, however, at the closing session, 
That noble sight, when really free 
the nation, 
A King in constitutional possession 
Of such a Throne as is the proudest 
station, 
Though Despots know it not — till the 
progression 
Of Freedom shall complete their 
education. 



' For a description and print of this inhabitant 
of the polar region and native country of the 
Aurora? Boreales, see Sir E. Parry's Voyage In 
Search of a North-West Passage, [182 1, p. 257]. 



:2o6 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xiri. 



'Tis not mere Splendour makes the 

show august 
To eye or heart — it is the People's 

trust. 

LXXXIV. 

There, too, he saw (whate'er he may 
be now) 
A Prince, the Prince of Princes at the 
time, 
With fascination in his very bow, 

And full of promise, as the spring 
of prime. 
Though Royalty was written on his 
brow, 
He had then the grace, too, rare in 
every clime. 
Of being, without alloy of fop or beau, 
A finished Gentleman from top to toe. 

LXXXV. 

And Juan was received, as hath been 
said, 
Into the best society; and there 

Occurred what often happens, I'm 
afraid. 
However disciplined and debon- 
naire: — 

The talent and good humour he dis- 
played. 
Besides the marked distinction of 
his air. 

Exposed him, as was natural, to temp- 
tation. 

Even though himself avoided the occa- 
sion. 

LXXXVI. 

But what, and where, with whom, and 
when, and why. 
Is not to be put hastily together; 
And as my object is Morality 

(Whatever people say), I don't know 
whether 
I'll leave a single reader's eyelid dry, 
But harrow up his feelings till they 
wither. 
And hew out a huge monument of 

pathos. 
As Philip's son proposed to do with 
Athos. 

LXXXVII. 

Here the twelfth canto of our Intro- 
duction 



Ends. When the body of the Book's jl 
begun, _ ^ II 

You'll find it of a different construction 
From what some people say 'twill 
be when done; 
The plan at present's simple in con- 
coction. 
I can't oblige you, reader, to read on; 
That's your affair, not mine: a real 

spirit 
Should neither court neglect, nor dread 
to bear it. 

LXXXVIII. 

And if my thunderbolt not always 

rattles, 
Remember, reader ! you have had 

before. 
The worst of tempests and the best of 

battles, 
That e'er were brewed from elements 

or gore. 
Besides the most sublime of — Heaven 

knows what else; 
An usurer could scarce expect much 

more — 
But my best canto — save one on astron- 
omy — 
Will turn upon "Political Economy." 

LXXXIX. 

That is your present theme for popu- 
larity : 
Now that the public hedge hath 
scarce a stake. 
It grows an act of patriotic charity, 
To show the people the best way to 
break. 
My plan (but I, if but for singularity. 

Reserve it) will be very sure to take. 
Meantime, read all the National-Debt 

sinkers. 
And tell me what you think of our great 
thinkers. 



CANTO THE THIRTEENTH. 



I NOW mean to be serious; — it is time, 
Since Laughter now-a-days is deemed 
too serious; 
A jest at Vice by Virtue's called a crime, 



Canto xiii.] 



DON JUAN 



1207 



And critically held as deleterious: 
Besides, the sad's a source of the 
sublime, 
Although, when long, a little apt to 
weary us; 
And therefore shall my lay soar high 

and solemn, 
As an old temple dwindled to a column. 



The Lady Adeline Amundeville 

('Tis an old Norman name, and to be 
found 
In pedigrees, by those who wander still 
Along the last fields of that Gothic 
ground) 
Was high-born, wealthy by her father's 
will. 
And beauteous, even where beauties 
most abound, 
In Britain, — which, of course, true 

patriots find 
The goodliest soil of Body and of Mind. 

III. 

I'll not gainsay them; it is not my cue; 
I'll leave them to their taste, no doubt 
the best; 
An eye's an eye, and whether black 
or blue, 
Is no great matter, so 'tis in request; 
'Tis nonsense to dispute about a hue — 
The kindest may be taken as a test. 
The fair sex should be always fair; and 

no man, 
Till thirty, should perceive there's a 
plain woman. 



And after that serene and somewhat 
dull 
Epoch, that awkward corner turned 
for days 
More quiet^ when our moon's no more 
at full, 
We may presume to criticize or 
praise; 
Because Indifference begins to lull 
Our passions, and we walk in Wis- 
dom's ways; 
Also because the figure and the face 
Hint that 'tis time to give the younger 
place. 



I know that some' would fain postpone 
this era. 
Reluctant as all placemen to resign 
Their post; but theirs is merely a 
chimera. 
For they have passed Life's equi- 
noctial line: 
But then they have their claret and 
Madeira, 
To irrigate the dryness of decline; 
And County meetings, and the Par- 
liament, 
And debt — and what not, for their 
solace sent. 

VI. 

And is there not Religion and Reform, 
Peace, War, the taxes, and what's 
called the "Nation"? 
The struggle to be pilots in a storm? 
The landed and the monied specula- 
tion ? 
The joys of mutual hate to keep them 
warm. 
Instead of Love, that mere hallucina- 
tion ? 
Now Hatred is by far the longest 

pleasure; 
Men love in haste, but they detest at 
leisure. 

VII. 

Rough Johnson, the great moralist, 
professed. 
Right honestly, "he liked an honest 
hater " ! 

The only truth that yet has been con- 
fessed 
\\Mthin these latest thousand years 
or later. 

Perhaps the fine old fellow spoke in 
jest: — 
For my part, I am but a mere spec- 
tator. 

And gaze where'er the place or the hovel 
is, 

Much in the mode of Goethe's Mephis- 
tophelcs; 

VIII. 

But neither love nor hate in much 
excess ; 
Though 'twas not once so. If I sneer 
sometimes. 



I208 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xiii. 



It is because I cannot well do less, 
And now and then it also suits my 
rhymes. 
I should be very willing to redress 
Men's wrongs, and rather check 
than punish crimes, 
Had not Cervantes, in that too true tale 
Of Quixote, shown how all such efforts 
fail. 

IX. 

Of all tales 'tis the saddest — and more 

sad, 
Because it makes us smile: his 

hero's right, 
And still pursues the right; — to curb 

the bad 
His onlv object, and 'gainst odds to 

fight' 
His guerdon: 'tis his virtue makes him 

mad ! 
But his adventures form a sorry 

sight; — 
A sorrier still is the great moral taught 
By that real Epic unto all who have 

thought. 

X. 

Redressing injury, revenging wrong. 
To aid the damsel and destroy the 
caitiff; 
Opposing singly the united strong. 
From foreign yoke to free the helpless 
native: — 
Alas! must noblest views, like an old 
song. 
Be for mere Fancy's sport a theme 
creative, 
A jest, a riddle, Fame through thin and 

thick sought ! 
And Socrates himself but Wisdom's 
Quixote ? 

XI. 

Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away; 
A single laugh demolished the right 
arm 
Of his own country; — seldom since 
that day 
Has Spain had heroes. While Ro- 
mance could charm. 
The world gave ground before her bright 
array ; 
And therefore have his volumes done 
such harm, 



That all their glory, as a composition, „ 
Was dearly purchased by his land's 
perdition. 

XII. 

I'm "at my old lunes" — digression, 
and forget 
The lady Adeline Amundeville; 
The fair most fatal Juan ever met. 
Although she was not evil nor meant 
ill; 
But Destiny and Passion spread the net 
(Fate is a good excuse for our own 
will). 
And caught them ; — what do they not 

catch, methinks? 
But I'm not (Edipus, and Life's a 
Sphinx. 

XIII. 

I tell the tale as it is told, nor dare 

To venture a solution : " Davus sum ! " 
And now I will proceed upon the pair. 
Sweet Adeline, amidst the gay World's 
hum. 
Was the Queen-Bee, the glass of all 
that's fair; 
Whose charms made all men speak, 
and women dumb. 
The last's a miracle, and such was 

reckoned. 
And since that time there has not been 
a second. 

XIV. 

Chaste was she, to Detraction's despera- 
tion. 
And wedded unto one she had loved 
well — 

A man known in the councils of the 
Nation, 
Cool, and quite English, imperturb- 
able, 

Though apt to act with fire upon occa- 
sion. 
Proud of himself and her: the World 
could tell 

Nought against either, and both seemed 
secure — 

She in her virtue, he in his hauteur. 

XV. 

It chanced some diplomatical rela- 
tions. 
Arising out of business, often brought 



Canto xiii.] 



DON JUAN 



[209 



Himself and Juan in their mutual 

stations 
Into close contact. Though reserved, 

nor caught 
By specious seeming, Juan's youth, and 

patience, 
And talent, on his haughty spirit 

wrought, 
And formed a basis of esteem, -which 

ends 
In making men what Courtesy calls 

friends. 

XVI. 

And thus Lord Henry, who was cau- 
tious as 
Reserve and Pride could make him, 

and full slow 
In judging men — when once his 

judgment was 
Determined, right or wrong, on 

friend or foe, 
Had all the pertinacity Pride has. 

Which knows no ebb to its imperious 

flow, 
And loves or hates, disdaining to be 

guided. 
Because its own good pleasure hath 

decided. 

XVII. 

His friendships, therefore, and no less 

aversions, 
Though oft well founded, which con- 
firmed but more 
His prepossessions, like the laws of 

Persians 
And Medes, would ne'er revoke what 

went before. 
His feelings had not those strange fits, 

like tertians, 
Of common likings, which make some 

deplore 
What they should laugh at — the mere 

ague still 
Of men's regard, the fever or the chill. 

XVIII. 

'"Tis not in mortals to command suc- 
cess:" 
But do you more, Sempronius — 
don't deserve it. 

And take my word, you won't have any 
less. 



Be wary, watch the time, and always 
serve it; 
Give gently way, when there's too great 
a press; 
And for your conscience, only learn 
to nerve it; 
For, like a racer, or a boxer training, 
'Twill make, if proved, vast efforts 
without paining. 

XIX. 

Lord Henry also liked to be superior, 

As most men do, the little or the great; 
The very lowest find out an inferior. 
At least tljey think so, to exert their 
state 
Upon: for there are very few things 
wearier 
Than solitary Pride's oppressive 
weight, 
Which mortals generously would divide, 
By bidding others carry while they ride. 

XX. 

In birth, in rank, in fortune likewise 

equal. 
O'er Juan he could no distinction 

claim; 
In years he had the advantage of Time's 

sequel ; 
And, as he thought, in country much 

the same — 
Because bold Britons have a tongue 

and free quill. 
At which all modern nations vainly 

aim; 
And the Lord Henry was a great debater, 
So that few Members kept the House 

up later. 

XXI. 

These were advantages: and then he 
thought — 
It was his foible, but by no means 
sinister — 
That few or none more than himself 
had caught 
Court mysteries, having been himself 
a minister: 
He liked to teach that which he had 
been taught, 
And greatly shone whenever there 
had been a stir; 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xin. 



And reconciled all qualities which 

grace man, 
Always a patriot — and, sometimes, 

a placeman. 

XXII. 

He liked the gentle Spaniard for his 

gravity; 
He almost honoured him for his 

docility; 
Because, though young, he acquiesced 

with suavity. 
Or contradicted but with proud 

humility. 
He knew the World, and would not see 

depravity 
In faults which sometimes show the 

soil's fertility. 
If that the weeds o'erlive not the first 

crop — 
For then they are very diflicult to stop. 

XXIII. 

And then he talked with him about 
Madrid, 
Constantinople, and such distant 
. places; 
Where people always did as they were 
bid, 
Or did what they should not with 
foreign graces. 
Of coursers also spake thev: Henrv 
rid 
Well, like most Englishmen, and 
loved the races; 
And Juan, like a true-born Anda- 

lusian. 
Could back a horse, as Despots ride a 
Russian. 

XXIV. 

And thus acquaintance grew, at noble 
routs. 
And diplomatic dinners, or at other — 
For Juan stood well both with Ins and 
Outs, 
As in freemasonry a higher brother. 
Upon his talent Henry had no doubts; 
His manner showed him sprung from 
a high mother, 
And all men like to show their hospi- 
tality 
To him whose breeding matches with 
his quality. 



XXV. 

At Blank-Blank vSquare; — for we will 
break no squares 
By naming streets: since men are so 
censorious. 

And apt to sow an author's wheat with 
tares. 
Reaping allusions private and inglo- 
rious. 

Where none were dreamt of, unto 
Love's affairs. 
Which were, or are, or are to be 
notorious, 

That therefore do I previously declare, 

Lord Henry's mansion was in Blank- 
Blank Square. 

XXVI. 

Also there bin another pious reason 
For making squares and streets 
anonymous; 
Which is, that there is scarce a single 
season 
Which doth not shake some very 
splendid house 
With some slight heart-quake of do- 
mestic treason — 
A topic Scandal doth delight to rouse: 
Such I might stumble over unawares, 
Unless I knew the very chastest squares. 

xxvn. 

'Tis true, I might have chosen, Picca- 
dilly, 
A place where peccadillos are un- 
known; 
But I have motives, whether wase or 
silly, 
For letting that pure sanctuary alone. 
Therefore I name not square, street, 
place, until I 
Find one where nothing naughty 
can be shown, 
A vestal shrine of Innocence of Heart: 
Such are but I have lost the Lon- 
don Chart. 

XXVIII. 

At Henry's mansion then, in Blank- 
Blank Square, 
Was Juan a recherche, welcome guest, 
As many other noble scions were; 
And some who had but Talent for 
their crest; 



Canto xiii.] 



DON JUAN 



Or Wealth, which is a passport every- 
where; 
Or even mere Fashion, which indeed's 
the best 

Recommendation; and to be well 
dressed 

Will very often supersede the rest. 



And since "there's safety in a multitude 
Of counsellors," as Solomon has said, 
Or some one for him, in some sage, grave 
mood ; — 
Indeed we see the daily proof dis- 
played 
In Senates, at the Bar, in wordy feud, 
Where'er collective wisdom can 
parade, 
Which is the only cause that we can 

guess 
Of Britain's present wealth and happi- 
ness ; — 

XXX. 

But as "there's safety" grafted in the 

number 
" Of counsellors," for men, — thus for 

the sex 
A large acquaintance lets not Virtue 

slumber; 
Or should it shake, the choice will 

more perplex — 
Variety itself will more encumber. 
'Midst many rocks we guard more 

against wrecks — 
And thus with women: howsoe'er it 

shocks some's 
Self-love, there's safety in a crowd of 

coxcombs. 

XXXI. 

But Adeline had not the least occasion 
For such a shield, which leaves but 
little merit 
To Virtue proper, or good education. 
Her chief resource was in her own 
high spirit. 
Which judged Mankind at their due 
estimation ; 
And for coquetry, she disdained to 
wear it — 
Secure of admiration : its impression 
Was faint — as of an every-day pos- 
session. 



To all she was polite without parade; 

To some she showed attention of that 

kind 

Which flatters, but is flattery conveyed 

In such a sort as cannot leave behind 

A trace unworthy either wife or maid ; — 

A gentle, genial courtesy of mind, 
To those who were, or passed for meri- 
torious. 
Just to console sad Glory for being 
glorious; 

XXXIII. 

Which is in all respects, save now and 
then, 
A dull and desolate appendage. 
Gaze 
Upon the shades of those distinguished 
men 
Who were or are the puppet-shows of 
praise, 
The praise of persecution. Gaze again 
On the most favoured ; and amidst the 
blaze 
Of sunset halos o'er the laurel-browed. 
What can ye recognise? — a gilded 
cloud. 

XXXIV. 

There also was of course in Adeline 
That calm patrician polish in the 
address. 
Which ne'er can pass the equinoctial 
line 
Of anything which Nature would 
express ; 
Just as a ]\Iandarin finds nothing fine, — 
At least his manner suffers not to 
guess. 
That anything he views can greatly 

please : 
Perhaps we have borrowed this from 
the Chinese — 

XXXV. 

Perhaps from Horace: his "Nil 
admirari" 
Was what he called the "Art of 
Happiness" — 
An art on which the artists greatly vary, 
And have not yet attained to much 
success. 
However, 'tis expedient to be wary: 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xiii. 



Indifference, certes, don't produce 
distress; 
And rash Enthusiasm in good society 
Were nothing but a moral inebriety. 



But Adeline was not indifferent : for 
{Now for a common-place !) beneath 
the snow, 
As a Volcano holds the lava more 
Within — et ccetera. Shall I go on ? 
— No! 
I hate to hunt down a tired metaphor. 

So let the often-used Volcano go. 
Poor thing ! How frequently, by me 

and others. 
It hath been stirred up till its smoke 
quite smothers ! 

XXXVII. 

I'll have another figure in a trice: — 
What say you to a bottle of cham- 
pagne ? 
Frozen into a very vinous ice. 

Which leaves few drops of that immor- 
tal rain. 
Yet in the very centre, past all price, 

About a liquid glassful will remain ; 
And this is stronger than the strongest 

grape 
Could e'er express in its expanded shape : 

XXXVIII. 

'Tis the whole spirit brought to a quin- 
tessence; 
And thus the chilliest aspects may 
concentre 

A hidden nectar under a cold presence. 
And such are many — though I only 
meant her 

From whom I now deduce these moral 
lessons, 
On which the Muse has always sought 
to enter. 

And your cold people are beyond all 
price, 

When once you've broken their con- 
founded ice. 

XXXIX. 

But after all they are a North-West 
Passage 
Unto the glowing India of the soul; 



And as the good ships sent upon that 

message 
Have not exactly ascertained the Pole 
(Though Parry's efforts look a lucky 

presage) , 
Thus gentlemen may run upon a 

shoal ; 
For if the Pole's not open, but all frost 
(A chance still), 'tis a voyage or vessel 

lost. 



And young beginners may as well com- 
mence 
With quiet cruising o'er the ocean, 

Woman ; 
While those who are not beginners 

should have sense 
Enough to make for port, ere Time 

shall summon 
With his grey signal-flag; and the past 

tense. 
The dreary Fuimus of all things 

human. 
Must be declined, while Life's thin 

thread's spun out 
Between the gaping heir and gnawing 

gout. 

XLI. 

But Heaven must be diverted; its 

diversion 
Is sometimes truculent — but never 

mind: 
The World upon the whole is worth the 

assertion 
(If but for comfort) that all things are 

kind : 
And that same devilish doctrine of the 

Persian, 
Of the "Two Principles," but leaves 

behind 
As many doubts as any other doctrine 
Has ever puzzled Faith withal, or yoked 

her in. 



The English winter — ending in July, 
To recommence in August — now 
was done. 
'Tis the postilion's paradise : wheels fly ; 
On roads, East, South, North, West, 
there is a run. 
But for post-horses who finds sympathy ? 



Canto xiii.] 



DON JUAN 



1213 



Man's pity's for himself, or for his 

son, 
Always premising that said son at college 
Has not contracted much more debt than 

knowledge. 



The London winter's ended in July — 
Sometimes a little later. I don't err 

In this: whatever other blunders lie 
Upon my shoulders, here I must aver 

My Muse a glass of Weatherology ; 
For Parliament is our barometer: 

Let Radicals its other acts attack. 

Its sessions form our only almanack. 

XLIV. 

When its quicksilver's down at zero, 

— lo! 
Coach, chariot, luggage, baggage,equi- 

page ! 
Wheels whirl from Carlton Palace to 

Soho, 
And happiest they who horses can 

engage ; 
The turnpikes glow with dust; and 

Rotten Row 
Sleeps from the Chivalry of this 

bright age; 
And tradesmen, with long bills and 

longer faces, 
Sigh — as the postboys fasten on the 

traces. 

XLV. 

They and their bills "Arcadians both," ^ 
are left 
To the Greek Kalends of another 
session. 
Alas ! to them of ready cash bereft, 
What hope remains? Of hope the 
full possession, 
Or generous draft, conceded as a gift. 
At a long date — till they can get a 
fresh one — 
Hawked about at a discount, small or 

large ; 
Also the solace of an overcharge. 

XLVI. 

But these are trifles. Downward flies 
my Lord, 

» "Arcades ambo." [Virgil, BucoL, Eel., vii. 4.] 



Nodding beside my Lady in his car- 
riage. 
Away ! away ! " Fresh horses ! " are the 
word. 
And changed as quickly as hearts 
after marriage; 
The obsequious landlord hath the 
change restored; 
The postboys have no reason to 
disparage 
Their fee; but ere the watered wheels 

may hiss hence, 
The ostler pleads too for a reminiscence. 

XLVII. 

'Tis granted ; and the valet mounts the 
dickey — 
That gentleman of Lords and Gentle- 
men; 
Also my Lady's gentlewoman, tricky. 
Tricked out, but modest more than 
poet's pen 
Can paint, — " Cost viaggino i Ricchil "^ 
(Excuse a foreign slipslop now and 
then, 
If but to show I've travelled: and 

what's Travel, 
Unless it teaches one to quote and 
cavil ?) 

XLVIII. 

The London winter and the country 

summer 
Were well nigh over. 'Tis perhaps 

a pity, 
When Nature wears the gown that doth 

become her, 
To lose those best months in a sweaty 

city, 
And wait until the nightingale grows 

dumber. 
Listening debates not very wise or 

witty, 
Ere patriots their true country can re- 
member; — 
But there's no shooting (save grouse) 

till September. 

XLIX. 

I've done with my tirade. The World 
was gone; 
The twice two thousand, for whom 
Earth was made, 

' [So travel the rich.] 



I2I4 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xm. 



Were vanished to be what they call 
alone — 
That is with thirty servants for 
parade, 

As many guests, or more; before whom 
groan 
As many covers, duly, daily laid. 

Let none accuse old England's hos- 
pitality — 

Its quantity is but condensed to quality. 



Lord Henry and the Lady Adeline 
Departed like the rest of their com- 
peers, 
The peerage, to a mansion very fine — 
The Gothic Babel of a thousand 
years. 
None than themselves could boast a 
longer line, 
Where Time through heroes and 
through beauties steers; 
And oaks as olden as their pedigree 
Told of their Sires — a tomb in every 
tree. 

LI. 

A paragraph in every paper told 

Of their departure — such is modern 
fame : 
'Tis pity that it takes no further hold 
Than an advertisement, or much the 
same; 
When, ere the ink be dry, the sound 
grows cold. 
The Morning Post was foremost to 
proclaim — 
"Departure, for his country seat, to- 
day, 
Lord H. Amundeville and Lady A. 



"We understand the splendid host 
intends 
To entertain, this autumn, a select 
And numerous party of his noble 
friends; 
'Midst whom we have heard, from 
sources quite correct, 

The Duke of D the shooting season 

spends. 
With many more by rank and fashion 
decked ; 



Also a foreigner of high condition, 
The envoy of the secret Russian 
mission." 

LIII. 

And thus we see — who doubts the 

Morning Post? 
(Whose articles are like the "Thirty- 
nine," 
Which those most swear to who believe 

them most) — 
Our gay Russ Spaniard was ordained 

to shine. 
Decked by the rays reflected from his 

host, 
With those who. Pope says, "Greatly 

daring dine." — 
'Tis odd, but true, — last war the News 

abounded 
More with these dinners than the killed 

or wounded ; — 



As thus: "On Thursday there was a 

grand dinner; 
Present, Lords A. B. C." Earls, 

dukes, by name 
Announced with no less pomp than 

Victory's winner: 
Then underneath, and in the very 

same 
Column: date, "Falmouth. There has 

lately been here 
The Slap-dash regiment, so well 

known to Fame, 
Whose loss in the late action we regret: 
The vacancies are filled up — see 

Gazette." 

LV. 

To Norman Abbey ^ whirled the noble 
pair, — 
An old, old Monastery once, and now 

' Newstead Abbey or Priory was founded by 
Henry II., by way of deodand or expiation for the 
murder of Thomas Becket. Lands which bor- 
dered the valley of the Leen, and which had 
formed part of Sherwood Forest, were assigned 
for the use and endowment of a chapter of "black 
canons regular of the order of St Augustine," 
and on a site, by the river-side to the south of 
the forest uplands (stanza Iv. lines 5-S) the new 
stede, or place, or station, arose. It was a 
"Norman Abbev" (stanza Iv. line 1) which the 
Black Canons dedicated to Our Lady, but the 
enlargement and completion of the monastery 
was carried out in successive stages and "transi- 



Canto xiii.] 



DON JUAN 



1215 



Still older mansion — of a rich and rare 
Mixed Gothic, such as artists all allow 

Few specimens yet left us can compare 
Withal: it lies, perhaps, a little low, 

Because the monks preferred a hill 
behind, 

To shelter their devotion from the wind. 

tion periods," in a style or styles which, Byron 
rightly named "mixed Gothic" (stanza Iv. 
line 4)- To work their mills, and perhaps to 
drain the marshy valley, the monks dammed the 
Leen and excavated a chain of lakes — the 
largest to the northwest, Byron's "lucid lake." 
The "cascade," which Hows over and through a 
stone-work sluice, and forms a rocky water-fall, 
issues from this lake, and is in full view of the 
west front of the Abbe\'. 

The Abbey, which, at the dissolution of 
monasteries in 1530, was handed over by Henry 
VIII. to Sir John Byron, "steward and warden 
of the forest of Shirewood," was converted, here 
and there, more or less, into a baronial "man- 
sion" (stanza Ixvi.). It is, roughly .speaking, 
a square block of (juildings. Hanking the sides 
of a grassy quadrangle. Surrounding the 
quadrangle are two-storied cloisters, and in the 
centre a "Gothic fountain" (stanza Ixv. line i) 
of composite workmanship. When the Byrons 
took possession of the Abbey the upper stories 
of the cloisters were converted, on three sides of 
the quadrangle, into galleries, and on the fourth, 
the north side, into a library. Abutting on the 
cloisters are the monastic buildings proper, in 
part transformed, but with "much of the mon- 
astic" preserved. On the west, die front of 
the Abbey, the ground floor consists of the 
entrance hali and Monks' Parlour, and, above, 
the Guests' Refectory, and the Prior's Parlour. 
On the south, the Guesten Hall, and, above, the 
Monks' Refectory, or Grand Drawing-room; 
on the south and east, on the ground tloor, the 
Prior's Lodgings, the Chapter House ("the 
exquisite small cliapel," stanza Ixri. line 5); and 
in the upper story, the state bedrooms, ruimed 
after the kings, Edward III., Henry VII., eic.,' 
who, by the terms of the grant of land to the 
Prior and Canons, were entitled to free quarters 
in the Abbey. During Byron's brief tenure of 
Newstead, and for long years before, these 
"huge halls, long galleries, and spacious cham- 
bers" (stanza Ixxvii. line 1) were half dismantled 
and in a more or less ruinous condition. A few 
pictures remained. There are and were por- 
traits, by Lely (stanza Iwiii. line 7), of a Lady 
Byron, of Fanny Jennings, Dachessof Tyrconnel, 
"loveliness personified," of Mrs Hughes, and 
of Nell Gwynne; by Sir Godfrey Kneller, of 
William and Mary; by unnamed artists, of 
George I. and George II., etc., etc.; but of 
portraits of judges or bishops, or of pictures by 
old masters, there is neitlier trace nor record. 

But the characteristic feature of Newstead 
Abbey, so familiar that description seems un- 
necessary, and, yet, never quite accurately de- 
scribed, is the west front of the Priory Church, 
which is in line with the west front of the Abbey. 
"Half apart," the southern portion of this front. 



LVI. 

It stood embosomed in a happy valley, 
Crowned by high woodlands, where 
the Druid oak ^ 
Stood like Caractacus, in act to rally 
His host, with broad arms 'gainst the 
thunder-stroke; 
And from beneath his boughs were seen 
to sally 
The dappled foresters ; as Day 
awoke 
The branching stag swept down with all 

his herd, 
To quaff a brook which murmured like 
a bird. „^^^ — r— ^ 

LVii. r\-_/' M^JL' 
Before the mansion lay a lucid Lake, ' 
Broad as transparent, deep, and 
freshly fed 
By a river, which its softened way did 
take 
In currents through the calmer water 
spread 
Around: the wildfowl nestled in the 
brake 



which abuts on the windows of the Prior's Par- 
lour, and the room above, where Byron slept, 
flanks and conceals the west end of the north 
cloisters and library; but, with this exception, it 
is a screen, and nothing more. In the centre is 
the "mighty window" (stanza Ixii. line i), shorn 
of glass and tracery; above are six lancet windows 
(which Byron seems to have regarded as niches), 
and, abox-e again, in a "higher niche" (stanza 
Ixi. line i), is the crowned Virgin with the Babe 
in her arms, which escaped, a'^ by a miracle, the 
"tiery darts" — the shot and cannpnrballs of 
the Cromwell ian troopers. Over the west door 
there is the mutilated figure of (?) the Saviour, 
but of twelve .saints or twelve niches there is no 
trace. The "grand arch" is an i\n,-clad screen, 
and nothing more. Behind and beyond, in 
place of vanished nave, of aisle and transept, is 
the smooth green turf; and at the east end, on 
the site of the high altar, stands the urn-crowned 
masonry of "Boatswain's" tomb. 

Newstead Abbey was sold by Lord Byron to 
his old schoolfellow, Colonel Thomas Wildman, 
in November, 181 7. The house and property 
were resold in 186 1, by his widow, to William 
Frederick Webb, Esq., a traveller in many lands, 
the friend and host of David Livingstone. At 
his death the estate was inherited by his daugh- 
ter. Miss Geraldine Webb, who was married 
to General Sir Herbert Charles Chermside, 
G.C.M.G., etc. 

' [Perhaps by the Druid oak B\Ton meant to 
celebrate the "Pilgrims' Oak," which, in his day, 
before the woods were replanted, must have 
stood out in solitary grandeur.] 



l2i6 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xiii. 



tjy^ 



And sedges, brooding in their liquid 

bed: 
The woods sloped downwards to its 

brink, and stood 
With their green faces fixed upon the 

flood. 

LVIII. 

Its outlet dashed into a deep cascade, 
Sparkling with foam, until again sub- 
siding, 
Its shriller echoes — like an infant made 
Quiet — sank into softer ripples, 
gliding 
Into a rivulet; and thus allayed. 

Pursued its course, now gleaming, and 
now hiding 
Its windings through the woods; now 

clear, now blue, 
According as the skies their shadows 
threw. 

LIX. 

A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile 
(While yet the Church was Rome's) 
stood half apart 
In a grand Arch, which once screened 
many an aisle. 
These last had disappeared — a loss 
to Art: 
The first yet frowned superbly o'er the 
soil. 
And kindled feelings in the roughest 
heart. 
Which mourned the power of Time's or 

Tempest's march, 
In gazing on that venerable Arch. 



Within a niche, nigh to its pinnacle. 
Twelve Saints had once stood sancti- 
fied in stone; 

But these had fallen, not when the friars 
fell. 
But in the war which struck Charles 
from his throne. 

When each house was a fortalice — as 
tell 
The annals of full many a line un- 
done, — 

The gallant Cavaliers, who fought in 
vain 

For those who knew not to resign or 
reign. 



But in a higher niche, alone, but 

crowned. 
The Virgin-Mother of the God-born 

Child, 
With her Son in her blessed arms, looked 

round. 
Spared by some chance when all 

beside was spoiled: 
She made the earth below seem holy 

ground. 
This may be superstition, weak or 

wild; 
But even the faintest relics of a shrine 
Of any worship wake some thoughts 

divine. 

LXII. 

A mighty window, hollow in the centre, 
Shorn of its glass of thousand colour- 
ings. 
Through which the deepened glories 

once could enter, 
Streaming from off the Sun like 

Seraph's wings. 
Now yawns all desolate : now loud, now 

fainter. 
The gale sweeps through its fretwork, 

and oft sings 
The owl his anthem, where the silenced 

quire 
Lie with their Hallelujahs quenched 

like fire. ^.,:;,u ,, , i ^,^4f^ 

But in the noontide of the moon, and 
when 
The wind is winged from one point of 
heaven. 
There moans a strange unearthly sound, 
which then 
Is musical — a dying accent driven 
Through the huge Arch, which soars 
and sinks again. 
Some deem it but the distant echo 
given 
Back to the night wind by the waterfall, 
And harmonised by the old choral wall : 

LXIV. 

Others, that some original shape, or 
form 
Shaped by decay perchance, hath 
given the power 



Canto xiii.] 



pX^ 



DON JUAN 



1217 



(Though less than that of Meninon's 
statue, warm 
In Egypt's rays, to harp at a fixed 
hour) 

To this grey ruin : with a voice to 
charm, 
Sad, but serene, it sweeps o'er tree or 
tower ; 

The cause I kndw not, nor can solve; 
but such 

The fact: — I've heard it, — once per- 
haps too much.^ ^--- 

Amidst the court a Gothic fountain 
played, 
Symmetrical, but decked with carv- 
ings quaint — 

Strange faces, like to men in masquer- 
ade. 
And here perhaps a monster, there a 
saint : 

The spring gushed through grim mouths 
of granite made, 
And sparkled into basins, where it 
spent 

Its Httle torrent in a thousand bubbles. 

Like man's vain glory, and his vainer 
troubles. 

LXVI. 

The Mansion's self was vast and 
venerable. 
With more of the monastic than has 
been 
Elsewhere preserved: the cloisters still 
were stable, 
The cells, too, and Refectory, I ween : 
An exquisite small chapel had been 
able. 
Still unimpaired, to decorate the 
scene ; 

' This is not a frolic invention: it is useless to 
specify the spot, or in what country, but I have 
heard it both alone and in company with those 
who will never hear it more. It can, of course, 
be accounted for by some natural or accidental 
cause, but it was a strange sound, and unlike any 
other I have ever heard (and I have heard many 
above and below the surface of the earth pro- 
duced in ruins, etc., etc., or caverns). — [M.S.] 

["The unearthly sound" may still be heard at 
rare intervals, but it is difficult to believe that the 
"huge arch" can act as an /^olian harp. Per- 
haps the smaller lancet windows may vocalise the 
wind.] 

41 



The rest had been reformed, replaced, 

or sunk. 
And spoke more of the baron than the 

monk. 

LXVII. 

Huge halls, long galleries, spacious 
chambers, joined 
By no quite lawful marriage of the 
arts. 
Might shock a connoisseur; but when 
combined. 
Formed a whole which, irregular in 
parts. 
Yet left a grand impression on the mind. 
At least of those whose eyes are in 
their hearts: 
We gaze upon a giant for his stature, 
Nor judge at first if all be true to nature. 

Lxvm. 

Steel Barons, molten the next generation 
To silken rows of gay and gartered 
Earls, 
Glanced from the walls in goodly 
preservation : 
And Lady Marys blooming into girls, 
With fair long locks, had also kept their 
station : 
And Countesses mature in robes and 
pearls : 
Also some beauties of Sir Peter Lely, 
Whose drapery hints we may admire 
them freely. 

LXIX. 

Judges in very formidable ermine 
Were there, with brows that did not 
much invite 
The accused to think their lordships 
would determine 
His cause by leaning much from 
might to right: 
Bishops, who had not left a single 
sermon ; 
Attorneys-general, awful to the sight, 
As hinting more (unless our judgments 

warp us) 
Of the "Star Chamber" than of 
"Habeas Corpus." 

LXX. 

Generals, some all in armour, of the 
old 



I2l8 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xiii. 



And iron time, ere lead had ta'en the 
lead; 
Others in wigs of Marlborough's martial 
fold, 
Huger than twelve of our degenerate 
breed : 
Lordlings, with staves of white or keys 
of gold: 
Nimrods, whose canvas scarce con- 
tained the steed; 
And, here and there, some stern high 

patriot stood. 
Who could not get the place for which 
he sued. 

LXXI. 

But ever and anon, to soothe your 
vision, 
Fatigued with these hereditary glories 
There rose a Carlo Dolce or a Titian, 
Or wilder group of savage Salva- 
tore's: ^ 
Here danced Albano's boys, and here 
the sea shone 
In Vernet's ocean lights; and there the 
stories 
Of martyrs awed, as Spagnoletto tainted 
His brush with all the blood of all the 
sainted. . 

., ,' LXXII. 

• ■• ^',/ •■ 

P^'Here s\yeetly spread a landscape of 
Lorraine; 
There Rembrandt made his darkness 
equal light, 
Or gloomy Caravaggio's gloomier stain 
Bronzed o'er some lean and stoic 
anchorite: — 
But, lo! a Teniers woos, and not in 
vain, 
Your eyes to revel in a livelier sight: 
His bell-mouthed goblet makes me feel 

quite Danish ^ 
Or Dutch with thirst — What, ho ! a 
flask of Rhenish. 

LXXITI. 

Oh, reader ! if that thou canst read, — 
and know, 
'Tis not enough to spell, or even to 
read, 

' Sal va tor Rosa. 

* If I err not, "your Dane" is one of lajyo's 
catalogue of nations "exquisite in their drinking." 



To constitute a reader — there must go 
Virtues of which both you and I have 
need; — 

Firstly, begin with the beginning — 
(though 
That clause is hard); and secondly, 
proceed : 

Thirdly, commence not with the end — 
or sinning 

In this sort, end at last with the begin- 
ning. 

LXXIV. 

But, reader, thou hast patient been of 
late, 
While I, without remorse of rhyme, 
or fear, 
Have built and laid out ground at such 
a rate, 
Dan Phoebus takes me for an auc- 
tioneer. 
That Poets were so from their earliest 
date. 
By Homer's "Catalogue of ships" is 
clear; 
But a mere modern must be moderate — 
I spare you then the furniture and plate. 

LXXV. 

The mellow Autumn came, and with it 
came 
The promised party, to enjoy its 
sweets. 
The corn is cut, the manor full of game; 
The pointer ranges, and the sports- 
man beats 
In russet jacket: — lynx-like in his aim; 
Full grows his bag, and wonder/"/^/ his 
feats. 
Ah, nutbrown partridges ! Ah, brilliant 

pheasants ! 
And ah, ye poachers ! — 'Tis no sport 
for peasants. 

Lxxvr. 

An English Autumn, though it hath no 
vines, 
Blushing with Bacchant coronals 
along 
The paths o'er which the far festoon 
entwines 
The red grape in the sunny lands of 
songp ^ ^ ^^, 



^ 



r kO 



).¥ 



Ji'^ 



Canto xm.] 



DON JUAN 



1219 



Hath yet a purchased choice of choicest 

wines; 
The Claret Hght, and the Madeira 

strong. 
If Britain mourn her bleakness, we can 

tell her, 
The very best of vineyards is the cellar. 

LXXVII. 

Then, if she hath not that serene 

decUne 
Which makes the southern Autumn's 

day appear 
As if 'twould to a second Spring resign 
The season, rather than to Winter 

drear, — 
Of in-door comforts still she hath a 

mine, — 
The sea-coal fires, the "earliest of the 

year"; 
Without doors, too, she may compete in 

mellow, 
As what is lost in green is gained in 

yellow. 

LXXVIII. 

And for the effeminate villeggiatura — 
Rife with more horns than hounds — 
she hath the chase. 
So animated that it might allure a 
Saint from his beads to join the jocund 
race: 
Even Nimrod's self might leave the 
plains of Dura/ 
And wear the Melton jacket for a 
space: 
If she hath no wild boars, she hath a tame 
Preserve of bores, who ought to be 
made game. 



The noble guests, assembled at the 
Abbey, 
Consisted of — we give the sex the 
pas — 
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke; the 
Countess Crabby; 2 
The Ladies Scillv, Busey; — Miss 
Eclat, 

» In As.s\Tia. [See Daniel iii. i.] 
» [Perhaps Mary, widow of the eighth Earl of 
Cork and Orrery: "Dowager Cork," "Old 
Corky," of Joseph Jekyll's Correspondence, 
1894.' pp. 8j, 275.] 



Miss Bombazeen, Miss Mackstav, Miss 

O 'Tabby, 
And Mrs Rabbi, ^ the rich banker's 

squaw; 
Also the honourable Mrs Sleep, 
Who looked a white lamb, yet was a 

black sheep: 

LXXX. 

With other Countesses of Blank — but 

rank; 
At once the "lie" and the elite of 

crowds; 
Who pass like water filtered in a tank, 
All purged and pious from their 

native clouds; 
Or paper turned to monev by the 

Bank: 
No matter how or why, the passport 

shrouds 
The passee and the past; for good 

society 
Is no less famed for tolerance than 

piety, — 

LXXXI. 

That is, up to a certain point; which 
point 
Forms the most difficult in punctua- 
tion. 
Appearances appear to form the joint 

On which it hinges in a higher station;; 
And so that no explosion cry "Aroint 
Thee, witch ! " or each Medea has her 
Jason ; 
Or (to the point with Horace and with 

Pulci) 
"Omne tiilH puncficm, quae miscuit utile 
dulci." 

LXXXII. 

I can't exactly trace their rule of right. 
Which hath a little leaning to a lot- 
tery : 
I've seen a virtuous woman put down 
quite 
By the mere combination of a coterie; 
Also a so-so matron boldly fight 

Her way back to the world by dint of 
plottery, 

' [Mrs Rabbi may be Mrs Coutts, the Mrs 
Million of Vivian Grey (1826, i. 183), who ar- 
rived at "Chateau Desir in a crimson silk pelisse, 
hat and feathers, with diamond ear-rings, and 
a rope of gold round her neck."] 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xiii. 



And shine the very Stria ^ of the 

spheres, 
Escaping with a few slight, scarless 

sneers. 

LXXXIII. 

I have seen more than I'll say: — but 
we will see 
How our "villeggiatura" will get on. 
The party might consist of thirty-three 
Of highest caste — the Brahmins of 
the ton. 
I have named a few, not foremost in 
degree, 
But ta'en at hazard as the rhyme may 
run. 
By way of sprinkling, scattered amongst 

these, 
There also were some Irish absentees. 

LXXXIV. 

There was Parolles,^ too, the legal bully. 
Who limits all his battles to the Bar 
And Senate: when invited elsewhere, 
truly. 
He shows more appetite for words 
than war. 
There was the young bard Rackrhyme, 
who had newly 
Come out and glimmered as a six 
weeks' star. 
There was Lord Pyrrho, too, the great 

freethinker; 
And Sir John Pottledeep, the mighty 
drinker. 

LXXXV. 

There was the Duke of Dash, who was 
a — duke, 
"Aye, every inch a" duke; there were 
twelve peers 
Like Charlemagne's — and all such 
peers in look 
And intellect, that neither eyes nor 
ears 

' Siria, i.e. bitch-star. 

»[Parolles [see AlVs Well thnt Ends Well, 
Passim] is Brougham. It was thought that his 
discretion exceeded his valour. Compare Vivian 
Grey (1826, i. 186, 187). "What do you think 
Booby says? he says, that Foaming Fudge 
[Brougham] can do more than any man in Greai 
Britain; that he had one day to plead in the 
King's Bench, spout at a tavern, speak in ihe 
House, and fight a duel — and that he found 
time for everything but the last."] 



For commoners had ever them mis- 
took. 
There were the six Miss Rawbolds — 
pretty dears! 

All song and sentiment; whose hearts 
were set 

Less on a convent than a coronet. 



There were four Honourable Misters, 

whose 
Honour was more before their names 

than after; 
There was the preux CJievalier de la 

Ruse,^ 
Whom France and Fortune lately 

deigned to waft here, 
Whose chiefly harmless talent was to 

amuse; 
But the clubs found it rather serious 

laughter, 
Because — such was his magic power to 

please — 
The dice seemed charmed, too, with his 

repartees. 

LXXXVII. 

There was Dick Dubious,^ the meta- 
physician, 
Who loved philosophy and a good 
dinner; 
Angle, the soi-disant mathematician; 
Sir Henry Silvercup, the great race- 
winner. 
There was the Reverend Rodomont 
Precisian, 
Who did not hate so much the sin as 
sinner: 
And Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet, 
Good at all things, but better at a bet. 

Lxxxvrii. 

There was Jack Jargon, the gigantic 
guardsman; ^ 

' [Gronow {Reminiscences, 1889, i. 234-240) 
identifies the Chn'alier de la Ruse with Casimir 
Comte de Montrond (1768-1843), back-stairs 
diplomatist, wit, gambler, and man of fashion.] 

' [Perhaps Sir James Mackintosh — a fre- 
quent guest at Holland House.] 

i [Possibly Colonel (afterwards Sir James) 
Macdonell [d. 1857], "a man of colossal stature," 
who occupied and defended the Chateau of 
Hougoumont on the night before the battle of 
Waterloo.] 



Canto xiii.] 



DON JUAN 



And General Fireface/ famous in the 
field, 
A great tactician, and no less a swords- 
man. 
Who ate, last war, more Yankees 
than he killed. 
There was the waggish Welsh Judge, 
Jefferies Hardsman,^ 
In his grave office so completely 
skilled, 
That when a culprit came for condem- 
nation, 
lie had his Judge's joke for consolation. 



Good company's a chess-board — there 

are kings, 
Queens, bishops, knights, rooks, 

pawns; the World's a game; 
Save that the puppets pull at their own 

strings, 
Methinks gay Punch hath something 

of the same. 
My Muse, the butterfly hath but her 

wings, 
Not stings, and flits through ether 

without aim, 
Alighting rarely: — were she but a 

hornet. 
Perhaps there might be vices which 

would mourn it. 

xc. 

I had forgotten — but must not for- 
get— 
An orator, the latest of the session, 
Who had delivered well a very set 
Smooth speech, his first and maidenly 
transgression 
Upon debate: the papers echoed yet 
With his debiit, which made a strong 
impression, 

» [Sir George Prevost (1767-1816), the Gov- 
ernor-General of British North America. At a 
critical moment in the engagement of September 
II, 1814, between Commodore Macdonough 
and Captain Downie in Plattsburg Bay. He 
issued an order for the troops to cook.] 

'[George Hardinge (i 744-1816), who was 
returned M.P. for Old Sarum in 1784, was 
appointed, in 1787, Senior Justice of the Counties 
of Brecon, Glamorgan, and Radnor. He 
"indulged in pleasantries." but Byron was 
mistaken in supposing that he cut jokes at the 
expense of condemned prisoners.] 



And ranked with what is every day 

displayed — 
"The best first speech that ever yet was 

made." 

xci. 

Proud of his "Hear hims!" proud, too, 
of his vote. 
And lost virginity of oratory, 
Proud of his learning (just enough to 
quote), 
He revelled in his Ciceronian glory: 
With memory excellent to get by rote, 

With wit to hatch a pun or tell a story, 
Graced with some merit, and with more 

effrontery, 
"His country's pride," he came down 
to the country. 

XCII. 

There also were two wits by acclama- 
tion. 
Longbow from Ireland,* Strongbow 
from the Tweed ^ — 
Both lawyers and both men of educa- 
tion — 
But Strongbow's wit was of more 
polished breed; 
Longbow was rich in an imagination 

As beautiful and bounding as a steed, 
But sometimes stumbling over a 

potato, — 
While Strongbow's best things might 
have come from Cato. 



Strongbow was like a new-tuned harpsi- 
chord ; 
But Longbow wild as an ^olian harp. 
With which the Winds of heaven can 

claim accord, 
And make a music, whether flat or 

sharp. 
Of Strongbow's talk you would not 

change a word: 
At Longbow's phrases you might 

sometimes carp: 
Both wits — one born so, and the other 

bred — 
This by his heart — his rival by his 

head. 

» [John Philpot Curran (1750-1817).! 
' [Thomas Lord Erskine (1750-1823).] 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xm. 



If all these seem an heterogeneous mass 

To be assembled at a country seat, 
Yet think, a specimen of every class 

Is better than a humdrum tete-a-tete. 
The days of Comedy are gone, alas ! 
When Congreve's fool could vie with 
Moliere's bete: 
Society is smoothed to that excess, 
That manners hardly differ more than 
dress. 

xcv. 

Our ridicules are kept in the back- 
ground — 
Ridiculous enough, but also dull; 
Professions, too, are no more to be found 
Professional; and there is nought to 
cull 
Of Folly's fruit; for though your fools 
abound. 
They're barren, and not worth the 
pains to pull. 
Society is now one polished horde, 
Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores 
and Bored. 



But from being farmers, we turn glean- 
ers, gleaning 
The scanty but right-well threshed 
ears of Truth; 

And, gentle reader ! when you gather 
meaning, 
You may be Boaz, and I — modest 
Ruth. 

Further I'd quote, but Scripture inter- 
vening 
Forbids. A great impression in my 
youth 

Was made by Mrs Adams, where she 
cries, 

"That Scriptures out of church are blas- 
phemies." ^ 

XCVII. 

But what we can we glean in this vile 

age 
Of chaff, although our gleanings be 

not grist. 
I must not quite omit the talking sage, 

' [See The History of the Adventures of 
Joseph Andrews, Bk. IV. chap. xi. ed. 1876. p. 
324-] 



Kit-Cat the famous Conversationist,^ 
Who, in his common-place book, had a 
page 
Prepared each morn for evenings. 
"List, oh Hst!" 
"Alas, poor ghost!" — What unex- 
pected woes 
Await those who have studied their 
bons-mots 1 

XCVIII. 

Firstly, they must allure the conversa- 
tion, 
By many windings to their clever 
clinch; 
And secondly, must let slip no occasion, 
Nor bate (abate) their hearers of an 
inch, 
But take an ell — and make a great 
sensation, 
If possible: and thirdly, never flinch 
When some smart talker puts them to the 

test. 
But seize the last word, which no doubt's 
the best. 

XCIX. 

Lord Henry and his lady were the hosts; 
The party we have touched on were 
the guests. 
Their table was a board to tempt even 
ghosts 
To pass the Styx for more substantial 
feasts. 
I ^\'ill not dwell upon ragoHts of roasts, 

Albeit all human history attests 
That happiness for Man — the hungry 

sinner! — 
Since Eve ate apples, much depends on 
dinner. 



Witness the lands which "flowed with 
milk and honey," 
Held out unto the hungry Israelites: 
To this we have added since, the love of 
money. 

The only sort of pleasure which 
requites. 

Youth fades, and leaves our days no 
longer sunny; 
We tire of mistresses and parasites; 

' [Probably Richard Sharp (i 759-1835): 
known as "Conversation Sharp."] 



Canto xiii.] 



DON JUAN 



1223 



I'.ut oh, ambrosial cash! Ah! who 

would lose thee? 
When we no more can use, or even abuse 

thee! 

CI. 

The gentlemen got up betimes to 
shoot. 
Or hunt: the young, because they 
liked the sport — - 
The first thing boys like after play and 
fruit; 
The middle-aged, to make the day 
more short; 
For ennui is a growth of English root, 
Though nameless in our language: — 
we retort 
The fact for words, and let the French 

translate 
That awful yawn which sleep cannot 
abate. 

CII. 
The elderly walked through the library, 
And tumbled books, or criticized the 
pictures, 
Or sauntered through the gardens pUe- 
ouslv, 
And m'ade upon the hot-house several 
strictures, 
Or rode a nag which trotted not too 

Or on the morning papers read their 

lectures, 
Or on the watch their longing eyes 

would fix, 
Longing at sixty for the hour of six. 

cm. 
But none were gene: the great hour of 
union 
Was rung by dinner's knell ; till then 
all were 
Masters of their own time — or in com- 
munion. 
Or solitary, as they chose to bear 
The hours, which how to pass is but to 
few known. 
Each rose up at his own, and had to 
spare 
What time he chose for dress, and broke 

his fast 
When, where, and how he chose for that 
repast. 



CIV. 

The ladies — some rouged, some a little 
pale — 
Met the morn as they might. If fine, 
thev rode, 
Or walked ; if foul, they read, or told a 
tale, 
Sung, or rehearsed the last dance 
from abroad; 
Discussed the fashion which might next 
prevail, 
And settled bonnets by the newest 
code. 
Or crammed twelve sheets into one 

Httle letter. 
To make each correspondent a new 
debtor. 

CV. 
For some had absent lovers, all had 
friends; 
The earth has nothing Hke a she 
epistle. 
And hardly Heaven — because it never 
ends — 
I love the mystery of a female missal. 
Which, like a' creed, ne'er says all it 
intends, ^ 

But full of cunning as Ulysses 
whistle, 
When he allured poor Dolon: — you 

had better 
Take care what you reply to such a 
letter. 

cvi. 
Then there were billiards; cards, too, 
but 110 dice; — 
Save in the clubs no man of honour 
plavs; — 
Boats when 'twas water, skating when 
'twas ice. 
And the hard frost destroyed the 
scenting davs: 
And angling, too, that solitary vice, 

Whatever Izaak Walton sings or says: 
The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb, in his 

gullet 
Should have a hook, and a small trout 
to pull it.^ 

I It would have taught him humanity at least. 
This sentimental savage, whom it is a mode to 
quote (amongst the novelists) to show their 



1224 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xiv. 



CVII. 

With evening came the banquet and the 
wine; 
The conversazione — the duet 
Attuned by voices more or less 
divine 
(My heart or head aches with the 
memory yet). 
The four Miss Rawbolds in a glee would 
shine; 
But the two youngest loved more to 
be set 
Down to the harp — because to Music's 

charms 
They added graceful necks, white hands 
and arms. 

cvin. 
Sometimes a dance (though rarely on 
field days, 
For then the gentlemen were rather 
tired) 
Displayed some sylph-Uke figures in its 
maze; 
Then there was small-talk ready when 
required ; 
Flirtation — iDUt decorous; the mere 
praise 
Of charms that should or should not 
be admired. 
The hunters fought their fox-hunt o'er 

again, 
And then retreated soberly — at ten. 

sympathy for innocent sports and old songs, 
teaches how to sew up frogs, and break their 
legs by way of experiment, in addition to the art 
of angling, — the cruelest, the coldest, and the 
stupidest of pretended sports. They may talk 
about the beauties of nature, but the angler 
merely thinks of his dish of fish; he has no leisure 
to take his eyes from off the streams, and a single 
bite is worth to him more than all the scenery 
around. Besides, some fish bite best on a rainy 
day. The whale, the shark, and the tunny 
fishery have somewhat of noble and perilous in 
them; even net fishing, trawling, etc., are more 
humane and useful. But angling 1 — no angler 
can be a good man. 

" One of the best men I ever knew, — as 
humane, delicate-minded, generous," and ex- 
cellent a creature as any in the world, — was an 
angler: true, he angled with painted flies, and 
would have been incapable of the extravagancies 
of I. Walton." 

The above addition was made by a friend in 
reading over the MS. — "Audi alteram partem." 
— I leave it to counter-balance my own ob- 
servation. 



The politicians, in a nook apart, 

Discussed the World, and settled all 
the spheres: 
The wits watched every loophole for 
their art. 
To introduce a bon-mot head and ears; 
Small is the rest of those who would be 
smart, 
A moment's good thing may have cost 
them years 
Before they find an hour to introduce it; 
And then, even then, some bore may 
make them lose it. 

ex. 

But all was gentle and aristocratic 
In this our party; poUshed, smooth, 
and cold, 
As Phidian forms cut out of marble 
Attic. 
There now are no Squire Westerns, 
as of old; 
And our Sophias are not so emphatic. 

But fair as then, or fairer to behold: 
We have no accomplished blackguards, 

like Tom Jones, 
But gentlemen in stays, as stifif as stones. 



They separated at an early hour; 
That is, ere midnight — which is 
London's noon: 
But in the country ladies seek their 
bower 
A Uttle earlier than the waning moon. 
Peace to the slumbers of each folded 
flower — 
May the rose call back its true colour 
soon ! 
Good hours of fair cheeks are the fairest 

tinters, 
And lower the price of rouge — at least 
some winters. 



CANTO THE FOURTEENTH. 



If from great Nature's or our own abyss 
Of Thought we could but snatch a 
certainty, 



Canto xiv.] 



DON JUAN 



1225 



Perhaps Mankind might find the path 
they miss — 
But then 'twould spoil much good 
philosophy. 
One system eats another up, and this 

Much as old Saturn ate his progeny; 
For when his pious consort gave him 

stones 
In heu of sons, of these he made no 
bones. 

II. 

But System doth reverse the Titan's 

breakfast, 
And eats her parents, albeit the diges- 
tion 
Is difficult. Pray tell me, can you 

make fast, 
After due search, your faith to any 

question ? 
Look back o'er ages, ere unto the stake 

fast 
You bind yourself, and call some mode 

the best one. 
Nothing more true than not to trust 

your senses; 
And yet what are your other evidences ? 



For me, I know nought; nothing I deny, 
Admit — reject — contemn: and 
what know you, 
Except perhaps that you were born to,' 
die? / 

And both may after all turn out 
untrue. 
An age may come. Font of Eternity, 
When nothing shall be either old or 
new. 
Death, so called, is a thing which makes 

men weep. 
And yet a third of Life is passed in sleep. 



A sleep without dreams, after a rough 
day 
Of toil, is what we covet most; and yet 
How clay shrinks back from more 
quiescent clay ! 
The very Suicide that pays his debt 
At once without instalments (an old way 
Of paying debts, which creditors 
regret), 



Lets out impatiently his rushing breath. 
Less from disgust of Life than dread of 
Death. 

V. 

'Tis round him — near him — here — 

there — everywhere — 
And there's a courage which grows 

out of fear, 
Perhaps of all most desperate, which will 

dare 
The worst to know it : — when the 

mountains rear 
Their peaks beneath your human foot, 

and there 
You look down o'er the precipice, and 

drear 
The gulf of^ rock yawns, — you can't 

gaze a minute. 
Without an awful wish to plunge within 

it. 



'Tis true, you don't — but, pale and 

struck with terror, 
Retire: but look into your past 

impression ! 
And you will find, though shuddering at 

the mirror 
Of your own thoughts, in all their 

self -confession, 
The lurking bias, be it truth or error. 
To the unknown; a secret prepos- 
session. 
To plunge with all your fears — but 

where? You know not. 
And that's the reason why you do — or 

do not. 

VII. 

But what's this to the purpose? you 
will say. 
Gent, reader, nothing; a mere specu- 
lation, 
For which my sole excuse is — 'tis my 
way ; 
Sometimes with and sometimes with- 
out occasion, 
I write what's uppermost, without dela_v; 
This narrative is not meant for nar- 
ration, 
But a mere airy and fantastic basis, 
To build up common things with com- 
mon places. 



1226 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xiv. 



VIII. 

You know, or don't know, that great 
Bacon saith, 
"Fling up a straw, 'twill show the 
way the wind blows; " 
And such a straw, borne on by human 
breath, 
Is Poesy, according as the Mind glows ; 
A paper kite which flies 'twixt Life and 
Death, 
A shadow which the onward Soul 
behind throws: 
And mine's a bubble, not blown up for 

praise, 
But just to play with, as an infant plays. 

IX. • 

The World is all before me — or 
behind; 
For I have seen a portion of that 
same. 
And quite enough for me to keep in 
mind; — 
Of passions, too, I have proved 
enough to blame. 
To the great pleasure of our friends, 
Mankind, 
Who like to mix some slight alloy with 
fame; 
For I was rather famous in my time, 
Until I fairly knocked it up with rhyme. 



I have brought this world about my 
ears, and eke 
The other; that's to say, the Clergy 
— who 
Upon my head have bid their thunders 
break 
In pious libels by no means a few. 
And yet I can't help scribbling once a 
week. 
Tiring old readers, nor discovering 
new. 
In Youth I wrote because my mind was 

full. 
And now because I feel it gro\A'ing dull. 



But "why then publish?" — There are 
no rewards 
Of fame or profit when the World 
grows weary. 



I ask in turn, — Why do you play at 
cards? 
Why drink ? Why read ? — To make 
some hour less dreary. 
It occupies me to turn back regards 
On what I've seen or pondered, sad 
or cheery; 
\ And what I write I cast upon the 
; Stream, 

/ To swim or sink — I have had at least 
\ my dream. 

XII. 

I think that were I certain of success, 
I hardly could compose another line: 

So long I've battled either more or less, 
That no defeat can drive me from the 
Nine. 

This feeling 'tis not easy to express. 
And yet 'tis not affected, I opine. 

In play, there are two pleasures for your 
choosing — 

The one is winning, and the other losing. 

XIII. 

Besides, my Muse by no means deals in 

fiction: 
She gathers a repertory of facts. 
Of course with some reserve and slight 

restriction, 
But mostly sings of human things and 

acts — 
And that's one cause she meets with 

contradiction; 
For too much truth, at first sight, ne'er 

attracts; 
.\nd were her object onlv what's called 

Glory, 
With more ease, too, she'd tell a differ- 
ent story. 

XIV. 

Love — War — a tempest — surely 
there's variety; 
Also a seasoning slight of lucubra- 
tion ; 
A bird's-eye view, too, of that wild, 
Society ; 
A slight glance thrown on men of 
every station. 
If you have nought else, here's at least 
satiety. 
Both in performance and in prepara- 
tion; 



Canto xiv.] 



DON JUAN 



1227 



And though these lines should only line 

portmanteaus, 
Trade will be all the better for these 

Cantos. 



The portion of this World which I at 

present 
Have taken up to fill the following 

sermon, 
Is one of which there's no description 

recent: 
The reason why is easy to deter- 
mine: 
Although it seems both prominent and 

pleasant, 
There is a sameness in its gems and 

ermine, 
A dull and family likeness through all 

ages. 
Of no great promise for poetic pages. 



With much to excite, there's Httle to 
e.xalt; 
Nothing that speaks to all men and 
all times; 
A sort of varnish over every fault, 

A kind of common-place, even in 
their crimes; 
Factitious passions — Wit without much 
salt — 
A want of that true nature which 
sublimes 
Whate'er it shows with Truth ; a smooth 

monotony 
Of character, in those at least who have 



got any. 



XVII. 



Sometimes, indeed, like soldiers off 
parade 
They break their ranks and gladly 
leave the drill; 
But then the roll-call draws them back 
afraid, 
And they must be or seem what they 
were: still 
Doubtless it is a brilliant masquerade: 
But when of the first sight you have 
had your fill, 
It palls — at least it did so upon me, 
This paradise of Pleasure and Enmii. 



XVIII. 

When we have made our love, and 

gamed our gaming. 
Dressed, voted, shone, and, may be, 

something more — 
With dandies dined — heard senators 

declaiming — 
Seen beauties brought to market by 

the score, 
Sad rakes to sadder husbands chastely 

taming — 
There's little left but to be bored or 

bore: 
Witness those ci-devant jeunes hommes 

who stem 
The stream, nor leave the world which 

leaveth them. 



'Tis said — indeed a general com- 
plaint — 
That no one has succeeded in describ- 
ing 

The monde, exactly as they ought to 
paint: 
Some say, that authors only snatch, 
by bribing 

The porter, some slight scandals strange 
and quaint. 
To furnish matter for their moral 
gibing; 

And that their books have but one style 
in common — 

My Lady's prattle, filtered through her 
woman. 

XX. 

But this can't well be true, just now; 

for writers 
Are grown of the beau monde a part 

potential: 
I've seen them balance even the scale 

with, fighters, 
Especially when young, for that's 

essential. 
Whv do their sketches fail them as 

inditers 
Of what they deem themselves most 

consequential. 
The real portrait of the highest 

tribe ? 
'Tis that — in fact — there's Httle to 

describe. 



:228 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xiv. 



"Hand ignara loquor ;" these are 
Nil gee, "'quarum 
Pars parva, fui," but still art and part. 
Now I could much more easily sketch a 
harem, 
A battle, wreck, or history of the 
heart. 
Than these things; and besides, I wish 
to spare 'em, 
For reasons which I choose to keep 
apart. 
" Vetabo Cereris sacrum qui vulgarit'^ — 
Which means, that vulgar people must 
not share it. 

XXII. 

And therefore what I throw off is 
ideal — 
Lowered, leavened, like a history of 
Freemasons, 
Which bears the same relation to the 
real. 
As Captain Parry's Voyage may do 
to Jason's. 
The grand Arcanum 's not for men to 
see all; 
My music has some mystic diapasons; 
And there is much which could not be 

appreciated 
In any manner by the uninitiated. 

XXIII. 

Alas! worlds fall — and Woman, since 

she felled 
The World (as, since that history, 

less polite 
Than true, hath been a creed so strictly 

held). 
Has not yet given up the practice quite. 
Poor Thing of Usages ! coerced, com- 
pelled, 
Victim when wrong, and martyr oft 

when right. 
Condemned to child-bed, as men for 

their sins 
Have shaving, too, entailed upon their 

chins. — 

XXIV. 

A daily plague, which in the aggregate 
May average on the whole with 
parturition, — 



But as to women — who can penetrate 
The real sufferings of their she con- 
dition ? 

Man's very sympathy with their estate 
Has much of selfishness, and more 
suspicion. 

Their love, their virtue, beauty, educa- 
tion, 

But form good housekeepers — to breed 
a nation. 

XXV. 

All this were very well, and can't be 

better; 
But even this is difficult, Heaven 

knows. 
So many troubles from her birth beset 

her, 
Such small distinction between friends 

and foes; 
The gilding wears so soon from off her 

fetter. 
That but ask any woman if she'd 

choose 
(Take her at thirty, that is)to have been 
Female or male? a schoolboy or a 

Queen ? 

XXVI. 

"Petticoat Influence" is a great re- 
proach. 
Which even those who obey would 
fain be thought 
To fly from, as from hungry pikes a 
roach ; 
But since beneath it upon earth we 
are brought. 
By various joltings of Life's hackney 
coach, 
I for one venerate a petticoat — 
A garment of a mystical sublimity. 
No matter whether russet, silk, or 
dimity. 

XXVII. 

Much I respect, and much I have 
adored, 
In my young days, that chaste and 
goodly veil. 

Which holds a treasure, like a miser's 
hoard. 
And more attracts by all it doth con- 
ceal — 

A golden scabbard on a Damasque 
sword, 



Canto xiv.] 



DON JUAN 



1229 



A loving letter with a mystic seal, 
A cure for grief — for what can ever 

rankle 
Before a petticoat and a peeping ankle ? 



And when upon a silent, sullen day, 

With a Sirocco, for example, blowing. 
When even the sea looks dim with all 
its spray. 
And sulkily the river's ripple's flow- 
ing, 
And the sky shows that very ancient 
grey, 
The sober, sad antithesis to glowing, — 
'Tis pleasant, if then anything is 

pleasant, 
To catch a glimpse even of a pretty 
peasant. 

XXIX. 

We left our heroes and our heroines 
In that fair clime which don't depend 
on climate, 
Quite independent of the Zodiac's signs, 
Though certainly more difficult to 
rhyme at. 
Because the Sun, and stars, and aught 
that shines, 
Mountains, and all we can be most 
sublime at, 
Are there oft dull and dreary as a 

dun — 
Whether a sky's or tradesman's is all 
one. 

XXX. 

An in-door life is less poetical ; 

And out-of-door hath showers, and 
mists, and sleet, 
With which I could not brew a pastoral : 
But be it as it may, a bard must meet 
All difficulties, whether great or small. 
To spoil his undertaking, or com- 
plete — 
And work away — like Spirit upon 

Matter — 
Embarrassed somewhat both with fire 
and water. 

XXXI. 

Juan — in this respect, at least, like 
saints — 
Was all things unto people of all 
sorts, 



And Hved contentedly, without com- 
plaints. 
In camps, in ships, in cottages, or 
courts — 

Born with that happy soul which seldom 
faints, 
And mingling modestly in toils or 
sports. 

He likewise could be most things to all 
women, 

Without the coxcombry of certain she 
men. 

XXXII. 

A fox-hunt to a foreigner is strange; 
'Tis also subject to the double 
danger 
Of tumbling first, and having in ex- 
change 
Some pleasant jesting at the awkward 
stranger: 
But Juan had been early taught to 
range 
The wilds, as doth an Arab turned 
avenger, 
So that his horse, or charger, hunter 

hack. 
Knew that he had a rider on his back. 

XXXIII. 

And now in this new field, with some 
applause, 
He cleared hedge, ditch, and double 
post, and rail, 
And never craned,^ and made but few 
^^ faux pas," 
And only fretted when the scent 
'gan fail. 
He broke, 'tis true, some statutes of 
the laws 
Of hunting — for the sagest youth 
is frail ; 

^Craning. — "To crane" is, or was, an ex- 
pression used to denote a gentleman's stretching 
out his neck over a hedge, "to look before he 
leaped;" — a pause in his "vaulting ambition," 
which in the field doth occasion some delay and 
execration in those who may be immediately 
behind the equestrian sceptic. "Sir, if you don't 
choose to take the leap, let me !" — was a phrase 
which generally sent the aspirant on again; and 
to good purpose: for though "the horse and 
rider" might fall, they made a gap through 
which, and over him and his steed, the field 
might follow. 



I230 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xiv. 



Rode o'er the hounds, it may be, now 
and then, 

And once o'er several Country Gentle- 
men. 

XXXIV. 

But on the whole, to general admiration, 
He acquitted both himself and horse: 
the Squires 
Marvelled at merit of another nation ; 
The boors cried "Dang it! who'd 
have thought it?" — Sires, 
The Nestors of the sporting generation. 
Swore praises, and recalled their 
former fires; 
The Huntsman's self relented to a 

grin, 
And rated him almost a whipper-in. 



Such were his trophies — not of spear 
and shield. 
But leaps, and bursts, and some- 
times foxes' brushes ; 

Yet I must own, — although in this I 
yield 
To patriot sympathy a Briton's 
blushes, — 

He thought at heart like courtly Chester- 
field, 
Who, after a long chase o'er hills, 
dales, bushes, 

And what not, though he rode beyond 
all price, 

Asked next day, "If men ever hunted 
twice ?^^ 

XXXVI. 

He also had a quality uncommon 

To early risers after a long chase, 
Who wake in winter ere the cock can 
summon 
December's drowsy day to his dull 
race, — 
A quality agreeable to Woman, 

When her soft, liquid words run on 
apace, 
Who likes a listener, whether Saint or 

Sinner, — 
He did not fall asleep just after dinner; 



But, light and airy, stood on the alert, 
And shone in the best part of dialogue, 



By humouring always what they might 

assert, 
And Hstening to the topics most in 

vogue, — 
Now grave, now gay, but never dull 

or pert; 
And smiling but in secret — cunning 

rogue ! 
He ne'er presumed to make an error 

clearer; — 
In short, there never was a better 

hearer. 

XXXVIII. 

And then he danced ; — all foreigners 
excel 
The serious Angles in the eloquence 
Of pantomime ! — he danced, I say, 
right well, 
With emphasis, and also with good 
sense — 
A thing in footing indispensable; 

He danced without theatrical pre- 
tence. 
Not like a ballet-master in the van 
Of his drilled nymphs, but like a gentle- 
man. 

XXXIX. 

Chaste were his steps, each kept within 

due bound, 
j^nd Elegance was sprinkled o'er 

his figure ; 
Like swift Camilla, he scarce skimmed 

the ground. 
And rather held in than put forth his 

vigour; 
And then he had an ear for Music's 

sound. 
Which might defy a crotchet critic's 

rigour. 
Such classic pas — sans flaws — set off 

our hero, 
He glanced like a personified Bolero; 



Or like a flying Hour before Aurora, 

In Guido's famous fresco (which alone 
Is worth a tour to Rome, although no 
more a 
Remnant were there of the old 
World's sole throne) : 
The tout ensemble of his movements 
woi;e a 



Canto xiv.] 



DON JUAN 



1231 



Grace of the soft Ideal, seldom shown, 
And ne'er to be described; for to the 

dolour 
Of bards and prosers, words are void 

of colour. 



No marvel then he was a favourite ; 
A full-grown Cupid, very much ad- 
mired ; 
A little spoilt, but by no means so quite ; 

At least he kept his vanity retired. 
Such was his tact, he could'alike delight 
The chaste, and those who are not so 
much inspired. 
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke, who love 

tracasserie, 
Began to treat him with some small 
agacerie. 

XLII. 

She was a fine and somewhat full-blown 
blonde, 
Desirable, distinguished, celebrated 
For several winters in the grand, grand 
Mofide : 
I'd rather not say what might be 
related 
Of her exploits, for this were ticklish 
ground; .-..ir-'. 

Besides there might be falsehood in 
what's stated: 
Her late performance had been a dead 

set 

At Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet. 



This noble personage began to look 

A little black upon this new flirtation ; 
But such small licences must lovers 
brook. 
Mere freedoms of the female corpora- 
tion. 
Woe to the man who ventures a rebuke 

'Twill but precipitate a situation 
Extremely disagreeable, but common 
To calculators when they count on 
Woman. 

XLIV. 

The circle smiled, then whispered, and 
then sneered ; 
The misses bridled, and the matrons 
frowned ; 



Some hoped things might not turn out 

as they feared ; 
Some would not deem such women 

could be found; 
Some ne'er believed one half of what 

they heard ; 
Some looked perplexed, and others 

looked profound : 
And several pitied with sincere regret 
Poor Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet. 



But what is odd, none ever named the 

Duke, 
Who, one might think, was something 

in the affair: 
True, he was absent, and, 'twas ru- 
moured, took 
But small concern about the when, 

or where, 
Or what his consort did : if he could 

brook 
Her gaieties, none had a right to stare : 
Theirs was that best of unions, past all 

doubt. 
Which never meets, and therefore can't 

fall out. 

XLVI. 

But, oh ! that I should ever pen so sad 

a line 1 
Fired with an abstract love of Virtue, 

she, 
My Dian of the Ephesians, Lady 

Adeline, 
Began to think the Duchess' conduct 

free; 
Regretting much that she had chosen so 

bad a line, 
And waxing chiller in her courtesy, 
Looked grave and pale to see her 

friend's fragility, 
For which most friends reserve their 

sensibility...^ *- , ■■ 

There's nought in this bad world like 
sympathy : 
'Tis so becoming to the soul and face. 
Sets to soft music the harmonious 
sigh, 
And robes sweet Friendship in a 
Brussels lace. 
Without a friend, what were Humanity, 



1232 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xiv. 



To hunt our errors up with a good 

grace ? 
ConsoHng us with — "Would you had 

thought twice ! 
Ah ! if you had but followed my ad- 



XLVIII. 

O Job! you had two friends: one's 
quite enough, 
Especially when we are ill at ease ; 
They're but bad pilots when the 
weather's rough, 
Doctors less famous for their cures 
than fees. 
Let no man grumble when his friends 
fall off, 
As they will do like leaves at the first 
breeze : 
When your affairs come round, one 

way or t'other, 
Go to the coffee-house, and take another.^ 



But this is not my maxim: had it been, 
Some heart-aches had been spared 
me : yet I care not — 
I would not be a tortoise in his screen 
Of stubborn shell, which waves and 
weather wear not: 
'Tis better on the whole to have felt 
and seen 
That which Humanity may bear, or 
bear not: 
'Twill teach discernment to the sensi- 
tive. 
And not to pour their Ocean in a sieve. 

« In Swift's or Horace Walpole's letters I think 
it is mentioned that somebody, regretting the loss 
of a friend, was answered by an universal Pylades : 
"When I lose one, I go to the Saint James's 
Coffee-house, and take another." I recollect 
having heard an anecdote of the same kind. — 
Sir \V. D. was a great gamester. Coming in one 
day to the Club of which he was a member, he 
was observed to look melancholy. — " What is 
the matter, Sir William?" cried Hare, of facetious 
memory. — " .^h !" replied Sir W., "I have just 
/oj/ poor Lady D." — "Lost! What at? Quinze 
or Hazard?" was the consolatory rejoinder of 
the querist. 

[The dramatis persona are probably Sir 
William Drummond (1770-1828), author of the 
Academical Questions, etc., and Francis Hare, 
the wit, known as the "'Silent Hare,' from his 
extreme loquacitv." — Gronow's Reminiscences, 
1889, ii. 98-101.] 



Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe, 
Sadder than owl-songs or the mid- 
night blast. 
Is that portentous phrase, " I told you so," 
Uttered by friends, those prophets of 
the pasi, 
Who, 'stead of saying what you now 
should do. 
Own they foresaw that you would fall 
at last. 
And solace your slight lapse 'gainst 

bonos mores, 
With a long memorandum of old stories. 



The Lady Adeline's serene severity 
Was not confined to feeling for her 
friend. 
Whose fame she rather doubted with 
posterity. 
Unless her habits should begin to 
mend: 
But Juan also shared in her austerity, 
But mixed with pity, pure as e'er 
was penned : 
His Inexperience moved her gentle ruth, 
And (as her junior by six weeks) his 
Youth. 

LII. 

These forty days' advantage of her 
years — 
And hers were those which can face 
calculation, 
Boldly referring to the list of Peers 
And noble births, nor dread the 
enumeration — 
Gave her a right to have maternal fears 
For a young gentleman's fit education, 
Though she was far from that leap 

year, whose leap. 
In female dates, strikes Time all of 
a heap. 

LIII. 

This may be fixed at somewhere before 
thirty — 
Say seven-and-twenty ; for I never 
knew 
The strictest in chronology and virtue 
Advance beyond, while they could 
pass for new. 



Canto xiv.] 



DON JUAN 



1233 



O Time ! why dost not pause ? Thy 

scythe, so dirty 
With rust, should surely cease to 

hack and hew: 
Reset it — shave more smoothly, also 

slower, 
If but to keep thy credit as a mower. 



But Adeline was far from that ripe 

age, 
Whose ripeness is but bitter at the 

best: 
'Twas rather her Experience made her 

sage. 
For she had seen the World and stood 

its test, 
As I have said in — I forget what 

page; 
My Muse despises reference, as you 

have guessed 
By this time; — but strike six from 

seven-and-twenty, 
And you will find her sum of years 

in plenty. 

LV. 

At sixteen she came out; presented, 
vaunted. 
She put all coronets into commotion : 
At seventeen, too, the World was still 
enchanted 
With the new Venus of their brilliant 
Ocean : 
At eighteen, though below her feet still 
panted 
A Hecatomb of suitors with devotion. 
She had consented to create again 
That Adam, called "The happiest 
of Men." 

LVI. 

Since then she had sparkled through 
three glowing winters. 
Admired, adored ; but also so correct. 
That she had puzzled all the acutest 
hinters, 
Without the apparel of being circum- 
spect : 
They could not even glean the slightest 
splinters 
From off the marble, which had no 
defect. 

4K 



She had also snatched a moment since 

her marriage 
To bear a son and heir — and one 

miscarriage. 

LVII. 

Fondly the wheeling fire-flies flew 

around her. 
Those little glitterers of the Londoi\ 

night ; 
But none of these possessed a sting to 

wound her — 
She was a pitch beyond a coxcomb's 

flight. 
Perhaps she wished an aspirant pro- 
founder; 
But whatso'er she wished, she acted 

right; 
And whether Coldness, Pride, or Virtue 

dignify 
A Woman — so she's good — what does 

it signify ? 

LVIII. 

I hate a motive, like a lingering bottle 
Which with the landlord makes too 
long a stand. 
Leaving all-claretless the unmoistened 
throttle. 
Especially with politics on hand; 
I hate it, as I hate a drove of cattle. 
Who whirl the dust as Simooms 
whirl the sand; 
I hate it as I hate an argument, 
A Laureate's Ode, or servile Peer's 
"Content." 

LIX. 

'Tis sad to hack into the roots of things. 
They are so much intertwisted with 
the earth ; 
So that the branch a goodly verdure 
flings, 
I reck not if an acorn gave it birth. 
To trace all actions to their secret springs 
Would make indeed some melancholy 
mirth : 
But this is not at present my concern. 
And I refer you to wise Oxenstiern.^ 

' The famous Chancellor [Axel Oxen.stiem 
(1583-1654)] said to his son, on the latter ex- 
pressing his surprise upon the great effects 
arising from pettv causes in the presumed mystery 
of politics: "You see by this, my son, with how 
little wisdom the kingdoms of the world are 
governed." 



[234 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xiv. 



LX. 

With the kind view of saving an eclat, 

Both to the Duchess and Diplomatist, 
The Lady Adehne, as soon's she saw 

That Juan was unhkely to resist — 

(For foreigners don't know that a 

jaux pas 

In England ranks quite on a different 

Hst 

From those of other lands unblest with 

juries, 
Whose verdict for such sin a certain 



LXI. 



The Lady Adeline resolved to take 
Such measures as she thought might 
best impede 
The farther progress of this sad mistake. 
She thought with some simplicity 
indeed ; 
But Innocence is bold even at the stake, 
And simple in the World, and doth 
not need 
Nor use those palisades by dames 

erected. 
Whose virtue lies in never being de- 
tected. 

LXII. 

It was not that she feared the very worst : 
His Grace was an enduring, married 
man, 
And was not likely all at once to burst 
Into a scene, and swell the client's 
clan 
Of Doctors' Commons; but she dreaded 
first 
The magic of her Grace's talisman. 
And next a quarrel (as he seemed to fret) 
With Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet. 

LXIII. 

Her Grace, too, passed for being an 
inirigante, 
And somewhat mechante in her 
amorous sphere; 
One of those pretty, precious plagues, 
which haunt 
A lover with caprices soft and dear. 
That like to make a quarrel, when they 
can't 
Find one, each day of the delightful 
year : 



Bewitching, torturing, as. they freeze 

or glow. 
And — what is worst of all — won't let 

you go: 

LXIV. 

The sort of thing to turn a young man's 
head, 
Or make a Werter of him in the end. 
No wonder then a purer soul should 
dread 
This sort of chaste liaison for a friend ; 
It were much better to be wed or 
dead. 
Than wear a heart a Woman loves 
to rend. 
'Tis best to pause, and think, ere you 

rush on, 
If that a honne fortune be really bonne. 



And first, in the overflowing of her 

heart. 
Which really knew or thought it knew 

no guile. 
She called her husband now and then 

apart. 
And bade him counsel Juan. With 

a smile 
Lord Henry heard her plans of artless 

art 
To wean Don Juan from the Siren's 

wile ; 
And answered, like a statesman or a 

prophet. 
In such guise that she could make 

nothing of it. 

. LXVI. 

Firstly, he said, "he never interfered 

In anybody's business but the King's :" 
Next, that "he never judged from what 
appeared. 
Without strong reason, of those sort 
of things:" 
Thirdly, that "Juan had more brain 
than beard, 
And was not to be held in leading 
strings;" 
And fourthly, what need hardly be said 

twice, 
"That good but rarely came from good 
advice." 



Canto xiv. 



DON JUAN 



1235 



LXVII. 

And, therefore, doubtless to approve 
the truth 
Of the last axiom, he advised his 
spouse 
To leave the parties to themselves, 
forsooth — 
At least as far as bienseance allows: 
That time would temper Juan's faults of 
youth ; 
That young men rarely made mo- 
nastic vows; 
That Opposition only more attaches — 
But here a messenger brought in 
despatches : 

LXVIII. 

And being of the council called "the 

Privy," 

Lord Henry walked into his cabinet, 

To furnish matter for some future Livy 

To tell how he reduced the Nation's 

debt; 

And if their full contents I do not give 

ye, 

It is because I do not know them 

yet ; 
But i shall add them in a brief appendix, 
To come between mine Epic and its 

index. 

LXIX. 

But ere he went, he added a slight hint, 
Another gentle common-place or two, 
Such as are coined in Conversation's 
mint, 
And pass, for want of better, though 
not new : 
Then broke his packet, to see what was 
in't. 
And having casually glanced it 
through. 
Retired : and, as he went out, calmly 

kissed her. 
Less like a young wife than an aged 
sister. 

LXX. 

He was a cold, good, honourable man, 
Proud of his birth, and proud of 
everything; 

A goodly spirit for a state Divan, 
A figure fit to walk before a King; 



Tall, stately, formed to lead the courtly 

van 
On birthdays, glorious with a star 

and string; 
The very model of a chamberlain — 
And such I mean to make him when 

I reign. 

LXXI. 

But there was something wanting on 
the whole — 
I don't know what, and therefore 
cannot tell — 
Which pretty women — the sweet souls ! 
— call soul. 
Certes it was not body ; he was well 
Proportioned, as a poplar or a pole, 

A handsome man, that human miracle ; 
And in each circumstance of Love or War 
Had still preserved his perpendicular. 

LXXII. 

Still there was something wanting, 
as I've said — 
That undefinable " Jg ne sfais quoi" 
Which, for what I know, may of yore 
have led 
To Homer's Iliad, since it drew to 
Troy 
The Greek Eve, Helen, from the Spar- 
tan's bed; 
Though on the whole, no doubt, the 
Dardan boy 
Was much inferior to King Menelaiis : — 
But thus it is some women will betray us. 



There is an awkward thing which much 
perplexes, 
Unless likewise Tiresias we had 
proved 

By turns the difference of the several 
sexes ; 
Neither can show quite how they 
would be loved. 

The Sensual for a short time but con- 
nects us — 
The Sentimental boasts to be un- 
moved ; 

But both together form a kind of 
Centaur, 

Upon whose back 'tis better not to 
venture. 



1236 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xiv. 



LXXIV. 

A something all-sufficient for the heart 
Is that for which the sex are always 
seeking : 
But how to fill up that same vacant part ? 
There lies the rub — and this they are 
but weak in. 
Frail mariners afloat without a chart, 
They run before the wind through 
high seas breaking; 
And when they have made the shore 

through every shock, 
'Tis odd — or odds — it may turn out 
a rock. 

LXXV. 

There is a flower called "Love in Idle- 
ness," 
For which see Shakespeare's ever- 
blooming garden ; — 
I will not make his great description less, 
And beg his British godship's humble 
pardon, 
If, in my extremity of rhyme's distress, 
I touch a single leaf where he is 
warden ; — 
But, though the flower is different, 

with the French 
Or Swiss Rousseau — cry "Voila la 
Pervenche!" ^ 



Eureka ! I have found it ! What I mean 
To say is, not that Love is Idleness, 
But that in Love such idleness has been 
An accessory, as I have cause to guess. 
Hard Labour's an indififerent go-be- 
tween ; 
Your men of business are not apt to 
express 
Much passion, since the merchant-ship, 

the Argo, 
Conveyed Medea as her supercargo. 

LXXVII. 

"Beatus ille proctdf' from ''negotiis,'' ' 
Saith Horace; the great little poet's 
wrong ; 
His other maxim, " Noscitur a sociis,'' 
Is much more to the purpose of his 
song; 

» See La Nouvelle Heloise. 
' Hor., Epod., II. line i. 



Though even that were sometimes too 
ferocious, 
Unless good company be kept too 
long; 

But, in his teeth, whate'er their state or 
station, 

Thrice happy they who have an occu- 
pation ! 

LXXVIII. 

Adam exchanged his Paradise for 

ploughing, 
Eve made up millinery with fig 

leaves — 
The earliest knowledge from the Tree 

so knowing, 
As far as I know, that the Church 

receives : 
And since that time it need not cost 

much showing, 
That many of the ills o'er which Man 

grieves, 
And still more Women, spring from 

ngt employing 
Some hours to make the remnant worth 

enjoying. 

LXXIX. 

And hence high life is oft a dreary 

void, 
A rack of pleasures, where we must 

invent 
A something wherewithal to be annoyed. 
Bards may sing what they please about 

Content; 
Contented, when translated, means but 

cloyed ; 
And hence arise the woes of Senti- 
ment, 
Blue-devils — and Blue-stockings — 

and Romances 
Reduced to practice, and performed 

like dances. 

LXXX. 

I do declare, upon an aflBdavit, 

Romances I ne'er read like those I 
have seen; 
Nor, if unto the World I ever gave it. 
Would some believe that such a tale 
had been : 
But such intent I never had, nor have it; 
Some truths are better kept behind 
a screen. 



Canto xiv.] 



DON JUAN 



1237 



Especially when they would look like 

lies; 
I therefore deal in generalities. 



"An oyster may be crossed in love" — 
and why? 
Because he mopeth idly in his shell, 
And heaves a lonely subterraqueous 
sigh, 
Much as a monk may do within his 
cell: 
And a-propos of monks, their Piety 
With Sloth hath found it difficult to 
dwell: 
Those vegetables of the Catholic creed 
Are apt exceedingly to run to seed. 

LXXXII. 

O Wilberforce ! thou man of black 
renown. 
Whose merit none enough can sing 
or say, 
Thou hast struck one immense Colossus 
down, 
Thou moral Washington of Africa ! 
But there's another little thing, I own, 
Which you should perpetrate some 
summer's day, 
And set the other half of Earth to rights; 
You have freed the blacks — now pray 
shut up the whites. 

LXXXIII. 

Shut up the bald-coot bully Alexander ! 

Ship off the Holy Three to Senegal ; 
Teach them that "sauce for goose is 
sauce for gander," 
And ask them how tliey like to be in 
thrall ! 
Shut up each high heroic Salamander, 
Who eats fire gratis (since the pay's 
but small) ; 
Shut up — no, not the King, but the 

Pavilion, 
Or else 'twill cost us all another million. 

LXXXIV. 

Shut up the World at large, let Bedlam 

out; 
And vou will be perhaps surprised to 

find 
All things pursue exactly the same route, 



As now with those of soi-disant sound 

mind. 
This I could prove beyond a single 

doubt. 
Were there a jot of sense among 

Mankind ; 
But till that point d'appui is found, 

alas! 
Like Archimedes, I leave Earth as 

'twas. 

LXXXV. 

Our gentle Adeline had one defect — 
Her heart was vacant, though a 
splendid mansion; 
Her conduct had been perfectly correct. 
As she had seen nought claiming its 
expansion. 
A wavering spirit may be easier wrecked 
Because 'tis frailer, doubtless, than a 
staunch one; 
But when the latter works its own 

undoing. 
Its inner crash is like an Earthquake's 
ruin. 

LXXXVI. 

She loved her Lord, or thought so; 
but that love 
Cost her an effort, which is a sad toil, 
The stone of Sisyphus, if once we move 
Our feelings 'gainst the nature of the 
soil. 
She had nothing to complain of, or 
reprove. 
No bickerings, no connubial turmoil: 
Their union was a model to behold. 
Serene and noble, — conjugal, but cold. 

LXXXVII. 

There was no great disparity of years. 
Though much in temper; but they I 
never clashed: 
They moved like stars united in their 
spheres. 
Or like the Rhone by I>eman's waters 
washed, 
Where mingled and yet separate appears 
The River from the Lake, all bluely 
dashed 
Through the serene and placid glassy 

deep. 
Which fain would lull its river-child to 
sleep. 



>pS>' 



1238 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xiv. 



LXXXVIII. 

Now when she once had ta'en an interest 
In anything, however she might 
flatter 
Herself that her intentions were the best, 
Intense intentions are a dangerous 
matter : 
Impressions were much stronger than 
she guessed. 
And gathered as they run like growing 
water 
Upon her mind; the more so, as her 

breast 
Was not at first too readily impressed. 

LXXXIX. 

But when it was, she had that lurking 
Demon 
Of double nature, and thus doubly 
named — 
Firmness yclept in Heroes, Kings, and 
seamen. 
That is, when they succeed; but 
greatly blamed 
As Obstinacy, both in Men and Women, 
Whene'er their triumph pales, or 
star is tamed: — 
And 'twill perplex the casuist in 

morality 
To fix the due bounds of this dangerous 
quaHty. 

xc. 

Had Buonaparte won at Waterloo, 
It had been firmness; now 'tis per- 
tinacity : 
Must the event decide between the two ? 
I leave it to your people of sagacity 
To draw the line between the false and 
true, 
If such can e'er be drawn by Man's 
capacity: 
My business is with Lady Adeline, 
Who in her wav too was a heroine. 



She knew not her own heart; then how 
should I ? 
I think not she was then in love with 
Juan: 
If so, she would have had the .strength 
to fly 
The wild sensation, unto her a new one : 



She merely felt a common sympathy 
(I will not say it was a false or true 

one) 
In him, because she thought he was in 

danger, — 
Her husband's friend — her own — 

young — and a stranger. 

XCII. 

She was, or thought she was, his friend 
— and this 
Without the farce of Friendship, or 
romance 
Of Platonism, which leads so oft amiss 
Ladies who have studied Friendship 
but in France 
Or Germany, where people purely kiss. 
To thus much Adeline would not 
advance; 
But of such friendship as Man's may 

to Man be 
She was as capable as Woman can be. 

XCIII. 

No doubt, the secret influence of the Sex 
Will there, as also in the ties of blood, 
An innocent predominance annex, 

And tune the concord to a finer mood. 
If free from Passion, which all Friend- 
ship checks. 
And your true feelings fully under- 
.stood. 
No friend like to a woman Earth dis- 
covers. 
So that you have not been nor will be 
lovers. 

xciv. 

Love bears within its breast the very 

germ 
Of Change; and how should this be 

otherwise ? 
That violent things more quickly find 

a term 
Is shown through Nature's whole 

analogies; 
And how should the most fierce of all 

be firm? 
Would you have endless lightning 

in the skies? 
Methinks Love's very title says enough: 
How should "the tender passion" e'er 

be tough ? 



Canto xiv.] 



DON JUAN 



1239 



Alas ! by all experience, seldom yet 
(I merely quote what I have heard 
from many) 
Had lovers not some reason to regret 
The passion which made Solomon 
a zany. 
I've also seen some wives (not to forget 
The marriage state, the best or worst 
of any) 
Who were the very paragons of wives. 
Yet made the misery of at least two 
lives. 



I've also seen some female friends ^ 

('tis odd. 
But true — as, if expedient, I could 

prove) 
That faithful were through thick and 

thin, abroad. 
At home, far more than ever yet 

was Love — 
Who did not quit me when Oppression 

trod 
Upon me; whom no scandal could 

remove ; 
Who fought, and fight, in absence, too, 

my battles, 
Despite the snake Society's loud rattles. 

XCVII. 

Whether Don Juan and chaste Adeline 
Grew friends in this or any other 
sense. 
Will be discussed hereafter, I opine: 

At present I am glad of a pretence 
To leave them hovering, as the effect is 
fine, 
And keeps the atrocious reader in 
suspense : 
The surest way — for ladies and for 

books — 
To bait their tender — or their tenter — 
hooks. 

XCVIII. 

Whether they rode, or walked, or 
studied Spanish, 
To read Don Quixote in the original, 

' [Lady Holland, Lady Jersey, Madame de 
Stael, and before and above all, his sister, Mrs 
Leigh.] 



A pleasure before which all others 

vanish; 
Whether their talk was of the kind 

called "small," 
Or serious, are the topics I must banish 
To the next Canto; where perhaps 

I shall 
Say something to the purpose and 

display 
Considerable talent in my way. 

xcix. 

Above all, I beg all men to forbear 

Anticipating aught about the matter: 
They'll only make mistakes about the 
fair. 
And Juan, too, especially the latter. 
And I shall take a much more serious air 
Than I have yet done, in this Epic 
Satire. 
It is not clear that Adeline and Juan 
Will fall; but if they do, 'twill be their 
ruin. 

C. 

But great things spring from little: — 
Would you think, • 
That in our youth, as dangerous a 
passion 
As e'er brought Man and Woman to the 
brink 
Of ruin, rose from such a slight occa^ 
sion. 
As few would ever dream could from 
the link 
Of such a sentimental situation ? 
You'll never guess, I'll bet you millions, 

milliards — 
It all sprung from a harmless game at 
billiards. 

CI. 

'Tis strange, — but true; for Truth is 
always strange — 
Stranger than fiction: if it could be 
told. 
How much would novels gain by the 
exchange ! 
How differently the World would 
men behold ! 
How oft would Vice and Virtue places 
change ! 
The new world would be nothing to 
the old, 



1 240 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xv. 



If some Columbus of the moral seas 
Would show mankind their Souls' 
antipodes. 

CII. 

What "antres vast and deserts idle," 

then, 
Would be discovered in the human 

soul ! 
What icebergs in the hearts of mighty 

men, 
V/ith self-love in the centre as their 

Pole! 
What Anthropophagi are nine of ten 
Of those who hold the kingdoms in 

control ! 
Were things but only called by their 

right name, 
Caesar himself would be ashamed of 

Fame. 



CANTO THE FIFTEENTH.^ 



Ah ! — What should follow slips from 
my reflection; 
Whatever follows ne'ertheless may be 
As a-propos of Hope or' Retrospection, 
As though the lurking thought had 
followed free. 
All present life is but an Interjection, 
An "Oh!" or "Ah!" of Joy or 
Miserv, 
Or a " Ha \ ha ! " or " Bah ! " — a vawn, 

or " Pooh ! " 
Of which perhaps the latter is most true. 



But, more or less, the whole's a Syncope 
Or a Singultus — emblems of Emo- 
tion, 
The grand Antithesis to great Ennui, 
Wherewith we break our bubbles on 
the Ocean — 
That Watery Outline of Eternity, 
Or miniature, at least, as is my 
notion — 
Which ministers unto the Soul's delight. 
In seeing matters which are out of sight. 

' [Cantos XV., xvi., were written in March- 
April, 1823. They were published (by John 
Hunt) March 26, 1824.] 



But all are better than the sigh sup- 
pressed. 
Corroding in the cavern of the heart, 
Making the countenance a masque of 
rest 
And turning Human Nature to an art. 
Few men dare show their thoughts of 
worst or best; 
Dissimulation always sets apart 
A corner for herself; and, therefore. 

Fiction 
Is that which passes with least contra- 
diction. 

IV. 

Ah ! who can tell ? Or rather, who can- 
not 
Remember, without telling. Passion's 

errors ? 
The drainer of Oblivion, even the sot, 
Hath got hliie devils for his morning 

mirrors: 
What though on Lethe's stream he 

seem to float. 
He cannot sink his tremors or his 

terrors; 
The ruby glass that shakes within his 

hand 
Leaves a sad sediment of Time's worst 

sand. 

V. 

And as for Love — O Love ! We 

will proceed: — 
The Lady Adeline Amundeville, 
A pretty name as one would wish to read, 
Must perch harmonious on my tuneful 
quill. 
There's Music in the sighing of a reed; 
There's Music in the gushing of a rill ; 
There's Music in all things, if men 

had ears: 
Their Earth is but an echo of the 
Spheres. 

VI. 

The Lady Adeline, Right Honourable, 
And honoured, ran a risk of growing 
less so; 
For few of the soft sex are very stable 
In their resolves — alas I that I should 
say so ; 
They differ as wine differs from its 
label, 



Canto xv.] 



DON JUAN 



1241 



When once decanted ; — I presume to 

guess so, 
But will not swear: yet both upon 

occasion, 
Till old, may undergo adulteration. 



But Adeline was of the purest vint- 
age, 
The unmingled essence of the grape; 
and yet 
Bright as a new napoleon from its 
mintage, 
Or glorious as a diamond richly set; 
A page where Time should hesitate to 
print age. 
And for which Nature might forego her 
debt — 
Sole creditor whose process doth in- 
volve in't 
The luck of finding everybody solvent. 

VIII. 

O Death ! thou dunnest of all duns ! 
thou daily 
Knockest at doors, at first with mod- 
est tap, 

Like a meek tradesman when approach- 
ing palely 
Some splendid debtor he would take 
by sap: 

But oft denied, as Patience 'gins to fail, 
he 
Advances with exasperated rap. 

And (if let in) insists, in terms unhand- 
some, 

On ready money, or "a draft on 
Ransom." ^ 

IX. 

Whate'er thou takest, spare awhile poor 
Beauty ! 
She is so rare, and thou hast so much 
prey. 
What though she now and then may 
slip from duty, 
The more's the reason why you ought 
to stay; 
Gaunt Gourmand, with whole nations 
for your booty, 
You should be civil in a modest wav : 



ers.] 



[Ransom and Morland were Byron's bank- 



Suppress, then, some slight . feminine 

diseases, 
And take as many heroes as Heaven 

pleases. 

X. 

Fair Adeline, the more ingenuous 
Where she was interested (as was 
said). 
Because she was not apt, like some 
of us. 
To like too readily, or too high bred 
To show it — (points we need not now 
discuss) — 
Would give up artlessly both Heart 
and Head 
Unto such feelings as seemed innocent. 
For objects worthy of the sentiment. 

XI. 

Some parts of Juan's history, which 
Rumour, 
That live Gazette, had scattered to 
disfigure. 
She had heard ; but Women hear with 
more good humour 
Such aberrations than we men of 
rigour: 
Besides, his conduct, since in England, 
grew more 
Strict, and his mind assumed a 
manlier vigour: 
Because he had, like Alcibiades, 
The art of living in all climes with ease. 



His manner was perhaps the more 
seductive. 
Because he ne'er seemed anxious to 
seduce; 
Nothing affected, studied, or construc- 
tive 
Of coxcombry or conquest : no abuse 
Of his attractions marred the fair 
perspective. 
To indicate a Cupidon broke loose,^ 
And seem to sav, "Resist us if you 

can" — 
Which makes a Dandy while it spoils a 
Man. 

' [For the phrase " Cupidon Dechaine," ap- 
plied to Count D'Orsay, see letters to Moore 
and the Earl of Blessington, April 2, 1823.] 



1242 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xv. 



They are wrong — that's not the way to 

set about it; 
As, if they told the truth, could well 

be shown. 
But right, or wrong, Don Juan was 

without it; 
In fact, his manner was his own 

alone : 
Sincere he was — at least you could not 

doubt it. 
In listening merely to his voice's tone. 
The Devil hath not in all his quiver's 

choice 
An arrow for the Heart like a sweet 

voice. 

XIV. 

Bv nature soft, his whole address held 

olT 
Suspicion : though not timid, his 

regard 
Was such as rather seemed to keep 

aloof, 
To shield himself than put you on 

your guard : 
Perhaps 'twas hardly c^uite assured 

enough, 
But Modesty's at times its own 

reward. 
Like Virtue; and the absence of pre- 
tension 
Will go much farther than there's need 

to mention. 



Serene, accomplished, cheerful but not 
loud; 
Insinuating without insinuation; 
Observant of the foibles of the crowd. 
Yet ne'er betraying this in conversa- 
tion; 
Proud with the proud, yet courteously 
proud. 
So as to make them feel he knew his 
station 
And theirs: — without a struggle for 

priority. 
He neither brooked nor claimed supe- 
riority — 

XVI. 

That is, with Men : with Women he 
was what 



They ple^ised to make or take him 
for; and their 
Imagination's quite enough for that: 
So that the outline's tolerably fair, 
They fill the canvas up — and ''verbum 
sal." 
If once their phantasies be brought to 
bear 
Upon an object, whether sad or play- 
ful. 
They can transfigure brighter than a 
Raphael. 

XVII. 

Adeline, no deep judge of character, 
Was apt to add a colouring from her 
own : 
'Tis thus the Good will amiably err. 
And eke the Wise, as has been often 
shown. 
Experience is the chief philosopher. 
But saddest when his science is well 
known : 
And persecuted Sages teach the Schools 
Their folly in forgetting there are fools. 

XVIII. 

Was it not so, great Locke ? and 
greater Bacon ? 
Great Socrates? And thou. Diviner 
still,^ 
Whose lot it is by Man to be mistaken, 
And thv pure creed made sanction of 
all ill? 
Redeeming Worlds to be by bigots 
shaken. 
How was thy toil rewarded ? We 
might fill 
Volumes with similar sad illustrations. 
But leave them to the conscience of the 
nations. 

XIX. 

I perch upon an humbler promontory, 
Amidst Life's infinite variety : 

' As it is necessary in these times to avoid 
ambiguity, I say that I mean, by "Diviner still," 
Christ. If ever God was man — or man God 
— he was both. I never arraigned his creed, but 
the use — or abuse — made of it. Mr Canning 
one day quoted Christianity to sanction negro 
slavery, and Mr Wilberforce had little to say in 
reply. And was Christ crucified, that black 
men might be scourged? If so. He had better 
been born a Mulatto, to give both colours an 
equal chance of freedom, or at least salvation. 



Canto xv.] 



DON JUAN 



1243 



With no great care for what is nick- 
named Glory, 
But speculating as I cast mine eye 
On what may suit or may not suit my 
story, 
And never straining hard to versify, 
I rattle on exactly as I'd talk 
With anybody in a ride or walk. 



I don't know that there may be much 
ability 
Shown in this sort of desultory rhyme ; 
But there's a conversational facility, 
Which may round off an hour upon 
a time. 
Of this I'm sure at least, there's no 
servility 
In mine irregularity of chime, 
Which rings what's uppermost of new 

or hoary, 
Just as I feel the Improvvisatore. 

XXI. 

"■Omnia viilt belle Matho dicere — die 

aliqiiando 
Et bene, die neulrum, die aliquando 

male." ^ 
The first is rather more than mortal 

can do; 
The second may be sadly done or 

gaily ; 
The third is still more difficult to stand 

to; 
The fourth we hear, and see, and say 

too, daily: 
The whole together is what I could 

wish 
To serve in this conundrum of a dish. 



A modest hope — but Modesty's my 
forte. 
And Pride my feeble : — let us ramble 
on. 
I meant to make this poem very short, 
But now I can't tell where it may not 
run. 
No doubt, if I had wished to pay my 
court 
To critics, or to hail the setting sun 

' [Martial, Epig., x. 46.] 



Of Tyranny of all kinds, my concision 
Were more ; — but I was born for 
opposition. 

XXIII. 

But then 'tis mostly on the weaker side; 

So that I verily believe if they 
Who now^ are basking in their full-blown 
pride 
Were shaken down, and "dogs had 
had their day," 
Though at the first I might perchance 
deride 
Their tumble, I should turn the other 
way. 
And wax an ultra-royalist in Loyalty, 
Because I hate even democratic Royalty. 

XXIV. 

I think I should have made a decent 
spouse. 
If I had never proved the soft con- 
dition; 
I think I should have made monastic 
vows 
But for my own peculiar superstition : 
'Gainst rhyme I never should have 
knocked my brows, 
Nor broken my own head, nor that of 
Priscian, 
Nor worn the motley mantle of a poet. 
If some one had not told me to forego it. 

XXV. 

But laissez aller — Knights and Dames 
I sing, 
Such as the times may furnish. 'Tis 
a flight 
Which seems at first to need no lofty 
wing. 
Plumed by Longinus or the Stagyrite : 
The difficulty lies in colouring 

(Keeping the due proportions still in 
sight) 
With Nature manners which are arti- 
ficial, 
And rend'ring general that which is 
especial. 

XXVI. 

The difference is, that in the days of 
old 
Men made the Manners; Manners 
now make men — 



1244 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xv. 



Pinned like a flock, and fleeced too in 
their fold, 
At least nine, and a ninth beside of ten. 
Now this at all events must render cold 
Your writers, who must either draw 
again 
Days better drawn before, or else assume 
The present, with their common-place 
costume. 

XXVII. 

We'll do our best to make the best 

on't: — March! 
March, my Muse ! If you cannot fly, 

yet flutter; 
And when you may not be sublime, be 

arch, 
Or starch, as are the edicts statesmen 

utter. 
We surely may find something worth 

research : 
Columbus found a new world in a 

cutter. 
Or brigantine, or pink, of no great 

tonnage. 
While yet America was in her non-age. 

XXVIII. 

When Adeline, in all her growing 
sense 
Of Juan's merits and his situation, 
Felt on the whole an interest intense, — 
Partly perhaps because a fresh sen- 
sation. 
Or that he had an air of innocence. 
Which is for Innocence a sad tempta- 
tion, — 
As Women hate half measures, on the 

whole, 
She 'gan to ponder how to save his soul. 

XXIX. 

She had a good opinion of Advice, 
Like all who give and eke receive it 
gratis, 
For which small thanks are still the 
market price. 
Even where the article at highest 
rate is: 
She thought upon the subject twice or 
thrice, 
And morally decided — the best 
state is 



For Morals — Marriage ; and, this 

question carried, 
She seriously advised him to get married. 

XXX. 

Juan replied, with all becoming defer- 
ence. 
He had a predilection for that tie ; 

But that, at present, with immediate 
reference 
To his own circumstances, there 
might lie 

Some difficulties, as in his own prefer- 
ence. 
Or that of her to whom he might 
apply : 

That still he'd wed with such or such 
a lady. 

If that they were not married all 
already. 

XXXI. 

Next to the making matches for herself, 
And daughters, brothers, sisters, kith 

or kin, 
Arranging them like books on the same 

shelf, 
There's nothing women love to 

dabble in 
More (like a stock-holder in growing 

pelf) 
Than match-making in general: 'tis 

no sin 
Certes, but a preventative, and there- 
fore 
That is, no doubt, the only reason 

wherefore. 

XXXII. 

But never yet (except of course a miss 
Unwed, or mistress never to be wed. 
Or wed already, who object to this) ' 
Was there chaste dame who had not 
in her head 
Some drama of the marriage Unities, 
Observed as strictly both at board 
and bed, 
As those of Aristotle, though sometimes 
They turn out Melodrames or Panto- 
mimes. 

XXXIII. 

They generally have some only son, 
Some heir to a large property, some 
friend 



Canto xv.] 



DON JUAN 



1245 



Of an old family, some gay Sir John, 
Or grave Lord George, with whom 

perhaps might end 
A line, and leave Posterity undone, 
Unless a marriage was applied to 

mend 
The prospect and their morals: and 

besides. 
They have at hand a blooming glut of 

brides. 

XXXIV. 

From these they will be careful to 
select, 
For this an heiress, and for that a 
beauty ; 
For one, a songstress who hath no defect, 
For t'other, one who promises much 
duty: 
For this a lady no one can reject. 

Whose sole accomplishments were 
quite a booty; 
A second for her excellent connections; 
A third, because there can be no objec- 
tions. 

XXXV. 

When Rapp the Harmonist embargoed 
Marriage ^ 
In his harmonious settlement — 
(which flourishes 
Strangely enough as yet without mis- 
carriage, 
Because it breeds no more mouths 
than it nourishes. 
Without those sad expenses which dis- 
parage 
What Nature naturally most en- 
courages) — 

' This extraordinary and flourishing German 
colony in America does not entirely exclude 
matrimony, as the "Shakers" do; but lays such 
restrictions upon it as prevents more than a 
certain quantum of births within a certain num- 
ber of years; which births (as Mr Hulme 
[ijerhaps Thomas Hulme, whose Journal is 
quoted in Hints to Emigrants, 1817, pp. 5-18] 
observes) generally arrive "in a little tlock like 
those of a farmer's lambs, all within the same 
month perhaps." These Harmonists (so called 
from the name of their settlement) are repre- 
sented as a remarkably flourishing, pious, and 
quiet people. See the various recent writers on 
America. ^ 

[The Harmonists were emigrants from Wiir- 
temberg, who settled (180.^-1805) under the 
auspices of George Rapp, in a township 120 
miles north of Philadelphia.] 



Why called he "Harmony" a state sans 

wedlock ? 
Now here I've got the preacher at a 

dead lock, 

XXXVI. 

Because he either meant to sneer at 

Harmony 
Or Marriage, by divorcing them thus 

oddly. 
But whether reverend Rapp learned 

this in Germany 
Or no, 'tis said his sect is rich and 

godly. 
Pious and pure, beyond what I can term 

any 
Of ours, although they propagate 

more broadly. 
ISIy objection's to his title, not his 

ritual. 
Although I wonder how it grew habitual. 

XXXVII. 

But Rapp is the reverse of zealous 
matrons. 
Who favour, malgre Malthus, Genera- 
tion — 

Professors of that genial art, and 
patrons 
Of all the modest part of Propagation ; 

Which after all at such a desperate rate 
runs. 
That half its produce tends to Emi- 
gration, 

That sad result of passions and pota- 
toes — 

Two weeds which pose our economic 
Catos. 

XXXVIII. 

Had Adeline read Malthus? I can't 

tell; 
I wish she had : his book's the eleventh 

commandment, 
Which says, "Thou shalt not marry," 

unless well: 
This he (as far as I can understand) 

meant. ^ 
'Tis not mv purpose on his views to 

dwell, ' 

' Jacob Tonson, according to Mr. Pope, was 
accustomed to call his writers "able pens," 
"persons of honour," and, especially, "eminent 
hands." Vide Correspondence, etc., etc. 



1246 



DO AT JUAN 



[Canto xv. 



Nor canvass what "so eminent a 
hand" meant; 
But, certes, it conducts to lives 

ascetic, 
Or turning Marriage into Arithmetic. 



But Adeline, who probably presumed 
That Juan had enough of mainte- 
nance, 
Or separate maintenance, in case 'twas 
doomed — 
As on the whole it is an even 
chance 
That bridegrooms, after they are fairly 
groomed. 
May retrograde a little in the Dance 
Of Marriage — (which might form a 

painter's fame, 
Like Holbein's "Dance of Death" — 
but 'tis the same) — 

XL. 

But Adeline determined Juan's wedding 
In her own mind, and that's enough 
for Woman : 
But then, with whom? There was the 
sage Miss Reading, 
Miss Raw, Miss Flaw, Miss Show- 
man, and Miss Knowman, 
And the two fair co-heiresses Giltbed- 
ding. 
She deemed his merits something 
more than common : 
All these were unobjectionable matches. 
And might go on, if well wound up, like 
watches. 

XLI. 

There was Miss Millpond, smooth as 
summer's sea. 
That usual paragon, an only daughter. 
Who seemed the cream of Equanimity, 
Till skimmed — and then there was 
some milk and water, 
With a slight shade of blue too, it 
might be. 
Beneath the surface; but what did it 
matter? 
Love's riotous, but Marriage should 

have quiet. 
And being consumptive, live on a milk 
diet. 



XLII. 

And then there was the Miss Audacia 

Shoestring, 
A dashing demoiselle of good estate. 
Whose heart was fixed upon a star or 

blue string; 
But whether English Dukes grew rare 

of late. 
Or that she had not harped upon the 

true string. 
By which such Sirens can attract our 

great, 
She took up with some foreign younger 

brother, 
A Russ or Turk — the one's as good as 

t'other. 

XLIII. 

And then there was — but why should 
I go on. 
Unless the ladies should go off? — 
there was 
Indeed a certain fair and fairy one, 
Of the best class, and better than her 
class, — 
Aurora Raliy, a young star who shone 
O'er Life, too sweet an image for such 
glass, 
A lovely being, scarcely formed or 

moulded, 
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet 
folded; 

XLIV. 

Rich, noble, but an orphan — left an 

only 
Child to the care of guardians good 

and kind — 
But still her aspect had an air so 

lonely ; 
Blood is not water; and where shall 

we find 
Feelings of Youth like those which over- 
thrown lie 
By Death, when we are left, alas ! 

behind. 
To feel, in friendless palaces, a home 
Is wanting, and our best ties in the 

tomb? 

XLV. 

Early in years, and yet more infantine 
In figure, she had something of 
Sublime 



Canto xv.] 



DON JUAN 



1247 



In eyes which sadly shone, as Seraphs' 

shine. 
All Youth — but with an aspect 

beyond Time; 
Radiant and grave — as pitying Man's 

decline; 
Mournful — but mournful of another's 

crime, 
She looked as if she sat by Eden's door. 
And grieved for those who could return 

no more. 

XL VI. 

She was a Catholic, too, sincere, austere. 
As far as her own gentle heart 

allowed. 
And deemed that fallen worship far 

more dear 
Perhaps because 'twas fallen: her 

Sires were proud 
Of deeds and days when they had filled 

the ear 
Of nations, and had never bent or 

bowed 
To novel power; and as she was the 

last. 
She held their old faith and old feeUngs 

fast. 

XLVII. 

She gazed upon a World she scarcely 

knew. 
As seeking not to know it; silent, 

lone. 
As grows a flower, thus quietly she grew, 
And kept her heart serene within its 

zone. 
There was awe in the homage which 

she drew; 
Her Spirit seemed as seated on a 

throne 
Apart from the surrounding world, and 

strong 
In its own strength — most strange in 

one so young ! 

XLVIII. 

Now it so happened, in the catalogue 

Of Adeline, Aurora was omitted. 
Although her birth and wealth had given 
her vogue, 
Beyond the charmers we have already 
cited ; 
Her beautv also seemed to form no clog 



Against her being mentioned as well 

fitted. 
By many virtues, to be worth the 

trouble 
Of single gentlemen who would be 

double. 

XLIX. 

And this omission, like that of the 

bust 
Of Brutus at the pageant of Tiberius, 
Made Juan wonder, as no doubt he 

must. 
This he expressed half smiUng and 

half serious; 
When Adeline replied with some dis- 
gust, 
And with an air, to say the least 

imperious. 
She marvelled "what he saw in such a 

baby 
As that prim, silent, cold Aurora 

Raby?" 

L. 

Juan rejoined — "She was a Catholic, 
And therefore fittest, as of his per- 
suasion ; 
Since he was sure his mother would fall 
sick. 
And the Pope thunder excommunica- 
tion, 

If " But here Adeline, who seemed 

to pique 
Herself extremely on the inoculation 
Of others with her own opinions, 

stated — 
As usual — the same reason which she 
late did. 

LI. 

And wherefore not? A reasonable 
reason, 
If good, is none the worse for repeti- 
tion ; 
If bad, the best way's certainly to tease 
on. 
And amplify: you lose much by con- 
cision. 
Whereas insisting in or out of season 

Convinces all men, even, a politician; 
Or — what is just the same — it wearies 

out. 
So the end's gained, what signifies the 
route ? 



1248 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xv. 



Why Adeline had this slight preju- 
dice — 
For prejudice it was — against a 
creature 
As pure, as Sanctity itself, from Vice, — 
With all the added charm of form and 
feature, — 
For me appears a question far too nice, 
Since Adeline was liberal by nature; 
But Nature's Nature, and has more 

caprices 
Than I have time, or will, to take to 
pieces. 

Liir. 

Perhaps she did not like the quiet way 
With which Aurora on those baubles 
looked. 
Which charm most people in their 
earlier day: 
For there are few things by Mankind 
less brooked. 
And Womankind too, if we so may say. 
Than finding thus their genius stand 
rebuked, 
Like "Antony's by Caesar," by the few 
Who look upon them as they ought to do. 



It was not envy — Adeline had none; 
Her place was far beyond it, and her 
mind: 
It was not scorn — which could not 
light on one 
Whose greatest /aw// was leaving few 
to find: 
It was not jealousy, I think — but shun 
Following the ignesfatui of Mankind : 

It was not but 'tis easier far, alas ! 

To say what it was not than what it was. 

LV. 

Little Aurora deemed she was the theme 
Of such discussion. She was there a 
guest; 
A beauteous ripple of the brilliant stream 
Of Rank and Youth, though purer 
than the rest. 
Which flowed on for a moment in the 
beam 
Time sheds a moment o'er each 
sparkling crest. 



Had she known this, she would have 

calmly smiled — 
She had so much, or little of the child. 



The dashing and proud air of Adeline 
Imposed not upon her; she saw her 

blaze 
Much as she would have seen a glow- 
worm shine, 
Then turned unto the stars for loftier 

rays. 
Juan was something she could not 

divine, 
Being no Sibyl in the new world's 

ways; 
Yet she was nothing dazzled by the 

meteor. 
Because she did not pin her faith on 

feature. 

LVII. 

His fame too, — for he had that kind of 

fame 
Which sometimes plays the deuce 

with Womankind, 
A heterogeneous mass of glorious blame. 
Half virtues and whole vices being 

combined; 
Faults which attract because they are 

not tame; 
Follies tricked out so brightly that 

they blind: — 
These seals upon her wax made no 

impression, 
Such was her coldness or her self-pos- 
session, 

LVIII. 

Juan knew nought of such a char- 
acter — 
High, yet resembling not his lost 

Haidee; 
Yet each was radiant in her proper 

sphere: 
The island girl, bred up by the lone 

sea. 
More warm, as lovely, and not less 

sincere. 
Was Nature's all : Aurora could not be. 
Nor would be thus: — the difference in 

them 
Was such as lies between a flower and 

gem. 



Canto XV.] 



DON JUAN 



1249 



Having wound up with this sublime 

comparison, 
Methinks we may proceed upon our 

narrative, 
And, as my friend Scott says, "I sound 

my warison;" 
Scott, the superlative of my com- 
parative — 
Scott, who can paint your Christian 

knight or Saracen, 
Serf — Lord — Man, with such skill 

as none would share it, if 
There had not been one Shakespeare 

and Voltaire, 
Of one or both of whom he seems the 

heir. 

LX. 

I say, in my slight way I may proceed 

To play upon the surface of Humanity. 
I write the World, nor care if the World 
read. 
At least for this I cannot spare its 
vanity. 
My Muse hath bred, and still perhaps 
may breed 
More foes by this same scroll: when 
I began it, I 
Thought that it might turn out so — 

now I know it, 
But still 1 am, or was, a pretty poet. 

LXI. 

The conference or congress (for it 
ended 
As Congresses of late do) of the Tady 
Adeline and Don Juan rather blended 
Some acids with the sweets — for she 
was heady; 
But, ere the matter could be marred or 
mended, 
The silvery bell rang, not for "dinner 
ready," 
But for that hour, called half-hour, given 

to dress, 
Though ladies' robes seem scant enough 
for less. 

Lxn. 
Great things were now to be achieved 
at table, 
With massy plate for armour, knives 
and forks 
4L 



For weapons; but what Muse since 

Homer 's able 
(His feasts are not the worst part of 

his works) 
To draw up in array a single day-bill 
Of modern dinners? where more 

mystery lurks. 
In soups or sauces, or a sole ragoUt, 
Than witches, b — ^^ches, or physicians, 

brew. 

LXIII. 

There was a goodly "soupe a la honne 
femme,^^ 
Though God knows whence it came 
from; there was, too, 
A turbot for relief of those who cram, 
Relieved with " dindon a la Perigeux " ; 

There also was the sinner that I 

am! 
How shall I get this gourmand stanza 
through ? — 
"Soupe a la Beauveau," whose relief 

was dory. 
Relieved itself by pork, for greater glory. 

LXIV. 

But I must crowd all into one grand 

mess 
Or mass; for should I stretch into 

detail, 
My Muse would run much more into 

excess, 
Than when some squeamish people 

deem her frail; 
But though a honne vivante, I must 

confess 
Her stomach's not her peccant part; 

this tale 
However doth require some slight 

refection, 
Just to relieve her spirits from dejection. 

LXV. 

Fowls "a la Conde," slices eke of sal- 
mon. 
With "sauces Genevoises," and 
haunch of venison; 
Wines too, which might again have 
slain young Ammon — ^ 
A man like whom I hope we sha'n't 
see many soon; 

» [Alexander the Great.] 



I250 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xv. 



They also set a glazed Westphalian 

ham on, 
Whereon Apicius would bestow his 

benison ; 
And then there was champagne with 

foaming whirls, 
As white as Cleopatra's melted pearls. 



Then there was God knows what "a 
I'Allemande," 
"A I'Espagnole," "timballe," and 
"salpicon" — 
With things I can't withstand or under- 
stand, 
Though swallowed with much zest 
upon the whole; 
And ''entremets'' to piddle with at hand. 
Gently to lull down the subsiding soul ; 
While great Lucullus' Robe triumphal 

muffles — 
{There's fame) — young partridge fillets, 
decked with truffles.^ 

LXVII. 

What are the fillets on the Victor's brow 
To these? They are rags or dust. 
Where is the arch 
Which nodded to the nation's spoils 
below ? 
Where the triumphal chariots' haughty 
march ? 
Gone to where Victories must like 
dinners go. 
Farther I shall not follow the research: 
But oh ! ye modern Heroes with your 

cartridges, 
Vv'hen will your names lend lustre e'en 
to partridges? 

LXVIII. 

Those truffles too are no bad acces- 
sories. 
Followed by "petits puits d'amour" 
— a dish 

»A dish "a la Lucullus." This hero, who 
conquered the East, has left his more extended 
celebrity to the transplantation of cherries 
(which he first brought into Europe), and the 
nomenclature of some very good dishes; — and 
I am not sure that (barring indigestion) he has 
not done more service to mankind by his cookery 
than l)y his conquests. A cherrv tree may weigh 
against a bloody laurel; besides, he has con- 
trived to earn celebrity from both. 



Of which perhaps the cookery rather 

varies, 
So every one may dress it to his wish, 
According to the best of dictionaries. 
Which encyclopedise both flesh and 

fish; 
But even, sans confitures, it no less 

true is. 
There's pretty picking in those petits 

piiits} 

LXIX. 

The mind is lost in mighty contempla- 
tion 
Of intellect expanded on two courses; 
.And Indigestion's grand multiplication 
Requires arithmetic beyond my forces. 
Who would suppose, from Adam's 
simple ration, 
That cookery could have called forth 
such resources. 
As form a science and a nomenclature 
From out the commonest demands of 
Nature ? 

LXX. 

The glasses jingled, and the palates 

tingled; 
The diners of celebrity dined well; 
The ladies with more moderation 

mingled 
In the feast, pecking less than I can 

tell; , 
Also the younger men too: for a 

springald 
Can't, like ripe Age, in gourmandise 

e.xcel. 
But thinks less of good eating than the 

whisper 
(When seated next him) of some pretty 

lisper. 

LXXI. 

Alas! I must leave undescribed the 
gihier, 
The salmi, the consomme, the puree, 
All which I use to make my rhymes run 
glibber 
Than could roast beef in our rough 
John Bull way: 
I must not introduce even a spare rib 
here, 

' "Petits puits d'amour gamis de confitures " 
— a classical and well-known dish for part of 
the tiunk of a second course. 



CaXTO XV.] 



DON JUAN 



1251 



"Bubble and squeak" would spoil 

my liquid lay: 
But I have dined, and must forego, alas ! 
The chaste description even of a 

"becasse"; 

LXXII, 

And fruits, and ice, and all that Art 

refines 
From Nature for the service of the 

gout — 
Taste or the gout, — pronounce it as 

inclines 
Your stomach ! Ere you dine, the 

French will do; 
But after, there are sometimes certain 

signs 
Which prove plain English truer of 

the two. 
Hast ever had the gout ? I have not 

had it — 
But I may have, and you too, reader, 

dread it. 

LXXIII. 

The simple olives, best allies ni wine, 

Must I pass over in my bill of fare? 
I must, although a favourite plat of mine 
In Spain, and Lucca, Athens, every- 
where : 
On them and bread 'twas oft my luck 
to dine — 
The grass my table-cloth, in open air, 
On Sunium or Hymettus, like Diogenes, 
Of whom half my philosophy the pro- 
geny is. 

LXXIV. 

Amidst this tumult of fish, flesh, and 
fowl, 
And vegetables, all in masquerade, 
The guests were placed according to 
their roll. 
But various as the various meats dis- 
played : 
Don Juan sat next an "a I'Espagnole " — 
No damsel, but a dish, as hath been 
said; 
But so far like a lady, that 'twas drest 
Superbly, and contained a world of zest. 



By some odd chance too, he was placed 
between 



Aurora and the Lady Adeline — 
A situation difficult, I ween. 

For man therein, with eyes and heart, 

to dine. 

Also the conference which we have seen 

Was not such as to encourage him to 

shine, 

For Adeline, addressing few words to 

him 
With two transcendent eyes seemed to 
look through him. 



I sometimes almost think that eyes 

have ears: 
This much is sure, that, out of earshot, 

things 
Are somehow echoed to the pretty dears, 
Of which I can't tell whence their 

knowledge springs. 
Like that same mystic music of the 

spheres, 
Which no one hears, so loudly though 

it rings, 
'Tis wonderful how oft the sex have 

heard 
Long dialogues — which passed without 

a word ! 

LXXVII. 

Aurora sat with that indifference 

Which piques a preux chevalier — as 
it ought: 
Of all offences that's the worst offence, 
Which seems to hint you are not worth 
a thought. 
Now Juan, though no coxcomb in pre- 
tence, 
Was not exactly pleased to be so 
caught. 
Like a good ship entangled among ice — 
And after so much excellent advice. 

LXXVIII. 

To his gay nothings, nothing was replied 
Or something which was nothing, as 
Urbanity 
Required. Aurora scarcely looked 
aside. 
Nor even smiled enough for any 
vanity. 
The Devil was in the girl ! Could it be 
pride? 
Or modesty, or absence, or inanity ? 



1252 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xv 



Heaven knows ! But Adeline's mali- 
cious eyes 
Sparkled with her successful prophecies, 

LXXIX. 

And looked as much as if to say, "I 
said it;" 
A kind of triumph I'll not recommend, 
Because it sometimes, as I have seen or 
read it, 
Both in the case of lover and of friend, 
Will pique a gentleman, for his own 
credit. 
To bring what was a jest to a serious 
end: 
For all men prophesy what is or was, 
And hate those who won't let them 
come to pass. 

LXXX. 

Juan was drawn thus into some atten- 
tions. 
Slight but select, and just enough to 
express, 
To females of perspicuous comprehen- 
sions. 
That he would rather make them 
more than less. 
Aurora at the last (so history mentions. 
Though probably much less a fact 
than guess) 
So far relaxed her thoughts from their 

sweet prison. 
As once or twice to smile, if not to listen. 

LXXXI. 

From answering she began to question: 
this 
With her was rare; and Adeline, who 
as yet 
Thought her predictions went not much 
amiss, 
Began to dread she'd thaw to a 
coquette — 
So very difficult, they say, it is 

To keep extremes from meeting, 
when once set 
In motion; but she here too much 

refined — 
Aurora's spirit was not of that kind. 

LXXXII. 

But Juan had a sort of winning way, 
A proud humility, if such there be, 



Which showed such deference to what 

females say. 
As if each charming word were a 

decree. 
His tact, too, tempered him from grave 

to gay, 
And taught him when to be reserved 

or free: 
He had the art of drawing people out. 
Without their seeing what he was about. 



Aurora, who in her indifference 

Confounded him in common with the 
crowd 
Of flatterers, though she deemed he had 
more sense 
Than whispering foplings, or than 
witlings loud — 
Commenced (from such slight things 
will great commence) 
To feel that flattery which attracts 
the proud 
Rather by deference than compliment. 
And wins. even by a delicate dissent. 

LXXXIV. 

And then he had good looks; — that 

point was carried 
Nem. con. amongst the women, which 

I grieve 
To say leads oft to crim. con. with the 

married — 
A case which to the juries we may 

leave, 
Since with digressions we too long have 

tarried. 
Now though we know of old that 

looks deceive. 
And always have done, — somehow 

these good looks 
Make more impression than the best 

of books. 

LXXXV. 

Aurora, who looked more on books than 
faces. 
Was very young, although so very 
sage, 
Admiring more Minerva than the 
Graces, 
Especially upon a printed page. 
But Virtue's self, with all her tightest 
laces. 



Canto xv.] 



DON JUAN 



1253 



Has not the natural stays of strict 

old age; 
And Socrates, that model of all duty, 
Owned to a penchant, though discreet, 

for beauty. 

LXXXVI. 

And girls of sixteen are thus far Socratic, 

But innocently so, as Socrates; 
And really, if the Sage sublime and 
Attic 
At seventy years had phantasies like 
these, 
Which Plato in his dialogues dramatic 
Has shown, I know not why they 
should displease 
In virgins — always in a modest way, 
Observe, — for that with me's a sine 

LXXXVII. 

Also observe, that, like the great Lord 
Coke 
(Sec Littleton), whene'er I have ex- 
pressed 
Opinions two, which at first sight may 
look 
Twin opposites, the second is the best. 
Perhaps I have a third too, in a nook, 
Or none at all — which seems a sorry 
jest : 
But if a writer should be quite con- 
sistent, 
How could he possibly show things 
existent ? 

LXXXVIII. 

If people contradict themselves, can I 
Help contradicting them, and every- 
body, 
Even my veracious self ? — But that's 
a lie: 
I never did so, never will — how 
should I ? 
He who doubts all things nothing can 
deny : 
Truth's fountains may be clear — her 
streams are muddy. 
And cut through such canals of contra- 
diction, 
That she must often navigate o'er fiction. 

' Subauditur "non" : omitted for the sake of 
euphony. 



Apologue, Fable, Poesy, and Parable, 
Are false, but may be rendered also 
true. 
By those who sow them in a land that's 
arable: 
'Tis wonderful what Fable will not 
do! 
'Tis said it makes Reality more bear- 
able: 
But what's Reality? Who has its 
clue ? 
Philosophy ? No; she too much rejects. 
Religion? Yes; but which of all her 
sects ? 

xc. 
Some millions must be wrong, that's 
pretty clear; 
Perhaps it may turn out that all were 
right. 
God help us! Since we have need on 
our career 
To keep our holy beacons always 
bright, 
'Tis time that some new prophet should 
appear. 
Or old indulge man with a second 
sight. 
Opinions wear out in some thousand 

years, 
Without a small refreshment from the 
spheres. 

xci. 
But here again, why will I thus entangle 
Myself with Metaphysics ? None can 
hate 
So much as I do any kind of wrangle; 

And yet, such is my folly, or my fate, 
I always knock my head against some 
angle 
About the present, past, or future 
state : 
Yet I wish well to Trojan and to Tyrian, 
For I was bred a moderate Presby- 
terian. 

xcil. 
But though I am a temperate theo- 
logian, 
And also meek as a metaphysician, 
Impartial between Tyrian and Trojan, 
As Eldon on a lunatic commisgion, — r 



1254 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xv. 



In politics my duty is to show John 
Bull something of the lower world's 
condition. 

It makes my blood boil like the springs 
of Hecla/ 

To see men let these scoundrel Sover- 
eigns break law. 

XCIII. 

But Politics, and Policy, and Piety, 
Are topics which I sometimes intro- 
duce, 
Not only for the sake of their variety, 
But as subservient to a moral use; 
Because my business is to dress society. 
And stuff with sage that very verdant 
goose. 
And now, that we may furnish with 

some matter all 
Tastes, we are going to try the Super- 
natural. 

xciv. 

And now I will give up all argument; 
And positively, henceforth, no tempta- 
tion 
Shall "fool me to the top up of my 
bent" : — 
Yes, I'll begin a thorough reforma- 
tion. 
Indeed, I never knew what people meant 
By deeming that my Muse's conversa- 
tion 
Was dangerous ; — I think she is as 

harmless 
As some who labour more and yet may 
charm less. 

xcv. 

Grim reader ! did you ever see a ghost ? 
No; but you have heard — I under- 
stand — be dumb ! 
And don't regret the time you may 
have lost. 
For you have got that pleasure still 
to come: 
And do not think I mean to sneer at most 
Of these things, or by ridicule benumb 
That source of the Sublime and the 

Mysterious : — 
For certain reasons my belief is serious. 

' Hecla is a famous hot-spring in Iceland. 
[Byron seems to mistake the volcano for the 
Geysers.] 



Serious ? You laugh ; — you may : that 
will I not; 
My smiles must be sincere or not at all. 
I say I do believe a haunted spot 

Exists — and where ? That shall I 
not recall. 
Because I'd rather it should be forgot, 
"Shadows the soul of Richard" may 
appal. 
In short, upon that subject I've some 

qualms very 
Like those of the philosopher of Malms- 
bury .^ \ / , - \ ' 
• • - ^ kc^i. '^^^*-' 

The night — (I sing by night — some- 
times an owl. 
And now and then a nightingale) — 
is dim. 
And the loud shriek of sage Minerva's 
fowl 
Rattles around me her discordant 
hymn : 
Old portraits from old walls upon me 
scowl — 
I wish to Heaven they would not 
look so grim; 
The dying embers dwindle in the grate — 
I think too that I have sat up too late: 

XCVIII. 

And therefore, though 'tis by no means 
my way 
To rhyme at noon — when I have 
other things 
To think of, if I ever think — I say 
I feel some chilly midnight shudder- 
ings, 
And prudently postpone, until mid-day, 
Treating a topic which, alas ! but 
brings 
Shadows ; — but you must be in my 

condition, 
Before you learn to call this super- 
stition. 

xcix. 

Between two worlds Life hovers like a 
star, 

' Hobbes; who, doubting of his own soul, 
paid that compliment to the souls of other 
people as to decline their visits, of which he had 
some apprehension. 



Canto xvi.] 



DON JUAN 



1255 



'Twixt Night and Morn, upon the 
horizon's verge. 
■How little do we know that which we 
are ! 
How less what we may be ! The 
eternal surge 
lOf Time and Tide rolls on and bears 
afar 
Our bubbles; as the old burst, new 
1 emerge, 
Lashed from the foam of ages; while 

the graves 
Of Empires heave but like some passing 
waves. 



CANTO THE SIXTEENTH. 



The antique Persians taught three use- 
ful things, 
To draw the bow, to ride, and speak 
the truth. 
This was the mode of Cyrus, best of 
kings — 
A mode adopted since by modern 
youth. 
Bows have they, generally with two 
strings; 
Horses they ride without remorse or 
ruth; 
At speaking truth perhaps they are less 

clever, 
But draw the long bow better now than 
ever. 

II. 

The cause of this effact, or this defect, — 
"For this effect defective comes by 
cause," — 
Is what I have not leisure to inspect; 
But this I must say in my own ap- 
plause, 
Of all the Muses that I recollect, 

Whate'er may be her follies or her 
flaws 
In some things, mine's beyond all con- 
tradiction 
The most sincere that ever dealt in 
fiction. 

III. 

And as she treats all things, and ne'er 
retreats 



From anything, this Epic will contain 
A wilderness of the most rare conceits, 
Which you might elsewhere hope to 
find in vain. 
'Tis true there be some bitters with the 
sweets, 
Yet mixed so sHghtly, that you can't 
complain. 
But wonder they so few are, since my 

tale is 
"De rebus cunctis et quihusdam aliis." 



But of all truths which she has told, the 
most 
True is that which she is about to tell. 
I said it was a story of a ghost — 

What then ? I only know it so befell. 

Have you explored the limits of the coast, 

Where all the dwellers of the earth 

must dwell? 

'Tis time to strike such puny doubters 

dumb as 
The sceptics who would not believe 
Columbus. 

V. 

Some people would impose now with 
authority, 
Turpin's or Monmouth Geoffry's 
Chronicle; 
Men whose historical superiority 
Is always greatest at a miracle. 
But Saint Augustine has the great 
priority. 
Who bids all men believe the im- 
possible, 
Because 'tis so. Who nibble, scribble, 

quibble, he 
Quiets at once with " quia impossibile.'' ^ 

VI. 

And therefore, mortals, cavil not at all; 
Believe: — if 'tis improbable, you 
must, 
And if it is impossible, you shall: 

'Tis always best to take things upon 
trust. 
I do not speak profanely to recall 

Those holier Mysteries which the wise 
and just 

[Not St Augustine, but Tertullian. See his 
treatise, De Came Christi, cap. V.] 



1256 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xvi. 



Receive as Gospel, and which grow 

more rooted, 
As all truths must, the more they are 

disputed : 

VII. 

I merely mean to say what Johnson 
said, 
That in the course of some six thou- 
sand years, 
Ail nations have believed that from the 
dead 
A visitant at intervals appears: 
And what is strangest upon this strange 
head 
Is, that whatever bar the reason rears 
'Gainst such belief, there's something 

stronger still 
In its behalf — let those deny who will. 



The dinner and the soiree too were done. 
The supper too discussed, the dames 
admired. 
The banqueteers had dropped off one 
by one — 
The song was silent, and the dance 
expired : 
The last thin petticoats were vanished, 
gone 
Like fleecy clouds into the sky retired. 
And nothing brighter gleamed through 

the saloon 
Than dying tapers — and the peeping 
moon. 

IX. 

The evaporation of a joyous day 

Is like the last glass of champagne, 
without 
The foam which made its virgin bumper 

gay; 

Or like a system coupled with a 
doubt; 
Or like a soda bottle when its spray 
Has sparkled and let half its spirit 
out; 
Or like a billow left by storms behind, 
Without the animation of the wind; 



Or like an opiate, which brings troubled 
rest, 



Or none ; or Uke — like nothing that 
I know 
Except itself; — such is the human 
breast ; 
A thing, of which similitudes can show 
No real likeness, — like the old Tyrian 
vest 
Dyed purple, none at present can tell 
how. 
If from a shell-fish or from cochineal.^ 
So perish every Tyrant's robe piece- 
meal ! 

XI. 

But next to dressing for a rout or ball, 
Undressing is a woe; our rohe de 
chambre 
May sit like that of Nessus, and recall 
Thoughts quite as yellow, but less 
clear than amber. 
Titus exclaimed, "I've a lost a day!" 
Of all 
The nights and days most people can 
remember, 
(I have had of both, some not to be 

disdained,) 
I wish they'd state how many they have 
gained. 

XII. 

And Juan, on retiring for the night. 
Felt restless, and perplexed, and com- 
promised : 
He thought Aurora Raby's eyes more 
bright 
Than Adeline (such is advice) 
advised ; 
If he had known exactly his own 
plight, 
He probably would have philoso- 
phised : 
A great resource to all, and ne'er denied 
Till wanted; therefore Juan only 
sighed. 

XIII. 

He sighed ; — the next resource is the 
full moon, 
Where all sighs are deposited; and 
now 

' The composition of the old Tyrian purple, 
whether from a shell-fish, or from cochineal, or 
from kermes, is still an article of dispute; and 
even its colour — some say purple, others scarlet : 
I say nothing. 



Canto XVI.] 



DON JUAN 



1257 



It happened luckily, the chaste orb 

shone 
As clear as such a climate will allow; 
And Juan's mind was in the proper 

tone 
To hail her with the apostrophe — 

"O thou!" 
Of amatory egotism the Tuism, 
Which further to explain would be a 

truism. 

XIV. 

But Lover, Poet, or Astronomer — 
Shepherd, or swain — whoever may 

behold, 
Feel some abstraction when they gaze 

on her; 
Great thoughts we catch from thence 

(besides a cold 
Sometimes, unless my feelings rather 

err); 
Deep secrets to her rolling light are 

told; 
The Ocean's tides and mortals' brains 

she sways. 
And also hearts — if there be truth in 

lays. 

XV. 
Juan felt somewhat pensive, and dis- 
posed 
For contemplation rather than his 
pillow : 
The Gothic chamber, where he was 
enclosed. 
Let in the rippling sound of the lake's 
billow. 
With all the mystery by midnight caused : 
Below his window waved (of course) a 
willow ; 
And he stood gazing out on the cascade 
That flashed and after darkened in the 
shade. 

XVI. 

Upon his table or his toilet, — which 

Of these is not exactly ascertained, — 
(I state this, for I am cautious to a 
pitch 
Of nicety, where a fact is to be gained,) 
A lamp burned high, while he leant 
from a niche, 
Where many a Gothic ornament re- 
mained. 



In chiselled stone and painted glass, 

and all 
That Time has left our fathers of their 

Hall. 

XVII. 

Then, as the night was clear though 

cold, he threw 
His chamber door wide open — and 

went forth 
Into a gallery of a sombre hue, 

Long, furnished with old pictures of 

great worth, 
Of knights and dames heroic and 

chaste too. 
As doubtless should be people of high 

birth ; 
But by dim lights the portraits of the 

dead 
Have something ghastly, desolate, and 

dread. . \^ 

-^' . , ' , ■• "XVIIIv 

The fcsrms of the grim Knight and 

pictured Saint 
Look living in the moon ; and as you 

turn 
Backward and forward to the echoes 

faint 
Of your own footsleps — voices from 

the Urn 
Appear to wake, and shadows wild and 

quaint 
Start from the frames which fence 

their aspects stern. 
As if to ask how you can dare to keep 
A vigil there, where all but Death should 

sleep. 

XIX. 

And the pale smile of Beauties in the 

grave. 
The charms of other days, in star- 
light gleams. 
Glimmer on high; their buried locks 

still wave 
Along the canvas; their eyes glance 

like dreams 
On ours, or spars within some dusky 

cave. 
But Death is imaged in their shadowy 

beams. 
A picture is the past; even ere its frame 
Be gilt, who sate hath ceased to be the 

same. 



1258 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xvi. 



As Juan mused on Mutability, 

Or on his Mistress — terms synony- 
mous — 
No sound except the echo of his sigh 
Or step ran sadly through that antique 
house ; 
When suddenly he heard, or thought so, 
nigh, 
A supernatural agent — or a mouse. 
Whose little nibbling rustle will em- 
barrass 
Most people as it plays along the arras.^ 

XXI. 

It was no mouse — but lo ! a monk, 

arrayed 
In cowl and beads, and dusky garb, 

appeared. 
Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed 

in shade, 
With steps that trod as heavy, yet 

unheard; 
His garments only a slight murmur 

made; 
He moved as shadowy as the Sisters 

weird. 
But slowly; and as he passed Juan by, 
Glanced, without pausing, on him a 

bright eye. 

XXII. 

Juan was petrified; he had heard a 
hint 
Of such a Spirit in these halls of old, 
But thought, like most men, that there 
was nothing in't 
Beyond the rumour which such spots 
unfold. 
Coined from surviving Superstition's 
mint, 
Which passes ghosts in currency like 
gold. 
But rarely seen, like gold compared 

with paper. 
And did he see this ? or was it a vapour ? 

XXIII. 

Once, twice, thrice passed, repassed — 

the thing of air, 
Or earth beneath, or Heaven, or 

t'other place; 
And Juan gazed upon it with a stare, 



Yet could not speak or move; but, on 

its base 
As stands a statue, stood: he felt his 

hair 
Twine like a knot of snakes around 

his face; 
He taxed his tongue for words, which 

were not granted, 
To ask the reverend person what he 

wanted. 

XXIV. 

The third time, after a still longer 

pause. 
The shadow passed away — but 

where? the hall 
Was long, and thus far there was no 

great cause 
To think his vanishing unnatural: 
Doors there were many, through which, 

by the laws 
Of physics, bodies whether short or 

tall 
Might come or go; but Juan could not 

state 
Through which the Spectre seemed 

to evaporate. 

XXV. 

He stood — how long he knew not, but 
it seemed 
An age — expectant, powerless, with 
his eyes 
Strained on the spot where first the 
figure gleamed; 
Then by degrees recalled his energies, 
And would have passed, the whole off 
as a dream. 
But could not wake; he was, he did 
surmise. 
Waking already, and returned at length 
Back to his chamber, shorn of half his 
strength. 

XXVI. 

All there was as he left it: still his taper 
Burned, and not blue, as modest tapers 
use. 
Receiving sprites with sympathetic 
vapour; 
He rubbed his eyes, and they did not 
refuse 
Their office: he took up an old news- 
paper; 



Canto xvi.] 



DON JUAN 



1259 



The paper was right easy to peruse; 
He read an article the King attacking, 
And a long eulogy of "Patent Black- 
ing." 

XXVII. 

This savoured of this world; but his 

hand shook: 
He shut his door, and after having 

read 
A paragraph, I think about Home 

Tooke, 
Undressed, and rather sowly went 

to bed. 
There, couched all snugly on his 

pillow's nook, 
With what he had seen his phantasy 

he fed; 
And though it was no opiate, slumber 

crept 
Upon him by degrees, and so he slept. 



He woke betimes; and, as may be sup- 
posed, 
Pondered upon his visitant or vision, 

And whether it ought not to be dis- 
closed. 
At risk of being quizzed for super- 
stition. 

The more he thought, the more his 
mind was posed: 
In the mean time, his valet, whose 
precision 

Was great, because his master brooked 
no less. 

Knocked to inform him it was time to 
dress. 

XXIX. 

He dressed; and like young people 
he was wont 
To take some trouble with his toilet, 
but 
This morning rather spent less time 
upon't; 
Aside his very mirror soon was put; 
His curls fell negligently o'er his front. 
His clothes were not curbed to their 
usual cut, 
His very neckcloth's Gordian knot was 

tied 
Almost an hair's breadth too much on 
one side. 



XXX. 

And when he walked down into the 

Saloon, 
He sate him pensive o'er a dish of tea, 
Which he perhaps had not discovered 

soon, 
Had it not happened scalding hot to 

be, 
Which made him have recourse unto 

his spoon; 
So much distrait he was, that all 

could see 
That something was the matter — 

Adeline 
The first — but u-hat she could not 

well divine. 

XXXI. 

She looked, and saw him pale, and 

turned as pale 
Herself; then hastily looked down, 

and muttered 
Something but what's not stated in 

my tale. 
Lord Henry said, his muffin was ill 

buttered; 
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke played 

with her veil. 
And looked at Juan hard, but nothing 

uttered. 
Aurora Raby with her large dark eyes 
Surveyed him with a kind of calm sur- 
prise. 

XXXII. 

But seeing him all cold and silent still, 
And everybody wondering more or 
less. 
Fair Adeline inquired, "If he were ill?" 
He started, and said, "Yes — no — 
rather — yes." 
The family physician had great skill 
And being present, now began to 
express 
His readiness to feel his pulse and tell 
The cause, but Juan said, he was 
"quite well." 



"Quite well; yes, — no." — These 
answers were mysterious, 
And vet his looks appeared to sanction 
both, 

However they might savour of delirious; 



I26o 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xvi. 



Something like illness of a sudden 
growth 
Weighed on his spirit, though by no 
means serious: 
But for the rest, as he himself seemed 
loth 
To state the case, it might be ta'en for 

granted 
It was not the physician that he wanted. 

XXXIV. 

Lord Henry, who had now discussed 

his chocolate, 
Also the muffin whereof he com- 
plained, 
Said, Juan had not got his usual look 

elate. 
At which he marvelled, since it had 

not rained; 
Then asked her Grace what news were 

of the Duke of late ? 
Her Grace replied, his Grace was 

rather pained 
With some slight, light, hereditary 

twinges 
Of gout, which rusts aristocratic hinges. 

XXXV. 

Then Henry turned to Juan, and ad- 
dressed 
A few words of condolence on his 
state: 
"You look," quoth he, "as if you had 
had your rest 
Broke in upon by the Black Friar of 
late." 
"What Friar?" said Juan; and he did 
his best 
To put the question with an air sedate, 
Or careless; but the effort was not valid 
To hinder him from growing still more 
pallid. 

XXXVI. 

" Oh ! have you never heard of the 
Black Friar? 
The Spirit of these walls?" — "In 
truth not I." 
"Why Fame — but Fame you know's 
• sometimes a liar — 
Tells an odd story, of which by and by : 
Whether with time the Spectre has 
grown shyer. 



Or that our Sires had a more gifted 
eye 

For such sights, though the tale is half 
believed. 

The Friar of late has not been oft per- 
ceived. 

XXXVII. 

"The last time was " — "I pray," 

said Adeline — 
(Who watched the changes of Don 

Juan's brow. 
And from its context thought she could 

divine 
Connections stronger than he chose 

to avow 
With this same legend) — "if you but 

design 
To jest, you'll choose some other 

theme just now. 
Because the present tale has oft been 

told. 
And is not much improved by growing 

old." 

XXXVIII. 

"Jest!" quoth Milor; "why, Adeline, 

you know 
That we ourselves — 'twas in the 

honey moon — 
Saw " — "Well, no matter, 'twas 

so long ago; 
But, come, I'll set your story to a 

tune." 
Graceful as Dian when she draws her 

bow. 
She seized her harp, whose strings 

were kindled soon 
As touched, and plaintively began to 

play 
The air of "'Twas a Friar of Orders 

Grey." 

XXXIX. 

"But add the words," cried Henry 
"which you made; 
For Adeline is half a poetess," 
Turning round to the rest, he smiling 
said. 
Of course the others could not but 
express 
In courtesy their wish to see dis- 
played 
By one three talents, for there were 
no less — 



Canto xvi.] 



DON JUAN 



1261 



The voice, the words, the harper's skill, 

at once, 
Could hardly be united by a dunce. 



After some fascinating hesitation, — 
The charming of these charmers, who 
seem bound, 
I can't tell why, to this dissimulation, — 
Fair Adeline, with eyes fixed on the 
ground 
At first, then kindling into animation. 
Added her sweet voice to the lyric 
sound. 
And sang with much simplicity, — a 

merit 
Not the less precious, that we seldom 
hear it. 

I. 

Beware ! beware ! of the Black Friar, 

Who sitteth by Norman stone, 
For he mutters his prayer in the mid- 
night air. 
And his mass of the days that are 
gone. 
When the Lord of the Hill, Amunde- 
ville, 
Made Norman Church his prey. 
And expelled the friars, one friar still 
Would not be driven avv^ay. 



Though he came in his might, with 
King Henry's right, 
To turn church lands to lay, 
With sword in hand, and torch to 
light- 
Their walls, if they said nay; 
A monk remained, unchased, unchained, 
And he did not seem formed of clay, 
For he's seen in the porch, and he's 
seen in the church. 
Though he is not seen by day. 

3- 
And whether for good, or whether for 
ill. 
It is not mine to say; 
But still with the house of Amundeville 

He abideth night and day. 
By the marriage-bed of their lords, 'tis 
said, 
He flits on the bridal eve; 



And 'tis held as faith, to their bed of 
Death 
He comes — but not to grieve. 

4. 
When an heir is born, he's heard to 
mourn 
And when aught is to befall 
That ancient line, in the pale moon- 
shine 
He walks from hall to hall. 
His form you may trace, but not his face, 

'Tis shadowed by his cowl; 
But his eyes may be seen from the fold 
between. 
And they seem of a parted soul. 

5- 
But beware ! beware ! of the Black 
Friar, 

He still retains his sway, 
For he is yet the Church's heir, 

Whoever may be the lay. 
Amundeville is Lord by day, 

But the monk is Lord by night; 
Nor wine nor wassail could raise a vassal 

To question that Friar's right. 

6. 

Say nought to him as he walks the Hall, 

And he'll say nought to you; 
He sweeps along in his dusky pall, 

As o'er the grass the dew. 
Then grammercy ! for the Black Friar; 

Heaven sain him! fair or foul, — 
And whatsoe'er may be his prayer, 

Let ours be for his soul. 

XLI. 

The lady's voice ceased, and the thrilling 

wires 
Died from the touch that kindled 

them to sound; 
And the pause followed, which when 

song expires 
Pervades a moment those who listen 

round; 
And then of course the circle much 

admires, 
Nor less applauds, as in politeness 

bound, 
The tones, the feeling, and the execu- 
tion, 
To the performer's diffident confusion. 



1262 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xvi. 



Fair Adeline, though in a careless way, 
As if she rated such accomplishment 
As the mere pastime of an idle day, 
Pursued an instant for her own con- 
tent. 
Would now and then as 'twere without 
display. 
Yet with display in fact, at times 
relent 
To such performances with haughty 

smile. 
To show she could, if it were worth her 
while. 

XI.III. 

Now this (but we will whisper it aside) 
Was — pardon the pedantic illus- 
tration — 
Trampling on Plato's pride with greater 
pride, 
As did the Cynic on some like occa- 
sion; 
Deeming the sage would be much 
mortified. 
Or thrown into a philosophic passion. 
For a spoilt carpet — but the "Attic 

Bee" 
Was much consoled by his own repartee.^ 



Thus Adeline would throw into the shade 
(By doing easily, whene'er she chose, 
What dilettanti do with vast parade) 
Their sort of half profession; for it 
grows 
To something like this when too oft 
displayed ; 
And that it is so, everybody knows, 
Who have heard Miss That or This, or 

Lady T'other, 
Show off — to please their company or 
mother. 

XLV. 

Oh ! the long evenings of duets and trios ! 
The admirations and the speculations; 

' I think that it was a carpet on which Diogenes 
trod, with — "Thus I trample on the pride of 
Plato!" — "With greater pride," as the other 
replied. But as carpets are meant to be trodden 
upon, my memory probably misgives me, and it 
might be a robe, or tapestry, or a table-cloth, or 
some other expensive and uncynical piece of 
furniture. 



The "Mamma Mia's!" and the "Amor 
Mio's!" 
The "Tanti palpiti's" on such occa- 
sions: 

The "Lasciami's," and quavering "Ad- 
dio's," 
Amongst our own most musical of 
nations ! 

With "Tu mi chamas's" from Portin- 
gale. 

To soothe our ears, lest Italy should fail.^ 

XLVI. 

In Babylon's hravuras — as the Home- 
Heart-Ballads of Green Erin or 

Grey Highlands, 
That bring Lochaber back to eyes that 

roam 
O'er far Atlantic continents or 

islands, 
The calentures of music which o'er- 

come 
All mountaineers with dreams that 

they are nigh lands. 
No more to be beheld but in such 

visions — 
Was Adeline well versed, as compo- 
sitions. 

XL VII. 

She also had a twilight tinge of "Blue," 
Could write rhymes, and compose 
more than she wrote. 
Made epigrams occasionally too 

Upon her friends, as everybody 
ought. 
But still from that sublimer azure hue, 

' I remember that the mayoress of a provincial 
town, somewhat surfeited with a similar display 
from foreign parts, did rather indecorously 
break through the applauses of an intelligent 
audience — intelligent, I mean, as to music — 
for the words, besides being in recondite lan- 
guages (it was some years before the peace, ere all 
the world had travelled, and while I was a col- 
legian), were sorely disguised by the performers: 
— this mayoress, I say, broke out with, " Rot 
your Italianos ! for my part, I loves a simple 
ballat!" Rossini will go a good way to bring 
most people to the same opinion some day. 
Who would imagine that he was to be the suc- 
cessor of Mozart? However. I state this with 
diffidence, as a liege and loyal admirer of Italian 
music in general, and of much of Rossini's; 
but we may sav, as the connoisseur did of paint- 
ing in The Vicar of Wakefield, that "the picture 
would be better painted if the painter had taken 
more pains." 



Canto xvi.] 



DON JUAN 



1263 



• So much the present dye, she was 

remote; 
Was weak enough to deem Pope a great 

poet, 
And what was worse, was not ashamed 

to show it. 

XLVIII. 

Aurora — since we are touching upon 
taste, 
^^hich now-a-days is the thermometer 
By whose degrees all characters are 
classed — 
Was more Shakespearian, if I do not 
err. 
The worlds beyond this World's per- 
plexing waste 
Had more of her existence, for in her 
There was a depth of feeling to em- 
brace 
Thoughts, boundless, deep, but silent 
too as Space. 

XLIX. 

Not so her gracious, graceful, graceless 
Grace, 
The full-grown Hebe of Fitz-Fulke, 
whose mind. 
If she had any, was upon her face, 

And that was of a fascinating kind. 

A little turn for mischief you might 

trace 

Also thereon, — but that's not much; 

we find 

Few females without some such gentle 

leaven, 
For fear we should suppose us quite in 
Heaven, 

L. 

I have not heard she was at all poetic, 
Though once she was seen reading the 
Bath Guide, 
And Hayley's Triumphs, which she 
deemed pathetic, 
Because she said her temper had been 
tried 
So much, the bard had really been 
prophetic 
Of what she had gone through with — 
since a bride. 
But of all verse, what most ensured her 

praise 
Were sonnets to herself, or bouts rimes. 



'Twere difficult to say what was the ob- 
ject 
Of Adeline, in bringing this same lay 
To bear on what appeared to her the 
subject 
Of Juan's nervous feelingson that day. 
Perhaps she merely had the simple 
project 
To laugh him out of his supposed 
dismay; 
Perhaps she might wish to confirm 

him in it, 
Though why I cannot say — at least 
this minute. 



But so far the immediate effect 

Was to restore him to his self-pro- 
priety, 
A thing quite necessary to the elect. 
Who wish to take the tone of their 
society: 
In which you cannot be too circumspect. 
Whether the mode be persiflage or 
piety, 
But wear the newest mantle of hypoc- 
risy, 
On pain of much displeasing the gynoc- 
racy. 

LIII. 

And therefore Juan now began to rally 
His spirits, and without more ex- 
planation 
To jest upon such themes in many a 
sally. 
Her Grace, too, also seized the same 
occasion, 
With various similar remarks to tally, 
But wished for a still more detailed 
narration 
Of this same mystic friar's curious 

doings. 
About the present family's deaths and 
wooings. 

LIV. 

Of these few could say more than has 

been said; 
They passed as such things do, for 

superstition 
With some, while others, who had 

more in dread 



1264 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xvi. 



The theme, half credited the strange 

tradition; 
And much was talked on all sides on 

that head: 
But Juan, when cross-questioned on 

the vision. 
Which some supposed (though he had 

not avowed it) 
Had stirred him, answered in a way 

to cloud it. 

LV. 

And then, the mid-day having worn to 
one, 
The company prepared to separate; 
Some to their several pastimes, or to 
none, 
Some wondering 'twas so early, some 
so late. 
There was a goodly match, too, to be 
run 
Between some greyhounds on my 
Lord's estate, 
And a young race-horse of old pedigree 
Matched for the spring, whom several 
went to see. 

LVI. 

There was a picture-dealer who had 
brought 
A special Titian, warranted original, 
So precious that it was not to be bought. 
Though Princes the possessor were 
besieging all — 
The King himself had cheapened it, 
but thought 
The civil list he deigns to accept 
(obliging all 
His subjects by his gracious accepta- 
tion) — 
Too scanty, in these times of low taxa- 
tion. 

LVII. 

But as Lord Henry was a connoisseur, — 
The friend of Artists, if not Arts, — 
the owner. 
With motives the most classical and 
pure. 
So that he would have been the very 
donor. 
Rather than seller, had his wants been 
fewer. 
So much he deemed his patronage 
an honour, 



Had brought the capo d' opera, not for 

sale. 
But for his judgment — never known 

to fail. 

LVIII. 

There was a modern Goth, I mean a 
Gothic 
Bricklayer of Babel, called an archi- 
tect, ' 

Brought to survey these grey walls 
which, though so thick. 
Might have from Time acquired 
some slight defect; 

Who, after rummaging the Abbey 
through thick 
And thin, produced a plan whereby 
to erect 

New buildings of correctest conforma- 
tion, 

And throw down old — which he called 
restoration. 

LIX. 

The cost would be a trifle — an "old 
song," 
Set to some thousands ('tis the usual 
burden 
Of that same tune, when people hum 
it long) — 
The price would speedily repay its 
worth in 
An edifice no less sublime than strong, 
By which Lord Henry's good taste 
would go forth in 
Its glory, through all ages shining sunny, 
For Gothic daring shown in English 
monev.* 



There were two lawyers busy on a mort- 
gage 

' "Ausu Romano, ?cre Veneto" is the inscrip- 
tion (and well inscribed in this instance) on the 
sea walls between the Adriatic and Venice. The 
walls were a republican work of the Venetians; 
the inscription, I believe, Imperial; and in- 
scribed by Napoleon the First. It is time to 
continue to him that title — there will be a 
second by and by, "Spes altera mundi." if he 
live; let him not defeat it like his father. But 
in any case, he will be preferable to " Imbeciles." 
There is a glorious field for him, if he know how 
to cultivate it. 

[Francis Charles Joseph Napoleon, Duke of 
Reichstadt, died at Vienna, July .22, 1832. But, 
none the less, Byron's prophecy was fulfilled.] 



Canto xvi.] 



DON JUAN 



1265 



Lord Henry wished to raise for a 
new purchase; 
Also a lawsuit upon tenures burgage/ 
And one on tithes, which sure are 
Discord's torches, 
Kindling Religion till she throws down 
her gage, 
"Untying" squires "to fight against 
the churches"; 
There was a prize ox, a prize pig, and 

ploughman, 
For Henry was a sort of Sabine show- 
man. 

LXI. 

There were two poachers caught in a 
steel trap, 
Ready for gaol, their place of con- 
valescence ; 
There was a country girl in a close cap 
And scarlet cloak (I hate the sight to 
see, since — 
Since — since — in youth, I had the 
sad mishap — 
But luckily I have paid few parish 
fees since) : 
That scarlet cloak, alas! unclosed with 

rigour, 
Presents the problem of a double figure. 

I.XII. 

A reel within a bottle is a mystery. 
One can't tell how it e'er got in or 

out; 
Therefore the present piece of natural 

history 
I leave to those who are fond of solving 

doubt; 
And merely state, though not for the 

Consistory, 
Ix)rd Henry was a Justice, and that 

Scout 
The constable, beneath a warrant's 

banner, 
Had bagged this poacher upon Nature's 

manor. 

LXIII. 

Now Justices of Peace must judge all 
pieces 

' [Burgage, or tenure in burgage, is where the 
king or some other jx^rson is lord of an ancient 
borough, in which tlie tenements are held by a 
yearly rent certain.] 

4M 



Of mischief of all kinds, and keep 
the game 
And morals of the country from caprices 
Of those who have not a licence for 
the same; 
And of all things, excepting tithes and 
leases, 
Perhaps these are most difl&cult to 
tame : 
Preserving partridges and pretty wenches 
Are puzzles to the most precautious 
benches. 

LXIV. 

The present culprit was extremely pale, 
Pale as if painted so; her cheek 
being red 
By nature, as in higher dames less hale 
'Tis white, at least when they just 
rise from bed. 
Perhaps she was ashamed of seeming 
frail. 
Poor soul ! for she was country born 
and bred, 
And knew no better in her immorality 
Than to wax white — for blushes are 
for quality. 

LXV. 

Her black, bright, downcast, yet espiegle 
eye 
Had gathered a large tear into its 
corner. 
Which the poor thing at times essayed 
to dry. 
For she was not a sentimental mourner 
Parading all her sensibility, 

Nor insolent enough to scorn the 
scorner. 
But stood in trembling, patient tribu- 
lation, 
To be called up for her examination. 



Of course these groups were scattered 
here and there. 
Not nigh the gay saloon of ladies 
gent. 
The lawyers in the study; and in air 
The prize pig, ploughman, poachers: 
the men sent 
From town, viz. architect and dealer, 
were 
Both busy (as a General in his tent 



1266 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xvi. 



Writing despatches) in their several 

stations, 
Exulting in their brilliant lucubrations. 



But this poor girl was left in the great 
hall, 
While Scout, the parish guardian 
of the frail. 
Discussed (he hated beer vclept the 
"small") 
A mighty mug of moral double ale. 
She waited until Justice could recall 

Its kind attentions to their proper pale, 
To name a thing in nomenclature 

rather 
Perplexing for most virgins — a child's 
father. 

LXVIII. 

You see here was enough of occupation 
For the Lord Henry, linked with dogs 
and horses. 
There was much hustle too, and prepa- 
ration 
Below stairs on the score of second 
courses; 
Because as suits their rank and situation, 
Those who in counties have great 
land resources 
Have "public days," when all men 

may carouse, 
Though not exactly what's called "open 
house." 

LXIX. 

But once a week or fortnight, zorinvited 
(Thus we translate a general invita- 
tion) 
All country gentlemen, esquired or 
knighted. 
May drop in without cards, and take 
their station 
At the full board, and sit alike delighted 
With fashionable wines and con- 
versation ; 
And, as the isthmus of the grand con- 
nection, 
Talk o'er themselves, the past and next 
election. 

LXX. 

Lord Henry was a great electioneerer, 
Burrowing for boroughs like a rat or 
rabbit. 



But county contests cost him rather 

dearer, 
Because the neighbouring Scotch 

Earl of Giftgabbit 
Had English influence, in the self-same 

sphere here; 
His son, the Honourable Dick Diced- 

rabbit. 
Was member for the "other interest" 

(meaning 
The same self-interest, with a different 

leaning). 

LXXI. 

Courteous and cautious therefore in his 
county. 
He was all things to all men, and 
dispensed 

To some civility, to others bounty, 
And promises to all — which last 
commenced 

To gather to a somewhat large amount, 
he 
Not calculating how much they con- 
densed; 

But what with keeping some, and 
breaking others. 

His word had the same value as an- 
other's. 

LXXII. 

A friend to Freedom and freeholders — 

yet 
No less a friend to Government — 

he held, 
That he exactly the just medium 

hit 
'Twixt Place and Patriotism — albeit 

compelled. 
Such was his Sovereign's pleasure, 

(though unfit. 
He added modestly, when rebels 

railed.) 
To hold some sinecures he wished 

abolished. 
But that with them all Law would be 

demolished. 



He was "free to confess" — (whence 
comes this phrase? 
Is't English? No — 'tis only parlia- 
mentary) 

That Innovation's spirit now-a-days 



Canto XVI.] 



DON JUAN 



1267 



Had made more progress than for 

the last century. 
He would not tread a factious path to 

praise, 
Though for the public weal disposed 

to venture high; 
As for his place, he could but say this 

of it. 
That the fatigue was greater than the 

profit. 

LXXIV. 

Heaven, and his friends, knew that a 

private life 
Had ever been his sole and whole 

ambition; 
But could he quit his King in times of 

strife. 
Which threatened the whole country 

with perdition ? 
When demagogues would with a 

butcher's knife 
Cut through and through (oh ! 

damnable incision !) 
The Gordian or the Gfordi-an knot, 

whose strings 
Have tied together Commons, Lords, 

and Kings. 

LXXV. 

Sooner "come Place into the Civil list 
And champion him to the utmost — " 
he would keep it, 

Till duly disappointed or dismissed: 
Profit he cared not for, let others reap 

ii; 

But should the day come when Place 

ceased to exist, 
The country would have far more 

cause to weep it: 
For how could it go on? Explain who 

can ! 
He gloried in the name of Englishman. 

LXXVI. 

He was as independent — aye, much 
more — . 
Than those who were not paid for 
independence. 

As common soldiers, or a common 

shore. 
Have in their several arts or parts 
ascendance 
O'er the irregulars in lust or gore. 



Who do not give professional attend- 
ance. 

Thus on the mob all statesmen are as 
eager 

To prove their pride, as footmen to a 
beggar. 

LXXVII. 

All this (save the last stanza) Henry 
said. 
And thought. I say no more — I've 
said too much; 
For all of us have either heard or read — 
Off — or upon the hustings — some 
slight such 
Hints from the independent heart or 
head 
Of the official candidate. I'll touch 
No more on this — the dinner-bell 

hath rung. 
And grace is said; the grace I should 
have sung — 

LXXVIII. 

But I'm too late, and therefore must 

make play. 
'Twas a great banquet, such as 

Albion old 
Was wont to boast — as if a glutton's 

tray 
Were something very glorious to 

behold. 
But 'twas a public feast and public 

day, — 
Quite full — right dull — guests hot, 

and dishes cold, — 
Great plenty, much formality, small 

cheer, — 
And everybody out of their own sphere. 



The squires familiarly formal, and 
My Lords and Ladies proudly con- 
descending; 
The very servants puzzling how to hand 
Their plates — without it might be 
too much bending 
From their high places by the side- 
board's stand — 
Yet, like their masters, fearful of 
offending; 
For any deviation from the graces 
Might cost both man and master too — 
their places. 



1268 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xvi. 



LXXX. 

There were some hunters bold, and 

coursers keen, 
Whose hounds ne'er erred, nor grey- 
hounds deigned to lurch; 
Some deadly shots too, Septembrisers, 

seen 
Earliest to rise, and last to quit the 

search 
Of the poor partridge through his 

stubble screen. 
There were some massy members of 

the church. 
Takers of tithes, and makers of good 

matches, 
And several who sung fewer psalms 

than catches. 



There were some country wags too — 
and, alas! 
Some exiles from the Town, who had 
been driven 
To gaze, instead of pavement, upon 
grass. 
And rise at nine in lieu of long 
eleven. 
And lo! upon that day it came to 
pass, 
I sate next that o'erwhelming son of 
Heaven, 
The very powerful parson, Peter Pith,^ 
The loudest wit I e'er was deafened with. 

Lxxxn. 

I knew him in his livelier London 
days, 
A brilliant diner-out, though but a 
curate. 
And not a joke he cut but earned its 
praise. 
Until Preferment, coming at a sure 
rate, 
(O Providence ! how wondrous are thy 
ways ! 
Who would suppose thy gifts some 
times obdurate ?) 

'["Query, Sydney Smith, author of Peter 
Plimley's Letters? — Printer's Devi!." — Ed. 
1833. The "fat fen vicarage" (znde infra, stanza. 
Ixxxii. line 8) was Foston-le-Clay, near Barton 
Hill, Yorkshire, which Lord Chancellor Erskine 
presented to Sydney Smith in 1806.] 



Gave him, to lay the Devil who looks 

o'er Lincoln,^ 
A fat fen vicarage, and nought to think 

on. 

LXXXIII. 

His jokes were sermons, and his sermons 

jokes; 
But both were thrown away amongst 

the fens; 
For Wit hath no great friend in aguish 

folks. 
No longer ready ears and short-hand 

pens 
Imbibed the gay bon-mot, or happy 

hoax: 
The poor priest was reduced to 

common sense, 
Or to coarse efforts very loud and long. 
To hammer a hoarse laugh from the 

thick throng. 

LXXXIV. 

There is a difference, says the song, 

"between 
A beggar and a Queen," or was (of 

late 
The latter worse used of the two we've 

seen — 
But we'll say nothing of afifairs of 

state) ; 
A difference " 'twixt a Bishop and a 

Dean," 
A difference between crockery ware 

and plate, 
As between English beef and Spartan 

broth — 
And yet great heroes have been bred 

by both. , . r. ,% ^ w 

-> , , . '". ^ ' . LXXXV; '- -" 

\ _ •j 

But of all Nature's discrepancies, none 
Upon the whole is greater than the 
difference 
Beheld between the Country and the 
Town, 
Of which the latter merits every 
preference 

' [The devil as Fuller (Worthies: Lincoln- 
shire) has it, "overlooked this church, when first 
finished, with a torve and tctrick countenance, | 
as maligning men's costly devotions." A gro- I 
tesque figure at the eastern end of St Hugh's 
Chapel in the Cathedral is said to depict him 
"looking over Lincoln."] 



Canto XVI,] 



DON JUAN 



1269 



From those who have few resources of 
their own, 
And only think, or act, or feel, with 
reference 

To some small plan of interest or ambi- 
tion — 

Both which are limited to no condition. 



But En avant ! The light loves languish 
o'er 
Long banquets and too many guests, 
although 
A slight repast makes people love much 
more, 
Bacchus and Ceres being, as we know, 
Even from our grammar upwards, 
friends of yore 
With vivifying Venus, who doth owe 
To these the invention of champagne 

and truffles: 
Temperance delights her, but long fast- 
ing ruffles. 

LXXXVII. 

Dully passed o'er the dinner of the day; 
And Juan took his place, he knew 
not where, 
Confused, in the confusion, and distrait, 
And sitting as if nailed upon his chair : 
Though knives and forks clanked round 
as in a fray, 
He seemed unconscious of all passing 
there, 
Till some one, with a groan, expressed 

a wish 
(Unheeded twice) to have a fin of fish. 

LXXXVIII. 

On which, at the third asking of the 

banns, 
He started; and perceiving smiles 

around 
Broadening to grins, he coloured more 

than once. 
And hastily — as nothing can con- 
found 
A wise man more than laughter from a 

dunce — 
Inflicted on the dish a deadly wound, 
And with such hurry, that, ere he could 

curb it, 
He had paid this neighbour's prayer 

with half a turbot. 



This was no bad mistake, as it occurred, 
The supplicator being an amateur; 
But others, who were left with scarce a 
third. 
Were angry — as they well might, to 
be sure. 
They wondered how a young man so 
absurd 
Lord Henry at his table should endure ; 
And this, and his not knowing how 

much oats 
Had fallen last market, cost his host 
three votes. 

xc. 

They little knew, or might have sym- 
pathised, 
That he the night before had seen a 
ghost, 

A prologue which but slightly har- 
monised 
With the substantial company en- 
grossed 

By matter, and so much materialised, 
That one scarce knew at what to 
marvel most 

Of two things — how (the question 
rather odd is) 

Such bodies could have souls, or souls 
such bodies ! 



But what confused him more than smile 
or stare 
From all the 'squires and 'squireses 
around. 
Who wondered at the abstraction of his 
air, 
Especially as he had been renowned 
For some vivacity among the fair. 

Even in the country circle's narrow 
bound — 
(For little things upon my Lord's estate 
Were good small talk for others still less 
great) — 

XCII. 

Was, that he caught Aurora's eye on his, 
And something like a smile upon her 
cheek. 
Now this he really rather took amiss; 
In those who rarely smile, their smile 
bespeaks 



[270 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xvi. 



A strong external motive; and in this 
Smile of Aurora's there was nought 
to pique, 
Or Hope, or Love — with any of the 

wiles 
Which some pretend to trace in ladies' 
smiles. 

XCIII. 

'Twas a mere quiet smile of contempla- 
tion, 
Indicative of some surprise and pity; 
And Juan grew carnation with vexation,' 
Which was not very wise, and still less 
witty. 
Since he had gained at least her observa- 
tion, 
A most important outwork of the 
city — 
As Juan should have known, had not 

his senses 
By last night's Ghost been driven from 
their defences. 

xciv. 

But what was bad, she did not blush in 

turn, 
Nor seem embarrassed — quite the 

contrary ; 
Her aspect was as usual, still — not 

stern — 
And she withdrew, but cast not down, 

her eye. 
Yet grew a little pale — with what ? 

concern? 
I know not; but her colour ne'er was 

high — 
Though sometimes faintly flushed — 

and always clear. 
As deep seas in a sunny atmosphere. 

xcv. 

But Adeline was occupied by fame 
This day; and watching, witching, 
condescending 
To the consumers of fish, fowl, and 
game. 
And dignity with courtesy so blending. 
As all must blend whose part it is to aim 
(Especially as the sixth year is ending) 
At their lord's, son's, or similar connec- 
tion's 
Safe conduct through the rocks of re- 
elections. 



xcvi. 
Though this was most expedient on the 
whole 
And usual — Juan, when he cast a 
glance 
On Adeline while playing her grand 
role, 
Which she went through as though it 
were a dance, 
Betraying only now and then her soul 

By a look scarce perceptibly askance 
(Of weariness or scorn), began to feel 
Some doubt how much of Adeline was 
real; 

xcvii. 
So well she acted all and every part 
By turns -^ with that vivacious ver- 
satility. 
Which many people take for want of 
heart. 
They err — 'tis merely what is called 
mobility,^ 
A thing of temperament and not of art, 
Though seeming so, from its supposed 
facility; 
And false — though true; for, surely, 

they're sincerest 
Who are strongly acted on by what is 
nearest. 

XCVIII. 

This makes your actors, artists, and 

romancers, 
Heroes sometimes, though seldom — 

sages, never : 
But speakers, bards, diplomatists, and 

dancers. 
Little that's great, but much of what 

is clever; 
Most orators, but very few financiers. 
Though all Exchequer Chancellors en- 
deavour. 
Of late years, to dispense with Cocker's 

rigourS; 
And grow quite figurative with their 

figures. 

• In French '" mohilite." I am not sure that 
mobility is English; but is is expressive of a 
quality which rather belongs to other climates, 
though it is sometimes seen to a great extent in 
our own. It may be defined as an excessive sus 
ceptibility of immediate impressions — at the 
same time without losing the past: and is, 
though sometimes apparently useful to the 
a most painful and unhappy attribute. 



Canto xvi.] 



DON JUAN 



1273 



XCIX. 



The poets of Arithmetic are they 

Who, though they prove not two and 
two to be 
Five, as they might do in a modest way. 
Have plainly made it out that four are 
three, 
Judging by what they take, and what 
they pay: 
The Sinking Fund's unfathomable sea, 
That most unliquidating liquid, leaves 
The debt unsunk, yet sinks all it receives. 



While Adeline dispensed her airs and 
graces, 
The fair Fitz-Fulke seemed very much 
at ease; 
Though too well bred to quiz men to 
their faces, 
TT„ i-.jgj^jj^g Yi\ue eyes with a glance 
d seize 

cules of people in all places — 
noney of your fashionable bees — 
^^72 ^re it up for mischievous enjoy- 

Tient; 
If- this at present was her kind employ- 
ment. 

CI. 

However, the day closed, as days must 
close; 
The evening also waned — and coffee 
came. 
Each carriage was announced, and 
la.dies rose. 
And curtsying off, as curtsies country 
dame. 
Retired: with most unfashionable bows 
Their docile Esquires also did the 
same. 
Delighted with their dinner and their 

Host, 
But with the Lady Adeline the most. 



CII. 



others her 



Some praised her beauty 
great grace; 
The warmth of her politeness, whose 
sincerity 
Was obvious in each feature of her face. 
Whose traits were radiant with the 
rays of verity. 



Yes; she was truly worthy her hi[^" 
place ! 
No one could envy her deserved 
prosperity. 
And then her dress — what beautiful 

simplicity 
Draperied her form with curious 
felicity ! 

cm. 

Meanwhile sweet Adeline deserved their 
praises. 
By an impartial indemnification 
For all her past exertion and soft phrases, 

In a most edifying conversation, 
Which turned upon their late guests' 
miens and faces. 
Their families, even to the last rela- 
tion; 
Their hideous wives, their horrid selves 

and dresses. 
And truculent distortion of their tresses. 

CIV. 

True, she said little — 'twas the rest 
that broke 
Forth into universal epigram; 
But then 'twas to the purpose what she 
spoke: 
Like Addison's "faint praise," so 
wont to damn. 
Her own but served to set off every joke, 
As music chimes in with a melodrame. 
How sweet the task to shield an absent 

friend ! 
I ask but this of mine, to not defend. 

CV. 

There were but two exceptions to this 
keen 
Skirmish of wits o'er the departed; 
one, 
Aurora, with her pure and placid mien; 
And Juan, too, in general behind none 
In gay remark on what he had heard or 
seen, 
Sate silent now, his usual spirits gone: 
In vain he heard the others rail or rally, 
He would not join them in a single sally. 



'Tis true he saw Aurora look as though 
She approved his silence; she per- 
haps mistook 



1270 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xvi. 



As motive for that charity we owe 
But seldom pay the absent, nor would 
look 
Farther — it might or it might not be so. 

But Juan, sitting silent in his nook, 
Observing little in his reverie, 
Yet saw this much, which he was glad 
to see. 

CVII. 

The Ghost at least had done him this 
much good, 
In making him as silent as a ghost, 
If in the circumstances which ensued 
He gained esteem where it was worth 
the most; 
And, certainly, Aurora had renewed 

In him some feelings he had lately lost, 
Or hardened; feelings which, perhaps 

ideal. 
Are so divine, that I must deem them 
real : — 

CVIII. 

The love of higher things and l^etter 
days; 
The unbounded hope, and heavenly 
ignorance 
Of what is called the World, and the 
World's ways; 
The moments when we gather from 
a glance 
More joy than from all future pride or 
praise, 
Which kindle manhood, but can ne'er 
entrance 
The Heart in an existence of its own. 
Of which another's bosom is the zone. 

Cix. 

Who would not sigh At at rav Kvd^peiau 
That Jiath a memory, or that had a 
heart ? 
Alas! her star must fade like that of 
Dian: 
Ray fades on ray, as years on years 
depart, 
Anacreon only had the soul to tie an 
Unwithering myrtle round the un- 
blunted dart 
Of Eros: but though thou hast played 

us many tricks. 
Still we respect thee, ''Alma Venus 
Gevetrix!" 



And full of sentiments, sublime as 

billows 
Heaving between this World and 

Worlds beyond, 
Don Juan, when the midnight hour of 

pillows 
Arrived, retired to his; but to despond 
Rather than rest. Instead of poppies, 

willows 
Waved o'er his couch; he meditated, 

fond 
Of those sweet bitter thoughts which 

banish sleep. 
And make the worldling sneer, the 

youngling weep. 



The night was as before: he w^as un- 
drest. 
Saving his night-gown, which is an 
undress; 

Completely sans culotte, and without 
vest ; 
In short, he hardly could be clothed 
with less: 

But apprehensive of his spectral guest. 
He sate with feelings awkward to 
express 

(By those who have not had such visita- 
tions), 

Expectant of the Ghost's fresh opera- 
tions. 

CXII. 

And not in vain he listened; — Hush! 
what's thai? 
I see — I see — Ah, no ! — 'tis not — 
yet 'tis — 
Ye powers ! it is the — the — the — 
Pooh ! the cat ! 
The Devil may take that stealthy pace 
of his! 
So like a spiritual pit-a-pat, 

Or tiptoe of an amatory Miss, 
Gliding the first time to a rendezvous, 
And dreading the chaste echoes of her 
shoe. 

CXIII. 

Again — what is't ? The wind ? No, 
no, — this time 
It is the sable Friar as before, 



Canto x\^.] 



DON JUAN . 



1273 



With awful footsteps regular as 

rhyme, 
Or (as rhymes may be in these days) 

much more. 
Again through shadows of the night 

sublime, 
When deep sleep fell on men,^ and 

the World wore 
The starry darkness round her like a 

girdle 
Spangled with gems — the Monk made 

his blood curdle. 

cxiv. 

A noise like to wet fingers drawn on 
glass,^ 
Which sets the teeth on edge; and a 
slight clatter, 
Like showers which on the midnight 
gusts will pass. 
Sounding like very supernatural 
water, 
Came over Juan's ear, which throbbed, 
alas ! 
For Immaterialism's a serious matter; 
So that even those whose faith is the 

most great 
In Souls immortal, shun them tete-a- 
tete. 

cxv. 

Were his eyes open ? — Yes ! and his 
mouth too. 
Surprise has this effect — to make one 
dumb. 
Yet leave the gate which Eloquence slips 
through 
As wide as if a 'ong speech were to 
come. 
Nigh and more nigh the awful echoes 
drew. 
Tremendous to a mortal tympanum: 
His eyes were open, and (as was before 
Stated) his mouth. What opened next ? 
— the door. 

cxvi. 

It opened with a most infernal creak. 
Like that of Hell. "Lasciate ogni 
speranza. 



' [Job iv. 13.] 



■>ee the account of the ghost of the uncle of 
Prince Charles of Saxony, raised by Schroepfer 
— "Karl — Karl — was willst du mit mir?" 



Voi, ch' entrate!" The hinge seemed 

to speak. 
Dreadful as Dante's rimUy or this 

stanza; 
Or — but all words upon such themes 

are weak: 
A single shade's sufficient to entrance a 
Hero — for what is Substance to a 

Spirit ? 
Or how is't Matter trembles to come 

near it ? 

CXA^II. 

The door flew vidde, not swiftly, — but, 
as fly 
The sea-gulls, with a steadv, sober 
flight — 
And then swung back; nor close — but 
stood awry, 
Half letting in long shadows on the 

Which still in Juan's candlesticks 
burned high. 
For he had two, both tolerably bright, 

And in the doorway, darkening dark- 
ness, stood 

The sable Friar in his solemn hood. 



Don Juan shook, as erst he had been 
shaken 
The night before; but being sick of 
shaking, 
He first inclined to think he had been 
mistaken; 
And then to be ashamed of such mis- 
taking; 
His own internal ghost began to awaken 
Within him, and to quell his corporal 
quaking — 
Hinting that Soul and Body on the 

whole 
Were odds against a disembodied Soul. 

CXIX. 

And then his dread grew wrath, and his 
wrath fierce. 
And he arose, advanced — the Shade 
retreated; 
But Juan, eager now the truth to 
pierce. 
Followed, his veins no longer cold, 
but heated. 



1274 



X>ON JUAN 



[Canto xvii. 



Resolved to thrust the mystery carte 
and tierce, 
At whatsoever risk of being defeated: 
The Ghost stopped, menaced, then 

retired, until 
He reached the ancient wall, then stood 
stone still. 

cxx. 

Juan put forth one arm — Eternal 

powers ! 
It touched no soul, nor body, but the 

wall. 
On which the moonbeams fell in silvery 

showers, 
Chequered with all the tracerv of the 

Hall; 
He shuddered, as no doubt the bravest 

cowers 
When he can't tell what 'tis that doth 

appal. 
How odd, a single hobgoblin's nonentity 
Should cause more fear than a whole 

host's identity ! 

cxxi. 

But still the Shade remained:, the blue 

eyes glared. 
And rather variably for stony death; 
Yet one thing rather good the grave had 

spared, 
The Ghost had a remarkably sweet 

breath: 
A straggling curl showed he had been 

fair-haired ; 
A red lip, with two rows of pearls 

beneath, 
Gleamed forth, as through the case- 
ment's ivy shroud 
The Moon peeped, just escaped from a 

grey cloud. 

CXXII. 

And Juan, puzzled, but still curious, 
thrust 
His other arm forth — Wonder upon 
wonder ! 
It pressed upon a hard but glowing bust. 
Which beat as if there was a warm 
heart under. 
He found, as people on most trials 
must. 
That he had made at first a silly 
blunder, 



And that in his confusion he had 

caught 
Only the wall, instead of what he sought. 

CXXIII. 

The Ghost, if Ghost it were, seemed a 
sweet soul 
As ever lurked beneath a holy hood: 
A dimpled chin, a neck of ivory, stole 
Forth into something much like flesh 
and blood; 
Back fell the sable frock and dreary 
cowl. 
And they revealed — alas ! that e'er 
they should ! 
In full, voluptuous, but not o'frgrown 

bulk,- 
The phantom of her frolic Grace — 
Fitz-Fulke ! 



CANTO THE SEVENTEENTH.^ 



The world is full of orphans: firstly, 

those 
Who are so in the strict sense of the 

phrase ; 
But many a lonely tree the loftier grows 
Than others crowded in the Forest's 

maze — 
The next are such as are not doomed to 

lose 
. Their tender parents, in their budding 

days. 
But, merely, their parental tenderness. 
Which leaves them orphans of the heart 

no less. 

' [May 8, 1823. — MS. More than one 
"Seventeenth Canto," or so-called continuation 
of Don Juan, has been published. Some of these 
"Sequels" pretend to be genuine, while others are 
undisguisedly imitations or parodies. There was, 
however, a foundation for the myth. Before 
Byron left Italy he had begun (May 8, 1823) a 
seventeenth canto, and when he sailed for Greece 
he took the new stanzas with him. Trelawny 
found "fifteen stanzas of the seventeenth cant, 
of Don Juan" in Bvron's room at Mesolonghi 
{Recollections, etc., 1858, p. 237). The MS., to- 
gether with other papers, was handed over to 
John Cam Hobhouse, and is now in the posses- 
sion of his daughter, the Lady Dorchester. The 
copyright was purchased by the late John Murray 
The fourteen (not tifteen) stanzas were printed 
and published for the first time in 1903.] 



Canto xvii.] 



DON JUAN 



1275 



The next are "only Children," as they 
are styled, 
Who grow up Children only, since th' 
old saw 
Pronounces that an "onlv's" a spoilt 
child — 
But not to go too far, I hold it law, 
That where their education, harsh or 
mild, 
Transgresses the great bounds of love 
or awe. 
The sufferers — be 't in heart or intel- 
lect — 
Whate'er the cause, are orphans in effect. 



But to return unto the stricter rule — 
As far as w^ords make rules — our 
common notion 
Of orphan paints at once a parish school, 
A half-starved babe, a wreck upon 
Life's ocean, 
A human (what the Italians nickname) 
"Mule" I ^ 
A theme for Pity or some worse 
emotion ; 
Yet, if examined, it might be admitted 
The wealthiest orphans are to be more 
pitied. 

IV. 

Too soon they are Parents to themselves : 
for what 
Are Tutors, Guardians, and so forth, 
compared 
With Nature's genial Genitors? so that 
A child of Chancery, that Star-Cham- 
be r ward, 
(I'll take the likeness I can first come 
at,) 
Is like — a duckling by Dame 
Partlett reared, 
And frights — especially if 'tis a daughter, 
Th' old Hen — by running headlong 
to the water. 

V. 

There is a common-place book argu- 
ment, 

• The Italians, at least in some parts of Italy, 
call bastards and foundlings the jvules — why, 
I cannot see, unless they mean to infer that the 
offspring of matrimony are asses. 



Which glibly glides from every tongue. 

When any dare a new light to present, 

"If you are right, then everybody's 

WTong" ! 

Suppose the converse of this precedent 

So often urged, so loudly and so long; 

"If you are wrong, then everybody's 

right"! 
Was ever everybody yet so quite? 

VI. 

Therefore I would solicit free discussion 
Upon all points — no matter what, 
or whose — 

Because as Ages upon Ages push on. 
The last is apt the former to accuse 

Of pillowing its head on a pin-cushion, 
Heedless of pricks because it was 
obtuse; 

What was a paradox becomes a truth or 

A something Hke it — witness Luther ! 

VII. 

The Sacraments have been reduced to 

two, 
And Witches unto none, though some- 
what late 
Since burning aged women (save a 

few — 
Not witches only b — ches — who 

create 
Mischief in families, as some know or 

knew. 
Should still be singed, but lightly, let 

me state,) 
Has been declared an act of inurbanity, 
Malgre Sir Matthew Hales's great 

humanity. 

VIII. 

Great Galileo was debarred the Sun, 
Because he fixed it; and, to stop his 
talking 
How Earth could round the solar orbit 
run. 
Found his own legs embargoed from 
mere walking: 
The man was well-nigh dead, ere men 
begun 
To think his skull had not some need 
of caulking; 
But now, it seems, he's right — his 

notion just: 
No doubt a consolation to his dust. 



1276 



DON JUAN 



[Canto xvii. 



Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates — but 

pages 
Might be filled up, as vainly as 

before, 
With the sad usage of all sorts of 

sages. 
Who in his life-time, each, was 

deemed a Bore ! 
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy 

ages: 
This they must bear with and, per- 
haps, much more; 
The wise man's sure when he no more 

can share it, he 
Will have a firm Post Obit on posterity. 



X. 



If such doom waits each intellectual 
Giant, 
We little people in our lesser way, 
In Life's small rubs should surely be 
more pliant. 
And so for one will I — as well I 
may — 
Would that I were less bilious — but, 
oh, fie on't ! 
Just as I make my mind up every 
day, 
To be a ''totus, teres," Stoic, Sage, 
The wind shifts and I fly into a 
rage. 

XI. 

Temperate I am — yet never had a 

temper; 
Modest I am — yet with some slight 

assurance ; 
Changeable too — yet somehow "Idem 

semper'': 
Patient — but not enamoured of 

endurance; 
Cheerful — but, sometimes, rather apt 

to whimper: 
Mild — but at times a sort of '^Hercu- 
les furens" : 
So that I almost think that the same 

skin, 
For one without — has two or three 

within. 



XII. 

Our Hero was, in Canto the Six- 
teenth, 
Left in a tender moonlight situa- 
tion, 

Such as enables Man to show his 
strength 
Moral or physical: on this occa- 
sion 

Whether his virtue triumphed — or, at 
length, 
His vice — for he was of a kindling 
nation — 

Is more than I shall venture to de- 
scribe; — 

Unless some Beauty with a kiss should 
bribe. 

XIII. 

I leave the thing a problem, like all 

things: — 
The morning came — and breakfast, 

tea and toast. 
Of which most men partake, but no one 

sings. 
The company whose birth, wealth, 

worth, has cost 
My trembling Lyre already several 

strings, 
Assembled with our hostess, and mine 

host; 
The guests dropped in — the last but 

one, Her Grace, 
The latest, Juan, with his virgin 

face. 

XIV. 

Which best it is to encounter -— Ghost, 

or none, 
'Twere difficult to say — but Juan 

looked 
As if he had combated with more than 

one. 
Being wan and worn, with eyes that 

hardly brooked 
The light, that through the Gothic 

window shone: 
Her Grace, too, had a sort of air 

rebuked — 
Seemed pale and shivered, as if she had 

kept 
A vigil, or dreamt rather more than 

slept. 



EPIGRAM OF AN OLD LADY — OSSIAN'S ADDRESS 1277 



JEUX D'ESPRIT AND 
MINOR POEMS, 1798-1824. 



EPIGRAM OF AN OLD LADY 
WHO HAD SOME CURIOUS 
NOTIONS RESPECTING THE 
SOUL. 

In Nottingham county there lives at 
Swan Green,^ 
As curst an old Lady as ever was 
seen; 
And when she does die, which I hope 
will be soon, 
She firmly believes she will go the 
Moon ! 

1798. 
[First published, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, i. 28.] 



EPITAPH ON JOHN ADAMS, 
OF SOUTHWELL, 

A CARRIER, WHO DIED OF 
DRUNKENNESS. 

John Adams lies here, of the parish of 

Southwell, 
A Carrier who carried his can to his 

mouth well; 
He carried so much and he carried so 

fast, 
He could carry no more — so was car- 
ried at last; 
For the liquor he drank being too much 

for one, 
He could not carry off; — so he's now 

carri-on. 

September, 1807. 

[First published, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, i. 106,] 

' ["Swan Green" should be "Swine Green." 
It lay about a quarter of a mile to the east of 
St James's Lane, where Byron lodged in 1799, 
at the house of a Mr. Gill. 

Moore took down "these rhymes" frorn the 
lips of Byron's nurse, May Gray. He questioned 
their originality.] 



A VERSION OF OSSIAN'S 
ADDRESS TO THE SUN. 

FROM THE POEM " CARTHON." 

Thou ! who rollest in yon azure field, 
Round as the orb of my forefather's 

shield. 
Whence are thy beams? From what 

eternal store 
Dost thou, O Sun ! thy vast effulgence 

pour? 
In awful grandeur, when thou movest on 

high. 
The stars start back and hide them in 

the sky; 
The pale Moon sickens in thy brighten- 
ing blaze, 
And in the western wave avoids thy 

gaze. 
Alone thou shinest forth — for who can 

rise 
Companion of thy splendour in the 

.skies ! 
The mountain oaks are seen to fall 

away — 
Mountains themselves by length of 

years decay — 
With ebbs and flows is the rough Ocean 

tost; 
In heaven the Moon is for a season 

lost. 
But thou, amidst the fullness of thy joy, 
The same art ever, blazing in the sky; 
When tempests wrap the world from 

pole to pole. 
When vivid lightnings flash and thun- 
ders roll, 
Thou far above their utmost fury borne, 
Look'st forth in beauty, laughing them 

to scorn. 
But vainly now on me thy beauties 

blaze — 
Ossian no longer can enraptured gaze! 
Whether at morn, in lucid lustre gay. 
On eastern clouds thy yellow tresses 

play, 
Or else at eve, in radiant glory drest. 
Thou tremblest at the portals of the 

west, 

1 see no more ! But thou mayest fail at 

length. 



1278 



JEUX D' ESPRIT AND MINOR POEMS, 17Q8-1824 



Like Ossian lose thy beauty and thy 

strength, 
Lil:e him — but for a season — in thy 

sphere 
To shine with splendour, then to dis- 
appear ! 
Thy years shall have an end, and thou 

no more 
Bright through the world enlivening 

radiance pour. 
But sleep within thy clouds, and fail to 

rise, 
Heedless when Morning calls thee to the 

skies ! 
Then now exult, O Sun ! and gaily 

shine. 
While Youth and Strength and Beauty 

all are thine. 
For Age is dark, unlovely, as the light 
Shed by the Moon when clouds deform 

the night, 
Glimmering uncertain as they hurry 

past. 
Loud o'er the plain is heard the northern 

blast, 
Mists shroud the hills, and 'neath the 

growing gloom, 
The weary traveller shrinks and sighs 

for home. 1806. 

[First published, Atlantic Monthy, 
December, 1898.]^ 



LINES TO MR. HODGSON. 

WRITTEN ON BOARD THE LISBON 
PACKET. 



Huzza ! Hodgson,^ we are going, 
Our embargo's oflf at last; 

Favourable breezes blowing 
Bend the canvas o'er the mast. 



* [It is strange that Byron should have made 
two versions (for another "version" from the 
Newstead MSS., vide anle, pp. 78, 79) of the 
"Address to the Sun," which forms the con- 
clusion of "Carthon"; but the second version 
(the MS. belongs to Harvard University) ap- 
pears to be genuine. It is to be noted that Byron 
appended to the earlier version eighteen lines of 
his own composition, by way of moral or appli- 
cation.] 

'[Francis Hodgson (1781-1852), the trans- 
lator of Juvenal, one of Byron's earliest friends. 
He was appointed Provost of Eton in 1840.] 



From aloft the signal's streaming. 
Hark! the farewell gun is fired; 
Women screeching, tars blaspheming, 
Tell us that our time's expired. 
Here's a rascal 
Come to task all. 
Prying from the Custom-house, 
Trunks unpacking, 
Cases cracking, — 
Not a corner for a mouse 
'Scapes unsearched amid the racket, 
Ere we sail on board the Packet. 



Now our boatmen quit their moor- 
ing, 
And all hands must ply the oar; 
Baggage from the quay is lowering. 

We're impatient, push from shore. 
"Have a care! that case holds 
Hquor — 
Stop the boat — I'm sick — oh 
Lord ! " 
"Sick, Ma'am, damme, you'll be 
sicker. 
Ere you've been an hour on board." 
Thus are screaming 
Men and women, 
Gemmen, ladies, servants. Jacks; 
Here entangling, 
All are wrangling. 
Stuck together close as wax. — 
Such the general noise and racket, 
Ere we reach the Lisbon Packet. 



Now we've reached her, lo ! the Cap- 
tain, 
Gallant Kidd, commands the crew; 
Passengers their berths are clapt in, 

Some to grumble, some to spew. 
"Hey day! call you that a cabin? 

Why 'tis hardly three feet square: 
Not enough to stow Queen Mab in — 
Who the deuce can harbour there?" 
"Who, sir? plenty — 
Nobles twenty 
Did at once my vessel fill." — 
"Did they? Jesus, 
How you squeeze us ! 
Would to God they did so still: 
Then I'd 'scape the heat and racket 
Of the good ship, Lisbon Packet." 



TO DIVES — FAREWELL PETITION TO J. C. H. ESQRE- 1279 



Fletcher ! Murray ! Bob ! ^ where are 
you? 
Stretched along the deck like logs — 
Bear a hand, you jolly tar, you ! 

Here's a rope's end for the dogs. 
Hobhouse muttering fearful curses, 

As the hatchway down he rolls, 
Now his breakfast, now his verses, 
Vomits forth — and damns our souls. 
"Here's a stanza 
On Braganza — 
Help!" — "A couplet?" — "No a cup 
Of warm water — " 
"What's the matter?" 
"Zounds! my liver's coming up; 
I shall not survive the racket 
Of this brutal Lisbon Packet." 



Now at length we're off for Turkey, 

Lord knows when we shall come back ! 
Breezes foul and tempests murky 

May unship us in a crack. 
But, since Life at most a jest is, 

As philosophers allow. 
Still to laugh by far the best is. 
Then laugh on — as I do now. 
Laugh at all things, 
Great and small things, 
Sick or well, at sea or shore; 
While we're quaffing. 
Let's have laughing — 
Who the devil cares for more? — 
Some good wine ! and who would 

lack it, 
Ev'n on board the Lisbon Packet? 
Falmouth Roads, June 30, 1809. 
[First published, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, i. 230-232.] 



[TO DIVES.2 A FRAGMENT.] 

Unhappy Dives ! in an evil hour 

'Gainst Nature's voice seduced to 
deeds accurst ! 

'[Murray was "Joe" Murray, an ancient 
retainer of Byron's predecessor the "Wicked 
Lord." Bob was Robert Rushton, the "little 
puKc" of "Childe Harold's Good Night."] 

- [Dives wiis William Beckford. The Frag- 
ment is a suppressed slunza of the First Canto 
of Childe Harold.] 



Once Fortune's minion now thou 

feel' St her power; 
Wrath's vial on thy lofty head hath 

burst. 
In Wit, in Genius, as in Wealth the 

first. 
How wondrous bright thy blooming 

morn arose ! 
But thou wert smitten with th' un- 
hallowed thirst 
Of Crime unnamed, and thy sad noon 

must close 
In scorn, and solitude unsought — the 

worst of woes. 1809. 

[First published. Lord Byron's 
Works, 1833, .xvii. 241.] 

FAREWELL PETITION TO 
J. C. H., ESQi^E. 

O THOU yclep'd by vulgar sons of Men 
Cam Hobhouse ! ^ but by wags Byzan- 

tian Ben ! 
Twin sacred titles, which combined 

appear 
To grace thy volume's front, and gild its 

rear. 
Since now thou put'st thyself and work 

to Sea, 
And leav'st all Greece to Fletcher ^ and 

to me. 
Oh, hear mv single muse our sorrows 

tell. 
One song for self and Fletcher quite as 

well — 

First to the Castle of that man of 

woes 
Dispatch the letter which / must enclose. 
And when his lone Penelope shall say, 
"ir/zy, ivhere, and wherefore doth my 

William stay?" 
Spare not to move her pity, or her 

pride — 
By all that Hero suffered, or defied; 
The chicken's toughness, and the lack of 

ale, 
The stoney mountain and the miry vale, 

» [John Cam Hobhouse (1786-1869), after- 
wards I,ord Broughton de Gyfford.] 

' [Byron's valet, William Fletcher, was an in- 
different traveller, and. like Baillie Nicol Jarvie, 
sighed for 'a' the comforts of the saut-market."j 



:28o 



JEUX D'ESPRIT AND MINOR POEMS, 17Q8-1824 



The Garlick steams, which half his 

meals enrich, 
The impending vermin, and the threat- 
ened Itch — 
That ever breaking Bed, beyond repair ! 
The hat too old, the coat too cold to 

wear, 
The Hunger, which repulsed from 

Sally's door 
Pursues her grumbUng half from shore 

to shore, — 
Be these the themes to greet his faithful 

Rib, 
So may thy pen be smooth, thy tongue 

be glib ! 

This duty done, let me in turn de- 
mand 

Some friendly ofSce in my native 
land. 

Yet let me ponder well, before I ask, 

And set thee swearing at the tedious 
task. 

First the Miscellany ! ' — to Southwell 

town 
Per coach for Mrs. Pigot frank it down. 
So mav'st thou prosper in the paths of 

Sale, 
And Longman smirk and critics cease 

to rail. 

All hail to Matthews ! ^ wash his 

reverend feet. 
And in my name the man of Method 

greet, — 
Tell him, my Guide, Philosopher, and 

Friend, 
Who cannot love me, and who will not 

mend, 
Tell him, that not in vain I shall assay 
To tread and trace our "old Horatian 

way," 
And be (with prose supply my dearth of 

rhymes) 
What better men have been in better 

times. 

' [Hobhouse's Miscellany (other^vise known as 
the Miss-sell-any) was published in 1809, under 
the title of Imitations and Translations from the 
Ancient and Modern Classics. Byron con- 
tributed nine original poems.] 

' [Charles Skinner Matthews, who was 
drowned in the Cam, August, 181 1.] 



Here let me cease, for why should I 

prolong 
My notes, and vex a Singer with a Song ? 
Oh thou with pen perpetual in thy fist ! 
Dubbed for thy sins a stark Miscellanist, 
So pleased the printer's orders to perform 
For Messrs Longynan, Hurst and Rees 

and Orme. 
Go — Get thee hence to Paternoster Row, 
Thy patrons wave a duodecimo ! 
(Best form for letters from a distant land. 
It fits the pocket, nor fatigues the hand.) 
Then go, once more the joyous work 

commence ^ 
With stores of anecdote, and grains of 

sense ; 
Oh may Mammas relent, and Sires 

forgive ! 
And scribbling Sons grow dutiful and 

five ! 

Constantinople, Jime 7, 1810. 

[Fir.st published, Murray's Maga- 
zine, 1887, vol. i. pp. 290, 291.] 



TRANSLATION OF THE NURSE'S 

DOLE IN THE MEDEA OF 

EURIPIDES. 

Oh how I wish that an embargo 
Had kept in port the good ship Argo ! 
Who, still unlaunched from Grecian 

docks, 
Had never passed the Azure rocks; 
But now I fear her trip will be a 
Damned business for my Miss Medea, 

etc. June, 1810. 

[First published, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, i. 227.] 

MY EPITAPH. 

Youth, Nature, and relenting Jove, 
To keep my lamp in strongly strove; 
But Romanelli ^ was so stout. 
He beat all three — and blew it out. 
October, 18 lo. 
[First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, i. 240.] 

» [Hobhouse's Journey through Albania and 
other Proinnccs of Turkey, 4to, was published by 
James Cawthom, in 1813.I 

» [A physician who doctored Byron at Patras 
in the Morea.] 



SUBSTITUTE FOR AN EPITAPH — R. C. DALLAS / 1281 



SUBSTITUTE FOR AN EPITAPH. 

Kind Reader ! take your choice to cry 

or laugh; 
Here Harold Hes — but where's his 

Epitaph? 
If such you seek, try Westminster, and 

view 
Ten thousand just as fit for him as you. 
Athens, 1810. 

[First pubUshed, Lord Byron's 
Works, 1832, ix. 4.] 



EPITAPH FOR JOSEPH 

BLACKET 

LATE POET AND SHOEMAKER.^ 

Stranger! behold, interred together, 
The souls of learning and of leather. 
Poor Joe is gone, but left his all : 
You'll find ifiis relics in a st(2ll. 
His works were neat, and often 

found 
Well stitched and with morocco bound. 
Tread lightly — where the bard is laid 
He cannot mend the shoe he made; 
Yet is he happy in his hole, 
With verse immortal as his sole. 
But still to business he held fast, 
And stuck to Phoebus to the last. 
Then who shall say so good a fellow 
Was only "leather and prunella"? 
For character — he did not lack it; 
And if he did, 'twere shame to "Black- 
it." 

Malta, May 16, 181 1. 
[First published, Lord Byron's 
Works, 1832, ix. 10.] 

ON MOORE'S LAST OPERATIC 
FARCE OR FARCICAL OPERA.2 

Good plays are scarce, 
So Moore writes /arce: 

' [For Joseph Blacket (i 786-1810), see Letter s. 
1898, i., p. 314. The authority of the epitaph 
has been questioned.] 

"[Moore's M.P.: or. The Blue Stocking, 
which was plaved for the first time at the Lyceum 
Theatre, September 9, i8ii.] 

4N 



The poet's fame grows brittle — 
We knew before 
That Little 's Moore, 

But now 'tis Moore that's little. 
September 14, 181 1. 

[First published, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, i. 295 {note).'] 



[R. C. DALLAS.] 



all his 



Yes ! wisdom shines m 

mien. 
Which would so captivate, I ween, 

Wisdom's own goddess Pallas; 
That she'd discard her fav'rite owl. 
And take for pet a brother fowl. 

Sagacious R. C. Dallas. 

[First published, Life, Writings, 
Opinions, etc., 1825, ii. 192.] 



AN ODE TO THE FRAMERS OF 

THE FRAME BILL.^ 

I. 

Oh well done Lord E n ! and better 



done R- 



1 2 



Britannia must prosper with councils 
Hke yours; 
Hawkesbury, Harrowby, help you to 
guide her, 
Whose remedy only must kill ere it 
cures: 
Those villains, the Weavers, are all 
grown refractory, 
Asking some succour for Charity's 
sake — 
So hang them in clusters round each 
Manufactory, 
That will at once put an end to mis- 
take.^ 

2. 

The rascals, perhaps, may betake them 
to robbing, 
The dogs to be sure have got nothing 
to eat — 

' [The subiect of Byron's maiden speech in the 
House of Lords, February 27, 181 2.] 

» [Richard Rvder (i 766-1832), second son of 
the first Baron Harrowby, was Home Secretary, 
1800-12.1 , , 

3 Lord E., on Thursday night, said the riots 
at Nottingham arose from a "mistake." 



:282 , JEUX D'ESFRIT AND MINOR POEMS, 1798-1824 



So if we can hang them for breaking a 
bobbin, 
'Twill save all the Government's 
money and meat: 
Men are more easily made than machin- 
ery — 
Stockings fetch better prices than 
lives — 
Gibbets on Sherwood will heighten the 
scenery, 
Shewing how Commerce, how Lib- 
erty thrives! 



Justice is now in pursuit of the 
wretches. 
Grenadiers, Volunteers, Bow-street 
Police, 
Twenty-two Regiments, a score of 
Jack Ketches, 
Three of the Quorum and two of the 
Peace ; 
Some Lords, to be sure, would have 
summoned the Judges, 
To take their opinion, but that they 
ne'er shall, 
For Liverpool such a concession 
begrudges. 
So now they're condemned by no 
Judges at all. 



Some folks for certain have thought it 
was shocking, 
When Famine appeals and when 
Poverty groans, 
That Life should be valued at less than 
a stocking. 
And breaking of frames lead to 
breaking of bones. 
If it should prove so, I trust, by this 
token, 
(And who will refuse to partake in 
the hope?) 
That the frames of the fools may be 
first to be broken, 
Who, when asked for a remedy, sent 
down a rope. 

[First published, Morning Chron- 
icle, Monday, March 2, 181 2.] 

[First republished by John Pear- 
son, 18S0, 80.1 



TO THE HONBLE. ^Rs GEORGE 

LAMB. 

I. 

The sacred song that on mine ear 
Yet vibrates from that voice of thine, 

I heard, before, from one so dear — 
'Tis strange it still appears divine. 

2. 
But, oh ! so sweet that look and tone 

To her and thee alike is given; 
It seemed as if for me alone 

That both had been recalled from 
Heaven ! 

3- 
And though I never can redeem 

The vision thus endeared to me; 
I scarcely can regret my dream. 
When realised again by thee. 1812. 
[First published in The Two Duch- 
esses, by Vere Foster, 1898, p. 374.] 

[LA REVANCHE.] 



There is no more for me to hope, 

There is no more for thee to fear; 
And, if I give my Sorrow scope. 

That Sorrow thou shalt never hear. 

Why did I hold thy love so dear ? 

Why shed for such a heart one tear? 
Let deep and dreary silence be 
My only memory of thee ! 



When all are fled who flatter now, 
Save thoughts which will not flatter 
then; 

And thou recall'st the broken vow 
To him who must not love again — 
Each hour of now forgotten years 
Thou, then, shalt number with thy 
tears; 

And every drop of grief shall be 

A vain remembrancer of me ! 

Undated,? 1812. 
[From an autograph MS. in the 
possession of Mr. Murray, first 
published, 1903.] 



TO THOMAS MOORE — TO LORD THURLOW 



1283 



TO THOMAS MOORE. 

WRITTEN THE EVENING BEFORE HIS 
VISIT TO MR LEIGH HUNT IN 
HORSEMONGER LANE GAOL, MAY 1 9, 
1813. 

Oh you, who in all names can tickle 

the town, 
Anacreon, Tom Little, Tom Moore, or 

Tom Brown, — ^ 
For hang me if I know of which you 

may most brag. 
Your Quarto two-pounds, or your 

Two-penny Post Bag; 

****** 
But now to my letter — to yours 'tis an 

answer — 
To-morrow be with me, as soon as you 

can. Sir, 
All ready and dressed for proceeding to 

spunge on 
(According to compact) the wit in the 

dungeon — 
Pray Phoebus at length our political 

malice 
May not get us lodgings within the 

same palace ! 
I suppose that to-night you're engaged 

with some codgers. 
And for Sotheby's Blues have deserted 

Sam Rogers; 
And I, though with cold I have nearly 

my death got. 
Must put on my breeches, and wait on 

the Heathcote; ^ 
But to-morrow, at four, we will both 

plav the Scurra, 
And you'll be Catullus, the Regent 

Mamurra. 

[First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, i. 401.] 

ON LORD THURLOW'S POEMS.^ 



When Thurlow this damned nonsense 
sent, 

' [Moore's ''Intercepted Letters; or. The Two- 
penny Post-Bag, by Thomas Brown, the Young- 
er," was published in 1813.] . . 

^ [Katherine Sophia Manners was married in 
1793 to Sir Gilbert Heaihcotp.] 

3 [The "Poems" were by Edward Hovcll, 



(I hope I am not violent) 

Nor men nor gods knew what he meant. 



And since not even our Rogers' praise 
To common sense his thoughts could 

raise — 
Why would they let him print his lays? 



4. 
* * 



To me, divine Apollo, grant — O ! 
Hermilda's ^ first and second canto, 
I'm fitting up a new portmanteau; 

6. 

And thus to furnish decent lining, 
My own and others' bays I'm' twining, — 
So, gentle Thurlow, throw me thine in. 
June 2, 18 13. 
[First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, i. 396.] 

TO LORD THURLOW.2 



"/ lay my branch of laurel down." 

" Thou lay thy branch of laurel down !" 

Why, what thou'st stole is not enow; 
And, were it lawfully thine own. 

Does Rogers want it most, or thou? 
Keep to thyself thy withered bough, 

Or send it back to Doctor Donne: — 
Were justice done to both, I trow. 

He'd have but little, and thou — none. 

Lord Thurlow (178 1- 1 829). It was the follow- 
ing stanza from " An Epistle to a Friend," which 
excited the ridicule of Byron and Moore: 
"When Rogers o'er this labour bent, 
Their purest fire the Muses lent, 
T'illustrate this sweet argument." 

"Byron," says Moore, "undertook to read it 
aloud; — but he found it impossible to get be- 
yond the first two words. Our laughter had now 
increased to such a pitch that nothing could 
restrain it. Two or three times he began; but 
no sooner had the words 'When Rogers' passed 
his lips, than our fit burst forth afresh, — till even 
Mr Rogers himself . . . found it impossible 
not to join us." — Life, p. 181.] . 

» [Hermilda in Palestine was published in 

' ["The lines in Italics are from the eulogy 



1284 



JEUX D' ESPRIT AND MINOR POEMS, 1798-1824 



''Then, thus, to form Apollo's crown." 

A crown ! why, twist it how you will, 
Thy chaplet must be foolscap still. 
When next you visit Delphi's town, 

Enquire amongst your fellow-lodgers, 
They'll tell you Phoebus gave his crown 
Some years before your birth, to 
Rogers. 

3- 
"Let every other bring his own." 

When coals to Newcastle are carried, 

And owls sent to Athens, as wonders, 
From his spouse when the Regent's 
unmarried. 
Or Liverpool weeps o'er his blunders; 
When Tories and Whigs cease to quarrel. 
When Castlereagh's wife has an heir, 
Then Rogers shall ask us for laurel. 
And thou shalt have plenty to spare. 
[First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, i. 397.] 



THE DEVIL'S DRIVE.* 



The Devil returned to Hell by two. 

And he stayed at home till five; 
When he dined on some homicides 
done in ragoiit, 
And a rebel or so in an Irish stew, 
And sausages made of a self-slain Jew, 
And bethought himself what next to do, 
"And," quoth he, "I'll take a drive. 
I walked in the morning, I'll ride to- 
night; 
In darkness my children take most 
delight, 
And I'll see how my favourites 
thrive." 10 

2. 

"And what shall I ride in?" quoth 
Lucifer, then — 
"If I followed my taste, indeed, 

("An Epistle," etc.) that provoked his waggish 
comments." — Life, p. 181.] 

' ["The Devil's Drive" was suggested by 
Southey and Coleridge's "Devil's Thoughts," 
first published in the Morning Post, September 6, 
1799. Byron shared the general belief that the 
lines were written by Porson.] 



I should mount in a waggon of wounded 
men. 
And smile to see them bleed. 
But these will be furnished again and 
again, 
And at present my purpose is speed ; 
To see my manor as much as I may. 
And watch that no souls shall be 
poached away. 

3- 
" I have a state-coach at Carlton House, 
A chariot in Seymour-place; * 20 

But they're lent to two friends, who 
make me amends 
By driving my favourite pace: 
And they handle their reins with such 

a grace, 
I have something for both at the end 
of the race. 



"So now for the earth to take my 
chance." 
Then up to the earth sprang he; 
And making a jump from Moscow to 
France, 
He stepped across the sea, 
And rested his hoof on a turnpike road, 
No very great way from a Bishop's 
abode. 30 

5- 
But first as he flew, I forgot to say, 
That he hovered a moment upon his 
way. 
To look upon Leipsic plain; 
And so sweet to his eye was its sulphury 

glare. 
And so soft to his ear was the cry of 
despair, 
That he perched on a mountain of 
slain; 
And he gazed with delight from its 

growing height, 
Nor often on earth had he seen such a 
sight, 
Nor his work done half as well: 
For the field ran so red with the blood 
of the dead, 40 

'[Lord Yarmouth, nicknamed "Red Her- 
rings," the eldest son of the Regent's elderly 
favourite, the Marchioness of Hertford, lived 
at No. 7, Seamore Place, Mayfair.] 



THE DEVI US DRIVE 



1285 



That it blushed like the waves of Hell ! 
Then loudly, and wildly, and long 

laughed he: 
"Methinks they have little need here 
of nie!" 

6. 

Long he looked down on the hosts of 

each clime, 
While the warriors hand to hand 

were — 
Gaul — Austrian and Muscovite heroes 

sublime, 
And — (Muse of Fitzgerald arise with 

a rhyme !) 
A quantity of Landivehr ! 

Gladness was there, 
For the men of all might and the 

monarchs of earth, 50 

There met for the wolf and the worm 

to make mirth, 
And a feast for the fowls of the Air ! 



But he turned aside and looked from 
the ridge 
Of hills along the river, 
And the best thing he saw was a broken 
bridge,* 
Which a Corporal chose to shiver; 
Though an Emperor's taste was dis- 
pleased with his haste. 
The Devil he thought it clever; 
And he laughed again in a lighter 
strain, 
O'er the torrent swoln and rainy, 60 
When he saw "on a fiery steed" Prince 

Pon, 
In taking care of Number One — 
Get drowned with a great tnanyt 

8. 

But the softest note that soothed his ear 

Was the sound of a widow sighing; 

' [For the incident of the "broken bridge" 
Byron was indebted to the pages of the Alprning 
Chronicle of November 8, 181 3. 

A corporal of sappers blew up the bridge 
between Leipsic and Lindenau. before the ap- 
pointed time, whilst part of Napoleon's army 
was still on the other side. A panic ensued. 
"Prince Poniatowsky darted into the water and 
appeared no more. The Emperor was not in- 
formed of this disaster until it was too late to 
remedy it."] 



And the sweetest sight was the icy tear, 
Which Horror froze in the blue eye clear 

Of a maid by her lover lying — 
As round her fell her long fair hair, 
And she looked to Heaven with that 
frenzied air 70 

Which seemed to ask if a God were 

there ! 
And stretched by the wall of a ruined 

hut. 
With its hollow cheek, and eyes half shut, 

A child of Famine dying: 
And the carnage begun, when resistance 
is done. 
And the fall of the vainly flying ! 



Then he gazed on a town by besiegers 
taken, 
Nor cared he who were winning; 
But he saw an old maid, for years for- 
saken. 
Get up and leave her spinning; 80 

And she looked in her glass, and to one 

that did pass, 
She said — "pray are the rapes begin- 
ning?" 

10. 

But the Devil has reached our clifi"s so 
white. 
And what did he there, I pray ? 
If his eyes were good, he but saw by 
night 
What we see every day ; 
But he made a tour and kept a journal 
Of all the wondrous sights nocturnal. 
And he sold it in shares to the Men of 

the Row, 
Who bid pretty well — but they cheated 
him, though ! 90 

II. 

The Devil first saw, as he thought, the 
Mail, 
Its coachman and his coat; 
So instead of a pistol he cocked his tail. 

And seized him by the throat; 
"Aha ! " quoth he, "what have we here? 
'Tis a new barouche, and an ancient 
peer!" 

12. 

So he sat him on his box again. 
And bade him have no fear. 



1286 



JEUX D'ESPRIT AND MINOR POEMS, 1798-1824 



But be true to his club, and staunch to 

his rein, 
His brothel and his beer; 100 

"Next to seeing a Lord at the Council 

board, 
I would rather see him here." 

13- 
Satan hired a horse and gig 

With promises to pay; 
And he pawned his horns for a spruce 
new wig. 
To redeem as he came away: 
And he whistled some tune, a waltz or a 

And drove off at the close of day. 



14. 

The first place he stopped at — he heard 

the Psalm 
That rung from a Methodist Chapel: 
" 'Tis the best sound I've heard," 

quoth he, "since my palm 1 1 1 

Presented Eve her apple ! 
When Faith is all, 'tis an excellent sign, 
That the Works and Workmen both 

are mine." 

15- 
He passed Tommy Tyrwhitt,^ that 

standing jest, 
To princely wit a Martyr: 
But the last joke of all was by far the 

best. 
When he sailed away with "the 

Garter" ! 
"And" — quoth Satan — "this Em- 
bassy's worthy my sight. 
Should I see nothing else to amuse rne 

to-night. 120 

With no one to bear it, but Thomas a 

Tyrwhitt, 
This ribband belongs to an ' Order of 

Merit'!" 

' [Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt (circ. 1762-1833)- 
He was Private Secretary to the Prince of Wales. 
He was knighted May S. 1812. He was sent in 
the following year in charge of the Garter mis- 
sion to the Czar, and on that occasion was made 
a Knight of the Imperial Order of St Anne, 
First Class. "Tommy Tyrwhitt" was an im- 
portant personage at Carlton House, and shared 
with Colonel McMahon the doubtful privilege 
of hcin^ a confidential servant of the Prince 
Regent. J 



16, 

He stopped at an Inn and stepped 

within 
The Bar and read the "Times"; 
And never such a treat, as — the epistle 

of one "Vetus," * 
Had he found save in downright 

crimes: 
"Though I doubt if this drivelling 

encomiast of War 
Ever saw a field fought, or felt a scar, 
Yet his fame shall go further than he 

can guess. 
For I'll keep him a place in my hottest 

Press; 130 

And his works shall be bound in Mo- 
rocco d' Efjfer, 
And lettered behind with his Norn de 

Guerre." 

17- 
The Devil gat next to Westminster, 
And he turned to "the room" of 
the Commons; 
But he heard as he purposed to enter 
in there, 
That "the Lords" had received a 
summons; 
And he thought, as "a quondam Aris- 
tocrat," 
He might peep at the Peers, though to 

hear them were flat; 
And he walked up the House so like one 

of his own. 
That they say that he stood pretty near 
the throne. 140 

18. 

He saw the Lord Liverpool seemingly 

wise. 
The Lord Westmorelandcertainly silly. 
And Jockey of Norfolk ^ — a man of 

some size — 

•["Vetus" [Edward Sterling] contributed a 
series of letters to the Times, 1812. 181 3. They 
were afterwards republished. The purport of 
the "JLetters" was to inflame popular feeling 
against the French, and to advocate "war to the 
knife" with Naix)!eon.l 

^ [Charles Howard (1746-1815), eleventh 
Duke of Norfolk, known as "Jockey of Nor- 
folk." Wraxall says that "he might have been 
mistaken for a grazier or a butcher by his dress 
and apiJearance." He figures largely in Gillray's 
caricatures. See e.g. "Meeting of the Moneyed 
Interest," December, 1758.] 



THE DEVIL'S DRIVE 



1287 



And Chatham, so like his friend Billy; 

And he saw the tears in Lord Eldon's 
eyes, 
Because the Catholics would not 

rise, 
In spite of his prayers and his prophe- 
cies; 

And he heard — which set Satan him- 
self a staring — 

A certain Chief Justice say something 
like swearing.^ 

And the Devil was shocked — and quoth 
he, "I must go, 15° 

For I find we have much better manners 
below. 

If thus he harangues when he passes 
my border, 

I shall hint to friend Moloch to call 
him to order." 

19. 
Then the Devil went down to the 
humbler House, 
Where he readily found his way 
As natural to him as its hole to a 
Mouse, 
He had been there many a dav ; 
And manv a vote and soul and job he 
Had bid for and carried away from 
the Lobby: 
But there now' was a "call" and accom- 
plished debaters 160 
Appeared in the glory of hats, boots and 

gaiters — 
Some paid rather more — but all worse 
dressed than Waiters ! 



There was Canning for War, and Whit- 
bread for peace, 
And others as suited their fancies; 
But all were agreed that our debts should 
increase 
Excepting the Demagogue Francis. 
That rogue! how could Westminster 
chuse him again 
To leaven the virtue of these honest 
men ! 
But the Devil remained till the Break of 
Day 

I FEdward Law(i7^o-i8i8\first Baron Ellen- 
borough, Lord Chief Justice of the King s Bench, 
1802-1818.] 



Blushed upon Sleep and Lord Castle- 

reagh:^ 17° 

Then up half the house got, and Satan 

got up 

With the drowsy to snore — or the 

hungry to sup : — 

But so torpid the power of some 

speakers, 'tis said, 
That they sent even him to his brim- 
stone bed. 

21. 
He had seen George Rose — but George 
was grow^n dumb. 
And only lied in thought 1 ^ 
And the Devil has all the pleasure to 
come 
Of hearing him talk as he ought. 
With the falsest of tongues, the sincerest 
of men — 
His veracity were but deceit — 180 
And Nature must first have unmade him 

again. 
Ere his breast or his face, or his tongue, 

or his pen, 
Conceived — uttered — looked — or 
wrote down letters ten, 
Which Truth Vvould acknowledge 
complete. 

22. 

Satan next took the army list in hand. 
Where he found a new "Field Mar- 
shal"; 
And when he saw this high command 
Conferred on his Highness of Cum- 
berland,^ 

' [Compare Moore's " Insurrection of the 

"Last night I toss'd and turned in bed, 
But could not sleep — at length I said, 
'I'll think of Viscount C— stl— r— gh, 
And of his speeches — that's the way. ] 
» [George Rose (1744-1818) was at this time 
Treasurer of the Navy. It was commonly be- 
lieved that he used language nierely 'tor the 
purpose of concealing his thoughts. ] 

aErnest Augustus (1771-1851), Duke of 
Cumberland and King of Hanover, fifth son ot 
George III., was gazetted as Field-Marshal 
November 27, 1813- His "wounds, which, 
according to the Duke's sworn testimony, were 
seventeen in number, were inflicted during an 
encounter with his valet, Joseph Sellis. a Fied- 
montese, who had attempted to assassinate the 
Prince (June i, 1810), and, shortly afterwards, 
was found with his throat cut. A jury of West- 
minster tradesmen brought in a verdict of Jelo 



1288 



JEUX D' ESPRIT AND MINOR POEMS, 179S-1824 



" Oh ! were I prone to cavil — or were 
I not the Devil, 
I should say this was somewhat par- 
tial ; J 90 

Since the only wounds that this Warrior 
gat 

Were from God knows whom — and the 
Devil knows what!" 

23- 
He then popped his head in a royal Ball, 

And saw all the Haram so hoary; 
And who there besides but Corinna de 

Stael ! 
Turned Methodist and Tory ! 
"Aye — Aye" — quoth he — "'tis the 

way with them all, 
When Wits grow tired of Glory: 
But thanks to the weakness, that thus 

could pervert her, 
Since the dearest of prizes to me's a 

deserter : 200 

Mem — whenever a sudden conversion 

I want. 
To send to the school of Philosopher 

Kant; 
And whenever I need a critic who can 

gloss over 
All faults — to send for Mackintosh to 

write up the Philosopher." ^ 

24. 

The Devil waxed faint at the sight of 
this Saint, 
And he thought himself of eating; 
And began to cram from a plate of ham 
Wherewith a Page was retreating — 
Having nothing else to do (for " the 
friends" each so near 
Had sold all their souls long before). 
As he swallowed down the bacon he 
wished himself a Jew 211 

For the sake of another crime more : 
For Sinning itself is but half a recrea- 
tion, 
Unless it ensures most infallible Damna- 
tion. 

de St against Sellis. The event itself and the 
trial before the coroner provoked controversy, 
and was the occasion of the grossest scandal.] 
' [In the review of Madame de Stael's De 
VAllemagne (Edinburgh Re^-inc, October, 1813), 
Sir James Mackintosh enlarged upon and upheld 
the "opinions of Kant."] 



25- 

But he turned him about, for he heard a 
sound 
Which even his ear found faults in; 
For whirling above — underneath — 
and around — 
Were his fairest Disciples Waltzing ! 
And quoth he — " though this be — the 
premier pas to me, 
Against it I would warn all — 220 
Should I introduce these revels among 
my younger devils, 
They would all turn perfectly carnal : 
And though fond of the flesh — yet I 

never could bear it 
Should quite in my kingdom get the 
upper hand of Spirit." 

26. 

The Devil (but 'twas over) had been 

vastly glad 
To see the new Drury Lane, 
And yet he might have been rather mad 

To see it rebuilt in vain; 
And had he beheld their "Nourjahad," * 
Would never have gone again : 230 
And Satan had taken it much amiss. 
They should fasten such a piece on a 

friend of his — 
Though he knew that his works were 

somewhat sad, 
He never had found them quite so bad : 
For this was "the book" which, of yore, 

Job, sorely smitten. 
Said, "Oh that mine enemy, mine 

enemy had written"! 

27. 

Then he found sixty scribblers in sepa- 
rate cells. 
And marvelled what they were doing, 
For they looked like little fiends in their 
own little hells, 
Damnation for others brewing — 240 
Though their paper seemed to shrink, 
from the heat of their ink, 
They were only coolly reviewing ! 

• [Illusion or the Trances of Nourjahad, a 
melodrama founded on The Hi<:tory of Nour- 
jahad, by the Editor of Sidney Bidulph (Mrs 
Frances Sheridan, ni-e Chamberlaine, 1724- 
1766), was played for the first time at Drury 
Lane Theatre, November 25, 1813.] 



WINDSOR POETICS — CONDOLATORY ADDRESS 



1289 



And as one of them wrote down the 
pronoun "PFe," 
"That Plural" — says Satan — 
"means him and me, 
With the Editor added to make up the 

three 
Of an Athanasian Trinity, 
And render the believers in our 'Arti- 
cles' sensible, 
How many must combine to form one 
Incomprehensible" ! 

December 9, 18 13. 
[Stanzas i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, 
17, 18, first published, Letters and 
Journals, 1830, i. 471-474: stan- 
zas 6, 7, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19- 
27, were published for the first 
time in 1903, from an autograph 
MS. in the possession of the Earl 
of Ilchester.] 

WINDSOR POETICS. 

LINES COMPOSED ON THE OCCASION OF 
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE 
REGENT BEING SEEN STANDING 
BETWEEN THE COFFINS OF HENRY 
VIII. AND CHARLES I., IN THE 
ROYAL VAULT AT WINDSOR. 

Famed for contemptuous breach of 

sacred ties, 
By headless Charles see heartless 

Henry lies; 
Between them stands another sceptred 

thing — 
It moves, it reigns — in all but name, a 

king: 

Charles to his people, Henry to his 

wife, 
— In him the double tvrant starts to 

life : 
Justice and Death have mixed their 

dust in vain. 
Each royal Vampire wakes to life again. 
Ah, what can tombs avail ! — since these 

disgorge 
The blood and dust of both — to mould 

a George.^ 

[First published, Poetical Works, 
Paris, 1819, vi. 125.] 

'[The discovery "that King Charles I. was 
buried in the vault of King Henry VIII.," was 



[Another Version.] 

ON A ROYAL VISIT TO THE 

VAULTS. 

[or Caesar's Discovery of C. I. and 
H. 8 in ye same Vault.] 

Famed for their civil and domestic 

quarrels 
See heartless Henry lies by headless 

Charles; 
Between them stands another sceptred 

thing. 
It lives, it reigns — "ave, every inch a 

king." 
Charles to his people, Henry to his wife, 
In him the double tyrant starts to life: 
Justice and Death have mixed their 

dust in vain — 
The royal Vampires join and rise again. 
What now can tombs avail, since these 

disgorge 
The blood and dirt ^ of both to mould a 

George ! 

[First published, 1903.] 

ICH DIEN. 

From this emblem what variance your 

motto evinces, 
For the Man is his country's — the 

Arms are the Prince's! ? 18 14. 
[First published, 1903.] 

CONDOLATORY ADDRESS 

TO SARAH COUNTESS OF JERSEY, ON THE 
PRINCE REGENT'S RETURNING HER 
PICTURE TO MRS MEE.^ 

When the vain triumph of the imperial 
lord, 

made on completing the mausoleum which 
George III. caused to be built in the tomb- 
house. The Prince Regent was informed of the 
circumstance, and on April i, 1813, the day 
after the funeral of his mother-in-law the 
Duchess of Brunswick, he superintended in 
person the opening of the leaden coffin, which 
bore the inscription, "King Charles, 1648."] 

' [IItjAoi' a'ijuaTt m^tvpafi.ivov. 
"Clay kneaded with blood." 

— Suetonius, \n Tihcrium, cap. 57.] 

» [Mrs Anne Mee (i775?-i85i) was a minia- 
ture-painter, who was employed by the Prince 
Regent to take the portraits of fashionable 
beauties.] 



1290 



JEUX D' ESPRIT AND MINOR POEMS, I7g8'-i824 



Whom servile Rome obeyed, and yet 

abhorred, 
Gave to the vulgar gaze each glorious 

bust, 
That left a likeness of the brave, or 

just ; 
What most admired each scrutinising 

eye 
Of all that decked that passing pag- 
eantry ? 
What spread from face to face that 

wondering air? 
The thought of Brutus — for his was 

not there ! 
That absence proved his worth, — that 

absence fixed 
His memory on the longing mind, un- 
mixed; ID 
And more decreed his glory to endure, 
Than all a gold Colossus could secure. 
If thus, fair Jersey, our desiring gaze 
Search for thy form, in vain and mute 

amaze. 
Amidst those pictured charms, whose 

loveliness, 
Bright though they be, thine own had 

rendered less: 
If he, that vain old man, whom truth 

admits 
Heir of his father's crown, and of his 

wits, 
If his corrupted eye, and withered heart, 
Could with thy gentle image bear to 

part ; 20 

That tasteless shame be his, and ours 

the grief, 
To gaze on Beauty's band without its 

chief: 
Yet Comfort still one selfish thought 

imparts, 
We lose the portrait, but preserve our 

hearts. 
What can his vaulted gallery now dis- 
close ? 
A garden with all flowers — except the 

rose ; — 
A jount that only wants its living stream; 
A night, with every star, save Dian's 

beam. 
Lost to our eves the present forms shall 

be, 
That turn from tracing them to dream 

of thee; 30 



And more on that recalled resemblance 

pause, 
Than all he shall not force on our 

applause. 
Long may thy yet meridian lustre 

shine. 
With all that Virtue asks of Homage 

thine : 
The symmetry of youth — the grace of 

mien — 
The eye that gladdens — and the brow 

serene ; 
The glossy darkness of that clustering 

hair, 
Which shades, yet shows that forehead 

more than fair ! 
Each glance that wins us, and the life 

that throws 
A spell which will not let our looks 

repose, 40 

But turn to gaze again, and find anew 
Some charm that well rewards another 

view. 
These are not lessened, these are still as 

bright. 
Albeit too dazzling for a dotard's sight; 
And those must wait till ev'ry charm is 

gone, 
To please the paltry heart that pleases 

none; — 
That dull cold sensualist, whose sickly 

eye 
In envious dimness passed thy portrait 

by; 
Who racked his little spirit to combine 
Its hate of Freedom's loveliness, and 

thine. 50 

May 29, 18 14. 

[First published in The Champion, 
July 31, 1814.] 

FRAGMENT OF AN EPISTLE TO 
THOMAS MOORE. 

"What say I?" not a syllable further 
in prose; 

I'm your man "of all measures," dear 
Tom, — so here goes ! 

Here goes, for a swim on the stream of 
old Time, 

On those buoyant supporters, the blad- 
ders of rhyme. 



ANSWER TO 'S AFFECTION — DEED OF SEPARATION 1291 



If our weight breaks them down, and 

we sink in the flood, 
We are smothered, at least, in respect- 
able mud, 
Where the divers of Bathos lie drowned 

in a heap, 
And Southey's last Psan has pillowed 

his sleep; 
That Felo de se who, half drunk with 

his Malmsey, 
W^alked out of his depth and was lost 

in a calm sea, 10 

Singing "Glory to God" in a spick and 

span stanza. 
The like (since Tom Sternhold was 

choked) never man saw.' 

The papers have told you, no doubt, 

of the fusses, 
The fetes, and the gapings to get at 

these Russes, — 
Of his Majesty's suite, up from coach- 
man to Hetman, — 
And what dignity decks the flat face of 

the great man. 
I saw him, last week, at two balls and 

a party, — 
For a Prince, his demeanour was rather 

too hearty. 
You know, we are used to quite different 

graces, 



The Czar's look, I own, was much 

brighter and brisker, 20 

But then he is sadly deficient in whisker; 
And wore but a starless blue coat, and 

in kersey- 
mere breeches whisked round, in a waltz 

with the Jersey, 
Who, lovely as ever, seemed just as 

delighted 
With Majesty's presence as those she 

invited. 

He He 4: 4: * * 

****** 

June, 18 14. 
[First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, i. 561, 562 {note).'] 

' [The two first stanzas of Southey's " Carmen 
Triumphale, 1814," end with the line — 
"Glory to God — Deliverance for Mankind !"] 



ANSWER TO 'S PROFESSIONS 

OF AFFECTION. 

In hearts like thine ne'er may I hold a 

place 
Till I renounce all sense, all shame, all 

grace — 
That seat, — Hke seats, the bane of 

Freedom's realm. 
But dear to those presiding at the 

helm — 
Is basely purchased, not with gold alone; 
Add Conscience, too, this bargain is 

your own — 
'Tis thine to off'er with corrupting art 
The rotten borough of the human heart. 

? 1814. 
[First published, 1903.] 



ON NAPOLEON'S ESCAPE FROM 
ELBA.i 

Once fairly set out on his party of 

pleasure, 
Taking towns at his liking, and crowns 

at his leisure, 
From Elba to Lyons and Paris he 

goes, 
Making balls for the ladies, and boivs to 

his foes. 

March 27, 1815, 

[First published, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, i. 611.] 



ENDORSEMENT TO THE DEED 

OF SEPARATION, IN THE APRIL 

OF 1816. 

A YEAR ago you swore, fond she ! 

"To love, to honour," and so forth: 
Such was the vow you pledged to me. 
And here's exactly what 'tis worth. 
[First published, Poetical Works, 
1831, vi. 475.] 

' ["In the Moniteur of Thursday we find the 
Emperor's own account of his jaiinl from the 
Island of Elba to the palace of the Thuilleries. 
It seems certainly more like a jaunt of pleasure 
than the progress of an invader through a coun- 
try to be gained." Morning Chronicle, March 
27, 1815.] 



1292 



JEUX D' ESPRIT AND MINOR POEMS, 1798-1824 



[TO GEORGE ANSON BYRON (?)^] 



And, dost thou ask the reason of my 
sadness ? 
Well, I will tell it thee, unfeeling boy ! 
'Twas ill report that urged my brain to 
madness, 
'Twas thy tongue's venom poisoned 
all my joy. 

2. 

The sadness which thou seest is not 
sorrow ; 
My wounds are far too deep for simple 
grief; 
The heart thus withered, seeks in vain 
to borrow 
From calm reflection,- comfort or 
relief. 

3- 
The arrow's flown, and dearly shalt thou 
rue it; 
No mortal hand can rid me of my 
pain: 
My heart is pierced, but thou canst not 
subdue it — 
Revenge is left, and is not left in vain. 
? 1816. 
[First published, Nicnac, March 
25, 1823.] 



SONG FOR THE LUDDITES.^ 



As the Liberty lads o'er the sea 
Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with 
blood, 

So we, boys, we 
Will die fighting, or live free, 
And down with all kings but King Ludd \ 

'["A short time before Lord Byron quitted 
Ensland, in 1816, he addressed these lines to an 
individual by whom he deemed himself injured; 
they are but little known." — Nicnac, March 
25. 1823.] 

» [The terrn "Luddites" dates from 181 1, and 
was applied first to frame-breakers, and then to 
the disaffected in general. It was derived from 
a half-witted lad named Ned Lud, who entered 
a house in a fit of passion, and destroyed a couple 
of stocking-frames.] 



When the web that we weave is com- 
plete. 
And the shuttle exchanged for the sword, 
We will fling the winding sheet 
O'er the despot at our feet, 
And dye it deep in the gore he has 
poured. 

3- 
Though black as his heart its hue. 
Since his veins are corrupted to mud. 
Yet this is the dew 
Which the tree shall renew 
Of Liberty, planted by Ludd ! 

December 24, 1816. 
[First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 58.] 



TO THOMAS MOORE. 

What are you doing now, 

Oh Thomas Moore? 
What are you doing now, 

Oh Thomas Moore? 
Sighing or suing now, 
Rhyming or wooing now, 
Billing or cooing now. 

Which, Thomas Moore? 

But the Carnival's coming, 
Oh Thomas Moore ! 

The Carnival's coming. 
Oh Thomas Moore ! 

Masking and humming, 

Fifing and drumming, 

Guitarring and strumming, 
Oh Thomas Moore ! 

December 24, 1816. 

[First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 58, 59.] 



TO MR. MURRAY. 

To hook the Reader, you, John Murray, 
Have published " Anjou's Margaret," ^ 

Which won't be sold off in a hurry 
(At least, it has not been as yet) ; 

And then, still further to bewilder him. 



' {Mar gar el of Anjou, by Margaret Holford. 
1816.] 



VERSICLES—TO THOMAS MOORE 



1293 



Without remorse, you set up "II- 

derim"; ^ 
So mind you don't get into debt, — 
Because — as how — if you should fail, 
These books would be but baddish bail. 
And mind you do not let escape 

These rhymes to Morning Post or 
Perry, 
Which would be very treacherous — 

very, 
And get me into such a scrap ! 

For, firstly, I should have to sally, 
All in my little boat, against a Galley; 
And, should I chance to slay the As- 
syrian wight. 
Have next to combat with the female 

Knight: 
And pricked to death expire upon her 

needle, 
A sort of end which I should take 
indeed ill! March 25, 1817. 

[First published, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 91.] 

VERSICLES. 

I READ the "Christabel"; 

Very well : 
I read the "Missionary"; ^ 

Pretty — very: 
I tried at "Ilderim"; 

Ahem ! 
I read a sheet of "Marg'ret of Anjoii'' ; 

Can you ? 
I turned a page of Webster's "Water- 
loo"; ^ 

Pooh ! pooh ! 
I looked at Wordsworth's milk-white 
"Rvlstone Doe"; 
Hillo 1 
I read "Glenarvon," too, by Caro 
Lamb ; * 

God damn 1 * 

March 25, 1817. 
[First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 87.] 

' [Ilderim, a Syrian Tale bv H. Gaily Knight, 
1816.] 

» [The Missionary of the Andes, a Poem, by 
W. L. Bowles, 1815.] 

i [Waterloo and other Poems, by J. Wedder- 
hum Webster, 1816.] 

■• [Glenari'on, a Novel [by Lady Caroline 
Iviimbj, 1816.] 



QUEM DEUS VULT PERDERE 
PRIUS DEMENTAT.i 

God maddens him whom 'tis his will 

to lose, 
And gives the choice of death or 

phrenzy — choose. 

[First published, Letters, 1900, iv. 
93-] 

TO THOMAS MOORE. 



My boat is on the shore, 
And my bark is on the sea; 

But, before I go, Tom Moore, 
Here's a double health to thee! 



Here's a sigh to those who love me, 
And a smile to those who hate; 

And, whatever sky's above me, 
Here's a heart for every fate. 



Though the Ocean roar around me, 
Yet it still shall bear me on; 

Though a desert should surround me, 
It hath springs that may be won. 



Were't the last drop in the well, 
As I gasped upon the brink. 

Ere my fainting spirit fell, 

'Tis to thee that I would drink. 



With that water, as this wine. 

The libation I would pour 
Should be — peace with thine and 
mine. 
And a health to thee, Tom Moore. 
July, 181 7. 
[First published. The Traveller, 
January 8, 1821.] 

' [A proPos of Maturin's tragedy, Manuel 
{vide post, p. 48, note i), Byron "does into 
English" the Latin proverb by way of contrast 
to the text, "Whom the Lord loveth He chast- 
cneth; blessed be the Name of the Lord" 
(Letter to Murray, April 2, 1817).] 



1294 



JEUX D' ESPRIT AND MINOR POEMS, 17Q8-1824 



EPISTLE FROM MR MURRAY 
TO DR POLIDORI.^ 

Dear Doctor, I have read your play, 
Which is a good one in its way, — 
Purges the eyes, and moves the bowels. 
And drenches handkerchiefs like towels 
With tears, that, in a flux of grief, 
Afford hysterical relief 
To shattered nerves and quickened 

pulses. 
Which your catastrophe convulses. 

I like your moral and machinery; 
Your plot, too, has such scope for 
Scenery ! 10 

Your dialogue is apt and smart; 
The play's concoction full of art; 
Your hero raves, your heroine cries, 
All stab, and everybody dies. 
In short, your tragedy would be 
The very thing to hear and see: 
And for a piece of publication, 
If I decline on this occasion. 
It is not that I am not sensible 
To merits in themselves ostensible, 20 
But — and I grieve to speak it — plays 
Are drugs — mere drugs, Sir — now-a- 

days. 
I had a heavy loss by Manuel — 
Too lucky if it prove not annual, — 
And Sotheby, with his Orestes,"^ 
(Which, by the way, the old Bore's 

best is). 
Has lain so very long on hand. 
That I despair of all demand; 
I've advertised, but see my books, 
Or only watch my Shopman's looks; — 
Still Ivan, Ina, and such lumber, 31 
My back-shop glut, my shelves encum- 
ber. 

' ["By the way," writes Murray, Aug. 5, 1817 
{Memoir, etc., i. 386), "Polidori has sent me his 
tragedy ! Do me the kindness to send by return 
of post a delicate declension of it, which I engage 
faithfully to copy.'] 

[J. \V. Polidori (1705-1821) was a ycung 
physician of Italian origin (his mother was a 
Rossetti), who was a short time in attendance on 
Byron. He fell into ill-health and committed 
suicide.] 

^ [Sotheby published, in 1814, Five Tragedies, 
viz. "The Confession," "Orestes," "Ivan," 
"The Death of Darnley," and "Zamorin and 
Zama."] 



There's Byron too, who once did 

better. 
Has sent me, folded in a letter, 
A sort of — it's no more a drama 
Than Darnley, Ivan, or Kehama; 
So altered since last year his pen is, 
I think he's lost his wits at Venice. 

****** 

****** 
In short. Sir, what with one and t'other, 
I dare not venture on another. 40 

I write in haste; excuse each blunder; 
The Coaches through the street so 

thunder ! 
My room's so full — we've Gilford here 
Reading MS., with Hookham Frere, 
Pronouncing on the nouns and particles, 
Of some of our forthcoming Articles. 

The Quarterly — Ah, Sir, if you 
Had but the genius to review ! — 
A smart Critique upon St Helena, 
Or if you only would but tell in a 50 

Short compass what but to resume ; 

As I was saying, Sir, the Room — 
The Room's so full of wits and bards, 
Crabbes, Campbells, Crokers, Freres, 

and Wards 
And others, neither bards nor wits: 
My humble tenement admits 
All persons in the dress of Gent., 
From Mr Hammond to Dog Dent.^ 

A party dines with me to-day, 
All clever men, who make their way : 60 
Crabbe, Malcolm,^ Hamilton^ and 

Chantrey, 
Are all partakers of my pantry. 
They're at this moment in discussion 
On poor De Stael's late di.ssolution. 
Her book,^ they say, was in advance — 

' [George Hammond (1763-1853) held the 
office of Under-Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs. He is associated with the foundation 
of the And- Jacobin and the Quarterly Rrcicw.} 

[John Dent, M.P., a banker, was nicknamed 
"Dog Dent" because he was concerned in the 
introduction of the Dog-tax Bill in 1706.] 

' [Sir John Malcolm (i 769-1833), soldier, and 
diplomatist, published (January, 1815) a His- 
tory of Persia.] 

3 [W. R. Hamilton (1777-1859) was Secretary 
to Lord Elgin, and wrote a pamphlet on the 
"Elgin Marbles."] 

t [Madame de Stael's Considerations sur la 
Revolution Franqaise was offered to Murray in 
June, 1816, and the sum of ^.'4000 asked for the 



EPISTLE TO MR MURRAY 



1295 



Pray Heaven, she tell the truth of PYance ! 
'Tis said she certainly was married 
To Rocca, and had twice miscarried, 
No — not miscarried, I opine, — 
But brought to bed at forty -nine. 70 
Some say she died a Papist ; some 
Are of opinion that's a Hum; 
I don't know that — the fellows Schlegel ^ 
Are very likely to inveigle 
A dying person in compunction 
To try th' extremity of Unction. 
But peace be with her! for a woman 
Her talents surely were uncommon. 
Her Publisher (and PubHc too) 
The hour of her demise may rue — 80 
For never more within his shop he — 
Pray — was not she interred at Coppet ? 
Thus run our time and tongues away; — 
But, to return. Sir, to your play: 
Sorry, Sir, but I cannot deal. 
Unless 'twere acted by O'Neill. 
My hands are full — my head so busy, 
I'm almost dead — and always dizzy; 
And so, with endless truth and hurry. 
Dear Doctor, I am yours, go 

John Murray. 
August 21, 181 7. 
[First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 139-141. Lines 
67-82 first published, Letters, 
1900, iv. 161.] 

EPISTLE TO MR MURRAY. 



My dear Mr Murray, 
You're in a damned hurry 

To set up this ultimate Canto; ^ 
But (if they don't rob us) 
You'll "feee Mr Hobhouse 

Will bring it safe in his portmanteau. 



For the Journal you hint of,^ 
As ready to print off, 

work. During the negotiations, Madame de 

Stael died (July 14, 1817).] 

' [Byron and the cider Schlegel met at Coppet, 

in 1816, but they did not take to each other. 

Byron "would not flatter him," perhaps because 

he did not appreciate or flatter Byron.] 
' [The Fourth Canto of Childe Harold.] 
3 [The reference is to Byron's Swiss Journal 

of September, 1816.] 



No doubt you do right to commend it; 
But as yet I have writ off 
The devil a bit of 

Our "Beppo": — when copied, I'll 
send it. 

3- 
In the mean time you've "Galley" ^ 
Whose verses all tally. 

Perhaps you may say he's a Ninny, 
But if you abashed are 
Because of Alashtar, 

He'll piddle another Phrosine} 

4- 
Then you've Sotheby's Tour, — ^ 
No great things, to be sure, — 

You could hardly begin with a less 
work ; 
For the pompous rascallion. 
Who don't speak Italian 

Nor French, must have scribbled by 
guesswork. 

5- 
No doubt he's a rare man 
Without knowing German 

Translating his way up Parnassus, 
And now, still absurder, 
He meditates Murder, 

As you'll see in the trash he calls 
Tasso's. 

6. 

But you've others, his betters, 
The real men of letters, 

Your Orators — Critics — and 
Wits — 
And I'll bet that your Journal 
(Pray is it diurnal ?) 

Will pay with your luckiest hits. 

7- 
You can make any loss up 
With "Spence" * and his gossip, 

• [Henry Gaily Knight (i 786-1846), a con- 
tcmixjrary of Byron at Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge.] 

' [Phrosyne, a Grecian tale, and Alashtar, an 
Arabian tale, were published in 181 7. Byron 
writes, September 4, 1817, "I have received 
safely, though tardily, the magnesia and tooth- 
powder, Phrosine and Alashtar. I shall clean 
my teeth with one, and wipe my shoes with the 
other."] 

3 [Sotheby's Farewell to Italy and Occasional 
Poems were published in 181 8.] 

■♦ [Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters oj 



1296 



JEUX D' ESPRIT AND MINOR POEMS, 1798-1824 



A work which must surely succeed; 
Then Queen Mary's Epistle-craft,^ 
With the new "Fytte" of "Whistle- 
craft," 
Must make people purchase and 
read. 

8. 

Then you've General Gordon,^ 
Who girded his sword on, 

To serve with a Muscovite Master, 
And help him to polish 
A nation so owlish, 

They thought shaving their beards a 
disaster. 

9- 

For the man, "poor and shrewd," ^ 
With whom you'd conclude 

A compact without more delay. 
Perhaps some such pen is 
Still extant in Venice; 

But please, Sir, to mention your 
pay. 



Now tell me some news 

Of your friends and the Muse, 

Of the Bar, or the Gown, or the 
House, 
From Canning, the tall wit, 
To Wilmot,* the small wit, 

Ward's creeping Companion and 
Louse, 



Who's so damnably bit 
With fashion and Wit, 

That he crawls on the surface like 
Vermin, 
But an Insect in both, — 



Books and Men, by the Rev Joseph Spence, 
arranged, with notes, by the late Edmund Malone, 
Esq., I vol. 8vo. 1820.] 

' [The Life of Mary Queen of Scotls, by 
George Chalmers, 2 vols. 4to, iSig.] 

'[Thomas Gordon (1788-1841) entered the 
Scots Greys in 1808. From 1813 to 1815 he 
served in the Russian Army. He wrote a His- 
tory of the Greek Revolution, 1832.] 

J Vide your letter. 

* [Probably Sir Robert John Wilmot (1784- 
1841) (afterwards Wilmot Horton), Byron's first 
cousin, who took a prominent part in the de- 
struction of the "Memoirs," May 17, 1824.] 



By his Intellect's growth, 

Of what size you may quickly deter- 
mine. 

Venice, J^"- tuary 8, 1818. 
[First published, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 156, 157; stanzas 
3, 5, 6, 10, II, first published, 
Letters, 1900, iv. 191-193.] 

ON THE BIRTH OF JOHN 
WILLIAM RIZZO HOPPNER.^ 

His father's sense, his mother's grace, 

In him, I hope, will always fit so; 
With — still to keep him in good case — 
The health and appetite of Rizzo. 
February 20, 18 18. 
[First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 134.] 

[E NIHILO NIHIL; 

OR 

An Epigram Bewitched.] 

Of rhymes I printed seven volumes — 
The list concludes John Murray's 

columns: 
Of these there have been few transla- 
tions ^ 
For Gallic or Italian nations; 
And one or two perhaps in German — 
But in this last I can't determine. 
But then I only sung of passions 
That do not suit with modern fashions; 
Of Incest and such like diversion 
Permitted only to the Persians, 
Or Greeks to bring upon their stages — - 
But that was in the earlier ages; 
Besides my style is the romantic,* 
Which some call fine, and some call 
frantic; 

• [Richard Belgrave Hoppner (1786-1872), 
second son of John Hoppner. R.A., was appointed 
English Consul at Venice, October, 1814. The 
quatrain was translated (sec the following poem) 
into eleven different languages — Greek. Latin, 
Italian (also the Venetian dialect), German, 
French, Spanish, Illyrian, Hebrew, Armenian, 
and Samaritan, and printed "in a small neat 
volume in the seminary of Padua."] 

' [A French translation of the Bride of Ahydos 
appeared in 1816, an Italian translation of the 
Lament of Tasso in 181 7. A German translation 
of the entire text of Manfred was issued in 1819.] 



TO MR MURRAY — BALLAD 



1297 



While others are or would seem as sick 
Of repetitions nicknamed Classic, 
For my part all men must allow 
Whatever I was, T'm classic now. 
I saw and left m , lault in time, 
And chose a topic all sublime — 
Wondrous as antient war or hero — 
Then played and sung away like Nero, 
Who sang of Rome, and I of Rizzo: 
The subject has improved my wit so, 
The first four lines the poet sees 
Start forth in fourteen languages ! 
Though of seven volumes none before 
Could ever reach the fame of four. 
Henceforth I sacrifice all Glory 
To the Rinaldo of my Story: 
I've sung his health and appetite; 
(The last word's not translated right — 
He's turned it, God knows how, to 

vigour) ^ 
I'll sing them in a book that's bigger. 
Oh ! Muse prepare for thy Ascension ! 
And generous Rizzo ! thou my pension. 
February, 1818. 

[From an autograph MS. in the 
possession of Mr Murray, first 
published, 1903.] 



TO MR MURRAY. 



Strahan, Tonson, Lintot of the times,^ 
Patron and publisher of rhymes, 
For thee the bard up Pindus climbs. 

My Murray. 
2. 

To thee, with hope and terror dumb. 
The unfledged MS. authors come; 
Thou printest all — and sellest some — 
Mv Murrav. 



Upon thy table's baize so green 
The last new Quarterly is seen, — 

' [See the last line of the Italian translation of 
the quatrain ] 

'.[William Strahan (1715-1785). published 
Johnson's Dictionary, Gibbon's Decline and 
Fall of the Roman Empire, etc. 

Jacob Tonson (1656?-! 736) published for 
Otway, Dryden, Addison, etc. He was secretary 
of the Kit-Cat Club, 1700. 

Barnaby Bernard Lintot (1675-1736) was 
at one time (1718) in partnership with Tonson.] 



But where is thy new Mazagine,^ 

My Murray. 
4- 
Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine 
The works thou deemest most divine — 
The Art of Cookery,^ and mine. 

My Murray. 
5- 
Tours, travels, Essays, too, I wist, 
And Sermons, to thy mill bring grist; 
And then thou hast the Navy List, 

My Murray. 
6. 

And Heaven forbid I should conclude 
Without "the Board of Longitude," ^ 
Although this narrow paper would, 

My Murray. 
Venice, April 11, 1818. 
[First published, Letters and Jour- 
iials, 1830, ii. 171.] 



BALLAD. 

TO THE TUNE OF "s ALLEY IN OUR 
ALLEY." 



Of all the twice ten thousand bards 

That ever penned a canto. 
Whom Pudding or whom Praise re- 
wards 

For lining a portmanteau; 
Of all the poets ever known. 

From Grub-street to Fop's Alley,* 
The Muse may boast — the World 
must own 

There's none like pretty Gaily! 



He writes as well as any Miss, 
Has published many a poem; 

The shame is yours, the gain is his, 
In case you should not know 'em: 

' [Murray bought a half-share in Blackwood's 
Edinburgh Magazine, in August, 18 18.] 

' [Mrs. Rundell's Domestic Cookery, published 
in 1806, was one of Murray's most successful 
books.] 

-' [The sixth edition of Childe Harold's Pil- 
grimage (1813) was "printed by T. Davidson, 
Whitefriars, for John Murray, Bookseller to the 
Admiralty and the Board of Longitude."] 

♦ [For Fop's Alley, vide ante, p. 135.] 



40 



1298 



JEUX D'ESPRIT AND MINOR POEMS, 1798-1824 



He has ten thousand pounds a year — 

I do not mean to vally — 
His songs at sixpence would be dear, 

So give them gratis, Gaily ! 



And if this statement should seem queer. 

Or set down in a hurry, 
Go, ask (if he will be sincere) 

His bookseller — John Murray. 
Come, say, how many have been sold. 

And don't stand shilly-shally. 
Of bound and lettered, red and gold. 

Well printed works of Gaily. 



For Astley's circus Upton ^ writes, 

And also for the Surrey; (sic) 
Fitzgerald weekly still recites. 

Though grinning Critics worry: 
Miss Holford's Peg, and Sotheby's 
Saul, 

In fame exactly tally ; 
From Stationer's Hall to Grocer's Stall 

They go — and so does Gaily. 



He rode upon a Camel's hump 

Through Araby the sandy. 
Which surely must have hurt the rump 

Of this poetic dandy. 
His rhymes are of the costive kind. 

And barren as each valley 
In deserts which he left behind 

Has been the Muse of Gaily. 

6. 

He has a Seat in Parliament, 

Is fat and passing wealthy; 
And surely he should be content 

With these and being healthy : 
But Great Ambition will misrule 

Men at all risks to sally, — 
Now makes a poet — now a fool, 
• And we know which — of Gaily. 



Some in the playhouse like to row. 
Some with the Watch to battle, 

' [William Upton was the author of Poems on 
Several Occasions, 1788, and of the Words of the 
most Favourite Songs, Duels, etc., sung at the 
Royal Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge, etc. 
dedicated to Mrs Astley.] 



Exchanging many a midnight blow 

To Music of the Rattle. 
Some folks like rowing on the Thames 

Some rowing in an Alley, 
But all the Row my fancy claims 
Is rowing of my Gaily. 

April II, i8i8.» 
[First published, 1903.] 

ANOTHER SIMPLE BALLAT. 



Mrs Wilmot sate scribbling a play, 
Mr Sotheby sate sweating behind 
her; 
But what are all these to the Lay 
Of Gaily i.o. the Grinder? 
Gaily i.o. i.o., etc. 



I bought me some books t'other day, 
And sent them downstairs to the 
binder; 
But the Pastry Cook carried away 
My Gaily i.o. the Grinder. 
Gaily i.o. i.o., etc. 



I wanted to kindle my taper. 

And called to the Maid to remind her; 
And what should she bring me for paper 
But Gaily i.o. the Grinder. 
Gaily i.o. i.o. 

4- 
Among my researches for Ease 

I went where one's certain to find her: 
The first thing by her throne that one 
sees 
Is Gaily i.o. the Grinder. 
Gaily i.o. i.o. 

5- • 
Away with old Homer the blind — 

I'll show you a poet that's blinder: 
You may see him. whene'er you've a 
mind 
In Gaily i.o. the Grinder. 
Gaily i.o. i.o., etc. 

' [For a slightly different version of stanzas 3, 
4, 6, see Letters, ipoo, iv. 21Q, 220. For stanzas 
I, 2, 3 of "Another Simple Ballat. To the tune 
of Tally i.o. the Grinder" (probably a variant of 
Dibdin's song, "The Grinders, or more Gri.st to 
the Mill''), inde ibid., pp. 220, 221.] 



EPIGRAM — EPITAPH FOR WILLIAM PITT 



1299 



Blindfold he runs groping for fame, 
And hardly knows where he will find 
her: 
She don't seem to take to the name 
Of Gaily i.o. the Grinder. 
Gaily i.o. i.o., etc. 



Yet the Critics have been very kind. 
And Mamma and his friends have 
been kinder; 
But the greatest of Glory's behind — 
For Gaily i.o. the Grinder. 
Gaily i.o. i.o. 

April II, 18 18. 
[First published, 1903.] 

EPIGRAM. 

FROM THE FRENCH OF RULHIERES.* 

If for silver, or for gold. 

You could melt ten thousand pimples 
Into half a dozen dimples, 
Then your face we might behold, 

Ivooking, doubtless, much more 

snugly, 
Y'et even then 'twould be damned ugly. 
August 12, 18 1 9. 
[First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 235.] 

EPILOGUE.^ 



There's something in a stupid ass. 
And something in a heavy dunce; 

But never since I went to school 
I heard or sa^' so damned a fool 

As William Wordsworth ' is for once. 

' [Claude Carloman de Rulhiere (1718-1701), 
historian, poet and cpiRrammatist. His epi- 
pcrams which were appended to Les jeux de Mains 
(1808), were collected in his Giuvrcs Poslhumes, 
i8io. His published works do not contain the 
original of Byrons translation.] 

'[The MS. of the "Eni'ogue" is inscribed on 
the margin of a cop\' of Wordsworth's Pelcr Bell 
(1810), inserted in a set of Bvrons Works pre- 
sented by John Murray to C.eorge W. Childs, 
and by him, in turn, presented to the Drexel 
Institute.] 

3 [So, too, in a letter to Moore, Jan. 22, 182 1, 



And now I've seen so great a fool 

As William Wordsworth is for once; 

I really wish that Peter Bell 

And he who wrote it were in hell. 

For writing nonsense for the nonce. 



It saw the "light in ninety-eight," 
Sweet babe of one and twenty years ! 

And then he gives it to the nation ^ 
And deems himself of Shakespeare's 
peers ! 



He gives the perfect work to light ! 

Will Wordsworth, if I might advise, 
Content you with the praise you get 

From Sir George Beaumont, Baronet, 
And with your place in the Excise ! 

1819. 
[First published in Walter Hamil- 
ton's Parodies, 1888, v. 105.] 



ON MY WEDDING-DAY. 

Here's a happy New Year! but with 
reason 
I beg you'll permit me to say — 
Wish me many returns of the Season, 
But as few as you please of the Day. 
January 2, 1820. 
[First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 294.] 



EPITAPH FOR WILLIAM PITT. 

With Death doomed to grapple. 

Beneath this cold slab, he 
Who lied in the Chapel 
Now lies in the Abbey. 

January 2, 1820. 
[First published, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 295.] 

he describes his "Epigram on the Braziers' 
Address" (.vide post, p. 1302) as worthy 
Of Wordsworth the grand metaquizzical poet, 
A man of vast merit, though few people know it: 
The perusal of whom (as I told you at Mestri) 
I owe, in great part, to my passion for pastry.] 
' [The missing line mav he, "To permanently 
fill a station." See Preface to Peier Bell.] 



I300 JEUX D'ESPRIT AND MINOR POEMS, 1798-1824 



EPIGRAM. 

In digging up your bones, Tom Paine, 

Will. Cobbett ^ has done well: 
You visit him on Earth again, 

He'll visit vou in Hell. 
Or — 

You come to him on Earth again 
He'll go with you to Hell ! 

January 2, 1820. 
[First published, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 295.] 

EPITAPH. 

Posterity will ne'er survey 
A nobler grave than this; 
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh : 
Stop traveller, * * 

January 2, 1820. 
[First published, Lord Byron's 
Works, 1833, xvii. 246.] 

EPIGRAM. 

The world is a bundle of hay. 

Mankind are the asses who pull; 
Each tugs it a different way, — 

And the greatest of all is John Bull ! 
[First published, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 494.] 

MY BOY HOBBIE O.^ 
New Song to the tune of 

"Whare hae ye been a' day. 
My boy Tammy O ? 
Courting o' a young thing 
Just come jrae her Mammie O." 



How came you in Hob's pound to cool. 

My boy Hobbie O? 
Because I bade the people pull 

The House into the Lobby O. 

' [Cobbett, as an atonement for youthful vitu- 
peration exhumed Tom Paine's bones from their 
first resting-place at New Rochelle, and brought 
them to Liverpool on his return to England in 

iSlQ.l 

' [John Cam Hobhouse was committed to 
Newgate in December. 1810, for certain passages 
in a pamphlet entitled, A Trilling Mistake in 
Thomas Lord Erskine's rercn' Preface, which 
were voted (December 10) a breach of privilege. 
He remained in prison till the dissolution on the 
king's death. February 20, 1820, when he stood 



What did the House upon this call, 

My boy Hobbie O? 
They voted me to Newgate all. 

Which is an awkward Jobby O. 



Who are now the people's men, 

My boy Hobbie O ? 
There's I and Burdett — Gentlemen, 

And blackguard Hunt and Cobby O. 



why canvass, 



You hate the house 
then? 

My boy Hobbie O ? 
Because I would reform the den 

As member for the Mobby O. 



Wherefore do you hate the Whigs, 

My boy Hobbie O ? 
Because they want to run their rigs, 

As under Walpole Bobby O. 



But when we at Cambridge were 

My boy Hobbie O, 
If my memory don't err 

You founded a Whig Clubbie O. 



When to the mob you make a speech, 

My boy Hobbie O, 
How do you keep without their reach 

The watch within your fobby O ? 



But never mind such petty things, 

My boy Hobbie O; 
God save the people — damn all Kings, 
So let us Crown the Mobby O ! 
Yours truly, 
(Signed) Infidus Scurra. 

March 27,rd, 1820. 
[First published, Murray's Maga- 
zine, March, 1887, vol. i. pp. 
292, 293.] 

and was returned for Westminster. He did not 
enter into the humour of "this filthy ballad," as 
he railed it, and denied that he had founded a 
Whig Club when he was an undergraduate at 
Cambridge.] 



LINES— THE CHARITY BALL 



1301 



LINES 

ADDRESSED BY LORD BYRON TO MR 

HOBHOUSE ON HIS ELECTION FOR 

WESTMINSTER. 

Would you go to the house by the true 
gate, 
Much faster than ever Whig Charley 
went; 
Let Parhament send you to Newgate, 
And Newgate will send you to Parlia- 
ment. 

April 9, 1820. 
[First published. Miscellaneous 
Poems, printed for J. Bumpus, 
1824.J 

A VOLUME OF NONSENSE. 

Dear Murray, — 

You ask for a " Volume of 
Nonsense," 
Have all your authors exhausted 
their store? 
I thought you had published a good 
deal not long since. 
And doubtless the Squadron are 
ready with more. 
But on looking again, I perceive that 

the Species 
Of "Nonsense" you want must be 

purely ^'facetious" ; 
And, as that is the case, you had best 
put to press 
Mr. Sotheby's tragedies now in MS., 
Some Syrian Sally 
From common-place Gaily, 
Or, if you prefer the bookmaking of 

women, 
Take a spick and span "Sketch" of 
your feminine He-Man} 

Sept. 28, 1820. 
[First published, Letters, 1900, 
V. 83.] 

STANZAS. 

When a man hath no freedom to fight 
for at home. 
Let him combat for that of his 
neighbours; 

' TThe poetess Felicia Dorothea Browne (1793- 
1835) married Captain Hemans in 1812.] 



Let him think of the glories of Greece 
and of Rome, 
And get knocked on the head for his 
labours. 

To do good to Mankind is the chivalrous 
plan. 
And is always as nobly requited; 
Then battle for Freedom wherever you 
can. 
And, if not shot or hanged, you'll 
get knighted, 

November 5, 1820, 
[First published, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii, 377.] 

TO PENELOPE. 

January 2, 182 1. 

This day, of all our days, has done 

The worst for me and you: — 
'Tis just six years since we were one, 
And jive since we were two. 

November 5, 1820, 
[First published, Medwin's Conver- 
sations, 1824, p, 106.] 

THE CHARITY BALL,^ 

What matter the pangs of a husband 
and father. 
If his sorrows in exile be great or be 
small, 
So the Pharisee's glories around her she 
gather. 
And the saint patronises her "Charity 
Ball"! 
What matters — a heart which, though 
faulty, was feeling. 
Be driven to excesses which once 
could appal — 
That the Sinner should suffer is only 
fair dealing. 
As the Saint keeps her charity back 
for "the Ball"! 

December 10, 1820. 
[First published, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 540.] 

' [Written on seeing the following paragraph 
in a newspaper: "Lady Byron is this year the 
lady patroness at the annual Charity Ball, given 
at the Town Hall, at Hinckley, Leicestershire. 
. . :' — Life, p. 535.] 



[302 



JEUX D' ESPRIT AND MINOR POEMS, 1798-1824 



EPIGRAM. 

ON THE braziers' ADDRESS TO BE 

PRESENTED IN ARMOUR BY THE 

COMPANY TO QUEEN CAROLINE, 

It seems that the Braziers propose soon 

to pass 
An Address and to bear it themselves 

all in brass; 
A superfluous pageant, for by the Lord 

Harry ! 
They'll ji7id, where they're going, much 

more than they carry. 
Or — 
The Braziers, it seems, are determined 

to pass 
An Address, and present it themselves 

all in brass; 

A superfluous jfroSej ^''''' ^^ ^^^ 

Lord Harry ! 
They'll find, where they're going, much 
more than they carry. 

January 6, 182 1. 
[First published, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 442.] 

ON MY THIRTY-THIRD BIRTH- 
DAY. 

January 22, 1821.^ 

Through Life's dull road, so dim and 

dirty, 
I have dragged to three-and-thirty. 
What have these years left to me? 
Nothing — except thirty-three. 

[First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 

MARTIAL, Lib. I. Epig. I. 

" Hie est, quem legis, ille, quem requiris, 
Toto notus in orbe Marlialis," etc. 

He, unto whom thou art so partial, 
Oh, reader ! is the well-known Martial, 
The Epigrammatist: while living, 

' rin a letter to Moore, dated January 22 1821, 
he gives another version — 

"Through Life's road, so dim and dirty, 
I have dragged to three-and-thirty. 
What have these years left to me? 
Nothing ^ except thirty-three." 

— Li]e, p. 229.] 



Give him the fame thou would'st be 

giving; 
So shall he hear, and feel, and know it — 
Post-obits rarely reach a poet. 

[N.D. ? 1821.] 
[First published, Lord Byron's 
Works, 1833, xvii. 245.] 



BOWLES AND CAMPBELL. 

To the air of "How now, Madam Flirt," in the 
Beggar's Opera. 

Bowles. 

"Why, how now, saucy Tom? 

If you thus must ramble, 
I will publish some 

Remarks on Mister Campbell. 

Saucy Tom!" 

Campbell. 

"Why, how now, Billy Bowles? 

Sure the priest is maudlin ! 
(To the public) How can you, d — n 
your souls! 
Listen to his twaddling? 

Billy Bowles!" 
February 22, 182 1. 
[First published. The Liberal, 
1823, No. II. p. 398.] 



ELEGY. 

I5EHOLD the blessings of a lucky lot ! 
.My play is damned, and Lady Noel not} 
May 25, 1821. 
[First published, Medwin's Con- 
versations, 1824, p. 121.] 



JOHN KEATS.2 

Who killed John Keats? 
"I," says the Quarterly, 
So savage and Tartarly; 

"'Twas one of my feats." 

Who shot the arrow? 

"The poet-priest Milman" 

' [Byron had heard that Marino Faliero had 
1 cen condemned, and that his mother-in-law had 
recovered from an illness.] 

" [The review of Keats's Endymhm {Quar- 
terly Review, April, 1818) was by Croker.] 



FROM THE FRENCH— THE NEW VICAR OF BRAY 1303 



(So ready to kill man) 
"Or Southey, or Barrow." 

July 30, 182 1. 
[First published, Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii, 506.] 



FROM THE FRENCH. 

^GLE, beauty and poet, has two little 

crimes; 
She makes her own face, and does not 
make her rhymes. 

August 2, 182 1. 
[First published, The Liberal, 
1823, No. n. p. 396.] 



TO MR MURRAY. 



For Orford ^ and for Waldegrave '^ 
You give much more than me you gave; 
Which is not fairly to behave, 

My Murray ! 



Because if a live dog, 'tis said, 

Be worth a lion fairly sped, 

A live lord must be worth two dead, 

My Murray ! 



And if, as the opinion goes, 
\'^erse hath a better sale than prose, — 
Cerles, I should have more than those, 
My Murray! 



But now this sheet is nearly crammed, 
So, if you will, I shan't be shammed. 
And if you won't — you may be damned, 
My Murray ! ^ 
August 23, 182 1. 
[First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, p. 517.] 

' [Horace Wal pole's Memoirs of the Last Nine 
Years of the Reign of George tl 1 

' [Memoirs })y James Earl Waldegrave, 
Governor of George III. when Prince of Wales.] 

' [" Can't accept your courteous offer [i.e. 
£2000 for three cantos of Don Juan. Sardana- 
palus, and The Two Foscari.y — Letter to 
Murray, August 23, 182 t.] 



[NAPOLEON'S SNUFF-BOX.] ^ 

Lady, accept the box a hero wore, 

In spite of all this elegiac stuff: 
Let not seven stanzas written by a bore, 
Prevent your Ladyship from takin.; 
snuff! 1821. 

[First published, Conversations oj 
Lord Byron, 1824, p. 235.] 



THE NEW VICAR OF BRAY. 



Do you know Doctor Nott ? ^ 
With "a crook in his lot," 

Who seven years since tried to dish up 
A neat Codir// 
To the Princess's Will,^ 

Which made Dr Nott not a bishop. 



So the Doctor being found 

A little unsound 
In his doctrine, at least as a teacher, 

And kicked from one stool 

As a knave or a fool, 
He mounted another as preacher. 



In that Gown (like the Skin 
With no Lion within) 

' [Napoleon bequeathed to Lady Holland a 
snuff-bo.\ which had been given to him by the 
Pope for his clemency in sparing Rome. Lord 
Carlisle wrote eight sianzas, urging her, as Byron 
told Medwin, to decline the gift, "for fear that 
horror and murder should jump out of the lid 
every time it is opened." — Conversations, 1824, 
p. 362. The first stanza of Lord Carlisle's verses, 
which Bvron parodied, runs thus — 
"Lady, reject the gift! 'us tinged with gore! 

Those crimson spots a dreadful tale relate; 
It has been grasp'd by an infernal Power; 

And by that hand which seal'd young Enghien's 
fate."] 

^[George Frederick Nott (1767-1841), mtic 
and divine. When he was acting as Chaplain at 
Pisa, he attacked the Satanic school, and de- 
nounced Cain as blasphemous. Hence the 
rejoinder.] 

1 [Nott was sub-preceptor to the Princess 
Charlotte, and the story goes that on being re- 
buked by her grandmother, the Queen, for dis 
playing an ardent and undue interest in persons 
in low life, "persons" being intended to include 
Dr Nott, she threatened to sign a will in his 
favour.] 



1304 



JEUX Lr ESPRIT AND MINOR POEMS, 1798-1824 



He still for the Bench would be driving; 
And roareth away, 
^ A new Vicar of Bray, 
Except that his bray lost his living. 



"'Gainst Freethinkers," he roars, 
"You should all block your doors 

Or be named in the Devil's indentures: " 
And here I agree, 
For ivho e'er would be 

A Guest where old Simony enters? 

5. 
Let the Priest, who beguiled 
His own Sovereign's child 

To his own dirty views of promotion. 
Wear his Sheep's cloathing still 
Among flocks to his will, 

And dishonour the Cause of devotion. 

6. 

The Altar and Throne 

Are in danger alone 
From such as himself, who would render 

The Altar itself 

But a step up to Pelf, 
And pray God to pay his defender. 



But, Doctor, one word 
Which perhaps you have heard 
"He should never throw stones who has 
windows 
Of Glass to be broken, 
And by this same token 
As a sinner, you can't care what Sin 
does. 

8. 

But perhaps you do well: 
Your own windows, they tell, 

Have long ago suffered censure; 
Not a fragment remains 
Of your character's panes, 

Since the Regent refused you a glazier. 



Though your visions of lawn 
Have all been withdrawn. 
And you missed your bold stroke for a 
mitre ; 



In a very snug way 
You may still preach and pray, 
And from bishop sink into backbiter!" 
[First published, Works (Galig- 
nani), 1831, p. 116,] 

LUCIETTA. A FRAGMENT. 

LuciETTA, my deary, 
That fairest of faces ! 
Is made up of kisses; 
But, in love, oft the case is 
Even stranger than this is — 
There's another, that's slyer, 
Who touches me nigher, — 
A Witch, an intriguer. 
Whose manner and figure 
Now piques me, excites me. 
Torments and delights me — 
Ccrtera desunt. 
[First published, 1893.] 

EPIGRAMS. 

Oh, Castlereagh ! thou art a patriot 
now; 

Cato died for his country, so did'st thou: 

He perished rather than see Rome en- 
slaved. 

Thou cut'st thy throat that Britain may 
be saved ! 



So Castlereagh has cut his throat ! — 

The worst 
Of this is, — that his own was not the 
first. 



So He has cut his throat at last ! — He ! 

Who? 
The man who cut his country's long ago. 
? August, 1822. 
[First published. The Liberal, No. 
I. October 18, 1822, p. 164.] 

THE CONQUEST.^ 

The Son of Love and Lord of War I 

sing; 

' [This fragment was found amongst IvOrd 
Byron's papers, after his departure from Genoa 
for Greece.! 



IMPROMPTU — LOVE AND DEATH 



1305 



Him who bade England bow to 
Normandy, 
And left the name of Conqueror more 
than King 
To his unconquerable dynasty. 
Not fanned alone by Victory's fleeting 
wing, 
He reared his bold and brilliant throne 
on high; 
The Bastard kept, like lions, his prev 

fast. 
And Britain's bravest victor was the 
last. March 8-9, 1823. 

[First published. Lord Byron's 
Works, 1833, xvii. 246.] 



IMPROMPTU. 

Beneath Blessington's eyes 
The reclaimed Paradise 
Should be free as the former from evil; 
But if the new Eve 
For an Apple should grieve, 
What mortal would not play the Devil ? 
April, 1823. 
[First published. Letters and Jour- 
nals, 1830, ii. 635.] 



JOURNAL IN CEPHALONIA. 

The dead have been awakened — shall 
I sleep? 
The World's at war with tyrants — 
shall I crouch ? 
The harvest's ripe — and shall I pause 
to reap? 
I slumber not; the thorn is in my 
Couch; 
Each day a trumpet soundeth in mine 
ear 

Its echo in my heart 

June 19, 1823. 
[First published. Letters, 1901, vi. 
238.] 



SONG TO THE SULIOTES. 



Up to battle ! Sons of SuH 

I'p, and do your duty duly ! 

There the wall — and there the Moat is: 



Bouwah ! * Bouwah ! Suliotes ! 
There is booty — there is Beauty, 
Up my boys and do your duty. 



By the sally and the rally 

Which defied the arms of Ali; 

By your own dear native Highlands, 

By your children in the islands, 

Up and charge, my Stratiotes, 

Bouwah ! - — Bouwah ! — Suliotes I 

3- 
As our ploughshare is the Sabre: 
Here's the harvest of our labour; 
For behind those battered breaches 
Are our foes with all their riches: 
There is Glory — there is plunder — 
Then away despite of thunder! 

[First published, 1903.] 



[LOVE AND DEATH.] 



I WATCHED thee when the foe was at our 
side. 
Ready to strike at him — or thee and 
me, 
Were safety hopeless — rather than 
divide 
Aught with one loved save love and 
liberty. 

2. 

I watched thee on the breakers, when 
the rock, 
Received our prow, and all was storm 
and fear. 
And bade thee cling to me through every 
shock; 
This arm would be thy bark, or breast 
thy bier. 

3- 
I watched thee when the fever glazed 
thine eyes, 
Yielding my couch and stretched me 
on the ground 
When overworn with watching, ne'er to 
rise 
From' thence if thou an early grave 
hadst found. 

' " Bouwah !" is their war-cry. 



i3o6 



JEUX D'ESPRIT AND MINOR POEMS, 1798-1824 



The earthquake came, and rocked the 
quivering wall, 
And men and nature reeled as if with 
wine. 
Whom did I seek around the tottering 
hall? 
For thee. Whose safety first provide 
for ? Thine. 

5- 
And when convulsive throes denied my 
breath 
The faintest utterance to my fading 
thought, 
To thee — to thee — e'en in the gasp of 
death 
My spirit turned, oh ! oftener than it 
ought. 

6. 

•Thus much and more; and yet thou 
lov'st me not. 
And never wilt ! Love dwells not in 
our will. 
Nor can I blame thee, though it be mv 
lot 
To stronglv, wrongly, vainlv love thee 
still.* 

[First published, Murray's Maga- 
zine, February, 1887, vol. i. pp. 
145, 146.] 



LAST WORDS ON GREECE. 

What are to me those honours or 
renown 
Past or to come, a new-born people's 
cry? 
Albeit for such I could despise a 
crown 
Of aught save laurel, or for such could 
die. 
I am a fool of passion, and a frown 
Of thine to me is as an adder's 
eye. 

•["The last he ever wrote. From a rough 
copy found amongst his papers at the back of 
the 'Song of Suli.' Copied November, 1824. — 
John C. Hobhouse." 

"A note attached to the verses by Lord B>Ton, 
states they were addressed to no one in particular, 
and were a mere poetical Scherzo. — J. C. H."] 



To the poor bird whose pinion fluttering 
down 
Wafts unto death the breast it bore 
so high; 
Such is this maddening fascination 
grown. 
So strong thy magic or so weak 
am I. 

[First published, Murray's Maga- 
zine, February, 1887, vol. i. 
p. 146.] 



ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY 
THIRTY-SLXTH YEAR.* 



'Tis time this heart should be un- 
moved. 
Since others it hath ceased to move: 
Yet, though I cannot be beloved. 
Still let me love ! 



My days are in the yellow leaf; 

The flowers and fruits of Love are 
gone ; 
The worm, the canker, and the grief 
Are mine alone ! 



The fire that on my bosom preys 
Is lone as some Volcanic isle; 
No torch is kindled at its blaze — 
A funeral pile. 



The hope, the fear, the zealous care, 

The exalted portion of the pain 
And power of love, I cannot share. 
But wear the chain. 



' ["This morning Lord B\Ton came from his 
bedroom into the apartment where ColoneJ Stan- 
hope and some friends were assembled, and said 
with a smile — ' You were complaining, the other 
day, that I never write any poetry now: — this is 
my birthday, and I have just finished something, 
which, I think, is better than what I usually 
write.' He then produced these noble and af- 
fecting verses, which were afterwards found 
written in his journals, with only the following 
introduction: 'Jan. 22; on this day I complete 
my 36th year.'" — A Narrative of Lord Byron's 
Last Journey to Greece, 1825, p. 125, by Count 
Gamba.] 



ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR 1307 



But 'tis not thus — and 'tis not 
here — 
Such thoughts should shake my soul, 
nor 720W 
Where Glory decks the hero's bier, 
Or binds his brow. 



The Sword, the Banner, and the 
Field, 
Glory and Greece, around me seel 
The Spartan, borne upon his shield, 
Was not more free. 



Awake ! (not Greece — she is awake !) 
Awake, my spirit ! Think through 
whof)! 
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake. 
And then strike home ! 



8. 

Tread those reviving passions down, 
Unworthy manhood ! — unto thee 
Indifferent should the smile or frown 
Of Beauty be. 



If thou regret'st thy youth, why live ? 

The land of honourable death 
Is here: — up to the Field, and give 
Away thy breath I 



Seek out — less often sought than 
found — 
A soldier's grave, for thee the best; 
Then look around, and choose thy 
ground, 

And take thy Rest. 

Missolonghi, Jan. 22, 1824. 
[First published, Morning CJiron- 
icle, October 29, 1824. 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 



(The first line is given of every Poem, and of each Canto of the longer Poems: that of the Plays 

is omitted.) 



A noble Lady of the Italian shore {Poems 1816- 

1823), 659 
A spirit passed before me: I beheld {Hebrew 

Melodies), 420 
A year ago you swore, fond she ! {Jeux d' Esprit, 

etc.), 1 291 
Absent or present, still to thee {Poems 1809- 

181 3), 304 
Adieu, adieu ! my native shore {Childe Harold, 

Canto I. : Childe Harold's Good Night), i 7 1 
Adieu, thou Hill ! where early joy {Hours of 

Idleness), 81 
Adieu, to sweet Mary for ever {Hours of Idleness), 

71 
Adieu, ye joys of La Valette ! {Poems 1809-1813), 

296 
JE.g\e, beauty and poet, has two little crimes 

{Jeux d' Esprit, etc.), 1303 
Ah ! gentle, fleeting, wav'ring Sprite {Hours of 

Idleness), 7 
Ah, heedless girl ! why thus disclose {Hours of 

Idleness), 83 
Ah ! Love was never yet without {Poems i8o()- 

1S13). 308 
Ah, Memory torture me no more {Hours of 

Idleness), 72 
Ah ! — What should follow slips from my reflec- 
tion (Don Juan, Canto XV.), 1240 
And, dost thou ask the reason of my sadness? 

{Jeux d'Espiit, etc.), 1292 
And thou art dead, as young and fair {Poems 

1809-1813), 301 
And thou wert sad — yet I was not with thee 

{Poems of July-SeMember, 1816), 475 
And "thy true faith can alter never?" {Poems 

1800-1813), 309 
And wilt thou weep when I am low? {Hours of 

Idleness), 90 
Anne's Eye is liken'd to the Sun {Hours of Idle- 
ness), 83 
As by the fix'd decrees of Heaven {Hours of 

Idleness), 79 
As o'er the cold sepulchral stone {Poems 1809- 

1813), 200 
As the Liberty lads o'er the sea {Jeux d'Esprit, 

etc.), 1292 
Away, away, ye notes of Woe ! {Poems 1809- 

1813), 299 
Away, away, — your flattering arts {Hours of 

Idleness), 5 



Away with your fictions of flimsy romance 

{Hours of Idleness), 25 
Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses! 

{Hours of Idleness), 58 

Behold the blessings of a lucky lot! {Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1302 
Belshazzar ! from the banquet turn {Poems 1814- 

i8i6), 426 
Beneath Blessington's eyes {Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 

1305 
Beside the confines of the ^^gean main {Poems 

1800-181 3), 294 
Bob Southey ! You're a poet — Poet-Laureate 

{Don Juan: Dedication), 965 
Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred {Poems of 

the Separation), 455 
Breeze of the night, in gentler sighs {Hours of 

Idleness), 89 
Bright be the place of thy soul ! {Poems 1814- 

1816), 427 
But once I dared to lift my eyes {Poems 1816- 

1823), 666 

Candour compels me, Becher! to commend 

{Hours of Idleness), 37 
Chill and mirk is the mighty blast {Poems 1809- 

X813), 291 
Come, blue-eved Maid of Heaven ! — but Thou, 

alas! {Childe Haro'd, Canto IL), 191 
Could I remount the river of my years {Poems of 

July-September, 1816), 471 
Could Love for ever {Poems 1816-1823), 659 
Cruel Cerinthus ! does the fell disease {Hours of 

Idleness), 23 

Dear are the davs of vouth ! {Hours of Idleness), 

60 
Dear Becher, you tell me to mix with mankind 

{Hours of Idleness), 36 
Dear Doctor, I have read your play {Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1294 
Dear Long, in this sequester 'd scene {Hours of 

Idleness), 62 
Dear Murray, — You ask for a " Volume of 

Nonsense" {Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 1301 
Dear object of defeated care ! {Poems 1809- 

T813), 295 
Dear simple girl, those flattering arts {Hours of 

Idleness), 6 



1309 



t3io 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 



Do you know Dr Nott? {Jeux d' Esprit, etc.), 

1303 
Dorset ! whose early steps with mine have stray'd 

{Hours of Idleness), 66 
Doubtless, sweet girl ! the hissing lead (Hours of 

Idleness), 22 

Eliza 1 What fools are the Mussulman sect 

(Hours of Idleness), 15 
Equal to jove that youth must be (Hours of 

Idleness), 23 
Ere the daughter of Brunswick is cold in her 

grave (Poems 1816-1823), 662 
Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind ! (The 

Prisoner of Chillon: Sonnet on Chillon), 457 

Fame, Wisdom, Love, and Power were mine 

(Hebrew Melodies), 416 
Famed for the contemptuous breach of sacred 

ties (Jeux d' Esprit, etc.), 1289 
Famed for their civil and domestic quarrels 

(Jeux d' Esprit, etc.), 1289 
Fare thee well ! and if for ever (Poems of the 

Separation), 454 
Farewell! if e^TTfondest prayer (Poems 1814- 

1816), 421 
Farewcii to the Land, where the gloom of mv 

Glory (Poems 1814-1816), 427 
Father of Light, great God of Heaven ! (Hours 

of Idleness), 77 
Few years have pass'd since thou and I (Hours of 

Idleness), 91 
Fill the goblet again ! for I never before (Hours 

of Idleness), 95 
For Orford and for Waldegrave (Jeux d' Esprit, 

etc.), 1303 
Friend of my youth ! when young we rov'd 

(Hours of idleness), 68 
From out the mass of never-dying ill (Prophecy of 

Dante, Canto III.). 544 
From the last hill that looks on thy once holy 

dome (Plebrew Melodies), 419 
From this emblem what variance your motto 

evinces ! (Jeux d' Esprit, etc.), 1 289 

God maddens him whom 'tis his will to lose 

(Jeux d' Esprit, etc.), 1293 
Good plays are scarce (Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 1281 
Great Jove! to whose Almighty Throne (Hours 

of Idleness), 5 

Hail, Muse ! et cetera. — We left Juan sleeping 

(Don Juan, Canto HL), 1034 
Harriet, to see such Circumspection (Hours of 

Idleness), 90 
He, unto whom thou art so pJtrtial (Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1302 
He who, sublime, in epic numbers roll'd (Hours 

of Idleness), 23 
Here once engaged the stranger's view (Hours of 

Idleness), 88 
Here's a happv New Year! but with reason 

(Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 1299 
High in the midst, surrounded by his peers 

(Hours of Idleness), 9 
Hills of Annesley, Bleak and Barren (Hours of 

Idleness), 72 
His father's sense, his mother's grace (Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 12q6 
How raipc you in Hob's pound to cool (Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1300 



How pleasant were the songs of Toobonai! 

(Island, Canto K.), 942 
How sweetly shines, through azure skies (Hours 

of Idleness), 43 
Hush'd are the winds, and still the evening gloom 

(Hours of Idleness), 2 
Huzza ! Hodgson, we are going (Jeux d'Esprit, 

etc.), 1278 

I cannot talk of Love to thee (Poems 1814-1816), 

421 
I enter thy garden of roses (Poems 1809-1813), 

29s 
I had a dream, which was not at all a dream 

(Poems of July-September, 1816), 468 
I heard thy fate without a tear (Poems 1814- 

1816), 427 
I now mean to be serious; — it is time (Don Juan, 

Canto XHL), 1206 
I read the "Christabel" (Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 

1293 
I saw thee weep — the big bright tear (Hebrew 

Melodies), 415 
I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name 

(Poems 1814-1816), 422 
I stood beside the grave of him who blazed 

(Poems of July-September, 1816), 469 
I stood in Venice, on the "Bridge of Sighs" 

(Childe Harold, Canto IV.), 249 
I want a hero: an uncommon want (Don Juan, 

Canto I.), 968 
I watched thee when the foe was at our side 

(Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 1305 
I wish to tune my quivering lyre (Hours of Idle- 
ness), 49 
I would I were a careless child (Hours of Idle- 
ness), 70 
I would to Heaven that I were so much clay 
V (Fragment on back of MS. of Don Juan, Canto 

I.), 965 
If Fate should seal my Death to-morrow (Hours 

of Idleness), 84 
If for silver, or for gold (Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 1299 
If from great Nature's or our own abyss (Don 

Juan, Canto XIV.), 1224 
If, in the month of dark December (Poems 1809- 

1813), 293 
If sometimes in the haunts of men (Poems 1809- 

1813). 303 
If that high world, which lies beyond (Hebrew 

Melodies), 413 
Ill-fated Heart ! and can it be (Poems 1809-1813), 

303 
In Coron's bay floats many a galley light (Corsair, 

Canto II.), 362 
In digging up your bones, Tom Paine (Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1300 
In hearts like thine ne'er may I hold a place 

(Jeux d Esprit, etc.), 1291 
In law an infant, and in years a boy (Hours of 

Idleness), 42 
In moments to delight devoted (Poems 1809- 

1813). 312 
In Nottingham county there lives at Swan Green 

(Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 1277 
In one dread night our city saw, and sighed 

(Poems 1800-1813), 304 
In one who felt as once he felt (Hours of Idle- 
ness), 86 
In the beginning was the Word next God (Mor- 

ganle Maggiore, Canto I.). 55 1 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 



131: 



In the dome of my Sires as the clear moonbeam 
fLilis {Poems 1809-1813), 297 

In the valley of waters we wept on the day 
{Hebrew Melodies), 420 

In the year since Jesus died for men {Siege of 
Corinth), 432 

In thee, I fondly hop'd to clasp {Hours of Idle- 
ness), 3 

In this beloved marble view {Poems 1816-1823), 
655 

Is thv face like thy mother's, my fair child? 
{Ckilde Harold, Canto III.), 218 

It is the hour when from the boughs {Parisina), 

447 
It seems that the Braziers propose soon to pass 
{Jeux d' Esprit, etc.), 1302 

John Adams lies here, of the parish of Southwell 
{Jcux d' Esprit, etc.), 1277 

Kind Reader ! take your choice to cry or laugh 

{Jeux d' Esprit, etc.), 1281 
Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle 

{Bride of Abydos, Canto I.). 331 

Lady, accept the box a hero wore {Jeux d' Esprit, 

etc.), 1303 
Lady ! if for the cold and cloudy clime {Prophecy 

of Dante: Dedication), 536 
Lady ! in whose heroic jxjrt {Poems 1816-1823), 

660 
Lesbia ! since far from you I've rang'd {Hours 

of Idleness), 14 
Let Folly smile to view the names {Hours of 

Idleness), 2 
Long years ! — It tries the thrilling frame to bear 

{Lament of Tasso), 502 
Lucietta, my deary {Jeux d' Esprit, etc.), 1304 

Maid of Athens, ere we part {Poems 1809-1813), 

293 
Many are Poets who have never penned {Proph- 
ecy of Dante, Canto IV.), 547 
Marion! why that pensive brow? {Hours of 

Idleness), 43 
Mingle with the genial bowl {Hours of Idleness), 

78 
Montgomery! true, the common lot {Hours of 

Idleness), 34 
Mrs Wilmot sate scribbling a play {Jeux d' Esprit, 

etc.), 1298 
Muse of the many-twinkling feet ! whose charms 

{The Waltz), 157 
Must thou go, my glorious Chief {Poems 1814- 

1816), 428 
My boat is on the Shore {Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 

1203 
My dear Mr Murray {Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 1295 
My hair is grey, but not with years {Prisoner of 

Chillon), 459 
My Sister ! my sweet Sister ! if a name {Poems 

of July-September, 1816), 472 
My soul is dark — Oh ! quickly string {Hebrew 

Melodies), 415 

Nav, smile not at mv sullen brow {Ckilde Harold, 

Canto I.: To Inez), 185 
Newstead ! fast-falling, once-resplendent dome ! 

{Hours of Idlemss), 38 
Night wanes — the vapours round the mountains 

curled {Lara, Canto II.), 401 



Nisus, the guardian of the portal, stood {Hours 

of Idleness), 50 
No breath of air to break the wave {Giaour), 

313 
No specious splendour of this stone {Hours of 

Idleness), 21 
Nose and Chin that make a knocker {Poems 

1816-1823), 656 
Not in those climes where I have late been 

straying {Childe Harold: To lanthe), 168 
Nothing so difficult as a beginning {Don Juan, 

Canto IV.), 1053 

O Love ! O Glory ! what are ye who fly {Don 

Juan, Canto VII.), 11 15 
O Thou ! who rollest in yon azure field {Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1277 
O thou yclep'd by vulgar sons of Men {Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1279 
O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea {Corsair, 

Canto I.), 351 
Of all the barbarous middle ages, that {Don Juan, 

Canto XII.), 1 193 
Of all the twice ten thousand bards {Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1297 
Of rhymes I printed seven volumes {Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1296 
Of two fair Virgins, modest, though admired 

{Poems 1816-1823). 654 
Oh, Anne, your offences to me have been grievous 

{Hours of Idleness), 83 
"Oh! banish care" — such ever be {Poems 

1800-1813), 208 
Oh, blood and thunder ! and oh, blood and 

wounds ! {Don Juan, Canto VIII.), t 129 
Oh. Castlereagh ! thou art a patriot now {Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1304 
Oh ! could Le Sage's demon's gift {Hours of 

Idleness), 18 
Oh ! did those eyes, instead of fire {Hours of 

Idleness), 21 
Oh, factious viper ! whose envenom 'd tooth 

{Hours of Idleness), 12 
Oh, Friend ! for ever lov'd, for ever dear {Hours 

of Idleness), 6 
Oh ! had my Fate been join'd with thine {Hours 

of Idleness), 64 
Oh how I wish that an embargo {Jeux d'Esprit, 

etc.), 1280 
Oh Lady! when I left the shore {Poems 1809- 

1813), 290 
Oh ! little lock of golden hue {Hours of Idle- 
ness), 80 
Oh, Mariamne ! now for thee {Hebrew Melodies), 

418 
Oh ! might I kiss those eyes of fire {Hours of 

Idleness), 23 
Oh ! mv lonely — lonely — lonely — Pillow ! 

(Poems 1816-1823), 66s 
Oh never talk again to me {Poems 1809-1813), 

289 
(^h say not, sweet Anne, that the Fates have 

decreed {Hours of Idleness), 85 
Oh ! snatched away in Beauty's bloom {Hebrew 

Melodies), 414 
Oh talk not to me of a name great in story 

(Poems 1816-1823). 665 
Oh, thou ! in Hellas deemed of heavenly birth 

{Childe Harold. Canto I.), 169 
Oh! thou that roll'st above thy glorious Fire 

{Hours of Idleness), 78 



I3I2 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 



Oh Venice ! Venice ! when thy marble walls 

{Ode on Venice), 523 
Oh ! weep for those that wept by Babel's stream 

{Hebrew Melodies), 413 
Oh well done, Lord E n ! and better done, 

R r! {J cnx d' Esprit, etc.), 1281) 

Oh ! well I know your subtle Sex {Hours of 

Idleness), 82 
Oh, Wellington! (or "Villainton" — for Fame 

{Don Juan, Canto IX.), 1151 
Oh ! when shall the grave hide for ever my 

sorrow? {Hours of Idleness), y 
Oh ye I who teach the ingenuous youth of nations 

{Don Juan, Canto II.), 1001 
Oh ! yes, I will own we were dear to each other 

{Hours of Idleness), 41 
Oh you, who in all names can tickle the town 

{Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 1283 
On Jordan's banks the Arab's camels stray 

{Hebrew Melodies), 414 
Once fairly set out on his party of pleasure 

{Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 1291 
Once more in Man's frail world ! which I had 

left {Prophecy of Dante, Canto L), 537 
One struggle more, and I am free {Poems 1809- 

1813). 300 
Our life is twofold: Sleep hath its own world 

{Poems of July-September, 1816), 464 

Parent of golden dreams, Romance 1 {Hours of 

Idleness), 59 
Posterity will ne'er survey {Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 

1300 

Rail on. Rail on, ye heartless crew ! {Hours of 
Idleness), 73 

Remember him, whom Passion's power {Poems 
1809-1813), 310 

Remember thee I Remember thee ! {Poems 1809- 
1813). 307 

Remind me not, remind me not {Hours of Idle- 
ness), 91 

River, that rollest by the ancient walls {Poems 
1816-1823), 657 

Rousseau — Voltaire — our Gibbon — and 
De Stael {Poems of July-September, 1816), 471 

Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate {Vision of 

Judgment), 636 
She walks in Beauty, like the night {Hebrew 

Melodies), 412 
Since now the hour is come at last {Hours of 

Idleness), 4 
Since our Country, our God — Oh, my Sire ! 

{Hebrew Melodies), 414 
Since the refinement of this polish'd age {Hours of 

Idleness), 15 
Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run {Cor- 
sair, Canto III.), 373 
Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run {The 

Curse of Minerva), 149 
So we'll go no more a-roving {Poems 1816-1823), 

65 s " 
Sons of the Greeks, arise! {Poems 1809-1813), 

295 
Spot of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh 

{Hours of Idleness), 71 
Star of the brave ! — whose beam hath shed 

{Poems 1814-1816), 430 
Start not — nor deem my spirit fled {Hours of 

Idleness), 93 



Still must I hear ? — shall hoarse Fitzgerald bawl ? 

{English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers), 98 
Strahan, Tonson, Lintot of the times {Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1297 
Stranger ! behold, interred together {Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1281 
Sun of the sleepless I melancholy star ! {Hebrew 

Melodies), 418 
Sweet girl, though only once we met {Hours of 

Idleness), 13 

Tambourgi! Tambourgi! thy 'larum afar 

{Childe Harold, Canto II.), 205 
The antique Persians taught three useful things 

{Don Juan, Canto XVI.), 1255 
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the 

fold {Hebrew Melodies), 420 
The chain I gave was fair to view {Poems 1809- 



i»i3), 304 
he de; 



shall I sleep? 



The dead have been awakened 

{Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 1305 
The Devil returned to Hell by two {Jeux -> 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1284 
The tight was o'er; the flashing through the 

gloom {Island, Canto III.), 953 
The Gods of old are silent on their shore {Poetns > 

1816-1823), 666 
The "good old times" — all times when old are j 

good {Age of Bronze), 921 
The Harp the Monarch Minstrel swept {Hebrew ^• 

Melodies), 412 
The Isles of Greece, The Isles of Greece {Don 

Juan, Canto III.), 1047 
The King was on his throne {Hebrew Melodies), 

417 
The kiss, dear maid ! thy lip has left {Poems 

1800-1813), 296 
The Land where I was born sits by the seas 

{Francesca of Rimini, Canto V.), 564 
The man of firm and noble soul {Hours of Idle- 
ness), 25 
The modest bard, like many a bard unknown 

{Poems 1809-1813), 293 
The Moorish King rides up and down {Poems 

1816-1823), 652 
The Moralists tell us that Loving is Sinning 

{Hours of Idleness), 89 
The morning watch was come; the vessel lay 

{Island, Canto I.), 938 
The Night came on the Waters — all was rest 

{Poems 1814-1816), 424 
The "Origin of Love!" — Ah, why {Poems 

1809-1813), 309 
The roses of Love glad the garden of life {Hours 

of Idleness), 35 
The sacred song that on mine ear {Jeux d'Esprit, 

etc.), 1282 
The Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain 

{Lara, Canto I.), 389 
The Son of Love and Lord of War I sing {Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1304 
The spell is broke, the charm is flown {Poems 

1809-1813), 292 
The Spirit of the fervent days of Old {Prophecy 

of Dante, Canto II.), 541 
The wild gazelle on judah's hills {Hebrew 

Melodies), 413 
The winds are high on Helle's wave {Bride of 

Abydos, Canto II.), 338 ■ 
The world is a bundle of hay {Jeux d'Esprit, 

etc.), 1300 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 



1313 



.vor.d is full of orphans: firstly, those (Don 
;«, Canto XVII.). 1274 
f be none of Beauty's daughters (Poems 
M4-1816), 430 
There is a mystic thread of life (Hours of Idle- 
ness), 80 
There is a tear for all that die (Poems 1814-1816), 

" There is a tide in the affairs of men " (Don Juan, 

Canto VI.). 1097 
There is no more for me to hope (Jeux d'Esprit, 

etc.), 1282 
There was a time, I need not name (Hours of 
I lieness), 90 

c's not a joy the world can give 
that it takes away (Poems 1814-1816), 

.'s something in a stupid ass (Jeux d'Esprit, 
), 1299 
-c locks, which fondly thus entwine (Hours 
Idleness), 12 

\ say that Hope is happiness (Poems 1814- 
m6), 431 
' l.ine eyes' blue tenderness, thy long fair hair 

(Poems 1809-1813), 311 
Ihink'st thou I saw thy beauteous eyes (Hours 

nf Idleness), 3 

his Band, which bound thy yellow hair (Hours 

I'f Idleness), 73 
.his day, of all our days, has done (Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1301 
This faint resemblance of thy charms (Hours of 
V Idleness), 11 
Tnis votive pledge of fond esteem (Hours of 

Idleness), 24 
Those flaxen locks, those eyes of blue (Hours of 
{Idleness), 89 
piou art not false, but thou art fickle (Poems 

1809-1813), 309 
Vhoit lay thy branch of laurel down (Jeux 
. d'Esprit, etc.), 1283 

Thou Power ! who hast ruled me through In- 
fancy's days (Hours of Idleness), 86 
•Thou whose spell can raise the dead (Hebrew 

Melodies), 415 
Though the day of my Destiny's over (Poems of 

July-September, 1816), 472 
Through cloudless skies, in silvery sheen (Poems 

1809-1813), 292 
Through Life's dull road, so dim and dirty (Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1302 
Through thv battlements, Newstead, the hollow 

winds whistle [Hours of Idleness), i 
Thy cheek is pale with thought, but not from woe 

{Poem's 1809-1813), 311 
Thy divs are done, thy fame begun (Hebrew 

Melodies), 415 
Thv verse is "sad" enough, no doubt (Hours of 

Idleness), 85 

.nie ! on whose arbitrary wing (Poems 1809- 

1S13), 308 
1 i> done — and shivering in the gale (Hours 

uf Idleness), 96 
Tis done — but yesterday a King ! (Ode to 

Napoleon Buonaparte), 386 
Tis done ! — I saw it in my dreams (Hours of 

Llicness), 72 
Tis iifty years, and j'et their fray (Poems 1816- 

1823), 656 
I is known, at least it should be, that throughout 

(Btppo), 507 

4P 



'Tis midnight — but it is not dark (Poems 1816- 

1823), 655 
'Tis time this heart should be unmoved (Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1306 
Titan ! to whose immortal eyes (Poems of July- 
September, 1816), 470 
To be the father of the fatherless (Poems 1816- 

1823), 659 
To hook the Reader, you John Murray (Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1292 
'Twas after dread Pultowa's day (Mazeppa), 

526 
'Twas now the hour, when Night had driven 

(Hours of Idleness), 49 
'Twas now the noon of night, and all was still 

(Hours of Idleness), 74 

Unhappy Dives 1 in an evil hour (Jeux d'Esprit, 

etc.), 1279 
Up to battle I Sons of Suli (Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 

1305 

Warriors and chiefs ! should the shaft or the 

sword (Hebrew Melodies), 416 
We do not curse thee, Waterloo! (Poems 1814- 

1816), 428 
We sate down and wept by the waters (Hebrew 

Melodies), 419 
Weep, daughter of a royal line (Poems 1809--1813), 

302 
Well ! thou art happy, and I feel (Hours of Idle- 
ness), 93 
Were my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be 

(Hebrew Melodies), 418 
What are to me those honours or renown (Jeux 

d'Esprit, etc.), 1306 
What are you doing now (Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 

1292 
What matter the pangs of a husband and father 

(Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 1301 
"What say I?" — not a syllable further in 

prose (Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 1290 
When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home 

(Jeux d'Esprit, etc.), 1301 
When all around grew drear and dark (Poems of 

the Separation), 456 
When amatory px)ets sing their loves (Don Juan, 

Canto v.), 1071 
When Bishop Berkeley said " there was no mat- 
ter" (Don Juan, Canto XL), 1178 
When coldness wraps this suffering clay (Hebrew 

Melodies), 417 
When Dryden's fool, "unknowing what he 

sought" (Poems, 1809-1813), 307 
"When energising objects men pursue" (Poems 

1809-1813), 306 
When fierce conflicting passions urge (Hours of 

Idleness), 57 
When Friendship or Love (Hours of Idleness), 16 
When from the heart where Sorrow sits (Poems 

1809-1813). 311 
When I dream that you love me, you'll surely 

forgive (Hours of Idleness), 25 
When I hear you express an affection so warm 

(Hours of Idleness) , 8 
When I rov'd a young Highlander o'er the dark 

heath (Hours of Idleness), 64 
When Man, expell'd from Eden's bowers (Hours 

of Idleness), 95 
When Newton saw an apple fall, he found (Don 

Juan, Canto X.), 1165 



I3I4 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 



When slow Disease, with all her host of pains 

{Hours of Idleness [Childish Recollections]), 26 
When some proud son of man returns to earth 

{Hours of Idletiess), 94 
When the last sunshine of expiring Day {Monody 

on the Death of Sheridan), 476 
When the vain triumph of the imperial lord 

{Jcux d' Esprit, etc.), 1289 
When Thurlow this damned nonsense sent {Jeux 

d' Esprit, etc.), 1283 
When Time, or soon or late, shall bring {Poems, 

1800-1813), 301 
When, to their airy hall, my Father's voice 

{Hours of Idleness), 7 
When we two parted {Poems 1814-1816), 421 
Whene'er I view those lips of thine {Hours of 

Idleness), 24 
Where are those honours, Ida, once your own 

{Hours of Idleness), 6 
White as a white sail on a dusky sea {Island, 

Canto IV.), 957 
Who hath not glowed above the page where Fame 

{Poems 1814-1816), 423 
Who killed John Keats? {Jeux d' Esprit, etc.), 

1302 
Who would not laugh, if Lawrence, hired to grace 

{Hints from Horace), 128 
Why, how now, saucy Tom ? {Jeux d' Esprit, etc.), 

1302 



Why, Pigot, complain {Hours of Idleness), J?i 
Why should my anxious breast repine {How 1 

Idleness), 76 1 

With Death doomed to grapple {Jeiix d'Espt 

f/c), 1299 <j 

Without a stone to mark the spot {Poems 180c 

1813), 299 ^i 

Woman ! experience might have told me {Hou^\ 

oj Idleness), 14 | 

Would you go to the house by the true gat 

{Jeux d'Esprtt, etc.), 1301 

Ye cupids, droop each little head {Hours 

Idleness), 23 
Ye scenes of my childhood, whose lov'd rec. 

lection {Hours of Idleness), 8 
Yes I wisdom shines in all his mien {Jeux d'Espr 

etc.), 1281 
You call me still your Life. — Oh ! change 

word {Poems, 1809-1813), 312 
You have asked for a verse : — the reque 

{Poems 1816-1823), 666 
You say you love, and yet your eye {Hours 

Idleness), 4 
Young Oak ! when I planted thee deep in tl 

ground {Hours of Idleness), 87 
Your pardon, my friend {Hours of Idleness), 2 
Youth, Nature, and relenting Jove {Jeux d'Espri 

etc.), 1280 



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